Old Map of South East London in 1862 by Edward Stanford - Norwood, Crystal Palace, Penge, Sydenham

By 1862 the district covered by this Stanford sheet had become one of the most visited corners of London, thanks entirely to a single building: the Crystal Palace, dismantled after the Great Exhibition of 1851 and rebuilt on Sydenham Hill in 1854, complete with its own dedicated railway line to bring day-trippers out from central London. Edward Stanford's map-publishing house, by then well established near Charing Cross, produced this sheet as part of its series of large-scale London district maps, capturing the rapid suburban development that followed the Palace out into what had previously been a scattering of villages and commons south of the river.

The sheet covers Upper and Lower Norwood, still remembered locally at the time for the Romani encampments that had lived on Norwood Common for generations, alongside Penge with its own new railway station, and Sydenham itself transformed almost overnight by its famous new neighbour. Crystal Palace, both the structure and the district that grew up around it, dominates the map, while the surrounding area takes in the edges of Dulwich to the north, Beckenham just over the county boundary in Kent, and the wooded slopes that once made this some of the more rural ground close to London.

This is a natural choice for anyone with roots in Norwood, Penge, or Sydenham, as well as collectors and enthusiasts of the Crystal Palace itself, whose vast glass building burned down in 1936 and now survives only in the park and street names shown on this map. Railway history fans will also recognise the new lines built specifically to serve the rebuilt Palace. The print is produced at high resolution from an original Stanford sheet and comes in a range of sizes, making it easy to find one that suits your space.