Opened in 1901 and was designed by Charles Harrison Townsend in the Modern Style. It has displays of anthropology, natural history and musical instruments, and is known for its large collection of taxidermied animals, including the worlds first taxidermy of a walrusThe building is Grade II* listed.

The museum was founded in 1901 by Frederick John Horniman. Frederick had inherited his father's Horniman's Tea business, which by 1891 had become the world's biggest tea trading business.

The proceeds from the business allowed Horniman to indulge his lifelong passion for collecting, and which after travelling extensively had some 30,000 items in his various collections, covering natural history, cultural artefacts and musical instruments.

A 20 ft (6.1 m) totem pole, carved from red cedar, stands outside the museum's main entrance. It was carved in 1985 as part of the American Arts Festival by Nathan Jackson, a Tlingit native Alaskan.

On the London Road wall of the main building is a neoclassical mosaic mural entitled Humanity in the House of Circumstance, designed by Robert Anning Bell and assembled by a group of young women over the course of 210 days. Composed of more than 117,000 individual tesserae, it measures 10 ft × 32 ft (3.0 m × 9.8 m) and symbolises personal aspirations and limitations.

In 1809, the Croydon Canal opened, however, the large number of locks (28) meant it was not a commercial success, and it was bought by the London & Croydon Railway Company who used the alignment to construct the London Bridge to Croydon railway line opening in 1839.

The ponds in the Dacres Wood Nature Reserve and the retaining wall of the footpath opposite the station outside The Signal pub are about the only physical evidence of the canal which still exist.

The German Church Sydenham was founded in 1876 by wealthy German businessmen and craftsmen who moved out of the city of London to the quiet suburb of Forest Hill. Forest Hill, Sydenham and Crystal Palace housed one of the major German communities in London, composed mostly of wealthy merchants, with a sprinkling of musicians and artists.

During World War II the church building was destroyed by German bombs. In 1959, a new building was erected on the site which remains the centre point of our church community today, and the church was named after Dietrich Bonhoeffer  who  was the minister of the German congregation from 1933 to 1935

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was the minister of the German congregation from 1933 to 1935. The congregation feels a special responsibility to honour his spiritual and ethical legacy to this day.