Thornton Heath

Thornton Heath is where South London buyers end up after doing the Streatham sums twice and getting the same answer. The railway turned a farmhouse and a pond into a suburb in about fifty years, and the place has been organised around getting to Victoria ever since. Its best-known landmark, Thornton Heath Pond, is a road junction with a bus garage on it, which tells you exactly how sentimental the locals are about water. People come for the Edwardian terrace they could actually afford, then spend the next decade telling friends in Clapham how close it is to Streatham.