Facts about Peckham
Peckham History
“Peckham” is a Saxon place name meaning the village of the River Peck, a small stream that ran through the district until it was enclosed in 1823. Archaeological evidence indicates earlier Roman occupation in the area, although the name of this settlement is lost.
When Robert married the heiress to Camberwell the two manors were united under royal ownership. King John probably hunted at Peckham and local anecdotes suggest that the right to an annual fair was granted to celebrate a particularly good day’s sport. The fair grew to be a rowdy major event lasting three weeks until its abolition in 1827.
General Info
Peckham is a district of south London, England, within the London Borough of Southwark. It is 3.5 miles south-east of Charing Cross. At the 2001 Census, the Peckham ward had a population of 14,720. Peckham was originally part of the parish of Camberwell in Surrey, which became the Metropolitan Borough of Camberwell within the County of London in 1889.
In 1965, the borough was abolished and the area became part of the newly created London Borough of Southwark. Peckham is one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the UK. These are the statistics for the ethnic groups in the Peckham ward according to the 2011 Census. This ward is about one-fifth of the place called Peckham and not representative of the ethnic and cultural distribution in the other four wards.
