The image appears in a Camberwell Book of Photographs dated 1906, put together by Camberwell Borough Council, and now part of Southwark Archives, with the reference RES OS 942.1642. The full story of the construction can be found on our page on the Bridge here.

The photograph is taken from on top of a building on the north side of the canal, looking across to the houses on St George’s Way (just visible on the left). The building would have been the sheepskin/fleece factory of Strong and Rawle at that time. This section of the canal has clearly been drained to aid the construction, with a lighter (barge) placed underneath, presumably to allow access over the otherwise muddy canal bed.

Did you spot the two gents standing on boards on the side of the bridge? Presumably working on the bridge, nevertheless they have turned out very smartly for the photographer, in suit and tie! Or perhaps they’re foremen, or one of them is even the Borough Engineer, William Oxtoby, who designed the bridge.

Enhanced image:

Dave Sadler MBE was Burgess Park’s first manager and had a huge influence on the development of the park, from derelict streets and factories into what it is today. Read the blog of his 90th birthday visit to the park in July 2025 here.

You can read about his work for Burgess Park and hear him speaking in 2014 in our post here:  The Making of a Modern Park event – how was it? | Bridge to Nowhere).

(click the images to enlarge)

The final image above is set to become historically important as the view changes with the coming demolition of the large Aylesbury Wendover block. This will reveal the Shard in all its glory, before inevitably being screened by an even larger replacement block!

Update: November 2023

Someone decided the new red tiles on the steps could look more interesting, maybe following an example they’d seen in NYC. The council disagreed however – so it was a short-lived experiment.

Southwark Council had to make the difficult decision to demolish or retain and renovate the bridge. Just leaving it to further deteriorate was not an option. Thankfully, following a survey of the condition in 2021, they decided on repair and renovation. For those of us interested in the heritage of the park, that was the Right Decision!

The survey revealed a few areas of deterioration, leading to potential health and safety concerns, and a list of repairs was drawn up:

• Remove and replace footways on the bridge deck
• Carry out replacement or repair of deteriorated transverse and parapet beams
• Replace existing spreader beams
• Break out eroded brickwork on the south abutment and replace with matching new
• Supply and install new concrete coping stones along top of existing wall
• Repair all cracks in existing brickwork and pointing
• Sandblast all metal parts and re-paint to original colour

Work started in April 2023, and was scheduled for 3 months at a cost of £323,553, sadly around 100 times the original cost of the bridge in 1905! But it’s a thorough job and it’s now looking really smart. All the TLC  should ensure that this great symbol of Burgess Park survives well into the 21^st century. AND, we won’t need to change the name of this website!

Read more about the history of the building of the bridge on our dedicated page.

Stop Press!

The bridge is now open to pedestrians! Check the news here.

The celebration of 200 years since the birth of Passmore Edwards, as mentioned in the previous blog, was a spectacular success! Held two days after his birthday, on 29th March, we opened the Library on Wells Way, closed for many years, and provided refreshments. We had an exhibition of John Passmore Edwards’ life and achievements,

a rowan tree, planted by the Council on his actual birthday was dedicated by Doreen Evans, a longstanding member of the local community,

we had a book reading by first-time local novelist Jacqueline Crooks.

The main event, however, was a Passmore Edwards architectural tour by our own famous local architect Benedict O’Looney, which looked in depth at the Wells Way building

and the Passmore Edwards Camberwell College of Arts and Art Gallery,

as well as many other contemporary buildings in the area.

A great time and a great way to commemorate the great man!

This year marks the 200th anniversary of Passmore Edwards’ birth on 24th March 1823, and Friends of Burgess Park is joining with others around the UK to celebrate the Passmore Edwards 200 Festival. He funded the Wells Way Library, now in the Park, and we’re holding a programme of events based at there on Sunday 26th March. There’s an exhibition about the man and his legacy, children’s activities, a commemorative tree-planting, a reading by local author Jacqueline Crooks from her new book Fire Rush, refreshments and more. We’ve also organised a short Bike Tour around three of Passmore Edwards’ south London buildings, guided by renowned local architect Benedict O’Looney. You can book now for the bike tour on Eventbrite – places are limited to 25, so book early!

From humble Cornish beginnings, Passmore Edwards went on to become a journalist, newspaper proprietor and MP. He amassed a sizable fortune which he used to further the education of working people all over the UK. He did this mainly by funding numerous public buildings – around 70 in total. 

In all, Edwards funded 15 libraries in London as well as several other public buildings, such as the South London Gallery and the LSE.  Many of these buildings are still in public use today for a variety of purposes. The Wells Way library was opened in 1903. Read more about the Old Library Baths and Washhouse on our page here. Friends of Burgess Park is hoping the bicentenary celebration will focus attention on this significant building which sits, currently unused, in the middle of Burgess Park.

Come and find out more about the remarkable man Passmore Edwards on Sunday afternoon, 26th March 2023. Sign up for the bike tour (2-4pm) on Eventbrite, or drop round to the Wells Way Library from 2pm and join in the fun.

So together with Andrea from Art in the Park (based in the Chumleigh Gardens enclave) and Monica from Friends of Burgess Park, we’ve compiled as comprehensive a list as we could muster. As always with these things, they’re a work-in-progress, but we now have details on some 12 of the 15 items we’ve identified so far. Please help us if you have more details on these, or let us know of any we’ve missed.

The list so far is on a permanent page and it covers works ranging in age and style from the 1920 WW1 war memorial outside St George’s Church to the carved tree trunk near the tennis courts, made in 2018. The page has an interactive map you can use to create your own tour of the works, so get out there with your smartphone or tablet and visit as many as you can. They’re all outside (apart from the Children’s Library murals which need a special arrangement to view), so make it your lockdown – and post-lockdown – exercise!

The park has developed over the years and had large amounts of money spent on beautifying it and improving the facilities for the surrounding population. Planners and supporters have endeavoured to do this in a balanced way, at the same time providing wildlife havens and linking up with other small pockets of green in the area to create wildlife corridors. Many of the wildlife areas have been created out of parcels of Metropolitan Open Land – a designation similar to the Green Belt around London, designed to protect the few remaining areas of green space in the inner city.

Originally, these areas of MOL were then compulsorily purchased in order to legally become parkland. However, that system of taking over land became unpopular and more and more expensive as land prices in the city have risen. This has meant that various areas of MOL have been left in limbo – intended to be incorporated into the park, but remaining in private ownership. There have been several campaigns in the past to try and ensure the MOL designations in the park are respected – see Southwark News article here. One recent successful application of the principle of MOL has been in the deal done by the Council with the owners of a property in Parkhouse Street. This had an historic spur of land, used as a parking area, jutting into the park and splitting the wildlife area in two. It’s since been fully incorporated into the park and landscaped to match the surrounding area.

Former police vehicle yard in2918 (visible in the trees on the left) jutting into the park right up to the now removed New Church Road. Inset map shows it as green outlined finger in the orange MOL.

Now that the park has become extremely desirable, it’s attracting many new housing developments to the area, at just the same time as it’s attracting more visitors. Most of the north side of the park, originally the Aylesbury estate, is being replaced with a mixed private/public estate which will see a lot more tall blocks overlooking the park, selling for high prices because of their park view. A lot of the south side is so far still industrial land, to the north of Parkhouse Street, with low-rise former industrial premises and factories. However, there have already been several planning applications to replace 3 or 4 industrial premises with around 275 flats, at 9, 10 and 11 stories, right up to the park boundary. On the other side of Parkhouse Street, is the proposed Camberwell Union development of 500+ flats. We consider this to be over-development, in all kinds of ways.

However, a still more worrying development is the plan to replace the long-standing reclamation yard at the corner of New Church Road/Southampton Way (13 Southampton Way). This is on one of the final unincorporated pieces of Metropolitan Open Land, which was always planned to be part of the park. The proposal to build 4 and 7 story blocks right on the corner, adjoining the well-developed wildlife sanctuary will be a big mistake. Like the Parkhouse Street developments, it will overshadow the wildlife area and wildflower meadow, blocking sunlight from acres of ground in the winter. It will make the corner in the road very constricted for traffic and for pedestrians entering and leaving the park, and disrupt wildlife routes.

Please sign the petition being raised by Burgess Park Action Group here. Please also get involved with the work of Friends of Burgess Park to protect the park from over-development of surrounding streets, to the detriment of the park, its users and wildlife.

The prizewinning essay, which you can read here, tells the story of the 1917 Zeppelin raid on the park, covered on this website, and also the events organised by the Friends of Burgess Park to commemorate the terrible occasion. The winner was announced at the end of a fascinating local history walk around Burgess Park and the surroundings, also covering some of the planned new developments to the area.

The essay is based on work done in 2017 by many volunteer researchers who joined with members of the Friends to investigate the events of 1917 with the help of a Heritage Lottery Fund grant. All kinds of information was uncovered with the help of nearby archives such as the Southwark Local History Archive, the Imperial War Museum and the Cuming Museum collection. At the special events organised to commemorate the centenary in October, we were honoured by the presence of several close members of the two families who lost the biggest number of relatives in the bombing. We were able to add their information to the essay.

The Camberwell Society’s annual prize is named after Mary Boast, who was a popular local historian and the archivist at the Southwark Local History Library and Archives. She wrote the excellent, but now difficult to obtain, history booklet – The Story of Camberwell, and has a street named after her.

You’ll be able to read the essay in full in the Camberwell Quarterly magazine, to be published by Christmas 2018. Order your copy now! Or join the Camberwell Society and have it sent to your house for free! Or buy it in any local shop, if you’re in the area. Or read it now!

Wednesday, 17 October, 5:30-7pm

Meet at Theatre Delicatessen, in the Old Library on Wells Way, for a walk around the locations for the memorial, with speeches, refreshments, a poem by Koko and more. To book tickets for the launch event, please see the Eventbrite page.

The launch will be exactly 101 years after the attack and is part of the Zeppelin 1917 programme of events in Burgess Park about the First World War.

Saturday 20 October, 2-5:30pm

An afternoon of FREE events at Theatre Delicatessen, Old Library, Wells Way.