As NICK RUTHERFORD discovers, there are some interesting stories behind Hither Green's past, including the Black Death, a hospital and a famous author.

TELL anyone you live in Hither Green and the chances are the reply will be: "Hither where?"

Surprising perhaps, as the suburb has been established for around 110 years and was so called because it was closer to Lewisham than the now-forgotten Further Green at Verdant Lane, by the modern South Circular Road.

Prior to this it really did live up to the old cliche "it used to be all fields round here".

In the Middle Ages there was a hamlet called Romborough which stood near the site of the present-day station but this was wiped out by the Black Death in the mid-14th Century.

In one of those strange quirks of fate, when the area started to be developed around the turn of the last century it was sickness which helped put it back on the map.

The Park Fever Hospital was opened in 1897 for the treatment of infectious diseases such as scarlet fever and diphtheria.

After the Second World War, during which it was severely bomb damaged, the hospital opened up to general patients and only closed nine years ago. It has since been redeveloped as upmarket housing.

But the thing which really opened up Hither Green was the arrival of the railway.

Prior to this, by the early 19th Century there were a few fine country houses, languishing in rolling countryside.

One of these was owned by Sir Francis Baring of Barings Bank - made famous by rogue trader Nick Leeson in the 1990s.

The grounds are now open to the public - but not dogs - as Manor Gardens.

When the railway station opened in 1895, Scottish property developer Archibald Corbett seized the opportunity to snap up 278 acres of land on the east side of the station.

He built more than 3,000 homes between 1896 and 1913, costing between £215 and £470. Prices now start from around £250,000.

Anyone who lives in the area who has wondered about the lack of pubs in the area also has Mr Corbett to thank.

Lewisham East MP Bridget Prentice, who lives near Manor Park, said: "He was a strict Presbyterian. He thought it would be better to build houses with bigger gardens for the working classes because it would offer them a healthier lifestyle than pubs."

One of the more well-known former residents of Hither Green was Edith Nesbit, author of The Railway Children, as well as many other books.

She lived in Baring Road and was a founding member of the Fabian Society in the 1890s.

In Hither Green cemetery, which sprawls along along the side of Verdant Lane, there is a Railway Children walk, named in her memory.

On a sadder note, the cemetery is also home to a mass grave for 33 of the victims of a German bomb which landed at the nearby Sandhurst Road School in 1943.

The bomb killed 38 children and six members of staff.

Quite a lot of history for somewhere no-one has heard of.