Metropolitan Beer and Wine Trades Asylum

This is a remnant of the old village green of the hamlet of Nunhead. Development of the area was underway by 1840 when the Nunhead Cemetery was built and in 1865 the Lord of the Manor attempted to claim absolute possession of Peckham Rye, which included Nunhead and Goose Greens. This was contested by the parishioners and resulted in Camberwell Vestry purchasing his rights and all three areas were then transferred to the MBW in 1882. By 1905 Nunhead Green had become a tar-paved playground, although this was later replaced by grass, and as it does now consisted of two areas, a larger area separated by a roadway from a small detached area at the south-west end.

Beeston's Gift Almshouses were built by the Girdlers' Company in 1834 as a terrace of 7 Tudor-style houses, in front of which is a pleasant garden with railings to the road, mature trees, lawns, shrubs, roses and a mid-C19th cast-iron water pump. They are named after Cuthbert Beeston, Master of the Girdlers' Company, who left property near London Bridge where the first Girdlers' Almshouses were founded in 1582. That site was sold in 1824 when land was needed for building a new London Bridge, enabling the Girdlers' Company to buy the site in Consort Road and to build Beeston's Gift Almshouses. The terrace was extended in the 1960s with the addition of two one-storey wings when two other small almshouses were re-located here, those of Richard Andrews and of George Palyn, the latter previously located in Choumert Road.

* on The National Heritage List for England, Parks & Gardens

Nunhead Cemetery was one of the 7 great Victorian cemeteries established on the outskirts of London. It was laid out on former farmland, with curving paths and planting that made good use of its hilly site. The path layout and some of the trees from the original planting survive. It had matching entrance lodges and two gothic chapels, only one of which remains and now restored. Although it became fashionable to be buried here, the cemetery suffered when the new Crystal Palace railway blocked the cemetery approach and the company secretary embezzled company funds. Over the C20th the once well-kept cemetery deteriorated and it closed in 1969, badly neglected and subject to attacks by vandals. Purchased by Southwark Council in 1975, it was later restored with the active participation of the Friends of Nunhead Cemetery, and re-opened in 2001, part now a nature reserve.