Other attractions include the Cuming Museum, Newington Reference Library and John Smith House, a former Labour Party headquarters which is now used by the local education authority.

Charles Babbage, the Victorian mathematician and computer pioneer, was likely born at 44 Crosby Row, now Larcom Street,[3] Walworth Road on 26 December 1791.

[4] A commemorative blue plaque is displayed on the Sexual Health Clinic at the junction of Larcom Street and Walworth Road.

[2] Much of Camberwell Road is a conservation area, due to its well-preserved large houses from the early 19th century.

In 1685, John Evelyn's Diary mentions a Roman urn filled with bones which was uncovered intact during repairs to the road and exhibited at the Royal Society.

Following complaints about the noise and high crime levels generated by the fair, a group of residents bought the fairground in 1855, converting it into the park which remains today.

Since the New Works Programme of the 1930s, London Transport and its successors have planned to extend the Bakerloo line south to a station on Camberwell Road.

However, as the original documentation relating to the construction of these houses has been lost or destroyed, it has proved impossible to confirm this.

[2] The origin of the name is disputed, but possibly derives from herons nesting on the (now buried) River Effra.

[16] St Paul's church was rebuilt in gothic style by the architect George Edmund Street in 1858.

Norwood Road is home to St Luke's Church, a Grade II listed building designed by Francis Octavius Bedford in 1823–5 and rebuilt by GE Street in 1870.

To the north, south of Knight's Hill is the part of the Crystal Palace area with no name home to a large parade of competing large super markets along the A215 Norwood Road including Tesco, Cooperative, Iceland and (by Summer 2009) Sainsbury (ex Woolworth's site).

[22] The 1647 Parliamentary Survey described Knights Hill as "a small common wood containing 40 pollard oaks and two elms".

The composer and organist of St Paul's Cathedral, Thomas Attwood, lived in a large house on Beulah Hill from 1821 to 1834.

[26] In March 1966, shortly before the World Cup tournament, the Jules Rimet trophy was stolen from an exhibition at Central Hall Westminster.

It was found seven days later by a dog named Pickles, wrapped in newspaper at the bottom of a suburban garden hedge at Beulah Hill.

Portland Road ends with a left turn to stay on the A215 at Spring Lane or straight on to change onto the B243, Woodside Green.

The Minister's of Bailiffs Account of the Chauntry of St Nicholas show that an annual rent of 33 shillings and four pence was paid on the land between 1442–1483; this is the earliest recorded reference to the area.

The road at the time ran through an ancient woodland known as the North Wood (the origin of the modern place name Norwood).

A pumping station was built on Portland Road; this created a vacuum in a pipe paralleling the railway tracks.

[15][33] One of the earliest cinemas in south London, the Electric Picture Palace, opened on Portland Road in 1910.

The mosaic was designed by artists Gary Drostle and Rob Turner, and built by children from a number of local schools.

[2] The town is named after the historic manor of Adscomb ("Edge of the valley"), the country seat of the Heron family,[41] which was situated on Shirley Road.

Following the opening of the nearby Woodside railway station in 1871 large numbers of Londoners began travelling to the racecourse.

Following pressure from the Mayor of Croydon, concerned about the large crowds, the racecourse was closed in 1890 and replaced with a golf course; this was bought by the council in 1942 and given to public use as playing fields.