Hilltop viewpoints near to where I live

[Serial_Apologist]

Footage taken, not by me, but by this guy with a camera, from various vantage points not more than 20 minutes on foot from where I live. On two of the journeys he is accompanied by his young son and daughter. I've often been on about the beauties of this overlooked part of London - now you can see for yourselves. By coincidence, the footage taken from One Tree Hill, in which they were caught on the edge of a thunderstorm making its way across central London, shows similar weather to that of this afternoon, when I paid a visit to that very spot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXacavpLuZ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTkSyU1y47E

And below one of John Ross's many recorded walks around parts of London - this one also very local to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHnqcLAxbpc

Once we're out of this restricted meeting up, if anybody is in Town and would like to contact me, I'd be delighted.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I know the area well. I regularly visit my son and his family in Honor Oak, or at least, I did so before Covid-19 reared its ugly head. It's an undervalued part of London, as you say. I did seriously think about moving there myself.

[Richard Barrett]

Gosh, I thought, look at all those parking spaces, I must be looking at heaven itself.

[antongould]

You should come up here to Penshaw Monument S_A - home of the Lambton Worm .......

[gurnemanz]

Thanks. I enjoyed those videos. I've never lived there but feel a connection. My parents grew up in Sydenham and moved out to Coulsdon during the war, presumably a bit further away from the bombs. We lived near Farthing Downs from where on a clear day you could see beyond the Crystal Palace TV tower to the City skyline in the distance.

I glimpsed Horniman's Museum in the video. Our mother used to like taking us there as children, recounting her own childhood memories. Also memories of the dinosaurs and motor racing in Crystal Palace Park. My father lived a few years longer than my mother and when he was over 90 we drove him back to the area for what would be his last visit to his old stamping ground. We went to Dulwich Picture Gallery and the nearby College Chapel where he told us he had been confirmed. On the way home he suggested a quick detour to Princethorpe Road, Sydenham to show us the house where he grew up.

We recently discovered the very overgrown graves of my grandparents, both of whom died before the War, in Ladywell Cemetery.

[Serial_Apologist]

I know the area well. I regularly visit my son and his family in Honor Oak, or at least, I did so before Covid-19 reared its ugly head. It's an undervalued part of London, as you say. I did seriously think about moving there myself.

London's best kept secret! Still cheap in relative terms for property around here, though one learns that even Peckham is starting to gentrify, and property prices (and rents obviously) are rising accordingly. While East Dulwich has become something of a mini Islington for wine bars, trendy restaurants and shops selling overpriced trinkets, so far Crystal Palace has resisted the trend by and large - the villagey atmosphere at the far end of the Parade, where some of the views were taken from, has been maintained. shops opening with pretentious names usually close within a year. It is places like Clapham and Wandsworth that are now S London's main areas of gentrification. Going by London's notorious reputation as a lonely place, we would seem to be the big exception: as one who has lived in many places, I felt for the first time immediately at home on moving here in 2014 - its the sort of place where passing strangers smile unsolicited and people don't find it odd if you make everyday pleasantries - and the same still holds. This is where I've happily "ended up"!

[Serial_Apologist]

Gosh, I thought, look at all those parking spaces, I must be looking at heaven itself.

Yes! Perhaps the publicity is best dampened, or every out-of-town commuter will be driving here first thing in the weekday mornings, parking up within short walking distance of the nearest station or bus route, and using public transport to get into the City and West End, which are only 6-7 miles up the road!

[gradus]

Footage taken, not by me, but by this guy with a camera, from various vantage points not more than 20 minutes on foot from where I live. On two of the journeys he is accompanied by his young son and daughter. I've often been on about the beauties of this overlooked part of London - now you can see for yourselves. By coincidence, the footage taken from One Tree Hill, in which they were caught on the edge of a thunderstorm making its way across central London, shows similar weather to that of this afternoon, when I paid a visit to that very spot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXacavpLuZ8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTkSyU1y47E

And below one of John Ross's many recorded walks around parts of London - this one also very local to me:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHnqcLAxbpc

Once we're out of this restricted meeting up, if anybody is in Town and would like to contact me, I'd be delighted.

Just viewed the first video and its absolutely delightful, many thanks for posting it. Another great viewing area is around Crown Point and Knights Hill all the way to Crysal Palace not forgetting the Norwood Grove side of Streatham Common with views way beyond Croydon to what I suppose are the South Downs(?) - definitely a trip down memory lane for me.

[Serial_Apologist]

Just viewed the first video and its absolutely delightful, many thanks for posting it. Another great viewing area is around Crown Point and Knights Hill all the way to Crysal Palace not forgetting the Norwood Grove side of Streatham Common with views way beyond Croydon to what I suppose are the South Downs(?) - definitely a trip down memory lane for me.

Indeed so! I tried transcribing another of his viewpoints - actually one taken from "the triangle" shopping area some know as Upper Norwood, and showing the spectacular views looking north - but unfortunately they wouldn't transfer, for some reason; but they can be clicked on from the ones I have posted: just go by the headings. An amusing anecdote is that in 2006 I had some very dear friends over from Toronto for a week, and one of the latter positions was photographed by the husband of me standing in the middle of one of the down-sloping streets with the "Gherkin" and "Cheese Grater" in the background, which they then promised to send me a copy of. Unfortunately their marriage broke up within a year, and I never got it!

Coincidentally, one of the lead news items on the BBC lunchtime local news just now was about an impending court case to try and stop Lewisham council building 7-storey blocks of flats on a piece of land occupied by a 1950s council estate, just off Sydenham Hill. These would overshadow the existing 4-story blocks, and undoubtedly constitute a blot on the landscape viewed from below on either side of the ridge.