anthropological urbanism

Deptford

Interesting to see the BBC’s first in their series “The Secret History of our Streets” focussing on Deptford the other day. The programme presents a history of the urban development of Deptford taking its starting point at Booth’s survey in the 1880s. This is a social history which mainly dicsusses the cleareance of older Victorian houses and the development of post-war social housing. Its a pretty simplistic programme which doesn’t really draw many sensible conclusions, indeed it seems to point out that the period houses which remain today are totally unaffordable but yet thats what we should be aspiring to. Somehow that seems to wipe out that despite all the problems of the mass social housing it aimed to fill a practical need and an idelogical - modernist - need.

Nice to see it on TV though. Here’s a more thorough analysis of the episode. Lovely old Deptford history here.

I meant to go to this today but couldn’t make it in the end:

NEW XROSS AND DEPTFORD
RADICAL HISTORY WALK
SATURDAY 9 JUNE:

A ramble through the history and music of New Cross and Deptford.
Includes a cast of punks, pagans, revolting peasants, gut girls, slaves
and slavers, sound systems, suffragettes, sailors, dock strikers, deserters, May queens, pearly kings, ghosts, vampires, bread rioters and anarchist bombers.

Meet 2pm, outside the Hobgoblin pub, New Cross Road, SE14… opposite New
Cross Gate station.
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the walks is free! and also all interactive: so bring your own tales and memories of the area… We’re not experts, we’re always learning, and we welcome your contributions.

Produced by the always interesting South London Radical History Group / Past Tense.