Annual Forest Hill subway clean

Last Saturday, 26th July, we did our annual clean of the pedestrian subway under the railway line. We hope you'll agree that the subway looks sparkling again - enjoy that while it lasts!

The subway looking clean and shiny again.

This year only 4 volunteers participated, which under normal circumstances would be enough for a fairly undemanding clean. However, over the past year the subway has been the target of fly posting and graffiti, and while Lewisham Council does remove the posters and graffiti, some adhesive and spray paint remains on the panels because it's so difficult to remove.

We weren't sure if the adhesive could be removed with household cleaning products, but we hadn't factored in the determination of our volunteers. After 2 hours of arduous scraping and scrubbing, spending up to 20 minutes on a single panel, we were delighted to see that almost all the adhesive had been removed. There is some left on three of the panels but we'll be back to sort that out, after our arms have stopped aching.

Sweeping and scrubbing.

Scraping off stubborn adhesive.

During the clean there was encouragement and positive feedback from passers-by, and some hands-on help from a very young child who was fascinated by the cleaning (and whose mother is probably now wondering how to entice the child into helping with housework).

Many thanks to our volunteers for their time and hard work. The clean really does improve the appearance of the subway and we'd be delighted if more people came along to help next year.

Update 3 August 2025

Well that didn't last long - a week later and the subway had been tagged again.

Graffiti in the subway.