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Victorian and Edwardian railway suburb bordering Dulwich, Tulse Hill and West Norwood. Although some believe that the locality is an estate agents’ invention, West Dilwysh
was first recorded in 1344. Hesitant growth began here after the opening of Dulwich station in 1863 (it did not become West
Dulwich until 1926). The railway company laid out Thurlow Park, Rosendale and Turney Roads to provide access to the station,
although these were at first unsurfaced. Building frontages were advertised but take-up was slow. Rosendale Road’s eventual
width and grandeur was supposedly the consequence of a plan to make it part of a grand processional route to the Crystal Palace.
A speculator attempted to profit from this by laying out Tritton Road in its path, hoping to be bought out, but his bluff
was called and the scheme was abandoned. All Saints church was built in 1891. A spectacular structure for such a modest suburb,
it is deservedly grade I listed. The first houses in West Dulwich were very select, but properties became progressively more
affordable as development spread westward. The main phase of construction came in the years before the First World War, although
gaps were still being filled in the 1930s. The area suffered badly in the Second World War. West Dulwich Congregational church,
which stood on Chancellor Road (now Grove), was wiped out by a direct bomb strike in 1940. All Saints was damaged but subsequently
restored. Five V1 rockets fell on West Dulwich in 1944, prompting a post-war reconstruction programme that included the creation
of the Rosendale Road estate. The unlucky All Saints church was gutted by a fire in 1999 and has had to be restored all over
again. Turney special school and Rosendale primary school occupy neighbouring sites at the northern end of the locality.
Pop funsters the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band first came together at 164A Rosendale Road, in 1962.
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