23 valuable community spaces in Lewisham

Part 1: Lewisham High Street

Hello and welcome to Wooden City, a newsletter about London. Every other week I publish an article about everyday places with unusual staying power, like shops, pubs, restaurants and public spaces.

Today’s newsletter is part one of a special free issue about Lewisham. This first part introduces the guide and focuses on Lewisham High Street. Part two is out on Friday, and will cover Lewis Grove, Lee High Road and Loampit Hill.

I publish pieces without a paywall occasionally, and you can read the others here and here. Thank you again to all the paying subscribers who make this possible, and are duly rewarded with access to maps, full articles and an archive covering over 230 places so far.

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Lewisham is in Lewisham, a bit like how New York is in New York. It’s a district in a larger area of the same name, as with Enfield, Croydon and Islington. Lewisham’s also in London, but it’s really its own place.

Lewisham has a river and a daily market, as well as large and well-maintained public loos. It has a Hindu temple, a Georgian churchyard and half a dozen Sri Lankan and South Indian canteens. It has Italian delis, a village bakery, Ghanaian restaurants, Caribbean takeaways and a chip shop that also serves pie and mash.

When I decided to write about Lewisham, I knew it was changing, but I didn’t realise how much. I’d seen the library close, but I didn’t know that the council had received £24 million to refurbish it and modify the streets nearby. I’d seen the Lewisham gateway towers go up, but I didn’t know what the patch of ground beneath them had looked like before they were built.

I didn’t know that Landsec, one of Britain’s biggest property developers, had submitted plans to redevelop the shopping centre it owns and runs. These plans, which are up for review, involve partially demolishing the building in exchange for a rooftop meadow, three public squares and over 2,000 homes, student beds and co-living spaces. If they go ahead, work could begin in 2026 and take 10 years.

I’m not against change if it benefits local people and improves standard of life, especially if it’s informed by extensive community engagement. There’s also a chance the shopping centre plans won’t happen at all.

But projects like these have a bad record, and I’m suspicious when the council and developers use terms such as “revitalise”, “rejuvenate” and “create something special”, because they imply there aren’t vital and well-used places in this area already.

Likewise, most of the Lewisham natives I spoke to don’t approve of the works recently completed by other developers. “So many huge and ugly private blocks are going up,” an artist called Rosie McGuinness told me. The towers feel “removed from the essence of the neighbourhood” a local called Tobias said. “They steal Lewisham’s sky for the entire community,” Thea Everett, a writer, told me.

I’m not from Lewisham, I just live next to it and go there a lot. This two-part list is simply a collection of places that seem important to me as an outsider, that people in Lewisham clearly use. As with my Catford and Walworth pieces, my goal is to show that Lewisham has lots of valuable shops, restaurants and public spaces already, which deserve to withstand any changes that might happen further down the line.

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Lewisham Market

In Lewisham town centre, stallholders stand in front of things like sprats, cabbages and underwear, waiting for buyers to come up and say what they want. This form of open-air trade has existed for longer than London, and has occurred in this bit of Lewisham since 1906. I like how the traders here still advertise themselves by chanting certain phrases, such as “have a look” and “lovely bit of banana”. As with other London markets, cooked food is available here too, and much of it inexpensive. My favourite is the Sunday burger man.

Lewisham High Street, Lewisham, SE13

Migration Museum

Three things struck me on my last visit to the Migration Museum. One was the reproduction of a Calais Jungle camp tent by Majid Adin, an artist and animator from Iran who lived in the camp and later arrived in Britain in a refrigerated truck. Another was a Chinese takeaway installation curated by Angela Hui, the author of a brilliant memoir about growing up in one. The third thing was the museum’s well-stocked shop, where I bought my dad some chilli sauce. As it stands, the shopping centre is also home to other charitable organisations, such as XO Bikes, The Bank of Things, The Circle Collective and the entry below. The museum is set to leave Lewisham at the end of March; its City of London site is due to open in 2027.

Lewisham Shopping Centre, Molesworth Street, London SE13 7HB

Lewisham Community Space

Lewisham Community Space is a commercial space repurposed as a public one, where people take calls, fill in sudokus and chat with friends. There’s books, clothes and a play area, as well as kitchen facilities and lots of places to sit. You can exercise, get advice and access a range of free sessions too. Last time I was there, almost everyone was drinking glasses of tea they’d made themselves; one couple had brought in a parcel of chips, which they were sharing with a member of staff.

Someone took my details during my second visit, and told me they registered visitors partly to demonstrate how many people used it. It’s run by London Sport, The Felix Project, Enable and Rethink Food, in partnership with Lewisham council. Landsec also has its name on the door. If its redevelopment plans go ahead, I think a measure of their success would be the continued existence of somewhere like this.

Lewisham Shopping Centre, Molesworth Street, London SE13 7HB

Something Fishy

Something Fishy is a rare blend of caff, chip shop, and pie and mash shop. I find the food more reliable than the venerable Maggie’s Cafe and the economical Chef’s Treat, but I think those are important places too. As with those spots, Something Fishy is a natural high street hangout and every customer has at least one shopping bag. I get the set one breakfast, though many opt for the saveloy and chips, even at 10am.

117-119 Lewisham High St, London SE13 6AT

Joiners Arms

Joiners Arms is relaxed, welcoming and inexpensive. When I went before Christmas, my pint of Murphy’s Irish Stout cost £4.65 and my Guinness cost £5.20. Horses and greyhounds raced on the TVs, while Nick Drake played out of the speakers. Some customers entered in work clothes and were greeted by name, before taking a stool next to the other regulars at the bar. Overall the crowd was a heartening mix of genders and backgrounds, with as many elderly drinkers as zillenial ones. If this isn’t a community space, I don’t know what is.

66 Lewisham High St, London SE13 5JH

Lewisham Food Centre

You might go to Lewisham Food Centre for dates, lamb kidneys, wheels of kashkaval, a sack of onions for £2.29. When I visit, I make a beeline for the back, which I think of as “bread corner”. I’ve enjoyed several of the savoury hand pies stocked here, including two of the börek, but my favourite is the sweet and sticky “tahini pastry”. It looks and tastes to me like a big swirly oatmeal cookie, with more than a hint of Hobnob.

213 Lewisham High St, London SE13 6LY

Gabby's Caribbean Takeaway

I went to Gabby’s for the first time a couple of weeks ago and ate a £6 meal deal of curry goat with rice and peas. The day’s wares were laid out behind the counter: baton-like festivals; cuboids of macaroni cheese; a few escovitch fish, draped in their onion and carrot garnishes. Customers popped in for pea soup and porridge, and one guy came in to ask if the oxtail was ready yet. When I went to pay, I was ready to dispose of my empty container myself, before the proprietor smilingly removed it from my hand and said he’d do it himself.

215 Lewisham High St, London SE13 6LY

Lewisham Donation Hub

Originally set up in response to the pandemic, Lewisham Donation Hub collects and distributes donations such as food, tents, phones, laptops and winter coats. It serves those facing hardship, and has become a key point of support for homeless people, domestic violence survivors and people seeking asylum. I’d noticed the hub many times over the years, but only recently realised how large and well-organised an operation it was. When I walked past it yesterday, I saw dozens of bags, boxes and clothes rails laid out, along with three volunteers in high-vis vests hard at work.

261 Lewisham High St, London SE13 6AY

Hajia 1

I love this friendly, light-filled Ghanaian spot, where I tried my first waakye, a black-eyed bean and rice dish flavoured with sorghum leaves. I opted to have it with chicken, which came in a tender, sauce-smothered haunch, along with spaghetti, a boiled egg and a ramekin of smoky, fishy shito. This giant lunch was served on a banana leaf on a plate on a tray, and exuded the same spirit of brightness and optimism as the place’s tablecloths. Aunties of different ages walked up the counter every now and then, and one asked me if I was enjoying my food. Easily one of the best-value meals I ate while researching this piece.

304 Lewisham High St, London SE13 6JZ

Fox & Firkin

“I think there's space and desire for a bit more of a nightlife scene [in Lewisham],” Ben Hauke, a local DJ and producer told me. “Maybe a bar and music venue,” he said. Funnily enough, this is exactly what Landsec has planned. I know better than to expect an SE13 Windmill or Ormside Projects, and I’m sceptical of a cultural space built by a company that runs workspaces and the Piccadilly Lights, but the marketing display in the shopping centre does promise a “not-for-profit music and cultural venue” that will “focus on helping local emerging artists.” I can also see that Landsec consulted local organisers Sister Midnight as part of its community engagement process.

In any case, Lewisham already has the Fox and Firkin, a place a lot of people use and love. This is a 250-capacity venue with a large garden, a 4am license at the weekend and dozens of upcoming events, but it’s also a neighbourhood pub where people just hang out. Another local called Erin Cobby gave me the heads-up that it regularly hosts fundraisers too, such as its upcoming one for Lewisham’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

316a, 316 Lewisham High St, London SE13 6JZ

H. Hirst & Sons

Two of the Lewishamites I spoke to for this piece had strong childhood memories of H. Hirst & Sons: Thea for its iced buns and marshmallow cornets and Rosie for its cream horns, gingerbread men and bread pudding. The bakery has a reduced selection these days, but the flaky, American football-shaped cornish pasties are excellent, as are the roast pork rolls.

On a recent visit, as I ate a stick of crackling, I saw a picture on the wall that confirmed something I’d wondered about. While the business was established in 1898, this branch opened in 1987. The family’s first bakery was in Canning Town, before they expanded into Crystal Palace, Deptford and Lewisham throughout the 1900s. The description next to these images refers to the founder’s last name as “Hirsch” rather than “Hirst”, an alteration I suspect was made due to anti-German sentiment during The Great War.

350 Lewisham High St, London SE13 6LE

St Mary the Virgin Churchyard

Before the first Magnificent Seven cemeteries were built in the 1830s, Londoners were buried in small parish churchyards. This is why London’s oldest gravestones are found outside churches like this one, including the primitive, cylindrical style I’ve seen referred to as “body stones”. So far the earliest grave I’ve found here is one that says on 1784 it, though a noticeboard says there are tombstones 80 years older than that.

346 Lewisham High St, London SE13 6LE

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Thanks for reading! Stayed tuned for part two of this guide, which is out on Friday and will cover Lewis Grove, Lee High Road and Loampit Hill.

Wooden City is written by Isaac Rangaswami, with editing from James Hansen.