Upper versus lower

[soulfood]

I get the impression from using these very excellent forums on this very excellent community web site that there’s something of a split to Sydenham. It seems to happen around about the Cake Shop on the high street, or perhaps the Dolphin Pub would be a more suitable parker. What split? Well if you’re up the hill from either of these points I’m going to take a guess and assume your civic pride runs reasonably high, your cultural health is well served by Kirkdale books, and your body fresh and daisy-like from the health food shop. Stray any further that way and the most dangerous thing you’re likely to come across are the dinosaurs in Crystal Palace Park. Enter the environs of Sydenham Hill and you’re in a completely different world – one that I’d hesitate to even call urban!

The converse applies in almost every respect the further down the hill you go from our marker point, suitably conjured up better than any words could by the shedifice that is Savacentre – uniform, lacking in civic pride, ugly, no sense of place etc etc. I happen to live in Lower Sydenham (and shamelessly, to shop in Sainsburys), but as class would have it, I do fancy myself more of an Upper Sydenham man. I like the bookshop, the people lugging around cellos on the train and I yearn deeply for a Dulwich Wood House. Instead I get the Savacentre, Man of Kent and the dirtying of my car by coaches on the Lower Sydenham station road. But then I didn’t pay for the Thorpe conservation area so what, you are all doubtless saying, did I expect? Well don’t get me wrong – I like Lower Sydenham – it’s quiet and it’s one of the few places in London where, on our moving in day, neighbours came and introduced themselves. But I don’t get a sense that the people who live there would want to live there if you gave them the choice and the means to do otherwise. And I read this forum and often feel like people are talking about a different place to the one that I live in.

Or is this all utter rot and am I being a complete and total shower?

[GLOBAL THINKER]

Ah the great upper/lower divide. As a dweller on Fairlawn Park and a former East Dulwich resident I know what you mean SF. It would be nice to have a bit more retail choice further down the hill but I think Savacentre takes up way too much space and therefore dominates the area. When the consultation (hah) for the redevelopment took place I spoke to a few people who said before the Savacentre arrived the Bell Green area was thriving with shops etc.

But I don’t get a sense that the people who live there would want to live there if you gave them the choice and the means to do otherwise.

I think this rings true for many places in London, you can only go as far as your pursestrings! If I had the means I would fancy an abode in Antigua for six months of the year. We have found that good neighbours are key to enjoying your environment and some of ours are great friends. Maybe I'll just sit back and wait for the area to regenerate itself

[GLOBAL THINKER]

Oh by the way, the axe murder thing - definitely Upper Sydenham

[fishcox]

marvellous thread.

I think, whilst Lower Sydenham is an actual area, the 'upper' Sydenham bit has been inveted by the estate agents, hasn't it ? 'Upper' Sydenham is actually just 'Sydenham'. I like the talk of the 'Westwood Hill Triangle' too, which sounds to me like south Londons equivalent of the Sargasso Sea.

My belief is that it's not where you're from that's important, it's where you're at.

[back_ache]

I think it all part of the wonderfull hotch-potch that is Sydenham, I love the fact that no two people are a like and that when you go out and about you never hear the same accent twice!

[soulfood]

Well, for my part, Sydenham is a bit of a resting point while we work out where we really want to live. I started out in zone one and have gradually migrated out zone by zone, by way of New Zealand, to arrive in Sydenham. We bought the house in Lower Sydenham (our first) right at the top of the market last year because a) we were getting married and wanted to move in ASAP (we exchanged, completed, got married and moved in within three weeks!), and b) we were attracted by the prospect of a tube line coming in and the uplift it might bring.

We've been pleased with the decision - it's a good house in a nice neighbourhood - but Lower Sydenham just doesn't do it for me. Once you get into the Zone 4 + hinterland you start to wonder whether you may as well be in the home counties. That's the next decision for us - probably a leap over the suburban donut into the leafy environs to the north of south west. The only other option would be a hideously expensive house/flat in Dulwich / Hampstead / Richmond / Marylebone - about the only other places I'd like to live in London! But for now Lower Sydenham is good enough. I certainly doubt I'll find anywhere with such a high quality community site!

[kster]

What would you classify Girton Road as? That is the road I'm on (alon with Somerfields)? I like to think of myself as Mid-Sydenham. We are not really in the leafy Upper Sydenham streets, but too far to walk to the Savacentre. Well it isn't too far but the Sainbury's in Penge is closer (and being close to Penge keeps us real!)

[soulfood]

I'd probably dispute your "penge proximity / realness" assumption - on a number of grounds. But if you feel 'mid-sydenham', I'd stick with it. Mid Syd has a nice ring to it. I had tea at a friends in Crystal Palace on Sunday, made me feel particularly Low Syd...

[GLOBAL THINKER]

Soulfood,

I think you need to move, you don't sound very happy living in Sydenham

[soulfood]

That's a bit harsh! I may not be totally happy with the place, but I'm certainly not unhappy with it. And I appreciate the irony of me going on about how other people don't seem to want to live in Lower Sydenham, when here I am banging on about the same. I'm more curious about the jubilant civic virtue of upper sydenham contrasted to the dejected lower sydenham spirit.

But having said all that, I have half an eye on a leafy spot in the country...

[orgone]

I prefer to think of myself as "Lower Forest Hill"

[reasontobecheerful]

Our house was sold to us as Forest Hill borders!

[Jeannie]

Hello!

Where do you count Venner Road as? It is still on the High Street, sort of, but far away from the Savacentre. And we are 2 mins down the road from the bookshop and the lovely houses of Kirkdale, Lawrie Park Gardens etc, and not far at all from Crystal Palace. Does that mean we are Upper? I always thought we were sort of in the middle...

And before someone cocky asks, I live on the Sydenham station end of Venner Road, not the Penge East station side!

[Knighton]

Venner Road, is in Sydenham. It is neither upper nor lower. Surely there is no formal recognition of either?

Forest Hill, by the way, is just an extension of Sydenham... a sort of overspill area but definitely just a suburb.

One of the questions the Sydenham Society might address is why Sydenham became overshadowed by the names of its components such as "Crystal Palace" and "Forest Hill".

The axe murder took place in Sydenham. This pub is adjacent to the oldest church in Sydenham. Hence the true centre.

[leaf]

there is a definate split,i have lived here for over 30 yrs and it has always been that way!

lower sydenham was always regarded as the rougher end,but i think there are still 'rougher' bits in upper sydenham and the rougher reputation of lower syd will disappear as the younger generation takes over so to speak.

i have noticed a decline in the whole area in the last 15 yrs but i think that is representative of london on the whole.

i love sydenham[especially upper!]