[3] Nunhead has traditionally been a working-class area and, with the adjacent neighbourhoods, is currently going through a lengthy process of gentrification.

[6] The name is first recorded in a deed of 1583 relating to a land sale including estates "lying at Nunn-head.

In 1834 the Girdlers Company built the Beeston's Gift Almshouses, a terrace of seven Tudor-style cottages which still stand in front of a garden with railings on Consort road.

[14][15] The area's population growth led to a separate ecclesiastical parish of St Antholin, Nunhead, being formed in 1878, with the church built in 1877.

Old maps show that the church was next door to where the dental surgery now stands at 42 Linden Grove, so Windsor Lodge was presumably more or less opposite that.

The oak reredos designed by Sir Christopher Wren and a bell were brought from the original church.

[18] St Antony's was Listed Grade II in 1972[19] but became surplus to requirements of the Anglican Church and was declared redundant in 2001 and sold to its present owners, a Pentecostal congregation.

Nunhead forms part of Southwark London Borough Council's Peckham Programme regeneration scheme.

[22] A component was the proposal that the Cross River Tram could serve the area,[23] however in November 2008 Mayor of London Boris Johnson announced that due to funding constraints this project would be cancelled.

The P12, which begins its journey in Honor Oak Park, goes through Nunhead, terminating at Surrey Quays shopping centre.

Residents elect three councillors to Southwark Council every four years for the Nunhead and Queen's Road ward.