The western part of New Cross, taking its name from a tollgate erected in 1718 at the top of what is now Clifton Rise. The gate was relocated in 1813 to the junction of New Cross Road and Peckham Lane (now Queens Road). This part of New Cross Road was built up from the 1820s with good-quality terraced housing. The station opened in 1839, originally as New Cross, and a prolonged period of building began soon afterwards. Many early properties have since either been replaced or converted to new uses. Terraced houses on New Cross Road have had shops built over their front gardens, while houses elsewhere have been subdivided into flats. A Sainsbury’s supermarket occupies the site of former locomotive sheds and workshops. The tram depot that was built in 1906 was replaced by a bus garage in the 1950s. The Electric Empire cinema that opened in 1909 is now a Clutch Clinic.

Charles Dickens kept a secret apartment here, a semi-rural retreat where he wrote Bleak House and later completed Great Expectations. The lodgings also provided him with convenient access to his mistress in Nunhead.