Map - Camberwell

Camberwell is an area of South London, England, in the London Borough of Southwark, 2+3/4 mi southeast of Charing Cross.

Camberwell was first a village associated with the church of St Giles and a common of which Goose Green is a remnant. This early parish included the neighbouring hamlets of Peckham, Dulwich, Nunhead, and part of Herne Hill (the rest of Herne Hill was in the parish of Lambeth). Until 1889, it was part of the county of Surrey. In 1900 the original parish became the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell.

In 1965, most of the Borough of Camberwell was merged into the London Borough of Southwark. To the west, part of both West Dulwich and Herne Hill come under the London Borough of Lambeth.

The place now known as Camberwell covers a much smaller area than the ancient parish, and it is bound on the north by Walworth; on the south by East Dulwich and Herne Hill; to the west by Kennington; and on the east by Peckham.

Camberwell appears in the Domesday Book as Cambrewelle. The name may derive from the Old English Cumberwell or Comberwell, meaning 'Well of the Britons', referring to remaining Celtic inhabitants of an area dominated by Anglo-Saxons. An alternative theory suggests the name may mean 'Cripple Well', and that the settlement developed as a hamlet where people from the City of London were expelled when they had a contagious disease like leprosy, for treatment by the church and the clean, healing waters from the wells. Springs and wells are known to have existed on the southern slope of Denmark Hill, especially around Grove Park.

It was already a substantial settlement with a church when mentioned in the Domesday Book, and was the parish church for a large area including Dulwich and Peckham. It was held by Haimo the Sheriff (of Kent). Its Domesday assets were: 6 hides and 1 virgate (i.e. 750 acres); 1 church, 8 ploughs, 63 acre of meadow, woodland worth 60 hogs. It rendered £14. Up to the mid-19th century, Camberwell was visited by Londoners for its rural tranquillity and the reputed healing properties of its mineral springs. Like much of inner South London, Camberwell was transformed by the arrival of the railways in the 1860s. Camberwell Green is now a very small area of common land; it was once a traditional village green on which was held an annual fair, of ancient origin, which rivalled that of Greenwich.

There is evidence of a black community residing in Camberwell, made up mostly of enslaved people from Africa and North America during the 18th and 19th centuries. Some of these people fled their slavery in an attempt to create a new life for themselves in the streets of London. While very little is known about most of the escapees, some insight can be gained into the life of sailor James Williams, an enslaved man from the Caribbean.