The Mulalley website tells us that ‘…Sir Steve Bullock, Mayor of Lewisham officially opened the new Charlottenburg Park on Saturday 3rd September 2016. This new park was constructed by Mulalley on the former Deptford Green school site in Amersham Vale and was named, following a public poll, in honour of Lewisham’s twinning arrangement with Charlottenburg in Berlin, which seems a rather curious ‘twin’…

Regeneration plans

Charlottenburg Park is part of a wider regeneration scheme being undertaken by joint venture partners Sherrygreen Homes and Family Mosaic to provide 330 much-needed new homes in the Deptford area. The park has a multi-games area which is surrounded by seating, as well as suitable play equipment and safety flooring for younger users. As well as new lawns, Mulalley also planted over 400 trees…’.

The plans for housing are, as always, slightly more more complicated at second sight, with crowding and balance of ‘affordable’ and ‘market price’ homes apparently a problem in 2016. New housing will also be between 1 and 5 stories in height. Whether this is still the case I don’t know – there is as yet no building on the site. There is an architect’s drawing of the site on the internet:

History of the area

Charlottenburg Park is inside Amersham Vale, Amersham Grove, and Edward Street. In Amersham Grove, amongst the Victorian houses, there is a building with a plaque on the wall saying ‘museum’. According to the excellent ‘Edith’s Streets’ this was ‘…once a private museum of curios collected by a J.T.Taylor, a merchant navy captain, and opened in 1890. The house nextdoor, no.38, is a red brick double fronted house, probably built in the 1865 with big stone balls on the forecourt walls…’.

I have seen Edward Street called ‘Loving Edward Lane’ on old maps – curious! – and it offers two churches. Olivet Deptford Baptist Church which was founded in the 1860s under the influence and leadership of Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  And just down the road is St Mark’s Anglican Church, built as a Chapel of Ease to St Paul’s Church in Deptford in 1883 by A H Newman, says Edith’s Streets, and closed in 1955. It became a ‘redundant church’ in 1998 and was sold to the Celestial Church of Christ. 

In Amersham Vale there is a distinctive brick building which Edith’s Streets tells me dates to ‘…1912 with bowed windows and wrought iron railings.  This is a do-it-yourself art centre with 42 artists’ studios, a gallery, independent project spaces, a radio station, band rehearsal space and pop-up cocktail bar…’.

Charlottenburg Park today

New homes are being built in the above surroundings, alongside the small park which has already been laid out. The facilities in the park include a children’s play area, with an imaginative, ‘musical’ walking plank ‘toy’ – it is hard to describe the planks below but as the child walks on them they tilt, each one making a differently pitched sound – even as an adult I found it fun! The multi-purpose games arena is a generous size.

I loved the birch tree walks! Wonderfully imaginative columns of white with a green canopy, and a winding path between the trunks. I visited on a warm day and it was quite cool under the trees, and felt even secretive as I followed the winding path through the cast iron ‘gateways’.

Next to the children’s play area is a sunny area of grass. There are perennials and shrubs in the border but they are rather untidy. Is this another site where ‘Friends’ would be helpful?

The allotments

Just round the corner, on Amersham Vale, is a thriving group of allotments, in Royal Naval Place – I wonder why this name? The allotments back on to the Victorian houses in Amersham Grove.

Charlottenburg Park in New Cross is an imaginative little park, unexpected, and quiet, and very attractive. But I wonder how the new housing will fit into the area? And what will be the impact of more expensive housing in an area of very mixed income?

Further information & Sources
New development in Deptford
Plans to develop in Deptford Parks
The involvement of the Peabody Estate in the developments
Fordham Park proposals – https://achillesstreetstopandlisten.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/05-11-16-achilles-street-consultation-boards-small-file-size.pdf