Extracts from the article:

Consume - Homes - Streets of London - Honor Oak Park, SE23;
With talk of a new bakery and the East London Line on its way, could Timothy Spall's old manor be on the up? Jessica Cargill-Thompson scales the Hornimans to find out.

Like its neighbours Nunhead and Forest Hill, Honor Oak is often talked of locally as 'up and coming'. Its Mediterranean deli displays adverts for a gazebo maker, private drum tuition and a local art and crafts open day. Meanwhile, contributors to online discussion forum se23.com (any area with aspirations must have one) talk excitedly about the opening of a new bread shop, where to find the best doctor's practice, and the local Italian restaurant making it into Hardens.
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A transitional mix of shops, cafes and restaurants line the main road: a toys and gifts shop, mid-century furniture dealer, Italian restaurant as well as a Cypriot travel agent and strip of unreconstructed fried food outlets. Across the junction around Brockley Rise is another burst of activity with a Caribbean health food shop, genteel secondhand shop, and an upmarket Indian restaurant (Babur Brasserie, 119 Stondon Park; 020 8291 4881). Keeping things grounded is The Chandos, a big traditional pub showing Sky Sports.

The woods of One Tree Hill dominate the area, one of the highest - and steepest - points of south London with dramatic views across the city in one direction and out to Kent in the other. Clinging to the slopes down from Honor Oak Road are rambling Victorian and Edwardian villas in varying states of repair, 1930s semis, low-rise blocks of flats, and Walter Segal's pioneering 1970s and 1980s timber frame self-build project. Most streets are architecturally mixed and some require crampons; those to the west (behind the Horniman Museum) have been dubbed 'The Hornimans' by estate agents to denote desirability. In contrast, downhill on the eastern side of the railway line, neat rows of Victorian, Edwardian and inter-war terraces characterise the flat low ground off Brockley Rise and Stondon Park.

The area has long been undervalued, though residents of south-west London, as well as Canary Wharf and Highbury, are starting to cotton on, encouraged by the promise of the East London Line extension in 2010 and big commercial and retail development in nearby Lewisham. Desirable streets include Devonshire Road, a long leafy road with plenty of flats, and the quieter streets around Bovill and Garthorne Roads.