A WALKING TOUR - PECKHAM
Our new series of walks take you on a journey through a local neighbourhood introducing you to people and places we find inspiring. We produced this piece before lockdown in the UK. We thought now would be a good time to publish this to provide an interesting and transporting virtual experience. We hope that in the not so distant future you can enjoy the walk yourselves.
On each walk we will meet a local artist or maker, a food or drink producer and a shopkeeper. We will also discover landmarks and bit of history about each place. We hope you enjoy exploring with us.
Peckham is a multicultural, vibrant area with a buzzing contemporary art scene and a wealth of interesting and independent eateries. It is located in the south east of London in the borough of Southwark. The name Peckham derives from the Saxons, meaning the town of the River Peck that once flowed through this area. It has a rich history, it was one of the wealthiest shopping districts in the Victorian times.
The walk starts on Choumert Grove at Choumert Square.
1. CHOUMERT SQUARE
Choumert square is more of a lane than a square. When you pass it you can peak through the locked curly iron gates and see lush front gardens either side of a paved path. The alleyway leads to a secret communal garden.
The square was named after the French 19th Century landowner George Choumert and was built on land that was originally a watercress bed, the water in the area being so pure. The pretty cottages were built around 1870 and all have gardens at the front rather than the back.
The 1891 Census lists occupations of the Square residents which include dressmaker, bookbinder, mantle maker, steam engine fitter, tram car driver, coachman groom, commissioner of city police, telegraphist and picture dealer.
Pigs grazed in the Square during the last war.
Every Christmas since 1983, Choumert Square has held its own Carols by Lamplight evening, with a brass band and mulled wine. The gardens are part of the National Garden Scheme and they are open to the public every year.
With Choumert Square behind you turn right and head down Choumert Grove turning right into Blenheim Grove.
2. BRICK BREWERY
The next stop on your walk is Brick Brewery, which began it’s life in owner Ian Stewart’s shed at the bottom of his Peckham garden when his wife gave him a bag in a box beer kit for Christmas. Six years later it is one of the top independent breweries in London and a charming little railway arch bar.
Before Ian started brewing he was a marketing consultant, so when he decided to turn his hobby into a business he knew what to do. He started to put a business plan together and look for premises where he could brew. He found the arch which now houses the taproom only a 5 minute walk from his house. When Brick first started Ian had still had his full time marketing job so he would come to the arch at night. Originally it was a small brewhouse with two vessels and a tasting room. He soon realised that the two vessels weren’t enough for the amount of beer he needed to produce to make the business viable so he squeezed three more tanks in and put the bar into a shipping container in the yard outside.
In time the brewery got too big for the arch and moved to another premises, but the taproom is still there. The space has a quirky, handmade feel, still with many of the original fixtures Ian first built when he started out.
Brick Brewery beers take inspiration from around the world. They have four beers in their core foundation range and produce a range of other session beers. They make a new sour beer every 4-6 weeks and have become known as one of the UK’s leading sour beer makers. The provenance of the ingredients are essential to the recipes and Ian and the team love foraging for ingredients such as elderflower and gooseberry. Their Nordic Sour includes buckwheat and sea buckthorn which they foraged from the coast.
The brewery now has seventeen full time employees including five brewers; Ian no longer has a practical role in the brewing processing and as the managing director of the business has gone back to a desk job.
Ian describes Peckham as a vibrant sharing and caring community. His favourite places locally are Taco Queen on Rye Lane for delicious mexican food, Andersons for coffee and Yada’s for a great BYO Kurdish meal.
During the Covid 19 Crisis Brick Brewery is closed to the public but is selling beer through it’s online shop - www.shop.brickbrewery.co.uk
When you leave Brick Brewery turn right and head down Blenheim Grove.
3. BLENHEIM FORGE
A couple of minutes down the road from Brick Brewery behind a rickety red gate under another railway arch lives Blenheim Forge. The workshop is a ramshackle treasure trove; a dusty and charming space, much less industrial and polished than you’d expect given the beautiful, refined knives they produce.
When James Ross-Harris founded Blenheim Forge with his housemate Jon Warshawsky in 2014 they knew very little about knife-making. The housemates spent their free time constructing contraptions in their garden. After a meat smoker and a hot tub they decided to try knife-making as they were interested in the process of laminating different steels together, a traditional Japanese bladesmithing technique. They built a forge in their garden out of fire bricks and a leaf blower, and made their first knife. It was a great success but took a long time and many more knives to make another as good. The pair tried again and again to reconstruct the process in the following months, and met defeat every time.
James had been working in the Peckham arch as a blacksmith making furniture and props for another company and when that company moved on they took over the arch. It took some time before their knife making venture grew into a business, along the way they were joined by Richard Warner, whose expertise in machine-engineering helped the endeavour become viable.
The knife making process is elaborate, lengthy and grueling. The stages involve heating metal to almost melting point and then repeatedly hammering, pressing and grinding it.
The handles of their knives are made mainly from native hardwoods which they source from nearby Nunhead cemetery or from an ethical company in Bermondsey called Goldfinch Furniture, who give young people work opportunities by teaching them to use chainsaws and make furniture.
Their standard range has seven different designs which are all fairly general purpose chefs knives. With their spare time the partners take it in turns to do smaller runs of more specialist blades. They have just released a set of butchery knives and a deba which is a specialist Japanese fish knife. They release these knives through their monthly newsletter and they normally sell out within a couple of hours.
Blenheim forge offers classes once or twice a week to teach basic knife sharpening techniques.
During the Covid 19 crisis the forge is closed to the public, but you can still buy knives through their online shop - www.blenheimforge.co.uk
Turn right out of Blenheim Forge onto Blenheim Grove and head down towards Bellenden Road.
When you reach Bellenden Road turn left and at the next junction turn left again onto the quiet tree lined Chadwick Road.
At the top of Chadwick Road (with Choumert Square to your left) turn right onto Choumert Grove. At the next crossroads turn right into Choumert Road and follow this down past the Montpelier pub, a neighbourhood favourite!
When you reach Bellenden Road turn left and cross over at the zebra crossing to find General Store. This section of Bellenden Road is home to some beautiful independent shops and eateries and the unusual metal bollards are designed by Anthony Gormley.
4. GENERAL STORE
General Store is a small but beautifully crafted grocery shop on Bellenden Rd. Merlin and Gena, the passionate and knowledgeable owners have an ethical and honest approach to sourcing and selling, and the stores carefully curated shelves are lined with goods that have been produced with love, care and a strong aesthetic sense.
In honour of the traditional grocery shop General Store has a little bit of everything, home made cakes, fresh bread, carefully sourced cheese and fresh coffee. It is not just a store for shopping though, it is a place in the neighbourhood that people can pop in to for a chat or just to browse.
The couple started the shop in 2011 when the shop and flat above became available to rent. They didn’t have the clear intention of becoming shopkeepers but wanted to find a friendly neighbourhood to live in where they could also run a business. It had always been Merlin’s dream to leave his job to learn to make cheese, so this is what he did. Both Merlin and Gena left their jobs to retrain in cheese making and baking and then decided they wanted to take their experience into a shop setting which led to the creation of General Store.
The design of the shop was initially driven by function. Merlin and Gena wanted to reflect the honesty of the products in the design choices they made, using materials and pieces that were similarly honest.
Merlin and Gena’s favourite local places are the butchers Flock & Herd for great meat and Artusi, The Begging Bowl and Ganapati for eating out. The best bookshop is Review ‘which is run by the best people’.
