Brixi is thought to have erected a boundary stone to mark the meeting place of the ancient Brixton hundred court of Surrey.

[citation needed] Brixton marks the rise from the marshes in the north of the ancient parish of Lambeth up to the hills of Upper Norwood and Streatham.

It was only at the end of the 18th century that villages and settlements formed around Brixton, as the original woodland was gradually reduced until the area was covered in farmland and market gardens known for game and strawberries.

[citation needed] The area remained undeveloped until the beginning of the 19th century, the main settlements being near Stockwell, Brixton Hill and Coldharbour Lane.

The largest single development, and one of the last in suburban character, was Angell Town, laid out in the 1850s on the east side of Brixton Road, and so named after a family that owned land in Lambeth from the late 17th century until well into the 20th.

With the enclosing of the Manor of Lambeth, owned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1806 and the opening of Vauxhall Bridge in 1816, terraced houses and detached villas started to line the main roads.

The Rush Common enclosure stipulations dictated that houses had to be set back from the main roads, allowing for generous gardens.

In the 1920s, Brixton was the shopping capital of south London with three large department stores and some of the earliest branches of what are now Britain's major national retailers.

The Brixton area was bombed during World War II, contributing to a severe housing crisis, which in turn led to urban decay.

[10] The first wave of immigrants (492 individuals) who formed the British African-Caribbean community arrived in 1948 at Tilbury Docks on the HMT Empire Windrush from Jamaica and were temporarily housed in the Clapham South deep shelter.

The subsequent Scarman report was published in November 1981 and found unquestionable evidence of the disproportionate and indiscriminate use of 'stop and search' powers by the police against black people.

[27] John Major's childhood roots in the area were used in a campaign poster leading up to the 1992 election: "What does the Conservative Party offer a working class kid from Brixton?

"[28] The 1995 riots were sparked by the death of a black man, Wayne Douglas, in police custody and occurred in an atmosphere of discontent about the gentrification of Brixton.

New art galleries, delicatessens, bars, cafes and vintage clothing stores, particularly in and around Brixton Village Market have also opened, which some believe is gentrifying the area in a similar way to that in nearby Clapham.

[42] In May 2019, plans for a 20-storey tower block providing office space were unveiled by Taylor McWilliams, a Texan property developer whose company Hondo Enterprises had bought Brixton Market in 2018.

A second issue of the paper currency was launched, featuring a new set of well-known people with Brixton connections: On the B£1, the Black Cultural Archives founder Len Garrison, on the B£5, NBA basketball player Luol Deng (the reverse was inspired by the Ark Evelyn Grace Academy), David Bowie on the B£10 and World War II secret agent Violette Szabo on the B£20.

In 2015, to celebrate the Brixton pound's fifth anniversary, the Turner Prize-winning artist Jeremy Deller was commissioned to design a limited-edition B£5 note.

[58] The Somerleyton Estate is dominated by Southwyck House (known locally as "Barrier Block"), a large horseshoe-shaped brick and concrete 1970s structure that backs onto Coldharbour Lane.

The 176-apartment block was originally constructed in this shape to provide a noise barrier against Ringway 1, a proposed inner-London motorway that was planned to pass through Brixton and Camberwell, later abandoned.

[5] Brixton Market is open every day, selling a range of African-Caribbean products and reflects other communities in the local area with Indian and Vietnamese supermarkets and South American butchers amongst the shops and stalls.

[77] The grade II*listed St Matthew's Church, located on Brixton Green, was built in 1822 by the architect C. F. Porden in the Greek Revival style.

The area south of Brixton Water Lane and including Brockwell Park is in Herne Hill ward Before the 1981 riot was the centre of "Operation Swamp 81" aimed at reducing street crime mainly through the heavy use of the so-called sus law, which allowed police to stop and search individuals on the basis of a "suspicion" of wrongdoing.

[89] In 2003 The Independent reported that around 200 "hardcore Yardies" are based in Lambeth, some operating as members of "Firehouse Posse" or Brixton's "Kartel Crew".

[95][96] "Organised Crime" (OC), a gang linked with various shootings and an ongoing rivalry with the Peckham Boys, are based in the Myatts Field Estate.

Paddick asserts that he implemented the policy because he wanted his officers to deal with cannabis quickly and informally so that they could concentrate on heroin and crack cocaine offences, and street robbery and burglary, which were affecting the quality of life in Lambeth to a greater extent.

[110] The pilot was ended December 2005 and was replaced by a so-called "no deal" policy on cannabis in Brixton following complaints about increasing numbers of dealers openly selling the drug.

[115] Paddick gained much support from the local community for his approach to policing and addressed a rally in his support in March 2002, leading Dominic Casciani from the BBC to comment: If someone had said just five years ago that black, white, young and old, straight and gay, liberal and anarchist would all be standing together giving a standing ovation to a police commander in Brixton, people might have said they had smoked one spliff too many.

[117] In 2008 Tony Thompson, a former Time Out news editor, reported that "Gun crime began to escalate following a series of south London gang executions in the late 1990s."

It is time to stop the vast majority of people in this borough feeling afraid to be on the street and make it the gunmen who are fearful of their community helping the police to arrest them.

This was later followed in August 1975 by a popular novelty song written and sung by Geraint Hughes and Jeff Calvert (who billed themselves as "Typically Tropical"): two white men who told the story of a Brixton bus-driver "going to Barbados" with "Coconut Airways" to escape the rain of London.