Most of the area remained agricultural until the mid nineteenth century, the most notable building of the time being the ’Brockley Jack’ (since rebuilt), a large Victorian public house which today houses the Brockley Jack Theatre. Brockley Hall (demolished 1931) stood nearby and this area formed the original small hamlet of Brockley. The name Crofton Park was invented by the railway company for its new station and has no historical significance. Brockley market gardens were famous for their enormous Victoria rhubarb which were fertilised by ’night soil’ from London. There were orchards too and some ancient fruit trees survive in local gardens. Until the late 19th century a small river flowed northward from Crofton Park and east of Malpas Rd to join the River Thames via Deptford Creek. It is now covered over.

Industrial development arrived in 1809 in the form of the Croydon Canal running from Croydon to Bermondsey. This was later filled in and replaced by the London & Croydon railway which runs through the original canal cutting between Brockley (opened in 1871) and New Cross Gate stations. Some of the oldest houses in Brockley are the cottages and shops which form a small terrace on Coulgate Street, just east of Brockley station. These are believed to date from 1833 and were probably originally associated with the canal. From 1872 until 1917, Brockley Lane railway station provided access to the Greenwich Park branch line and the remains of the old station entrance are still visible at Brockley Cross.

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the Tyrwhitt-Drake family developed the north side of Brockley with grand villas, large terraces and semi-detached houses. Development started south of Lewisham Way in the late 1840s with the modest cottages at 2-22 Upper Brockley Rd and spread south and east towards Hilly Fields. In 1900 Chalsey Rd was the last road to be completed within the current conservation area. However, open farmland remained south of Brockley Grove and west of the railway line into the early 1930s.

Being under the bomber flight path to the London docks, the area suffered significant V-2 rocket and other bomb damage in World War II The post-war blocks of council flats at the south end of Wickham Rd and at the west end of Adelaide Avenue are evidence of this. During the Second World War, an anti-aircraft gun implacement was located on Hilly Fields.

After the Second World War, most of the big houses were sub-divided into multiple occupation. In the 1950s and 1960s these houses provided accommodation for the recently arrived African-Caribbean population, many of whom found employment in nearby Deptford. In 1948, five passengers bound for England from Jamaica on the ship Empire Windrush gave Wickham Road as their intended destination on arrival in London. Other migrants came from Europe and Asia.

From the mid-1960s artists (some associated with nearby Goldsmiths College) started to move into the large and at the time neglected houses on Manor Avenue, beginning the process of ’gentrification’ which continues today.

Brockley station was opened on 6 March 1871, although today’s buildings are of a modern design.

Brockley forms part of the southbound extension of the East London Line that opened on 23 May 2010 and forms part of the London Overground network.