Only one London postcode area reaches the heady heights of 24 (because N tops out at N22). Come with me to Herne HillSE24.
24 things to see in SE24
1) Visit Brockwell Park
This is the obvious place to start, one of London's finestparks perfectly plonked on a small hill with commanding views across much of central London. It covers 125 acres and surrounds Brockwell Hall which used to be the country seat of glass merchant John Blades. Don't come to see the house right now because it's undergoing major renovations to make it more accessible to the wider community, for which read "a building Lambeth council can hire out". As a result the normal cafe has been temporarily replaced by a couple of trailers and while the burgers may be cheap it's really not the same. In the summer this is a popular spot for festivals including the iconic Lambeth Country Show, but even when Chucklehead is not available the park is always a lovely spot for a proper perambulation.
2) Enter Brockwell Park's Walled Garden
Forgive me if I mention Brockwell Park more than once, but somehow I have to stretch this list out to 24 things. The walled garden is proper lovely though, an oasis of calm and also the ideal place to hide away on a bowery bench and vape with your hoodied mates. Do look out for the assortment of model-village-style houses on your way in which are of wartime vintage. Also I can confirm that at least one pink rose is still in bloom.
3) Dip in Brockwell Lido
This is a much-loved Art Deco facility where outdoor swimming is enjoyed all year round by hardy folk and during the summer months by more normal people. A swim will set you back £8, or you can pay £340 for an annual season ticket which is an even better deal in a leap year. The Lido Cafe is firmly under the control of Four Hundred Rabbits, a sourdough specialist, so I hope you like pizzas.
4) Ride the Brockwell Park Model Railway
At just 220m in length this is even shorter than the minimal tube journey between Leicester Square and Covent Garden. But here you get to sit inside tiny carriages open to the weather, plus they haven't raised the fares since 2003 so it's still only £1 return. Just don't turn up unless it's a Sunday and don't come before the start of March because it'll still be closed for the winter.
5) Explore the Rosendale Estate
This is an extraordinary 20 acre residential backwater just behind the railway near the southern end of Brockwell Park. It was built in 1901 as one of Peabody's early 'garden city' social housing experiments, and is half large mansion blocks and half rustic gabled cottages. The cupola off the top of the original hall was relocated at ground level when the estate was spruced up in 2012 and a new community centre added. It definitely merits a wander, if only to see how cohesive social housing used to be created. Walk out the back and you suddenly find yourself climbing a small summit into Peabody Hill Wood, and I suspect there's an entire post to be written about the utter unusualness of all this.
6) Zoom round Herne Hill Velodrome
The velodrome is another of SE24's top treasures, a raised loop where keen bicycle riders have been going round and round in ovals since 1891. In 1948 the cycling events at the London Olympics were held here and good old Reg Harris stormed to win the silver medal in the 1000m matched sprint. I was pleased to be able to walk straight in for a gawp, and that is a very impressive new grandstand. Bradley Wiggins learned to race here and Michael Crawford was also a keen visitor during his schooldays.
7) Meet Michael Crawford
But to meet him you'd need to have been here in the 1950s when Michael Crawford was a schoolboy and living in a flat above number 16 Half Moon Lane. It's because his dad was a grocer and had moved from Bexley to run the David Greig store underneath. It's now a vegan restaurant called Peachy Goat, and because this is Herne Hill it's Italian-themed to boot. Again there's no plaque although a Southwark Heritage version has recently been proposed.
8) See where Sam Mussabini lived
If you've ever watched the film Chariots of Fire and wondered where Harold Abrahams' athleticscoach lived, that would be here at blue-plaqued 84 Burbage Road. His real name was Scipio Africanus Mussabini and 100 years ago he was responsible for training our team for the Paris Olympics. I learnt all this backstory from a seriously informative information board under the Burbage Road railway bridge because the Dulwich Estate is very good at that kind of thing.
9) Explore Delawyk Crescent
If postwar housing is your thing, and for a lot of readers I suspect it is, you'll be wanting to make a pilgrimage to Delawyk Crescent. It's a Radburn Estate, i.e somewhere that pedestrians and vehicles are kept separate, so the cars go round the edge and the centre is a maze of 107 dwellings interspersed with staggered walkways. It's not must-visit, just peculiar in a mid Sixties manner, and I bet its layout particularly annoys the Deliveroo bikers.
10) See where a Prime Minister lived
It's only James Callaghan so not in the upper half of the premier premiers, and he wasn't actually PM at the time, indeed it was 1967 and he'd just resigned as Chancellor. Forced to leave 11 Downing Street in a hurry he hunkered down at a rather less exciting address, 7 Carver Road, a prim semi just off Half Moon Lane. There's no plaque but if you've never seen a house with a diagonal-facing porch I guess that's something.
11) Sail a boat to the Half Moon pub
Admittedly you can only do this if a particularly large water main has burst, as happened in 2013 flooding dozens of properties at the west end of Half Moon Lane. But best it never happens again because the pub took three years to reopen, which suggests serious damage, so if you did ever come by boat you'd probably find your usual tipple was unavailable.
12) View SE24 from the railway viaduct
You get a great view from up there, especially over Brockwell Park.
13) Go bijou shopping
For this you'll be wanting the street outside the station where the shops are a super lovely mix of street cafes for grazing, arty types, haberdashery, prime meats, little gift things and cobblers. For a significant proportion of SE24 residents the existence of a Gail's Bakery on their doorstep justifies their mortgage payments.
14) Go Effra-hunting
South London's most lost river once ran through SE24, partly along the line of the railway and partly along the northern edge of the park. For evidence of this look for the stinkpipe opposite the lido which now emits noxious smells above the Dulwich Road, and at its foot you should find one of the gorgeous swirly Effra plaques added along the former watercourse in 2016. The information board on the grass alongside is properly informative too, particularly if you've ever wanted to see an Effra map.
15) Find Winifred Atwell's plaque
It's not an official blue plaque but it is blue and it's located at the top of Chaucer Road. You'd think it'd be for her piano playing but no, it says Multimillion Disc Selling Impresario Winifred Atwell 1914-1983 Opened The UK's First Black Hair And Beauty Salon On This Site In 1956. A fabulous first to celebrate, but unless you like housing association flats there is no longer anything to see.
16) Hang out at Dexters SE24 is a ridiculously complicated shape and includes all sorts of railwayside slivers and tentacle-like protuberances, one of which is a tongue of Railton Road stretching almost to Brixton. After the riots in 1981 a vacant space was created on the site of a demolished row of terraced houses, and the rubble was eventually repurposed as a community-based adventure playground aimed at giving local youth something better to occupy their time. Prince Charles visited a couple of years ago but didn't avail himself of the swings, ropes, big slides and monkey bars.
17) Admire the postbox toppers
An anonymous crocheter nicknamed postboxhappy goes out around Herne Hill and covers the tops of pillarboxes with colourful woollen creations. I found Spongebob Squarepants, a bed of roses and an oddly shaded pigeon, the latter facing Sunray Gardens. I was going to include the mini park at Sunray Gardens in this list, but to be fair the pigeon was more interesting.
18) Borrow a book from the Carnegie Library
This is a gorgeous building, all ornate Edwardian with terracotta frontage, and opened as a public lending library in 1906. Lambeth council did their best to kill it off in 2016 for austerity reasons, triggering massive kickback, celebrity endorsements and an enraged sit-in. A reduced service restarted in 2018 with the occasional librarian supervising, and arguments continue as to which group of trusted overseers should take it in hand. Still looks gorgeous though.
19) Find the Red Post
There really is a red post at the top of Red Post Hill and it's known to have existed since 1768. The current fingerpost only dates from 2010, however, and points towards farflung destinations like Sydenham 3 and London 4. It's also London's only entirely red signpost, but you probably guessed that.
20) Visit Sunray Gardens
I know I said I wasn't including this but I'm getting near the end of the list now. Sunray Gardens has grass, a playground and a lake, and the lake used to be a fishpond in the grounds of Casino House, a local mansion.
21) Down a pint at the Tulse Hill Hotel
It may be a genuine hotel with nine boutique rooms but it also has a public bar underneath which you could pop into if your train from Tulse Hill station is delayed. SE24 has many pubs and this one isn't necessarily recommended, but I've included it to prove I walked all the way down to the southern end of the postcode and this is all I found.
22) Walk the length of Shakespeare Road
This single long road beside the railway viaduct is inexplicably in SE24 whereas everything beyond it is in SW9. Admittedly it's quite isolated, even more so since they closed the southern end to traffic and painted poems across the street. Apparently Sinead O'Connor died in a block of flats at the Loughborough Junction end near the Coldharbour Works, and I've only included it to prove I walked all the way up to the northern tip of the postcode and this is all I found.
23) Go back to Brockwell Park and don't set your watch by the clocktower
It was 52 minutes fast when I checked.
