Friends of One Tree Hill

HUGE thanks to everyone who braved Storm Bert to come to our ‘RADICAL HISTORY / FUTURE ECOLOGY’ walk at the end of last year.

At least 60 people came along — a real demonstration of how important One Tree Hill is to people from the area, and beyond. Thanks also to our speakers Alex of @past_tense_histories and Dan @danhancox as well as our august chair John @southlondonlandscape

If you missed the talk or want to follow up, do get in touch — we’ve got lots of material to share, and Alex’s pamphlet ‘Rights if Common’ has just been reprinted! And do make sure you follow Dan’s Substack, ‘Honor Oak Riot’.

Here goes this utterly terrible but very stirring poem, published on the occasion of the success of the campaign to save the Hill, which Alex read with such gusto:

Let’s twine a laurel wreath for those
To whom the debt is due.
And write each name on deathless scroll
In letter bold and true.
For ne’er did fight for land and right
The heart of London thrill
As did that grand historic rush
That won us One Tree Hill!

They sowed a seed that Sabbath day
That’s blossomed into life;
They smashed the planks of legal cranks,
Of grabbing and of strife.
And while a hill or tree shall stand,
They’ll tell, as years roll by,
The stirring tale of One Tree Hill
That looms o’er Peckham Rye! 

And this quote from Nadia Shaikh’s inspirational essay on ‘Recommoning’, published in the Right to Roam book Wild Service (2024):

“Recommoning is a different way of looking at our collective relationship with land as we currently know it. It involves everyone in the actions required to restore nature through service. It is designing systems so that even though a person might not have ‘warden’ in their job title or their name in title deeds to a piece of earth, we still have agency to be a guardian and can practically do something to contribute.”