Our selection of books have been written, edited and published by members of The Blackheath Society. All our books can be bought from the office in The Old Bakehouse during normal office hours, or from the Bookshop on the Heath or Waterstones’ Blackheath Bookshop. 

Blackheath Village & Environs: Volume III
By Neil Rhind MBE FSA

The third volume of Blackheath Village & Environs by the distinguished local historian and Blackheath Society President Neil Rhind has been published by the Society.

The 610 page book has 263 illustrations and maps and covers Lewisham and Lee parishes. Priced at £20, it is available now from the Society and also Waterstones and the Bookshop on the Heath. Society committee member Allan Griffin was the editorial manager for the project.

Available at the Bookshop on the Heath or Waterstones Blackheath Bookshop or from our office in The Old Bakehouse

The Paragon and South Row
By Neil Rhind MBE FSA

Available from Waterstones Blackheath or from our office in the Old Bakehouse.

Road Rage – Fifty Years of Plans for Motorways Through Blackheath
by Paul Wright

In the late 1960s there was a plan to build an eight-lane motorway through the centre of Blackheath Village. In what many regard as its finest hour, the Blackheath Society was instrumental in ensuring that this very real plan never came to fruition. The plan was in fact part of a London-wide scheme which would have seen a ring of mostly elevated motorways around the capital. It was also just one of a number of schemes developed for major roads across Blackheath throughout the twentieth century.

Paul Wright, a long-standing member of the Blackheath Society presented an illustrated talk on these spine-shivering plans in October 2019. He has now produced an illustrated booklet based on the talk, which describes in detail the various ways in which planners sought largely to destroy Blackheath Village by driving major roads through it.

The booklet is available to download as a FREE PDF here.

Walking the Village
by Neil Rhind & Roger Marshall 

Written by Neil Rhind and Roger Marshall, this pocket-size, 90-page colour booklet depicts three walks round the Village and provides a guided tour to more than 250 years of recorded history of one of London’s surviving rural villages.

£10
Available at the Bookshop on the Heath or Waterstones’ Blackheath Bookshop or from our office in The Old Bakehouse

Walking the Heath
by Neil Rhind & Roger Marshall 

This highly successful 80-page booklet covers over 1,000 years of recorded history of one of London’s most attractive and important open spaces. It lists three walks across the Heath with full historical details and many photographs from the Society’s archive.

£10
Available at the Bookshop on the Heath or Waterstones’ Blackheath Bookshop or from our office in The Old Bakehouse

Blackheath Preservation Trust 1938 - 2016
by John Bartram

The BPT was founded in1938, one year after the Society, to buy local buildings under threat of demolition to preserve, enhance and then sell them on into safe ownership. Much of today’s built environment was preserved thanks to its efforts. The BPT was taken over by the Society in 2010 and wound up in 2016, when better planning regulations and a greater interest in preserving older buildings meant its work was no longer needed. The 40-page book, written and edited by John Bartram, tells the full story of the BPT with details of the buildings preserved. 

Available from our office in The Old Bakehouse or download a pdf version here

Guardians of the Heath
by Felix Barker and Tony Aldous

Written by former Evening News journalist Felix Barker, with an update by Tony Aldous, this 144-page book provides a chronicle of battles fought by the Blackheath Society from its foundation in 1937 up to 2008. It languished unpublished in the Society’s archive, was rediscovered after the Millennium, and published to celebrate the Society’s 70th birthday. The book contains a full history of the Society’s achievements during its first 50 years with a summary of events after then.

NON-MEMBERS PRICE: £5
Available at the Bookshop on the Heath or Waterstones’ Blackheath Bookshop or from our office in The Old Bakehouse