Cultural Rights and Oral Histories
Gypsy and Traveller communities
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Guardians of South London's Woods
Funded by
Guardians Tree Rescue Hub at Dulwich Wood, October 2023
Video: James Berridge
'Guardians of the Great North Wood' is a 16-month project funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and facilitated by Guardians Worldwide that has engaged English Gypsy, Roma and Traveller artists from around the UK in an appreciation of Romany culture, especially in relation to the oral history of the Norwood Gypsies in Southeast London. ​ Guardians Worldwide has facilitated several community public events, research events and commissions that commemorate the rich heritage of Romany people in South East London. The oral history of Romany communities that lived in,  and looked after, the forests of South East London goes back several centuries. Between the 17th and mid 19th century, the Great North Wood on the outskirts of the city of London provided a home for many Gypsy and Traveller communities. In 1824, the Vagrancy Act (otherwise known as the 'Act for the Punishment of idle and disorderly Persons, Rogues and Vagabonds') was passed in Parliament, targeting Roma and Traveller communities specifically. The Norwood Gypsies were forcefully and violently evicted from their homes, and the woodlands they protected for centuries were passed onto commercial real estate, which led to widespread deforestation across South East London and beyond. In a book titled 'Norwood and Dulwich Past and Present,' published in 1890, Allan M Galer wrote: 'The village of Norwood is delightfully situated in the skirts of an extensive wood, and has long been famed for the salubrity of its air and the beauty of its surrounding scenery. In olden time the nut-brown Gipsy pitched his camp under the shades of its forest: to them the lovesick maid and the anxious swain resorted to have destinies unravelled by, but the improvements that covered the uninhabited heath and the tangled forest with villas have driven these people to pursue their vocation in a distant land. The ancient allurement of Norwood has passed away, and an attraction more adapted to the mode of thinking of the present age has arisen.'
The fifteen Gypsy women buried in Old Dulwich Cemetery, in Southeast London, are unnamed. All but one. Her name was Bridget, and she was known as the Queen of the Gypsies. She was part of a famous line of Gypsy queens that lived in, and looked after, the woodlands of Norwood during the 18th and early 19th century.
Place names like Gypsy Hill, Romany Road and Gypsy Road are a faint memory in this part of London of what were once the haunts of the famous Norwood Gypsies.
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​Portrait of Margaret Finch, Queen of the Gypsies sitting inside a hollow oak with her dog (1742).
Bridget inherited the title of Queen of the Norwood Gypsies from her aunt, Margaret Finch. Upon her death, Bridget passed on the title to her daughter, named Margaret after the first queen of Norwood.
Margaret Finch, was born in Sutton in 1632. Southwark resident John Keats famously mentioned Queen Margaret in his poem Meg Merrilies, from 1818, dedicated to a fictional Gypsy Queen from Kirkcudbrightshire, in Scotland.
For most of her long and extraordinary life, Margaret Finch lived in a small wooden house in what is known today as Finch Avenue, in Gypsy Hill. The area is of course named after the Romany settlements that for almost three centuries stood in the green uplands of Norwood.
Given the proximity to London and Croydon, Norwood was an ideal stopping place for travelling Gypsy families.
Finch Avenue in Gypsy Hill, named after Margaret Finch, Queen of the Norwood Gypsies
Margaret is said to have spent most of her days inside a hollow oak tree with her dog. After she died, Queen Margaret had to be placed upright in a box because her limbs could not be moved from her crouching position. She is also said to have spent her days sitting on the lychgate of St George's Church, where she performed oracles and read people's fortunes. Following her death in 1740 at the grand age of 108, Margaret Finch was buried at St George's in Beckenham in front of a crowd of hundreds of mourners, such was her reputation.
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​​Like her famous aunt, Bridget was deeply connected to nature, to the woods especially. According to her biographer John Parkins, Mother Bridget nursed 100 pets in her woodland hut in Norwood. She could read the future by divining the air, the flight of birds or the sound of wind in the leaves, which she called 'the silent language'.
She was also, like her aunt Margaret, an avid smoker.
Mother Bridget depicted as a witch, taken from The Universal Fortune-teller (1790)
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Bridget was illiterate, like most Gypsy women at the time. Even so, she invented her own writing system to note down her knowledge of nature. She managed to have a book written down for her, which transcribed her views on fortune-telling and human fate. The only surviving portrait of Bridget, made by an unnamed Georgian illustrator several decades after her death, depicted her as a sinister witch, a poignant example of Romany stereotypes and racial discrimination in 18th century Britain.
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A memorial to Margaret Finch at the entrance to Norwood Park in Southeast London.
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Mother Bridget had a daughter, Margaret, named after Margaret Finch. Margaret the Second also became known as Queen of the Gypsies. After Bridget's death in 1754, Bridget was buried in Old Dulwich Cemetery along with fifteen unnamed Gypsy women from the forest encampments in Norwood.
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The Gypsy Queens of Norwood
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Old Meg she was a Gipsy,
And liv'd upon the Moors:
Her bed it was the brown heath turf,
And her house was out of doors.
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Her Brothers were the craggy hills,
Her Sisters larchen trees—
Alone with her great family
She liv'd as she did please.
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John Keats
Meg of Merrilies, 1818
We remember three generations of women who lived in, and looked after, the forests of Norwood, Sydenham, Dulwich, Gypsy Hill, Dawson Hill and other areas in South East London. Thanks to these and many other Gypsy woodland guardians, these areas are still green and tree-covered to this day.
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Margaret Finch, Queen of the Norwood Gypsies (1632?-1740)
Mother Bridget, Queen of the Norwood Gypsies (?- 1768)
Margaret the Second, Queen of the Norwood Gypsies (?-1789)
Memorial stone of the old village docks (1760) now kept in Old Dulwich Cemetery, where Bridget is buried along with fifteen unnamed Gypsy women from the camps in Norwood.
Re-imagining the past
Traditional vardo or Gypsy caravan bequeathed by Guardians friend Neil Catchpole in Kent
Below are some of the works commissioned as part of this project. We are extremely fortunate to collaborate with three generations of Romany artists: Rhona Iris, Damian Le Bas and Richard O'Neill.
With follow-on support from our funders, we hope to commission more work from Romany artists to continue sharing with the public the rich oral tradition of Romany forest guardians in London.
An illustration of the Gypsies' House, close to where Queen Bridget would have lived, in Norwood (1808)
To The Sydenham ‘Gipseys’
Damian Le Bas
26th-27th July 2024​​​
Damian Le Bas is a Romany poet, author and film-maker. He is the author of The Stopping Places: a Journey through Gypsy Britain (Penguin, 2018). 'To the Sydenham Gypseys' was commissioned as part of the Nomad Stories of the Wood event organised by Guardians Worldwide in July 2024.
In eighteen hundred and ninety one The government men came around to measure the people of old Lewis ham And the numbers that were to be found And they walked upon the old green Where the commoners used to be seen And they scoured the roads And they scoured the land Where the ancient Westwood used to stand. And the trees and the commons are penned and cut down But the Travellers’ descendants still walk in the town. In those days they would write the word ‘Gipsey’ If that’s what they believed you to be And they would not ask for your permission And they would not allow you to see For a ‘Gipsey’ could not read the writing And nor did they have any right To examine the thoughts of the wise men And so it should be no surprise then That so few did declare of their race And would only be chalked up as Gipseys If discovered in some ‘Gipsey place.’ And the trees and the commons are penned and cut down But the Travellers’ descendants still walk in the town. And a ‘Gipsey place’ meant by roadside Or a ‘Gipsey place’ meant on the grass Or it meant in the last of the trees that were left After England had hacked all its forest to death And it meant that you slept ‘under canvass’ Whether that meant a wagon or tent As though sleeping beneath thatch or tiles Would mean you were a Gipsey no more And they looked not for Gipseys in houses And their word would be history’s law. And the trees and the commons are penned and cut down But the Travellers’ descendants still walk in the town. In 1891 they discovered Those officials and qualified men That in Sydenham there were some ‘Gipseys’ And the number it was six and ten. Three families they found, and a loner, And these were the details they gave. Samuel Harris, a labourer, single; Who was born in 1839. And Matilda Kent, born in the same year, Who had two sons and one daughter fine, And a title they gave to Matilda: The name ‘head’ of the family, they gave, And they gave the name ‘head’ to Matilda For her husband was laid in the grave. And the trees and the commons are penned and cut down But the Travellers’ descendants still walk in the town. And of the name Kent there were others: William, and his wife, Caroline; And a daughter they had, with four brothers, Aged 12, 10, 7, one month, and 9. And they dwelt in old Saint Michael’s crescent, In the location of Syden ham, And of course they were spotted for Gipseys For they dwelt in an old caravan, And if they were the blood of Matilda, Then to ask them we no longer can. And the trees and the commons are penned and cut down But the Travellers’ descendants still walk in the town. And they found just one more Gipsey family Those men with the pens and the page, And this was the family of Solomon Hearn, Who was of twenty three years of age. And his wife Mary Ann she was older than he By the measure of four years she was, And two little boys she had born him, Baby Johnny and young Solomon. And this was the list of the Gipseys Of Lewisham and Sydenham. And the trees and the commons are penned and cut down But the Travellers’ descendants still walk in the town. We don’t know what they did for a living For the details they did not write down But the ‘Gipseys’ would bring in the harvest When the summer would lead them from town. They would gather the hops in September And the berries when summer came round And clear fields and lay hedges in winter And deal horses to make a few pound. And some men nudged ahead of the others When they took up the old metal trade And some women earned more than their brothers When they saw there was gold to be made. And the trees and the commons are penned and cut down But the Travellers’ descendants still walk in the town. At this point in the song you might ask me Why sir, have you given account Of the names and the ages of people And their dwelling place, and their amount When they are dead, and you don’t know them, Not their faces, their voices or names? But do they not deserve to be honoured Like the forests and commons long gone, Over which common people have long lost their claims? Would forgetting them not be a shame upon shames? And the trees and the commons are penned and cut down But the Travellers’ descendants still walk in the town. But not every tree was uprooted And not every campsite was barred And not every tether was severed To the past that was precious and hard. For one hundred and twenty years later The officials and qualified men Came again to the last of the North Wood With computers, and paper and pen. And they counted four hundred and ninety Of Travelling people who lived In old Sydenham’s place and environs Irish, Romany Gypsy, and New, And they counted beside them the Roma Who had recently come to their view. And the trees and the commons are penned and cut down But the Travellers’ descendants still walk in the town
Romany master storyteller and wood artist Richard O'Neill tells stories of the old nomad ways at Grange Lane Rescue Hub, July 2024
Tales from the Toymaker
with Richard O'Neill
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Richard O’Neill is a fifth generation internationally acclaimed toy maker and storyteller, a number of his wooden toys are in museums and art galleries.
The beloved family story of Mr Lurnk and the Guardians of the Forest, performed at Grange Lane Tree Rescue Hub, interweaves the connectedness and interdependence of Gypsy people with their environment, especially trees.
From the ancient Egyptians to Rajasthan to Pinnochio, from peg dolls, to the traditional seaside Punch and Judy, to filling the void left by toy factory closures during second world war. Wooden toys made by craftsmen and used by storytellers have a long and magical history and it’s easy to see why. They have encouraged imagination helped to develop empathy and friendships, brought joy and comfort. They have inspired writers and readers through the ages and they are still inspiring children and adults today, everywhere from live performance to books and major films. ​ Every toymaker had their own way of making them and their own preferred timber, many of the designs were handed down through the generations from toy maker to toy maker. Some of the most interesting and best toys were made by the Travelling craftspeople from the Romani community. Clothes peg dolls to jig dolls used by professional musicians and entertainers, a huge variety of wonderful toys all hand made and finished in natural wood or skillfully decorated with paint and varnish