Place Name
A reference to the nearby parish church of St Giles, a well-established holy site since at least Anglo-Saxon times. The land on which the street was built formed part of the church’s glebe, that is an area of land held by the parish church for the use of its clergy. It appears on John Rocque’s 1741 map of Camberwell as a patch of cultivated land in an otherwise largely undeveloped area. By a private act of parliament in 1813 the vicar of Camberwell received the right to build on parts of his glebeland, and this area north of modern Camberwell Church Street was gradually developed. In the late 19thCentury, the name also applied to Bentley House and the southern end of St Giles Road. The origins of the name Camberwell, first recorded in the Domesday Book in 1086 as Cambrewell, are obscure. Its second part refers to a stream or spring, the area being famous for its medicinal waters since early times, however there is much speculation about the first part of the name. It has been suggested that it comes from the Latin word camera and refers to an early building overlooking the spring; alternatively, it is an Old English word for wildfowl, or a personal name, literally Cantbeohrt’s spring. Others say it is the old word Cumber which was used to refer to Welsh people, perhaps in reference to the area being populated by Celts during Anglo-Saxon times.
