Old Kent Road health centre and a number of primary and secondary schools. Officials have also suggested the development of a "green spine" of parks and green spaces along the mostly disused Surrey Canal. Old Kent Road is the first property square on the British Monopoly board, priced at £60 and forming the brown set along with the similarly working-class Whitechapel Road. It is the only square on the board in South London and south of the Thames. The road makes several appearances in literature. In Charles Dickens' "David Copperfield", the titular character runs down the road trying to escape from London to
Old Kent Road in the area and recalled, "If you weren't into crime, people thought you were a pansy". Draining the Surrey Canal in 1971 uncovered a number of cracked and blown safes that had been thrown in the water. Old Kent Road railway station at the southern end of the road opened in 1866 and closed in 1917. The London City Fire Brigade opened a fire station on the road around 1868. It was subsumed into the London Fire Brigade from its formation and in 1904 was replaced by a new station which was in turn replaced by another on the corner