The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in New Cross, Greater London*

New Cross, Greater London Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• Deptford Town Hall. New Goldsmiths extension by Alsop and Stomer should be something special when it is completed this year.
• sainsburys... and not because they hire lots of my friends and myself. although if you need a job your almost guarented
• Goldsmiths Tavern
• The old fire station on the road towards Peckham with its round brick tower.
• Southern Fried Chicken on Lewisham Way, they do some niiice chicken!
• Deptford Town Hall - especially at night. Lit like a Gotham City masterpiece. And to a degree the Venue looks good at night.
• The Albany Centre is a brillian building. It just hasn't been being run terribly well for a while. Its a 425 seat venue which has been used for major theatre, cabaret music and dance including "Stomp" Lilly Savage, Roy ayers etc. As well as late night clubs.

Demolish It Now Building

• Tavern.
• Venue. And get some new decent shops.
• sainsburys, what can i say... i do work there.
• The interior of The Goldsmiths Tavern
• The VENUE. It must go! It was once a place of great music and joy but now it's like the nightclub equivalent of "Stars in their eyes..."
• Kender Triangle
• Sainsbury's
• Most of the so-called high street. Amazing how few shops of use there are there. They need to make a slip road and stick some decent shops like WHSmiths, a decent record shop and a cool skateboard shop along there! All people do is drive through New Cross.
• Gala Bingo - should be a skatepark instead!
• THE LOT!! Give me time to get out first though.
• The Venue - during the day.
• The comparatively new "Wavelengths" - commo library and swimming pool with a poxy dirty, overheated gym room with room for about 20 people and 2 shower cubicles. Mind you, the kids like the flumes.

The Best Things

• US TEENS. punk at the x and battle of the bands rock on! just remeber us when your famous boys!
• Montague Arms, Marquis, lots of weirdos, the students, late night drinking. The cheapest rent in zone 2, rooms start at £55 a week.
• the way i can walk down the street in my baggy jeans holding a skateboard, and feel safe in the knowledge that i wont be beaten up. also other skaters are friendly here!
• The buses on Sunday morning
• Millwall Football Club IS South East London and the natives of sunny New Cross take their Millwall very seriously.
• Cheap, friendly and relatively crime free.
• Buses, trains and Sainsbury's.
• It's cheap - pound a pint for some nights in the bars! Deptford High St offers plenty of cheapies. It's culturally diverse (Over 40 countries are represented!) You get more for your money - a two bedroom houses for the same price as a flat in the East End!
• Music City! IMHO the best rehearsal studio in London. 5 rooms with good equipment, decent staff, excellent gear shop, lovely caff. A little oasis of chill.
• An amazingly diverse atmosphere. From interesting locals to international students all thrown in with a crazy mix of Souf Londonahs and Afro-Caribbeans. People in New Cross are far from boring. Goldmsiths College - you might hate students but it's union and its arts events are really worth checking out. It's really cheap to live - 1 bedrooms from £60 p/w - try that in Finsbury Park. When they aren't late/cancelled/blown up - great bus, tube and train connections.\ You are but a stones throw away from Greenwich, Blackheath and Lewisham. More haircutters than you know what to do with.
• Sainsbury's at New Cross Gate
• The cost of housing is cheap and appeals to the students at the elite Goldsmith's College
• The diversity of the people is amazing - it can seem intimidating but rarely really is. Deptford is the sort of place where people will talk to you. At least say hi! I lived in Hampstead for four years after first living in Deptford. I spoke to my neighbour about six times. The whole area's had millions spent on it recently and there's a lot more housing and its been cleaned up generally
• New Cross (& New Cross Gate!) isn't as rough as people make out (particularly since Milwall football club moved). It's cheap to live in & the transport is about the best in south east london - train to London Bridge 6 minutes, tube to Whitechapel connects with the DLR & will connect with the Jubilee line when they finally open the damn thing. There are some nice areas round Pepys road.

The Worst Things

• The crazy 'rude boys' turning up at the gigs. Its not big n it not clever. Just go 'storm' sumwhere else with ur boxer showing, leg bopping, and insane teeth sucking....whats that? Trying to scare us....oh fiddle! BRICK THROUGH THE DOOR EVERYONE.
• Do not buy drugs from anyone with their arm in a sling or who approaches you in the fried chicken outlets. Just say no. Can be a bit rough round here but just don't make a tit of yourself and you will be fine.
• the invisable boarders into peckham and deptford... dont put your foot over them unless you have some sort of police escort.
• no skate / BMX spots / mini ramp for miles!!
• The buses on Monday morning
• The fact that alot of New Cross and surrounding areas is hills - which is good if you are an experienced skateboarder, but sucks if you are learning. Good for keeping fit, bad if you have mobility problems or live up a hill and get drunk at the bottom alot.
• The New Cross Road - traffic jams galore.
• Snide, middle class, out-of towners who make comments like: 'crazy mix of sarf londoner and Afro-Caribbeans.' There's nothing crazy about a multi-ethnic town, arsehole! I suppose there's no such thing in the writer's 'mind' as a black South Londoner? I wish the writer would fuck of back to Cheam!
• New Cross is filthy and terrible for anal rententive types. If you had a pound for everytime you heard "spare some change, please?" - you'd be a millionaire. You can't get anything decent to eat unless you like to live on takeaway. Parking? What parking? I don't see any parking here. Telling people north of the Thames you live in New Cross and after waiting twenty minutes for them to stop laughing, asking you if you have to carry a gun.
• The overwhelming omnipresent feeling of claustrophobia.
• Strange pretenious students with inflated views of their own importance come to rough, major rough New Cross and wonder why they can't go out after 5 pm
• Other people's perceptions of the place haven't moved on in ten years and its fair to say that its not exactly genteel - even with all the new housing and building cleaning and so on, they've even forced the sugar refinery up river to sort out the disgusting pong that used to settle on the place. Kids with not enough to do piss me off... they get bored and seem to be hanging about doing kid stuff which can be a bore. Also the party season can be a problem for weeks in the summer there are parties everywhere, seeing as so much of Deptford is flats that can be a problem.

The Knowhere Guide started out as a list of places to skateboard in the UK. It is a compilation of (unedited) information and views supplied by users like yourself. It is not a conventional tourist guide!

In most cases, the information in each section has been submitted by more than one contributor (the credits at the bottom of the page list some, but not all, of the contributors) and some of it dates back to the 1970s.

We make no claims as to the accuracy of the information in the Guide - our only purpose is to provide a forum for users to share their knowledge and opinions. So please keep a large bag of salt handy and be prepared to read between the lines!

If you disagree with a comment, or information is out of date, please submit an update! The contributors come from all walks of life, and their opinions are bound to be subjective, so if your view isn't represented, please speak up and contribute to the balance of the Guide. See below in the 'Have Your Say' section for how to add your voice.

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Have Your Say...

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Credits

Last updated: 2007-10-17