Local shopping areas: What’s yours called?

The Forest Hill Society will soon be embarking on an initiative to get us exploring our local shops and businesses in the run up to Christmas (and beyond). It will cover the whole of SE23 and we’ve discovered there are 8 (8!) shopping areas within the boundary.

FHSoc would appreciate your suggestions for names or descriptions that can be used to help people easily identify the different shopping areas of Brockley Rise/Stanstead Road/Perry Vale. A no-expense-spared map is shown below, numbering the areas from 1-8.

SE23 shopping areas744×576 86.4 KB

1. Forest Hill town centre (London Road, Dartmouth Road, Davids Road).

2. Perry Vale (upper end). Perry Vale/town centre? Perry Vale/station?

3. Perry Vale (lower end). Old Fire Station? Perry Vale/Perry Rise?

4. Stanstead Road aka “The-main-road-bit-of-Stanstead-Road-just-before-it-becomes-a-residential-road-although-most-people-don’t-know-they’re-the-same-road”. The end with Shannons Garden Centre/the Co-Op/Mind Body Spirit etc. Stanstead Road near the fire station? BP garage? Railway Telegraph?

5. Brockley Rise/Stanstead Road junction

6. Stanstead Road aka “the-part-of-Stanstead-Road-with-shops-nearer-Catford-but-not-as-far-as-Catford-itself”. Blythe Hill Lane? Blythe Hill Tavern?

7. Brockley Rise/Stondon Park. Chandos triangle?

8. Honor Oak Park. HOP parade?

Fortunately this isn’t a democratic process and any suggestions containing the word ‘village’ will be ignored. As will the suggestion that initial letters be swapped around to make Verry Pillage. Although now I see it written down, I quite like it…

So dear readers, over to you.

1-should be Central FoHo

If it’s true name is unacceptable then let’s just call 3 Perry McPerryface.

4. Standstead South-Circ corner

Perry Village was already tense, but this provocation from FHSoc just before bonfire night could push us over the edge.

Perry Village can be the exception that proves the rule

My suggestions:

1. Forest Hill Town Centre
2. Waldram Triangle
3. Perry Junction
4. Sunderland Town
5. St Germains
6. Blythe Bottom
7. Chandos Corner
8. Honor Oak
9. Kirkdale (not quite in SE23) but worth a mention

I like these a lot!! Only I would add ‘village’ to everyone just to be contentious

Meeting this morning in the Forest Cafe and Bistro, elders called for calm and agreed that the village retail quarter is generally known as the Perry Vale shops. In a further de escalation they also thanked the Forest Hill Society for asking.

Love this one !

I love this thread - I can actually imagine this conversation really happening too. “Oi the FoHo lot have been taking the mick out of the ‘village’, how are we going to respond”. This afternoon I picture a load of pickup trucks with PERRY VILLAGE 2020 flags rolling coal past the station.

But seriously FHSoc is working on plans to help promote local business through to Christmas - this will include a daily (if we can) countdown with offers or promotions from local shops. #shopse23 once we get set up on Twitter and Instagram working with the FHTA. Starting as soon as we can mid to end November.

Initially this will be more around who is staying open and doing deliveries or takeaways. We’d be happy to share the posts here too if that works.

Blythe bottom makes me giggle!

Most of these make perfect sense. My only comment is that I always think of 1 and 2 as being Forest Hill centre - just different sides of the tracks. If you said Waldram Triangle, I don’t think I’d immediately place it. Now you’ve said, I can kinda see the Triangle piece but not sure I’ve ever really noticed the road name.

I liked maxrock’s FoHo/SoHo style… could we do something with the uptown rail lines UpFo and DoFo. I guess it probably depends whether you are looking for something you could ‘brand’ and be ‘catchy’ or something more descriptive that people go - oh yes, of course.

When my mum moved from a tiny Warwickshire village to Perry Vale two years ago at the age of 89, she referred to the small row of shops, surgery etc as ‘the village’ from day one. I think it made her feel more at home and we all now refer to it as ‘the village’, which makes her happy!

Controversial.

When I was a kid living on Shipman Road in the 50’s & 60’s “Perry Village” was always referred to as “the bottom of Siddons Road” to differentiate them from the shops that used to exist on Shipman Parade at to top. Not very snappy I agree but rather less pretentious.

So Sid’s Bottom then?

In our house it was just “I’m going down the bottom”.

My Mum probably added the Siddons Road bit to avoid the sniggering that would have accompanied calling it "the bottom ".

A post was split to a new topic: Which shops are open during the November lockdown?