Hither Green
springbank-road-00990-750.jpg

There were several greens in Lewisham, and two of them were called Hither (nearer) Green and Further Green. Hither Green, near the entrance to the former hospital, was on the site of a hamlet called Romborough, which had not been inhabited since the time of the Black Death.

Hither Green was a wooded area in the Middle Ages, but by the eighteenth century the trees had mostly been felled, and the first houses were built. More houses followed in the nineteenth century, many of them substantial residences. Mountsfield House.

Hither Green School Board opened Monday 15th June 1885. Hither Green Railway Station Opened 1895. Sandhurst School opened on the original site in Hither Green Lane, 1896. The Park Fever Hospital (later called Hither Green Hospital) was opened in 1897 for the treatment of infectious diseases such as scarlet fever or diphtheria. After the Second World War, when it suffered severe damage from bombs, other cases were also treated there. In 1997, after a century of service, the hospital closed and site was developed as housing.

In 1896 Archibald Cameron Corbett began to build houses in Catford and Hither Green, now called the Corbett Estate. He persuaded the railway company to build a booking hall on the east side of Hither Green Station, for the benefit of his residents, and negotiated reduced-rate season tickets for them. Corbett was a Scot, and gave many of the roads Scottish names. He gave the land for St Andrew's Church, dedicated to Scotland's patron saint.

September 1935 an air raid siren was put on the roof of Torridon Road Library. To be sounded to warn people that there was to be an air raid.

Torridon Road Library Opens, Then called Hither Green Library.

By 1910 there were 6 churches, 4 school, 6 shopping parades, a railway station and a library on the Corbett Estate. Due to Cameron Corbett's religious beliefs there are no pubs on the Corbett Estate.

Open Spaces: Mountsfield Park

Archive Collection pages with connections to Hither Green:

People with connections to Hither Green:

Pages with connections to Hither Green:

For more information, pictures and maps, see our Ideal Homes webpages at http://www.ideal-homes.org.uk/lewisham/assets/histories/hither-green

Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License