The Telegraph Hill Society

07/10/2026

Last night we joined other local southeast London groups at a meeting held to investigate creating a collaborative community to better work together.


Also there were the St John's Society, Climate Action Lewisham, Healthy Streets of Ladywell, Together for Verdant Lane, Brockley Cross Action group, Lewisham Cyclists, Amersham Community Action, Deptford Sound Collective, Tanners Hill Residents Association and others.

Environmental issues were firmly on the agenda last night, but future meetings hope to focus on other community issues, with groups joining together to have a louder voice to obtain funding and to campaign.

03/10/2026

23/09/2026

We are told that the New Cross Gate Cutting Nature Reserve (near the railway bridgevon Vesta Road) will be open this Saturday, Sept 26th between 12-3 pm. A nice afternoon for all!

07/09/2026

https://www.batterseasociety.org.uk/open-spaces-blog/a-tough-summer-for-trees The Battersea Society have produced an excellent article about the recent summer stress on trees in their area and it mirrors a lot of our own situation on Telegraph Hill. Worth a read...

Four heatwaves and a prolonged period of drought have made the summer of 2026 a difficult time for Battersea's trees, both old and young.

03/09/2026

The next meeting of the Friends of Telegraph Hill Park will be on Tuesday, 8th September at 8pm. The venue will be confirmed soon.

The agenda will include the usual maintenance issues, plus an update on the proposed copse in the wildflower meadow. There will also be an update on recent vandalism in the toilet. Possibly connected to this is the state of the duck house, which is listing badly, having apparently been shoved sideways on its platform.

If you have questions, comments, or issues to raise, the Friends group ask that you send them to [email protected]

07/08/2026

Ommaney Rd, Criminal Damage 4/8/2026

On Tuesday at 3.pm, two of the young privet street trees on Ommaney Rd, sponsored on behalf of the Society, were attacked by a man and a woman sharing a high vis outfit and a long, powered, cutting tool.

Within a few minutes they shredded the majority of the foliage of one tree in front of Harney Court and half of another in front of Jerningham Court. These had been purchased and cared for for several years by local residents.

Before they could be challenged, they quickly loaded the branches into their van and made off with them.

This was criminal damage and theft and it has been reported to the police. Report: 01/7910342/26

Did you see the attack? Can you recognize the perpetrators filmed by a door cam nearby?

23/06/2026

Brockley & Ladywell Cemeteries Open Day - 12 July 2026

If you haven't visited Brockley & Ladywell Cemeteries, it is well worth using the opportunity of their open day to have a look around.

There will be stands explaining the history of the cemeteries, notable graves, local history and ecology.

The Friends of the Cemeteries will be conducting walks - it is large enough to get lost in! Not only are there all the monuments you would expect from a cemetery opened in 1858 but it is an absolute haven of wildlife.

23/06/2026

The planning application has now been submitted to redevelop the old Post Office site at 199-205 New Cross Road (next to the Dentists that was Barclays Bank).

This involves the demolition of the existing building and construction of new 4 storey, plus basement building for Student Accommodation.

139 units are being proposed, with a mixture of studios, "twodios" and "cluster bedrooms". There will be the provision of cycle and bin storage and new landscaping, designed around an internal quadrangle.

Although it is still taller than the surrounding buildings it has been quite cleverly designed to ensure that doesn't over impact on neighbouring properties and the communal area at the front (shown in red) hopefully means that the side wall of the old bank building might remain free from disfiguring graffiti whilst not obscuring the nice designwork at the top of the bank building itself.

There are of course argument for and against the design as indeed there have been discussions over whether housing would be more appropriate than student accommodation.

Anyway, see what you think. The full planning application is at:
https://planning.lewisham.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=documents&keyVal=_LEWIS_DCAPR_132075
or you can just go to https://planning.lewisham.gov.uk/online-applications/ and type in the reference: DC/26/144152.

There are a lot of documents as you might expect from such a large planning application, but these three documents probably give you a good overview of how it will look:

Heritage, townscape & visual impact assessment

heritage assessment

Design and access statement

If you want to comment yourself, you can do so on the Council website.
The closing date for comments is 30 June.
If you would like let us know your views, please send them to us.

17/05/2026

Fun for all yesterday at the Telegraph Hill Society stall at Nunhead Cemetery open day, where we were selling historic photographs and ordnance maps of the area.