Where to Stay in Streatham, England

What is Streatham known for?

Streatham falls mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, with a western edge in the London Borough of Wandsworth, and the ground around it carries the Streatham Ice Arena, the Dulwich Picture Gallery, and the banked track of the Herne Hill Velodrome. Cricket is played nearby. The Crystal Palace Park Cricket Ground and the Honor Oak Cricket Club Ground lie within the same spread of south London, five miles south of Charing Cross.

What are the main landmarks in Streatham?

Art has an address here, the Dulwich Picture Gallery. The Crystal Palace Museum and the Clockworks Museum keep smaller collections, while 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning and the Cherry Groce Memorial Pavilion belong to a much newer layer of building. Sport is the other pull.

The Streatham Ice Arena, the Herne Hill Velodrome, and the Crystal Palace Park Cricket Ground carry it, and Howlettes Mead adds a patch of open ground between the terraces.

What is the history of Streatham?

Streatham arrives in the record undated. What Streatham keeps instead is a dense line of parish churches, and the roll runs from St Leonard's Church and Holy Trinity Church through the Church of All Saints, St Peter's Church, and the Church of St Saviour on the way out toward Dulwich. Each anchors its own corner.

St Matthew's Church, Brixton and St John the Evangelist, Upper Norwood mark the same spread of building on either flank, with Christ Church, Gipsy Hill and the Church of St Barnabas among them. Sport and art arrived with buildings of their own. The Dulwich Picture Gallery, the Crystal Palace Museum, and the Clockworks Museum hold the collections, while the Herne Hill Velodrome, the Crystal Palace Park Cricket Ground, the Honor Oak Cricket Club Ground, and the JW Hobbs Ground hold the sport.

Skating won a hall of its own at the Streatham Ice Arena. Memory has its places too: the West Norwood Memorial Park holds the tomb of James William Gilbart, the Cherry Groce Memorial Pavilion carries a far more recent name, and 198 Contemporary Arts and Learning works in the present. Administration split the ground in two.

The London Borough of Lambeth took the greater share and the London Borough of Wandsworth the western fringe, a division that still decides which town hall a given Streatham street answers to.

Where is Streatham?

Streatham lies in south London, five miles south of Charing Cross. Most of the district falls within the London Borough of Lambeth, and a strip on the western side crosses into the London Borough of Wandsworth, so the boundary cuts through ordinary residential streets rather than any natural line. Open ground is scarce.

Howlettes Mead and the West Norwood Memorial Park break the terraces, and the built-up streets run on without pause toward Dulwich, Gipsy Hill, and Crystal Palace.

What is the climate of Streatham?

Temperate weather covers the whole of south London, and Streatham takes the same mild and damp version of it as the boroughs on either side. Rain arrives in every season. Winters stay soft rather than hard, summers warm rather than fierce, and the built-up ground running from Brixton to Crystal Palace holds a little extra heat once the sun has been on the terraces all day.

Snow is unusual.

How do you get to Streatham?

Charing Cross is the reference point. Streatham stands five miles south of it, which places the district inside the ordinary reach of central London, and its streets continue into the London Borough of Wandsworth on the western side without a break in the built-up ground. Local roads do the rest.

Journeys end among the terraces that run between Brixton, West Norwood, and Gipsy Hill.