Under the parks, the commons!

Buckle up for origin-story-time - and two free events I'm doing in November

Eagle-eyed readers may have wondered what the name of this Substack is all about — probably a trite and silly attachment of the word ‘riot’ to a chilled SE London suburb, in a cringey adolescent-punk fashion? I did listen to The Clash a lot as a teenager, so I’m sure I’ve been guilty of this kind of thing before. In fact, one day I may be willing to share the full lyrics to Catford Vs The Fascists, a song me and my friend Joe wrote when we were in 6th Form. But only if you’re very well behaved.

If you thought the name ‘Honor Oak Riot’ was just another bit of empty posturing you’d be wrong, on this occasion — there is way more to it than that. In the 1890s, in the rapidly expanding suburb of One Tree Hill/Honor Oak (same thing; same tree!), just south of Peckham, something truly incredible happened, a bit of local history I have become obsessed with since living here. Out of nowhere, The Honor Oak & Forest Hill Golf Club enclosed and fenced off a treasured piece of common land: a grass-covered, open hill with spectacular views north over London, enveloped in a mystical past that stretches back through the Napoloeonic Wars and the East India Company, back to Boadicea and her Iceni warriors’ last stand against the Romans.

Suffice it to say, the people of Honor Oak did not take the theft of their beloved hill lying down, and in October 1897, after rapidly escalating local tensions, it all came to a head, and the locals came out to fight for their public space in their thousands.

“They armed themselves with broom handles and attacked the golfers, who defended themselves with their clubs. Five times the insurgents tried to take the hill and were beaten back, but at the sixth they succeeded. They planted a red flag on the summit as the sun went down on the battlefield.” – South London Press

What followed included complaints published in The Times, vicious poison-pen letters, ‘the One Tree Hill Irregulars’, more mass riots, arrests, a lot of legal wrangling, and ultimately, an inspiring and historic victory for the people over their natural enemy: golfers, aka “the few who wear red coats”, as one contemporary described them. I referenced the Honor Oak Riots in this love letter to London’s parks in The Guardian in 2022. I won’t say any more now, because I want to ‘save the surprise’ for the guided walk we have planned, and will hopefully write something more detailed at some point — so for now I will just say, come to this:

I’ll be helping guide the free, unticketed walk with the excellent people from the Friends of One Tree Hill, notably its Chair John Gray, creator of a marvellous new series of pamphlets about the South London Commons, and Alex from the legendary radical history publisher Past Tense, author of the perfectly named Down With Fences. Come and see the majestic public space our SE London forebears won for us:

And then, on Tuesday 26 November, I’m doing another London talk about my new book, MULTITUDES: How Crowds Made the Modern World, so if you missed October’s launch trio of events, do come down to the University of Westminster, where I will be in conversation with the university’s excellent parks, events and urban tourism guru Andrew Smith.

Tickets for that are free, from here. Hope to see you soon!