A Historical Day Out
My name is Jack, I am a London tour guide and creator of the Living London History blog and social media accounts. I am someone who generally loves walking around London and unearthing its history, so I am always on the hunt for new journeys through the city.
Forest Hill to Honor Oak
I recently took the Southern Railway train from London Bridge to Forest Hill and went on a fascinating walk around Forest Hill, including a visit to the brilliant Horniman Museum and Gardens. I then finished the morning by walking to Honor Oak Park.
The train only took 14 minutes and cost me £6.50 for a return with a 26-30 railcard. Skip paying third-party booking fees and buy your tickets on the Southern Railway app.
Sights of Forest Hill
The first thing I spotted in Forest Hill was this carved relief.
It depicts some elements of Forest Hill’s history and has three panels with a little bit of background on the area’s history. It has nods to lots of elements of the area’s history covered in this post from Horniman’s tea, to the Oak of Honor.
It is actually located on a wall that once formed part of the towpath of the Croydon Canal. The Croydon Canal opened in 1809, linking Croydon to the Thames. It was drained in 1836 by the London and Croydon Railway Company and the railway laid out on the site. It was the arrival of the railway that led to Forest Hill going from a largely wooded area into a built up London suburb.
Three historic survivors
Forest Hill Pools
Walk down Dartmouth Road to find a row of three historic buildings. First, the Forest Hill pools.
This Victorian building was constructed in 1884 and originally contained one pool for the working class and one for the upper classes. The Victorian bit today is just the entrance, with a modern block behind.
Louise House
Next to that is Louise House, a building that once housed a ‘Girl’s Industrial Home’.
Constructed in 1891, it was essentially a type of boarding school that offered a basic education and training to earn a living. Both the pools and home were designed by architect Thomas Aldwinckle. It also has a historic but tragic connection. In 1911 the home was visited by Janusz Korczak, a Polish, Jewish paediatrician, author, teacher and campaigner for children’s rights.
He was inspired by his visit to set up a similar home in Warsaw. His campaigning led eventually to the Declaration of the Rights of the Child, later adopted by the UN.
Forest Hill Library
Next to that is the Forest Hill Library.
Constructed in 1901 in an Arts and Crafts style, it was one of over 600 Carnegie Libraries that opened in the UK. These were libraries built with money donated by Scottish-American businessman and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie.
The stray City of London church spire
Around the corner on Round Hill you will find something odd: a church spire. A church spire that is without its church.
Dating from 1682 and designed by Sir Christopher Wren, it once sat atop the tower of St Antholin’s Church in the City of London, one of Wren’s post-Great Fire of London rebuilds.
In 1829 the tower of the church was damaged in a storm and the heavy Portland stone spire removed and replaced with a lighter one. St Antholin’s church ended up being totally knocked down in 1875 to make way for the new Queen Victoria Street.
It was due to be discarded but instead was sold to a churchwarden and pioneer in the printing business called Robert Harrild. He ended up buying a manor house called Round Hill House here in Forest Hill and displaying the church spire in his gardens.
The house was demolished in the 1960s and the housing estate there today constructed. The spire however remained and sits amongst the houses, looking slightly lost and incongruous to its surroundings.
Havelock Walk
I then headed up to the Horniman Museum but, on the way, had a wander down the photogenic Havelock Walk.
This cobbled mews street was laid out in the 19th century but after the Second World War was run down and partially derelict.
Since the late 1980s however it has developed into a creative haven of artists' studios and today is home to a community of artists, photographers, sculptors, ceramicists and more. They have regular open days to the public.
The Horniman Museum
I continued up the hill to The Horniman Museum.
It first opened here in 1890 as the Surrey House Museum in the Horniman family home but was refounded in 1901 by Frederick Horniman with a purpose built building.
The building and the collection were essentially built on tea. Frederick’s father John Horniman set up Horniman’s Tea in 1826 and over the course of the 19th century it grew into the largest tea trading business in the world. In the 1870s Frederick took over the business. He put a lot of his money into philanthropic endeavours but also travelled the world and was an avid collector.
The unusual building was designed by Charles Harrison Townshend in this striking and playful style. It includes elements of the Romanesque, Arts and Crafts and quirkier elements. For example, the round edges of the clock tower are supposed to be reminiscent of the natural world.
Do not miss the large mosaic on the facade by Robert Anning Bell called “Humanity in the house of circumstance”.
The exhibits
When I visited part of the museum, the Natural History Gallery, with its famous overstuffed walrus taxidermy, was under refurbishment, due to be reopened in 2026. However, there is still plenty to see.
It is a true cabinet of curiosities and includes items from a huge number of different time periods, cultures and countries.
To make sense of it all, I found the ‘highlights’ section on their website useful. I found it fascinating to have these items from these different cultures and countries side by side, because it makes you realise that the fundamentals of the human experience, and how we try to make sense of it haven’t changed. The items are sometimes grouped by theme: danger, beauty etc.
The museum does not shy away from the reality of how many of these items were acquired. Horniman was a philanthropist but his fortune was acquired through the deeply exploitative tea trade and there is lots of information looking at the connections between empire, colonialism and its collection.
What to see
Here are a few items that stood out to me:
Not a cheerful one to start by the Spanish ‘Torture Chair’.
This was one of Horniman’s first purchases and is said to have been used in a dungeon in Cuenca in Spain in the 17th century, during the Spanish Inquisition. More recent research has determined that many elements of the chair are genuine, but also bits were added in the 19th century to make it look more gruesome.
This is the inner coffin lid of an Egyptian mummy, that is somewhere between 3000 and 3500 years old. Below are canopic jars that would have been used to store different organs from the body to help preserve them as part of the embalming process.
The coffin was given to the museum in 1896 by the Egypt Exploration Fund in gratitude for a donation of £100 made by Frederick Horniman.
This is a huge papier-mache sculpture of a story from Hindu mythology.
The figure is Kali, the mother goddess and consort of Shiva. She has killed a monster that was destroying the world and according to the Horniman website, ‘Kali dances on Shiva after he lay down in front of her to calm her down, as her celebratory dance was so frenzied it shook the world.’
My favourite section was right at the back of the World Gallery, covering all sorts of curiosities.
This for example is a Fake Merman, from Japan, dating from the 19th century, an ancient Egyptian cat mummy, a hand-grenade from World War One, and these bronze plaques are from Benin City, Nigeria.
They were violently looted from the city by British soldiers in 1897 and in 2022 the museum agreed to return the items to the ownership of Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NNCMM). They are now back on loan from the NNCMM to the Horniman.
There is also a music section that has a huge number of different instruments on display from across the centuries.
This is the Carlton Drum Kit, made in 1937 and played by George Robertson in his band The Five Aces.
It became a very popular design of drum kit for jazz performers because of its compact design and varied components.
The gardens
The gardens of the museum are also filled with delights. Their huge conservatory was constructed in 1894 at the Horniman family home, Coombe Cliff House in Croydon.
It was moved and reconstructed at the Horniman in 1989.
There are lots of plants and trees to keep horticulturalists happy. Their oak tree, which is sadly coming towards the end of its life, is probably over 300 years old.
There is an animal walk you can do as well as a butterfly house and aquarium that can be visited for an extra cost.
You also get an incredible view towards central London from the bandstand. It is a great place to sit, relax and digest some of what you have seen at the museum.
The Green Chain Walk
I then finished my morning by walking along part of the Green Chain Walk, a fifteen mile route through South London, linking up many green spaces and waterways.
I walked through Camberwell Old Cemetery, which opened in 1855.
I also passed by a family butchers called KJ Libretto and Daughters. Outside of which are a couple of rusting old cars: a 1967 Daimler 250 V8 and 1959 Ford Consul disguised as a New York yellow taxi.
It seems the owner is somewhat of a collector, perhaps a bit of a modern day Horniman.
One Tree Hill
I then climbed up One Tree Hill. One Tree Hill is a surviving remnant of what was once the Great North Wood and towards the summit you can find the Oak of Honor.
An oak tree once stood here to mark the edge of the boundary of the Norman Honour of Gloucester, a land holding owned by the Earl of Gloucester. According to legend Queen Elizabeth I rested under an oak here on her way to visit Sir Richard Bulkeley at Place House in Lewisham in 1602.
By the 19th century the land had been largely cleared and only one tree remained: the Oak of Honor, hence the name. The current one you can see is the third version, planted in 1905 after the second version was struck by lightning in 1888.
You will also find a gun emplacement constructed during the First World War in 1916. It would have been the platform for a Royal Naval gun to defend London from Zeppelin and later Gotha bi-plane air-raids.
Lunch and home
I had a tasty lunch at Two Spoons cafe and hopped back on the train back to London Bridge from Honor Oak Park Station.
Thank you for joining me on this historical jaunt from Forest Hill to Honor Oak! See you again soon.
See the walking map
About the author
Jack Chesher is a London tour guide, explorer and author of the bestselling book London: A Guide for Curious Wanderers. Jack studied history at university but ended up working in hospitality. That is until 2020 when he started his blog and social media accounts called Living London History. What started as a pandemic project, has turned into his full-time job. Jack grew up in Essex and now lives in North London.
