Norwhere Land

Norwood, owns a sonic vagueness inside its name, 
where it’s neither wood, nor something else, an implied 
other option, a missing word, lost along the way. 

That said, it was once wood: The Northwood, 
not of the NORTH of England, but north of Croydon, 
before you reach the Thames. 

At some point, the old woods were given grandeur, 
redubbed The Great Northwood, a term which stuck, 
almost longer than the trees. 

Further confusion may be found in West
Norwood, which once upon a time was Lower – being 
further down the Big Smoke’s southern slopes than Upper
Norwood, which now is mostly Crystal Palace. 

Come on, keep up. You see, Victorian residents didn’t want
to sound lesser than their neighbours to the south, so they swapped
Lower out, for West, despite the place, if positioned on a map, 
lying north of Upper Norwood, West of Sydenham. 

Clear? That’s West Norwood, in Lambeth, South East London,
but historically of Surrey. No wonder newspapers used to sneer 
at this ‘anonymous South London suburb’. Some even 
termed it West Nowhere, though worse, by far is ‘We Know’ 

A cursed death by pun, thanks to an estate agent without 
a soul. Although, whether they were serious, in the end, 
about this nickname, for a place that is not Brixton, Streatham, 
Dulwich, or Tulse Hill, is really, neither here, nor there.