Champion Hill

Champion Hill sits on the southern ridge of Peckham, one of the line of heights — alongside Denmark Hill and Herne Hill — that rise above the flat Thames basin to the north. Today it is synonymous with a football ground: the modest, much-loved home of Dulwich Hamlet FC, a non-league club with a fierce local following. Boundary stones placed in 1806 to mark the old de Crespigny estate still survive nearby, quiet evidence of the family whose name the hill carries.

2011

House on Champion Hill, Camberwell

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

2012

Dulwich, 31 Champion Hill

Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0

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Historical image not found

Today

197-201 Grove Lane — near Champion Hill

Geograph · CC BY-SA 2.0

The ground occupies a site with deep roots in Peckham’s sporting and social history. What stands now is the second stadium on the spot — the first was demolished in 1991 — and the Sainsbury’s visible from the approach marks where the training pitch once stretched. The name “Champion” long predates the football club. To understand it, you have to go back three centuries, to a family of French Protestant refugees and a grand estate on the southern slope.

The name derives directly from the de Crespigny family, Huguenot refugees who fled France and settled in Camberwell in the reign of William III. As recorded by British History Online, a Crespigny who had married an English lady named Miss Pierrepoint settled at Camberwell, and his house, Champion Lodge, bore the date 1717. “Champion” was part of the family’s full name — Claude Champion de Crespigny — not a descriptive term for the hill itself.

The hill took its name from the estate, and the estate took its name from the family. As British History Online confirms, both Champion Hill and nearby De Crespigny Park retain the name of the family estate to this day. Champion Lodge stood at roughly the corner of Love Walk and Denmark Hill, with parkland covering over thirty acres. When the house was finally demolished in 1841, the name had already adhered to the hill and the roads around it permanently.

Champion Lodge was the seat of one of Camberwell’s most prominent families for over a century. The de Crespignys moved in high circles: in 1804 the Prince Regent visited Champion Lodge, and the owner was created a baronet the following year. The park covered over thirty acres of wooded hillside. When the house was pulled down in 1841, the land was gradually absorbed into the spreading Victorian suburb, and rows of houses replaced the stately cedars that had once lined the front gates.

The football club’s arrival in 1912 transformed the hill’s identity. Dulwich Hamlet had previously played at Freeman’s Ground on Champion Hill before moving to an adjacent plot and then to the purpose-built 1931 stadium. The inter-war years were the club’s golden era: four Isthmian League titles, four FA Amateur Cup wins, and crowds that rivalled many professional grounds. The stadium record of 20,744 was set in 1933 for an Amateur Cup final.

The original stadium was demolished in 1991, deemed too dangerous under the new safety regulations that followed the Hillsborough disaster. A smaller, modern replacement opened in 1992. The Sainsbury’s supermarket built on the former training ground stands as a permanent reminder of the financial pressures that forced the club to sell part of its land in the 1980s.

Champion Hill was once quietly pastoral. British History Online’s account of old Camberwell records that nightingales were heard singing on Champion Hill as late as 1832 — a reminder that the hill was still partly wooded within living memory of the Victorian suburb’s formation. The de Crespigny estate had been a place of fashionable resort, its grounds admired for fine iron gates and stately cedar trees.

The football stadium gave the hill a very different kind of cultural life. Dulwich Hamlet’s supporters — known as “the Rabble” — have built the club into something approaching a community institution. The ground gained unexpected fame as a film location: a scene from the very first episode of The Sweeney, shot in May 1974, featured the south stand. The club was also listed by Southwark London Borough Council as an asset of community value in 2013, a formal recognition of its place in Peckham’s social fabric.

Claude Champion de Crespigny entertained the Prince Regent at Champion Lodge in 1804 and was created a baronet the following year. His descendant, the fourth baronet — also Claude, born in 1847 — became the most celebrated of the family: a militarist, adventurer, steeple chaser and self-described eccentric who reportedly bribed a hangman for the privilege of assisting at an execution. As noted by SE1 Direct and local sources, the family had long since relocated to Essex when Champion Lodge was demolished in 1841, but their name endures in both Champion Hill and De Crespigny Park.

The ground’s own legend is Edgar Kail, the Dulwich Hamlet striker who joined the club at fifteen in 1915 and became the mainstay of the great inter-war side. Kail earned full England caps — one of only two Hamlet players to do so — and his name now graces the road on which the stadium stands: Edgar Kail Way.

In March 2018, Dulwich Hamlet were forced to leave Champion Hill by Meadow Residential, the property development company that owned the site. The club groundshared at Imperial Fields, the home of Tooting & Mitcham United, for several months — and, in an irony savoured by supporters, it was during this exile that the club won promotion out of the Isthmian League, reaching the National League South for the first time in their history.

The club returned to Champion Hill in December 2018. The record attendance at the rebuilt ground — 3,336 — was set on 8 November 2019, when Dulwich faced Carlisle United in an FA Cup First Round match. The debate over the ground’s long-term future, and the threat of development on the surrounding land, has remained a live issue for the Peckham community and for supporters across non-league football.

Champion Hill remains, above all, a football ground. The covered Tommy Jover main stand runs along the north side of the pitch; the opposite terrace — affectionately known as the “Toilets Opposite” stand — faces it across the turf. The ground is within easy reach of both East Dulwich and Denmark Hill stations, drawing supporters from across Peckham and well beyond. Boundary stones from the old de Crespigny estate, placed in 1806, still survive nearby as the only physical trace of the family whose name the hill carries.