Who’s been living in my house?
Working with local volunteers, the aim of our project is to establish a database from census records, and street directories on the history of streets in the Norwood area. Street histories, explaining land ownership, historical development of buildings, architectural features, notable buildings and information about the local occupants, are being written, employing a wide range of archive materials. Local history studies demonstrate that ordinary streets can have interesting histories, and be as worthy of care as celebrated areas. This information in now being be added to the Norwood Street Histories website.
Initial research has focused on streets in the Harold Road Conservation area – Rockmount Road, Vermont Road, South Vale and Harold Road, and others in Lambeth and Bromley boroughs including Woodland Road, Woodland Hill, Berridge Road, Cawnpore (George) Street, Barnfield Road and Cintra Park. Monthly meetings are held to discuss progress, ideas and resources. In addition the volunteers have and will be presenting their findings at Norwood Society talks and publishing articles in The Norwood Review.
This initiative was inspired by the Brighton and Hove MyHouse/MyStreet Project where residents were involved in exploring their streets’ histories and past occupancy of houses, using information gathered principally from local street directories and census records. The Norwood Society project has encouraged local residents to get to know one another and work together, generating a sense of pride-in-place, and resulting in requests for similar events in other streets.