How do you Sydenhammers enjoy yourself

[bertie]

Hello lovely Sydenhammers

My wife and I have relocated to Sydenham from North of the river (cue panto boos) to a lovely house near Betts Park just off of the Croyden Road.

We are really new to the area and are a fun couple looking for things to do at night and on the weekends. Although we came from North London we have no clue about Sydenham and just want some ideas of what we can do, We are in our thirties (or as my wife puts it, over 29) and just want to hear what you lot do when you let your hair down.

Cheers!

[Eagle]

Not sure you qualify for Sydenham. Surely not SE26.
Guess you are nearer to Crystal Palace or Beckenham ( we will ignore Penge ).

Plenty of nice places to go.

[Thomas]

Is this a coded reference to wife swapping???

If not, the usual range of leisure pursuits are on offer in or around Sydenham e.g. the National Sports Centre in Crystal Palace Park, various sports clubs, evening classes, churches and other activities. Some of these are advertised on this forum e.g. the five a side football, and the Sydenham Society also do some social events.

http://www.sydenhamsociety.com/

http://www.gll.org/centre/crystal-palac ... centre.asp

Hope this helps.

[kennyb]

[bertie]

Thanks Thomas sounds great, I'm really looking forward to living in the area. Eagle, thanks too but do you know which bus takes me to "plenty of nice places to go"?

And as for the wife swapping, I thought this area was a bit more forward thinking than indulging in 60s games...

[bigbadwolf]

And as for the wife swapping, I thought this area was a bit more forward thinking than indulging in 60s games...

You'd be surprised. No, I'm afraid we're too busy stabbing one another and digging-up the roads to indulge any newcomers' expectations of maturity.

[CaptainCarCrash]

Not sure you qualify for Sydenham. Surely not SE26.
Guess you are nearer to Crystal Palace or Beckenham ( we will ignore Penge ).

Plenty of nice places to go.

I love Penge, I have fond memory of being in some of the roughest pubs in london where you could snort coke off the bar and buy a Deasert Eagle if you wanted.

They were the days.

[angela53]

"I have fond memory of being in some of the roughest pubs in london where you could snort coke off the bar and buy a Deasert Eagle if you wanted"

Hilarious - love it!

[bertie]

Plenty of nice places to go.[/quote]
I love Penge, I have fond memory of being in some of the roughest pubs in london where you could snort coke off the bar and buy a Deasert Eagle if you wanted.

They were the days.

[/quote]


Is it still open these days or is it a gastro pub full of suits and pinot grigio now, like so many of my favourite boozers where I grew up?

[dickp]

How do we enjoy ourselves in Sydenham?

That's simple: We go out in Beckenham or Crystal Palace. Because they're a darned sight nicer.

[The The]

I can't necessarily disagree with that last comment from dickp as I may often head either way but his comment is a bit demeaning to the area. It would have read nicer if it had read -much as I would love to splash my money in Sydenham I find I have to go to.......Beckenham or Crystal Palace to service my needs.

I have lived here for a dozen years and I love Sydenham.

What followed next was a lot of rambling about various things but sometimes it is better to delete big chapters and reassess after a good sleep!!

[girl_canuck]

I'll take the plunge and give the first serious reply!

Dolphin and Tratt Raff are the places to see and be seen in Sydenham. Blue Mountain is also okay on a weeknight as they now serve wine until 8pm. Golden Lion can be fun on blues night.

You can also get the 176 bus up to Dulwich for a bit of an upmarket night out. Crystal Palace is good. Jam Circus and the Rivoli in Brockley can also be good nights out.

[leenewham]

Aside for being involved in various local campaigns, we use Kente or Sugahill (our preferred place) or the Blue Mountain Cafe (great breakfasts, if expensive). Or we go to Trattoria Raffaele the brilliant fish & chip shop (near the Dolphin) or Ghurkas.

We aren't really pub people, we go out to eat or to a particular event like the (wonderful) plays in the Dolphin or music at the Golden Lion. Aside from Billings, that's really it. We often go to Crystal Palace which is nicer and has more choice, the Hob in Forest Hill because of the comedy club or elsewhere if we want to treat ourselves. There isn't much choice in Sydenham. Luckily, what we have that IS good is very good.

With the roadworks ongoing, Lower Sydenham especially feels like armageddon has arrived. The council have stopped small business rebates because they think that the roadworks have finished, so either they don't know their ar*e from their elbow or Thames water have not been communicating properly. The amount of empty shops is now getting worrying. As remarked, footfall in he road is extremely low and all shop owners we speak too are worried about it. When the roadworks end it will take sometime until the street recovers.

Another point. If Lewisham Council are REALLY serious about regeneration they should rethink their rates. Rates are cheaper for comparative businesses in Beckenham. Rates have gone up due to the Overground line, yet footfall has gone down due to the roadworks. Sydenham road looks shabbier than ever at the moment and the rates for Lower Sydenham seem to be calculated on the same basis as Upper Sydenham.

We love Sydenham and are pleased we have moved here, but the council seriously need to address these issues. Soon.

[bertie]

Cheers Sydenhammers for all the input...despite the weather and the hazardous pavements I've been enjoying my time here and found some cool things to do with the wife and met some interesting people along the way

BUT dickp why do you say what you say? what is it about Sydenham that makes the neighbouring areas "a darned sight nicer"

I'm just intrigued to know...

[NorthernIrelandSydenham]

There is zero sense of community down Sydenham main street and I have to say that most of the shop are rubbish. Plenty of drunken bums and a few junkies hanging about. If you walk far enough down the town it’s like walking into the twilight zone, it all gets dark and changes just where the library is, it’s like that film ‘the road’ only their coke machine worked once.

Jesus, I've just realised I think I joined this forum the night we moved here, so its just over a year and people still don't talk to you in the street. Then again, when I moved here I moved to London, so this has been my experience of London also. And guess what? people don't talk to you in the city street.

The wee woman who sells the flowers near the post office talks, but she only talks in the hope you'll buy some of her flowers and I guess the tattoo faced drunk did grunt in my general direction two weeks ago, so it's not that bad. But standing in line at thon Post Office - I come from a very rural part of Northern Ireland and you cannot shut people up, strangers will talk the legs off you and 20 minutes into the conversation you've agreed to be their child’s godfather or something. Here it's like being in line with a bunch of Zombies who are so uninterested they won’t even bite your freaking neck.

Then you have the Zanzibar, but I cannot talk about that as someone might try and recruit me into the KKK…….or something.

So yeah, welcome to Sydenham, the town that never goes to sleep, mainly because no one is freaking awake.

Did someone say there was a chippy here? as in a real fish & chip shop?

[NorthernIrelandSydenham]

Oh and I forgot to say, I thought it was going to all like Eastenders down here.

[Savvy]

I grew up in a place where everyone knew everyone and were in and out of neighbours houses all the time... it was horrible, claustrophobic, and I couldn't wait to get away; everyone knowing everyone's business. Nooooo!!
Living in London you can choose to integrate or not. I talk to people, to the shopkeepers in Sydenham and people at bus stops. I had a random woman last week telling me I could get my benefits paid into the Credit Union and that I could get myself a really cheap loan 'much better than the banks'. I really should stop going out in my gardening clothes.
I say 'good morning' to the chap at number 29 and wave to Mrs Sydenham from my window (Hello Mrs T !!), I chat to people at the gym too...
I even know my neighbours name and he looks after our keys when we go on holiday.

And that's just the level I like to be at. Living in Albert Square would be a nightmare. I suggest if you want more interaction with folk you start up a conversation, people are people wherever you go.

[NorthernIrelandSydenham]

I was joking about the Eastenders comment, mind you; I would like to be the next person to get Stacey Slater pregnant.

[JRobinson]

NIS - if you fancy a pint and a chat sometime, just put a thread up on here somewhere, I'm up for a social kind of event, to get to know local people (we only moved to Sydenham in May). We've lived in London for nearly ten years, and it was only a week before we moved out of our flat, that we spent longer than 30 seconds talking to our next door neighbour, and actually went into her flat!
a smile, a wave, and a hello - and most people will respond in kind.

[NorthernIrelandSydenham]

Well thanks for that JRobinson, sounds like a good idea.