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Court Road

An attractive, winding road with many fine trees, and a number large late 19th century detached houses, interspersed with modern houses and blocks of flats.  The road was constructed after the opening of Mottingham Station in 1866; followed the line of an old track, which led to Chapel Farm in Mottingham.  The west side was developed in the 1870s, the east side mainly in the 1890s.  Many houses are of yellow brick, others of red brick.  There is little uniformity design, though prominent gabled bays and a varied roof outline are common feature

62 the most impressive house very tall with chequer-board stone entrance stairway leading up to an imposing porch;

Old coach house adjacent.

50 with tower-like bay.

21 built c1905, with its conical over a projecting corner bay

87 with its distinctive woodwork and window patterns

105 with decorative stonework.

Eltham Lodge.  One of the finest classical mansions in London built 1664. The palace lands were leased by Charles II to Sir John Shaw, who built Eltham Lodge for himself in the middle of the former Great Park. Sir John Shaw, a wealthy vintner and banker. Evelyn visited him at the Lodge, though his opinion of the house was not high.  Pepys called him 'a miracle of a man' and 'a very grave and fine gentleman'. Shaw leased the Eltham estate from the Crown in 1663, left the palace site to be used as farm buildings, and built himself this new house. It is an outstanding example of early Restoration domestic design. May belonged, with Roger North, Sir Roger Pratt, and William Samwell, to the group of gentlemen architects patronized by the court and its circle after the Restoration. Later he was one of the surveyors responsible for the government's negotiations with the City of London after the Fire. Eltham Lodge is one of his first known works, which displays a restrained elegance achieved through a mature acceptance of classical forms, which owes much to Dutch precedent. The interior was extensively refurbished in the mid 18th century.  From 1840 to 1889, the tenant was Anne Wood, aunt of Charles Stewart Pamell's mistress Kitty O'Shea. It was due to Mrs. Wood's objections that the first railway line to Eltham was in 1866 routed to the south of Great Park.  Since 1923, it has been the clubhouse of the Royal Blackheath Golf Club, though it remains on Crown land.  The Club (which claims to be the world's oldest golf club) moved here from Blackheath in 1923 to merge with the Eltham Golf Club, which had occupied the grounds since 1892.  The building is harmonious and extremely graceful.  The symmetrical layout shows the enormous influence of the Queen's House. The north face has the giant pilasters and crowning pediment while the south side is more demure. Originally, the windows were mullioned; the complete confidence expressed in the design is quite remarkable considering its period.  It is a compact rectangular block, two storeys with basement and dormers, red brick with stone dressings. The front is seven bays wide, the three-bay centre on the entrance side distinguished by slim giant pilasters and a pediment with garlands and coat of arms, very Dutch. The unexpected depth of the house is explained by the plan, a roughly symmetrically disposed triple pile, with a central entrance hall leading to the staircases which occupy nearly the whole of the middle section. The main entrance front facing north is particularly elegant, with its classical door case, giant Ionic pilasters and fine pediment containing garlands and coat of arms.  The garden front facing south is also highly attractive; the porch was probably added later.   The interior includes the Main Staircase, the Secretary's Office, and the O'Shea Room.  There are a number of rooms with fine fireplaces, mainly mid 18th century, and plaster ceilings, some quite extravagantly decorated.  The front entrance leads straight into the Hall, which has a screen of two pairs of Ionic columns, added later, separating it from the Inner Hall and the two staircases.  Beyond the Inner Hall is the Anteroom, which leads to the garden porch.  The rooms of principal interest on the ground floor are on either side of the Hall, and on cither side of the Anteroom.  To the left of the Hall is the Secretary's Office.  This is sumptuously decorated, with very lovely and quite elaborate rococo plasterwork on the walls and ceiling.  There is a fine wooden chimneypiece, the upper part with a framed painting of a classical scene.  To the right of the Hall is the Nineteenth Hole, a small bar, with a pleasing wooden chimneypiece.  To the left of the Anteroom is the Ladies Lounge, with an elegant chimneypiece and intricate plasterwork on the ceiling.  To the right of the Ante-Room is the Bar, with an extraordinary chimneypiece of white and pink Carrara marble - note the carved rams on either side of a carved panel showing cherubs shearing a sheep.  The Main Staircase is to the right of the Inner Hall and retains the original woodwork; it has fantastic and intricate carving, with pine panels of foliage and Cherubs, and posts topped by floral urns.  The ceiling has, amongst ample plasterwork, very densely carved oval garland, which formerly framed a painting.  On the walls are portraits of Sir John Shaw and family.  To the left of the upstairs landing is the Billiard Room, with a marble chimneypiece and intricate plasterwork on the ceiling with great fluted Corinthian pilasters at the pest end, remaining from a screen of columns.  To the right is the Captain's Room, with an elegant Wedgwood style plasterwork ceiling, and finely carved door case, chimneypiece and the Dining Room, with densely carved plasterwork the ceiling.  Opposite the head of the Main Staircase is a door leading to a corridor, off which the left is the O'Shea Room. This small room, beautiful and refined, was probably decorated c1750.  It is divided by a finely carved round-arched part-screen resting on Corinthian columns.  There is a chimneypiece, surmounted by a handsomely framed painting of St.Jerome.  A staircase leads to a museum in the attic, containing 18th and 19th century golf clubs, golfing trophies etc, as well as the original lease of the house. 

The golf course and the grounds. There are belts of woodland with a large pond.  In the north-east of the grounds is a smaller pond, surrounded by willow trees-, which has a large population of great crested newts, a rare and nationally protected species.

There are sections of brick wall, largely 17th century, both to the east and to the west of the house. Nearer to the Tarn is a selection of wet land plants.

 Cottage, of 17th century structure but substantially altered and extended in the early 19th century;

Wooden garden pavilion, early 19th century. 

St.John's Path

202-208 Victorian housing. Follow a similar pattern to West Park

501-503 Victorian housing

185  Royal Tavern.  Pleasant pub with unusual plastered walls and ceiling in Saloon bar. Live music

Court Yard

The section of this street from Tilt Yard Approach south to the moat formed the Green Court of Eltham Palace, and retains something of its atmosphere.  The only remains of the Court now are the Lord Chancellor's Lodgings.  Where medieval markets held

18-24

26

32/32a behind the early 18th century frontage is the Tudor timber structure of the buttery, a service building to the Lodgings.  

32-38 Lord Chancellors Lodgings.  Tudor, 34 the parlour, 36 the hall and 38.  The great chamber.  Framed in dark irregular Tudor beams, the last 16th century buildings of the Chancellor's lodgings present an elegant reminder of Wolsey's age.  They formed part of the Green Courtyard, which overlooked the palace itself.  Much restored and converted to three houses.  It preserves early 16th century timber framing with a continuous overhang on the exterior; there are later brick extensions at the rear.

34 was the parlour,

36 with the oriel window the Hall

38, the impressive projecting house, the Great Chamber.

Bramber House.  Post war is built on the sites of other Tudor service buildings.

Chaundrye Close a group cl960 further north in Court Yard going towards Wythfield Road was built on the site of the Outer Courtyard.  Tudor walls Chancery Close where candles were made

Crown

Old walling on both sides of the road, contributing to the atmosphere, in lengthy stretches.  The date of these walls is uncertain; they may have been erected here in the 18th century, though parts of the brickwork may be older.

Orchard House.  Post war is built on the sites of other Tudor service buildings.

The Gatehouse the large house with half-timbered gables at the junction with Tilt Yard Approach is located alongside the site of the original gatehouse to the Green Court.  It was built in 1914; note the Tudor rose and portcullis designs on the porch.

United Reform Church 1936.  Walls round the Gate House

Eltham Palace,

Old palace at the end of an unobtrusive little lane.  The medieval remains of the great palace buildings.

Still straddling the moat is the ancient 15th century bridge, beneath which swans continue to paddle in the quiet water.  Four Gothic arches, dates from c14th when the previous bridge was improved.  From here there is an excellent view of moat, and of the north range of the moat wall, which is stone of c 1315 in the low parts and brick of the late 15th century above; note the large irregular bastion at north-west corner, and the smaller projecting bastion at the north-east corner of the bridge.  A lion and unicorn from the Houses of Parliament were incorporated into the wall in the 1930s.

Fragment of the Tudor gatehouse.

The Great Hall like the bridge, was built by Edward IV cl480.  The stone-faced exterior of the north wall with its high-placed windows may be considered somewhat featureless, though note the grotesque heads, and the fine bay at the end with double rows of windows.  Note also Edward IV's emblem 'rose en soleil' the spandrels above the entrance archway.  The original brick construction of the Great Hall can be seen on the west above the single storey extension, which is of 1936.  At the west end of the extensions a modem bronze statue of Jason by Alfred Hardiman.  The interior is outstanding; it is one of the finest medieval hall interiors in the country, and has a magnificent hammer beam roof.  The entrance door leads straight into the screens passage, with its two adjacent doorways, which used to lead into the old kitchen, and the hall itself is to the right.  The hall is an intriguing, and generally successful, mixture of features remaining from the original building (though mainly restored, or rebuilt as virtually identical reproductions), and embellishments added by Courtauld during the 1930s.  Original features include: the long hammer beam roof made of chestnut wood, with elaborate pendants; the screen at the east end; the central louvre, now closed up (originally for a fire below); and at the west end, the fine stone fan vaulting over the bay windows, and the doorways in the bays which used to lead into the Royal Apartments.  The minstrels gallery above the screen, the canopied reredos at the west end, the curtains and the stained glass were all added as part of the 1930s restoration, and the ornately carved 18th century furniture was imported at that time.  Stark stone image of Edward IV's celebrated Great Hall, standing virtually unaltered.  Hammer beam roof the third largest in the country after Westminster and Christchurch, oxford.  With its high windows and central louver (originally open to allow a fire below) it represents the epitome of the late medieval hall.

Excavations area.  The stone remains of the excavations are 14th century and the brick remains late 15th or early 16th century.

A Tudor vaulted passage leading down to the moat can be seen.

Long stretch of the foundations of the Royal Apartments, which may have been built by Henry Vlll in the mid 1520s; they were originally as high as the Great Hall.  Footings of bay windows are clearly visible, also the corridor between the windows and the moat wall.

Lower part of a stonewall with buttresses c1300, and beyond a later flight of steps.  In this section, which is quite extensive, remains of some underground passages and chambers can also be seen.  At this point, there is a good view of the moat, and of part of the west moat wall with its series of late 15th century brick buttress-like bays.

Marble wellhead on the lawn to the east is 18th century Italian, imported in the 1930s.  The well itself is much older, as are the underground passages leading from the well to the moat wall.

Fragmentary section of the cloister of the Great Court, the inner wall of stone and the outer wall of brick.

Octagonal corner turret - remains of three sides of part of Bishop Bek's house c1300

Upper part of the Tudor north moat wall, stretching as far as the bridge; brick, with tiny round-headed openings.  Note the large projecting bastion at the northwest comer.  In 1976/8 an undercroft and a section of tiled pavement from the original manor 'house cl300, and the foundations of Henry VIII's chapel were excavated, but these are now hidden beneath the lawn.  The excavations also found traces of 11th century buildings, as well as Roman roof tiles and Saxon pottery.

Foundations of the Royal Palace.  Almost the complete moat walls remain, dating back to the early 14th century;

Remains of three sides of an octagonal corner turret of Bishop Bek's house cl300.

Upper part of the Tudor north moat wall, stretching as far as the bridge; it is of brick, with tiny round-headed openings.  Note the large projecting bastion at the north-west comer.  In 1976/8 an undercroft and a section of tiled pavement from the original manor ', house c1300, and the foundations of Henry VIII's chapel were excavated, but these are now hidden beneath the lawn.  The excavations also found traces of 11th century buildings, as well as Roman roof tiles and Saxon pottery.)

The west side of the Great Court the basements of the King's apartments, the ancient brickwork receding into the ground

 Situated on a high hill in northern Kent, it was an ideal residence for monarchs constantly making their way to defend and extend their continental lands, near enough to London to carry out important business, but sufficiently distant to maintain freedom and independence from the pressures of the city.

Like Greenwich, the manor of Eltham, or 'Alteham', belonged to the half-brother of William the Conqueror, Bishop Odo.  In 1297 Edward, I signed a confirmation of the Magna Carta and Charter of the Forests there.  Bishop Bek of Durham rebuilt the manor house into a moated castle, and in 1305, he gave it to the Prince of Wales, later Edward 11.  The lower moat walls are Bek's and the remains of an octagonal turret in the south-west corner of the moated area is all that survives of Bek's four-turreted castle.  Edward II may have settled it on Prince John.  Since Edward II was subsequently deposed and the citizens of London revolted in Prince John's name, a legend grew up about 'King John's Palace', but this is not true - his brother Edward became king as Edward III.  Another John appeared at Eltham palace in the mid-14th century - King John of France, or Jean le Bon, who was captured at Poitiers and held to ransom for four years in London.  He came to Eltham on parole to hunt and dine with the King, bringing chronicler Froissant with him.  Chaucer, the poet, was Clerk of the Works at the Manor of Eltham, and Henry IV, V, and VI, all used Eltham.  Henry Vl's wife, Margaret of Anjou wanted the Duke of Gloucester's residence at Greenwich.  Edward IV, who succeeded Henry VI, became famous for rebuilt the moat bridge in brick and stone, for him the Great Hall was completed in 1482.  Henry VII and Henry VIII both used Eltham frequently for their palace and both made extensive alterations.  Cardinal Wolsey was made Lord Chancellor of England in the Royal Chapel, which stood parallel to the north side of the Great Hall.  Henry VIII held great Christmas feasts there.  Though Henry VIII improved the palace he was drawn to Greenwich and by 1529 he had virtually turned his back on Eltham.  one century later Charles I paid his only visit to Eltham.  During the Civil War the trees were felled for the shipyards, its buildings ransacked and left to fall apart.  The new tenant.  Sir John Shaw built himself a mansion nearby known as Eltham Lodge; the old palace and grounds were used as a farm.  In the 20^th the Great Hall was restored and Sir Stephen Courtauld's residence was built.

Eltham Hall was built adjoining the Great Hall for Sir Stephen Courtauld by Lord Mottistone (then John Sealy) & Paul Paget in 1936.  It consists of two wings at a strange butterfly angle (one adjoining the Great Hall), linked by a single storey entrance hall.  It was later used as the officers’ mess of the Directorate of Army Education and Training.  The exterior is both romantic and classical; its three towers have French chateau style roofs.  A Tudor-style section on the right was designed to ease the transition from the main building to the Great Hall.  Note the small chess piece figures on the copper roofs of the towers and, visible if one-steps back from the entrance, three half- timbered gables preserved from the Tudor facade overlooking the Great Court.  The entrance is in a curved arcade (note the sculpture representing Hospitality), and two Egyptian cannon captured in 1882 flank the doorway.  the most impressive room is the Rotunda, or entrance hall, a magnificent room in modernist style lit by an extraordinary lattice-style dome and by a long horizontal window above the door; on either side of the door the panelled wood walls have paintings of, on one side, Swedish buildings and a Viking soldier, and on the other, Italian buildings and a Roman soldier.  A smaller room off the corridor towards the Great Hall has a large mural map of South-East London in leather.  Overlooking the moat behind the Rotunda is a loggia with a series of carved stone medallions by Gilbert Ledward. Features in films 'Richard III’, ‘High Heels and Low Life’, ‘I Capture the Castle’

In the garden are three pairs of fluted Ionic columns from Sir John Soane's Bank of England c1800, brought here when the Bank was being rebuilt in the 1930s.

Any remains of the network of Tudor courts are covered by the lawn, though some grills set into the lawn give a glimpse of an underground passage (which was a sewer of c1528 leading from the kitchens). 

Moat.  The moat to the south is now grassed and is crossed by a modern wooden bridge resting on late 15th century brick footings. The part of it still in water has a population of amphibians.

King John's Walk

King John’s Walk is a pleasant and remarkably rural lane, which was the old path from Eltham to Mottingham.  It starts along the north boundary of Eltham Palace, turns left to skirt the west boundary of the Palace, and passes fields on both sides before reaching the Middle Park Estate; it then goes over the railway to Sidcup Road and on to Mottingham Lane.  The Walk and the fields to the east provide the only view of the south wall of the Great Hall of Eltham Palace readily available to the public.  The short north section provides a view of the moat, the moat wall and the Palace beyond.  From here footpaths continue ahead and to the right into Kingsground but the Walk itself turns sharp left.  The next section, which is well paved, provides excellent views over South London and towards Central London, and views of the Great Hall of the Palace - a good view of the brick west wall, but a not very satisfactory view of the stone-faced south wall.  Beyond this section the Walk can get quite muddy; there is a network of open fields on both sides, some with public access - like the Walk, they can become quite muddy.  The whole area is highly attractive (with some fine hedgerows) and very rural in character.  The fields to the east provide in places, particularly in winter, the only good views available to the public of the south wall of the Great Hall.  After about a third of a mile, going gradually downhill, the Walk reaches Middle Park Avenue; it then continues to a bridge over the railway line.  Beyond it goes alongside Harmony Wood and then, on the other side of Sidcup Road, the old Mottingham Farm fields before reaching Mottingham Lane.  After leaving the palace, a turn to the right beside the moat takes one.  The walk is thought to have been named after the French King; it's a pleasant rustic walk across the fields leading to Middle Park.

Eltham Palace Fields.  Horse grazing area south of the Palace.  Many wild flowers and grasses.  Wet areas with fescue and sedge.  Ancient hedgerows surround the site.

12 formerly called The Cottage, a large house c1909 with attractive features - note the dormers and the massive brick chimneystacks

Middle Park

Middle Park was one of three royal deer parks enclosed in the 1300s.  There is a farm which was used as a stud in the mid 19th century Blenkiron.  In 1862 a horse stabled here, Caractacus, won the Derby.  The regular jockey had been replaced by a stable lad.  Today the Middle Park Stakes remains the biggest race for two-year olds at Newmarket.

Middle Park Avenue,

Commemorates deer parks.  Nature area to the north of the avenue was part of the crown lands around Eltham Palace.

Mottingham Station.          1866. Between New Eltham and Lee on South Eastern Trains on the Dartford Loop. Originally called "Eltham for Mottingham" the weather boarded building on the down side is an original building. Then ‘Eltham and Mottingham’ and then Mottingham in 1927.  Its location so far off Eltham was because the tenant of Eltham Lodge at the time, Anne Wood would not agree to the railway crossing the grounds.  1957 main station building. The footbridge is late 19^th century.

Goods yard closed October 1968

Holding siding for Hither Green yard opened in the Second World War at the west end of the station. In 1948 became a United Dairies depot.

Middle Park Estate

This estate was developed from 1931 to 1936 by the London County Council. It is well laid out with winding roads and greens.  It is located in former royal parkland, with Eltham Palace looming above, and is almost surrounded by fields and open space.  Many of the houses have mock Tudor gables, and this gives parts of the estate a picturesque effect

Railline

Mottingham to New Eltham is a green corridor with cuttings and embankments with sycamore and oak woodland.  Hawthorn and bramble providing habitat for birds and animals.

Royal Blackheath Golf Course,

Northern part.  Woodland and trees.  Two ponds own surrounded by trees in eastern woodland, other willow lined.  London biggest population of great crested newts.  SSSA toads too.  Acid grassland

Sidcup Road

501/503 samepattern as West Park

The Tarn

Tarn - "small lake'. Applied to a pond in Mottingham Park, this name must be regarded as a fanciful transfer in modern times of a term historically confined to the north of England

Park with a large lake, a bird sanctuary, and many trees.  The lake has islands and is crossed by a modern bridge. It was once part of the grounds of Eltham Lodge but little is known of the early history. The earliest datable objects found are 15^th twolead tokens  - which could have been brought there accidentally from elsewhere. By 1933, the Tarn residence was unoccupied and boathouse became derelict while the lake was stagnant and overgrown.  In 1935 Woolwich Council purchased it for £1,750 and then drained the lake was drained; erected wrought iron fencing, built pathways,rustic bridges, culverts, and planted bulbs. A refreshment kiosk and conveniences' were added – this building was later used as the mess room for thekeepers and gardeners. At the start of the Second World War broke out Mrs. Harrison and her young son were living in the keeper's house. There is a plaque commemorating thecoronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.  In 1964, major work wasagain undertaken in an attempt toimprove the lake; another flowerbed was built along with arockery, waterfall and pond. At some time some broken tombstones arrived. An area of woodland is set aside as a bird sanctuary. 

The lake, crossed by a wooden bridge, is thought to have been used to stockfish for the palace. It isa natural feature and acts as a reservoir forstorm water from the adjoining area.  It is fed by smallstreams and drained by the Quaggy.  Eltham might mean 'home of the swans'– and this might be where they were. The Tarn might have been stocked withfish for the medieval Friday and Lenten diet.Perhaps heron, geese and swans bred there were featured in 15^th banquetsat Eltham Palace. John Holmes's plan of 1749 and Rocque's map of the1750's show it as Starbuck's Pond in a rectangle. Old maps also show that was a water-splash or ford in Court Road where the stream from the Tarn ran over the road. It had previously been called 'Starbuck'sPond' but by 1903 it appears as ‘Eltham Tarn’.  A prolific but poor family surnamed Starbuck areknown to have lived locally in the late 16^th but seem to have left by the late 17^th.  Sir John Shaw leased it in1660 from the Crown including  'fishingrights'.  In 1981, the drainage system was improved with a weir, two outlet sluices, andan electrically operated sluice gate to control the outflow.In 1985, wire mesh 'duck gates' were placed across theopen sluices to try and stop ducklings frombeing swept away and drowned by water on its subterranean route to the Quaggy.

House at the north-west corner of the park, thoughnow outside its fence, used to be part of the property andseems to date from the late 19th century. Directoriesindicate that it was occupied by members of the 'gentry'who also had fashionable residences in central London andwho held the Tarn on short term leases from the Crown. There were Edwardian skating parties on a lake lit by candles hung in colouredlanterns on the trees.

Ice-well, a brick structure of the 1750s sited in a shady spot and formerly used for storing ice (which came from the lake) for Eltham Lodge.  The top section has been removed to give a view of the interior. Ice was cut from the lake and stored. The ice was used to help preserve food and cool drinks served at the Lodge during the warm summer months.  Ice wells were first mentioned in 1687, but at least oneauthority believes this one to date from approximately1760. The purpose of the ice well was to preserve blocks ofice cut from the lake in winter into the warmer springweather. This one 'worked' in the samemanner as a vacuum flask by insulating-in the cold andexcluding the warmth. Sited in a shaded spot, it is a brick-lined hole in the damp ground. The walls are of cavityconstruction and the well is drained. The top opening wasnorth facing for extra coolness and the well would havebeen very thickly insulated with a conical straw-thatchedroof. The octagonal pointed pantiled roof on the presentshelter seems to echo an antique theme.

Keepers Lodge, sentimental journey to see the grandest of Georgian brick boxes,

Royal Blackheath Golf Club.  John Shaw laid out the park in 1663.  Oldest Golf club in Britain.  Long line of trees is on the Roque map.  Baronet, who helped Charles II at restoration, became Surveyor of the Woods.  Pepys said he had 'more offices than any man in England'.  Buried in the church

Garden Pavilion

185 The Royal Tavern

Tilt Yard Approach

This short road has a gateway and long high walls remaining from the Tudor tiltyard and the royal orchard, which were to the east of the Green Court of the Palace.  If the gate is open, a smaller Tudor gateway and a stretch of Tudor wall can be seen on the right.

The Tilt Yard, The house behind the walls is modern.

Brick wall near Court Yard is the boundary of the Tilt Yard Walk.  Walling to the east in is 16th century.

Gateway with Tudor coping – another gate and wall all Tudor inside

West Park

A wide road, lined with horse chestnuts with large and distinctive houses built 1887-89. All the houses of that date have prominent gables; either tile hung or patterned brick; plus plasterwork and rustic timber porches.

31 Inset into the boundary wall outside is a late Victorian wall letter-box

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Beaconsfield Road

Two Victorian gravestones to Haworth. And Mausoleum destroyed in the war

Court Road

St.Andrew.Victorian gothic. 1878-9 by E.F. C.Clarke; later red 1912 by E. J. Gosling.

Rectory 1886 rustic

Court Farm Road

12 Fairy Hall, old farm building with a timber barn behind

Devonshire Road

1870s houses

Mottingham Road

Mottingham Terrace

37/45 small shopping centre 1894. Library sculpture etc

war memorial, by George Hubbard 1922, serves as a roundabout and is a focal point for the area. At the Junction with Grove Park Road

Geffrye Homes, Ironmongers'.  Almshouses moved from Shoreditch 1917 neo-Wren ranges. ,  by George Hubbard. Obviously used Morden College  as his model. Statue of Geffrye in the garden 1723 by JohnNost, is set up on the garden side of the new buildings. Geffrye died in 1703. His monument has mourning putto each side and a relief of the Lord Mayor's regalia below.

154 Prince of Wales

Brisleys Corner

Mottingham

Hamlet in 16th century round Mottingham Place 1566.

Mottingham Estate.  London County Council 20s and 30s. Topham Forrest. 200 acres 1931. 2,300 homes and Generous provision of open spaces.

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Cranmore Road.

V2 attack 9 February 1945. at 9.30pm, 350 properties damaged. The precise point of impact was on allotments. Two persons died and 68 were injured.

Elmstead Woods.

Belonged to the Bishops of Rochester, Wooden built ships now suburban area

Mottingham Estate

L.C.C. 1934-9.

St.Keverne Road

St.Edward the Confessor with tall tower and effigy  The red brick Church is a focal point on the estate, its tall tower facing straight down the shopping centre of Kimmeridge Road. It was built in 1958, though the church hall and vicarage on either side are both pre-war. Prominent on the tower is an effigy of St Edward. 

Walden Road

Ravensbourne College of Art and Design. 1972-4 by Aneurin John, Bromley borough architect. Moved to Greenwich.

V2 attack 9 February 1945. at 9.30pm, where eight houses were destroyed

Whitehorse Hill

Milestone

White Horse. pub damaged in V2 attack 9 February 1945.

Chiselhurst Baptist Church damaged in V2 attack 9 February 1945.

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Chapel Farm Road

Coldharbour Leisure Centre.

Coldharbour Estate

Developed on the site of Coldharbour Farm. Built by the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich. Begun in 1948, with a garden-suburb layout around Wynford Way, and a later quite ambitious Shopping Centre with a seven-storey block of flats and a community centre of 1961. Opened by Aneurin Bevan and the Queen Mother unveiled a plaque when it was finished. It is cut in two by a major road, William Barefoot Drive, where the small shopping centre is located. The estate was planned as a 'garden suburb', and there are many  greens. From the open space at The Course there is a view towards Eltham and Shooters Hill, 

Colyer Close

Side of Edscers Nursery

The Course

Open space

Jason Walk

52 Farmhouse

Kingsley Wood Drive

Royal Eltham

Southwood Road

Glenwood, is old golf club house

St.Olave's school private 1932

75 & 94, also once schools Belmont and New Eltham Golf club,

Larchwood, Montbelle, Charldane and Felthampton roads on the course Theobald's Cottages

Southwood Recreation Ground.  Sports field surrounded by grass with a tiny steam on the edges.  Elm scrub but there is a damp patch and mature oaks.

Speke Hill

Site of Coldharbour Farm which is on maps of 1759 and was part of Eltham Great Park. Woolwich Council bought 155 acres from the Crown Commissioners in 1946.

William Barefoot Drive

Barefoot was a previous Mayor of Woolwich.

Witherston Way

Greenacres Primary School with a language impairment unit.

Wynford Way

Beginnings of Coldharbour Estate

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High Street

Library KCC in 1930s

Red Hill and White Horse Hill

A separate village to Chiselhurst with two 19^th brickworks.

coaches up them and extra horses kept at the White Horse

Milestone

Walden Recreation Ground  Named aftewr Viscount Walden 9^thMarquis Tweedale. Lived locally although born in Yester near Edinburgh.

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Beechcroft

2 houses. By Goddard Philips, 1973 

Camden Park Road

13 by Robert Byron 1970. Inventive intrusion. Handles the steeply sloping site better than most

The Cedars. Willett’s own house 1890s. Good typical garden well. Shows the sort of thing he was doing in the area with architect Ernest Newton. 

Derwent House. Dramatic chimney breast. Ernest Newton 1899, with a pair of tile-hung gables in the centre of the front. Stone porch and complex window over it

Bonchester House, 1898 more broken up, with a roughcast bay coming forward 

Elm Bank. Smallest of these houses

Chalk mine.  The mine was dug and the chalk removed for lime burning. It is recorded that a labourer suddenly put his pickaxe through the wall of the mine into a debris filled cavity. Some archaeological remains tipped out and subsequently a few gentlemen visited the site and employed labourers to excavate the cavity from the base. They uncovered an earth filled chamber with a circular basin-shaped-floor. It was 47 8" in diameter and 11 8" high, cut from the chalk. In the centre of the floor was a black, oval spot of earth, which was presumed to be the base of a filled shaft extending to the surface, but not visible far outside. The pit was thought to be a marl pit and the marks of a large, squared tool were noted on the walls. Out of the infill came the teeth and jaws of oxen and deer antlers, teeth of a dog or wolf, the skulls of smaller creatures such as hedgehogs, the skeleton of a dog and another of a horse or ass. Near to the ceiling was a piece of Samian ware possibly a salt cellar with a mark of VTC - fifth century. The general conclusion was that the pit was open in the fifth century and gradually filled with deposited rubbish and the remains of animals that fell or were thrown in. Some time after this the mine was abandoned. Originally the quarry was in open country and railway embankment that crosses the valley, the lime kilns on the quarry floor have gone. until 1968 five entrances were visible at the base of the northernmost part of the chalk cliff, quite apart from the present known mine. They led to some large mined passages, which were used by a local builder for storage. 

The stream which runs down the valley used to disappear in chalk swallets, which were recorded as a boundary mark in a Saxon Charter of AD 862. This Water has now been culverted so that the natural drainage is obscured. 

Camden Place

origins traced to William Camden, the Elizabethan historian and antiquary, who lived here 1609-1623 in order to escape the plague, and built a house which may have stood where the garages are now.    The current house was built before 1717 by Robert Weston with a mainblock in red and yellow brick, seven bays wide, and three storeys high.Weston called it "Camden Place" and it later passed to Charles Pratt, who, taking his title from the house, became the first Earl Camden, Lord Chancellor of England. He employed George Dance, Jnr. to remodel it beyond what is now the centre portion.  Thomson Borar a Russian Merchant and later owner - he and his wife, were murdered here in 1813 by a manservant. .  The Empress Eugenie fled France in 1853 and took up residence here in 1870. Queen Victoria visited her here and Napoleon III himself died here in 1873. It was from here that the Prince Imperial took up military training at Woolwich to be commissioned as an officer in the Royal Horse Artillery. in 1890 William Willett bought part of the park for building development. The house became the headquarters of a golf club whose course was opened by A. J. Balfour in 1894 .  The earlist parts of the house are the Oval Room, the Office, the Ladies' Committee Room and the oak panelled entrance hall with its two secret doors, thought to have come from an earlier building.. Borer adding an Eating Room  - now the Billiard Room - and most of the Kitchen wing.  He turned the Entrance Hall Into an Oval Gallery with Dutch wall paintings c 1780.   there was a Bath House which has gone and a fall to the left of the lake. 

Chiselhurst

First recorded 974 as a piece of stony woodland. Developed around the Scadbury estate in the mid 13^th.  ‘Chiselhurste’ 1158, ‘Chesilherst’ c.1762, that is 'gravelly wooded hill', from Old English ‘cisel’ - 'gravel' and ‘hyrst’. The 'gravel' referred to in the name is still evident in the rounded black flints and pebbles found in fields and gardens here.

Camden Park Estate developed by Willett in two groups for high-class medium-sized commuter residences

Common

Village cockpit, old Poor House 1759 ration of 1 herring and three potatoes, St.Michael's Orphanage since 1855.

Crown pub etc was common land for the rent of two potatoes;

Prince Imperial memorial runic cross. Killed in Zulu war In 1881 the people of Chiselhurst the monument

Prick End Pond.

High Street

The centre of Chiselhurst but until the 19^th was called Prick End.

Annunciation Church. 1868/70. Ragstone expanded inside. tower at side diagonally, effective, chancel. by James Brooks, the ragstone exposed inside as well as out, just as in his church at Perry Street, Northfleet, 

St.Mary Hall. Demolished. Was also by Brooks

Shops opposite the church. A long block late 1970s in reddish-mauve brick, 

Vicarage

Almshouses

Queen's Head. Pub by the pond

19 Fox and Hounds

Park Road

47 Gordon Arms. Collection of key rings

Prince Imperial Road

Methodist Church. 1868-70. Ragstone. Early English style cheaply but somewhat baldly realized

Sitka, now Scientific Instrument Research Association, built in 1883 by fur trader Emile Teichmann, Sitka from Alaska, Newton 1883

St Mary, Eugene and Prince Imperial worshipped there

St.Mary's hall by the same architect as the church timber frame 1878

The Wilderness

Moorlands 1902 by Amos Faulkner, with a prominent chimneystack 

The Brake. Weakly half timbered gable by Faulkner, 1911, 

Parkmore. Faulkner, 1901, larger and more formal, 

Copley Dene. The best. Newton designed in  1904 and worthy of Lutyens in its handling of asymmetry 

Holne Chase. Quieter 191l. With a central polygonal bay set in a roughcast gable.  Faulkner.

West Chiselhurst Park?, Royal Naval School

Recreation Ground

Whytes Woodland refers to Robert Whyte who lived here 19^th

Yester Road

Greatwood. 1962 by Norman Starratt, one of the lamentably few good new developments in Chislehurst. Short staggered three-storeyed terraces on the hillside. Charcoal brickwork white balconies and cornice

The Fo'csle. at the junction of Yester Road and Yester Close. in the 1970s a spectacular collapse of foundations led to massive cracking. The Logs Hill chalk mine is still there. 

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War memorial The Portland stone memorial with a bronze sword set on one face of a stone cross can be found at the junction. This was one of the first memorials to be unveiled in the borough in 1920. The memorial cost more than £1,000 with £86 for architect's fees.

The Royal British Legion memorial, at Chislehurst cemetery, is a simple Portland stone headstone bearing a central carving of the Legion's lion's head. 

Bull Lane

Easdens . unusually confidently handled house early c 20. Sir Aston  Webb, built as a church hall 1909-11

Chiselhurst Common

Chislehurst Common, shown as ‘Chiselhurst Common’ on the Ordnance map of 1805, is the site of an old cockpit - a reminder that cockfighting was once a popular sport here as elsewhere until it was prohibited in 1834.

Ramblers Rest

Royal Parade

Bulls Head. Listed and distinguished flagship pub

Prickend Pond is an old gravel pit

Fen Grove

Post Office

Parish lock up and stocks near the Bull's Head

Heathfield Lane

Wallings , Afoy's own  house, 1913, brown brick, harbinger of a myriad between-the-  wars houses.

Holbrook Lane

Holbrook End piquant contrast in moods: crudely handled neo-Georgian by Richard Creed, 1907,  pushes forward aggressively,

Peasons Morley Horder's neo-  Tudor idyll,  1924, in a grove  of birches. 

Farrington School Symmetrical  group, rendered neo-Georgian houses 1910-11 by Gordon & Gunton 1925, .  . All but the earliest building by Crickmer  & Foxley founded as sister school to The Leys. boarders

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Longlands

Marked thus on the Ordnance Survey map of 1876, earlier ‘Long Lands’ on the 1805 map, though a hamlet here is referred to as early as 1635, 'the long strips of arable land' , the common fields, from Middle English ‘long’ and ‘lond’.

Longlands Road

semis built in the 1920s. by Cory and Cory good speculative houses. many fine sequences of houses though not in the chalet style.  Tile hung bays, leaded windows and timber porches.

Harland Brothers Brickworks. 1876-1911

Flats towards the end of the road

V2 28^th January  1945 In rear garden, 120 yards West of the junction with Woodside  Road       

Main Road

This area retains a village atmosphere, and is sometimes called Longlands, after an early 18th century mansion which was demolished in 1885; its location was where Park Hill Road is now.

Longlands.  house built in 1750 and demolished 1886.  Home of George Russell, soap manufacturer and Greenwich mill owner.

Sidcup Police Station

Woodside Road

Longlands Primary School

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Alexander Close

Carlton Road

Chiselhurst Cemetery

Cemetery Chapel 1910 by W. Curtis Green. 

Main Road

St.Lawrencelarge Roman Catholic church  of 1906. It consists of a great central block with gabled projections on each side; A post-war community centre is attached at the rear. 

109 St Lawrence's House a large and handsome classical house of 1924. It was originally a school, and is now the house of the Marist Fathers.

St.Lawrence. RC. Shallow dome.

Christ Church. A large church of 1901, rather late for its archetypal Victorian Gothic appearance. Uninspired externally; the ugly corrugated iron shed at the south-east hides the place where preparations for a tower were begun but never carried out. 

108 United Services Club was Maison Rouge This is an imposing building, probably c1880, with its Gothic doorway and stepped gables along the frontage.

122  c1878 is the only one remaining from The Crescent

136 Horse and Groom

140 Adelaide House  A detached house, probably of the 1830s. It is now part of a builders yard, and seems in poor condition

Fire Station included Council offices and Council chamber . A striking Edwardian classical red brick building of 1914, with great round archways on either side of the entrance. It was built as a combined Fire Station, Council Offices & Council Chamber for Sidcup UDC.

Nursery House a small building of the 1840s, with a verandah added c1900.

Sidcup Police Station. A pleasing red brick building of 1902, enlivened by its stone porch and balcony.

Montgomery Close

Sidcup By pass

Built with unemployed labour KCC 1926-27 an arterial road of the 1920S,

Sunnymead (Bromley Borough Education Department), 1875 date on a rainwater head. Typical High Victorian medium-sized house, which Shawstyle was to supersede very quickly after 1875. Red 

Klingerit, 1935-6 by Wallis Gilbert &Partners, shows knowledge of Dutch Expressionist brick-work. Symmetrical block. Brown brick of two shades, the paler laid in the usual way, the reddy bricks mostly laid on end. They add emphasis to the horizontal strips of window and the verticals of the centrepiece. Also little windows across angles, with projecting frames to draw attention to this feat. The original swoopy italic lettering has been replaced. 

Schweppes, by the roundabout, is of 1961-2, a big-boned piece by Tripe & Wakeham. Demolished

Factory, 1927 former Critall metal window. Gone

The Crescent

A fine semi-circular green with cedar trees. It was once ringed by great late 19th century houses.

Wavell Drive

Woodside Road

2/8 probably of the 1860s.

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Beaverwood Road

1-5 1909 Atay.

Chiselhurst Boys Grammar School extended in 1938 by KCC

Cray Valley Tech. Kemnal Manor Upper School. Built 1934 as Chiselhurst and Sidcup County Grammar School, and done extremely well by John W. Potlock, with Christiani Nielsen as consultants. Not at all the normal Kent County Education Department's school design of the 1930s but a design that has worn extremely well. Built to three stories because the site was in use for playing fields. Listed in 1982 and largely unaltered.

Chislehurst cemetery. The Royal British Legion memorial, at, is a simple Portland stone headstone bearing a central carving of the Legion's lion's head. 

Beaverwood girls secondary school

Foxbury Avenue

Darul Uloom London. Islamic school

Kemnal Road

Kemnal Manor  called ‘Kemeshol’,  ‘Kemehal’ 1240, ‘Kemenhole’ 1301, ‘Kymenhole’ 1387, ‘Kenmale’ 1480, that is ‘hollow or valley of a man called Cyma', from an Old English personal name and Old English ‘hol’.

'Foxbury', manor house Grade II listed Jacobean style.  Built in 1876 for a banker, Henry Tiarks and used as a women’s section of the Church Missionary Society. V2 attack 14 February 1945 then in use as convalescent home for London ATS women. No civilian casualties reported.

Glasshouse. Cold war nuclear bunker now a private house.

Old Elthamians Association sports ground in memory of former pupils in the
Second World War

Old Perry Street

Sydney Arms

Perry Street

Western Motor Works. Name spelt out 1967. Architect worked at Bedford Park. A very early example of its type, 1909 by E. J. May, has a high-spirited showroom of 1966-7 by Oliver E. Steer

Frogpool Farm on the junction with the By Pass.  Cattle taken across the road into the 1960s

Frogpool Farm

Scadbury Park

Moated Saxon manor for the Scantleburys and then the Walsinghams, 1425-1655. Queen Elizabeth, Henslow. Tudor House demolished 1725. New house 1870. Moat still there. Fired 1976. Hunting Park Council 1983. Had been meant for housing. Woodland. Farmland. Meadows. Pool. Streams. Struggling to keep grass blades free from developers. Was de Scathebury. 1930s bricks mark the old foundation and tried to recreate the hall - hence the modern chimney. .

Nature Reserve An area of formerly traditionally managed farmland retains many hedgerows, meadows, ponds and streams. Formerly an enclosed hunting park owned by the De-Scathebury family and later the influential Walsinghams.  By the 20C ownership had passed to the Townshends. The park was acquired by the borough council for housing in 1983 but opened in 1985 as a new public open space. The woodland has a core of former wood pasture with massive oaks estimated to be around 400 years old. A section has been planted with sycamore but as this was formerly coppiced, extensive areas of bluebells survive. The wood below the main ride seems to be colonised farmland with field boundary hedge species in abundance such as gean and field maple. Typically, the ground flora of the former wood pasture is dominated by bracken, while the ancient woodland contains wood anemone and wood sorrel. The diversity of woodland structure supports many woodland birds including nuthatches, tawny owls and all three British woodpeckers. Shallow streams, several large drainage ditches and nine ponds provide important habitats for various amphibians such as the great crested newt. Damp conditions in the NE section suit the broad-buckler as well as other kinds of fern along with opposite-leaved golden saxifrage and many mosses and lichens.

V2 rockets struck on 8 February 1945, starting at 3am, which damaged Queen Mary's Hospital, Sidcup and Properties in Perry Street, though no casualties resulted.

The Heath

Thatched Cottage nineteenth century

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Alliance Road,

Mines.   On 2nd June 1939, a party of Council workmen were filling in a borehole. One of them, Samuel Gardner, was walking 10ft from the borehole when the ground suddenly subsided beneath him. At first, his head could be seen above the earth at the bottom of the crater but then the sides collapsed on him and he suffocated. The body was recovered from a depth of 30ft the following day. Collapses continued throughout the next decade but remedial action was prevented by the Second World War. The London County Council finally put through parliament the LCC the Woolwich Subsidences Act in 1950 and this empowered them to take whatever action was necessary to remedy the subsidence. Bores, headings and shafts were driven and surveys made, revealing the presence of a massive chalk mine. This was gradually filled by floating in pulverised fly ash and, following this expensive operation, the ground stabilised. 

The mines dated from the 19th century and were working up to 1920, being recorded by HM Inspector of Mines as South Metropolitan Mine, Gregory's Mine, Kings Highway and Cemetery Mine. They have also had other names at various times and may we be inked under ground. 

The South Metropolitan mine is entered by a sloping tunnel. Below Gregory's Brickyard, the aggregate length of the galleries is stated to be at least two miles. The tunnels are 9ft wide at floor level, diminishing to 3ft at the roof and 25ft high; but these proportions are modified according to the harder or softer nature of the chalk, the presence of joints, etc. The mine was opened about 50 years ago.

Bostall Woods

Old Park Wood. Bought from Goldsmit MP. Bought by London County Council in 1892 and maintained by them. 1939 ravaged by beetle had been Scots Pine plantings. Site of Metropolitan Importance.

Dick Turpin's Cave. Circular cave on the east side of Wickham Valley. 30 ft in diameter with chalk floor and hole in the roof. Probably a marl pit,

Old Park House

Mixture of fir woods and rough plantation, birches etc. LCC police about and a good many people. Wild rose. It is a fine wild country wood (Booth).

Cemetery Road

Woodside Cottage

Plumstead Cemetery. South of Bostall Woods and ex, old Park Farm. Hillside laid out as 17th century park.  Opened In 1890 when the area of the cemetery had been considered for transfer for Epsom Racecourse. Arsenal explosion victims are buried here. Close mown grassland around the graves.  purging flax and grasses found on chalk.

Stream. Called River Plum by locals and Wogbourne in Saxon,

Goldie Leigh school

Was orphanage of Woolwich Poor Law Guardians in 1902? London clay, flowers, hemlock, springs with wet area, Lodge is left on the road of the hospital. Built as an orphans' home in 1902.

Kings Highway

Bottom on Wickham Lane corner was bus garage. Unexploded bomb opposite.

Lodge Lane

Liggins Hill in the church wooden pegs in 1701,

Lodge Hill in 1738. Needed to have the Epsom Races there once

Old Park Road

18 Sand Mine. Situated in the back garden. Though only a short adit had been dug into the sand it seemed clear that there was another separate adit close by inaccessible due to a vast collapse of walls and rockgarden debris from a landscaped part of the garden The adit had been driven straight into the sand level and measured about 8 ft. 6ins. in length, 4ft, 6ins wide. Pick mark were seen on the walls but the original floor level was unknown. The house, had been built in the 1930s on land known to have been part of 'Cook's Farm’.

Russell Cottages, V2 6^th March 1945 direct hit. The blast destroyed two cottages and severely damaged Plumstead Working Men’s Club and houses in Bastion Road and Bostall Hill. 62 people were injured. Young members of the organisation known as the National Animal Guard attended the scene to treat domestic pets affected by blast and flying debris.  A small reminder that pets shared their owners’ sufferings (and their fears) in all forms of air attack.

Wickham Lane

Roman road or bed of a stream.  May follow the path of a river, which was tidal at its estuary, and now silted up Valley formed by Plumstead River - chalk pits all the way.  Fossils in the woods. 1887 Roman lead coffin

Dene holes too up. 2 miles of passages and chambers underground for chalk mines

St Paul's RC School. Symmetrical, with cupola. Later extensions.

Bus garage. 1899 Bus Garage London General Omnibus Co.

Old Manor House of Plumstead. Very decrepit and is two cottages. Picturesque. Follower of Cade lived there John Crabbe and pardoned.

Forester's Arms

Chalk mines dug in the 19th and early 20th centuries to support brick and tile making operations. Three chalk mines in the area - Cemetery Mine, South Met Mine and another one.Eventually the land was built over and in the 1940s and 50s began to show signs of great instability resulting in many collapses and one death. In 1955 the London County Council enacted legislation to permit it to locate the mines and fill them with fly ash. They were run by The South Metropolitan Brick and Lime Company Ltd., The South Metropolitan Brick and Building Estates Company Ltd., The frontage to King's Highway was sold to the LGOC, with the comer plot on which the office stood and 80 ft. frontage in Wickham Lane. In 1915 purchasers were found for about 3 acres in the middle of the company's land in Wickham Lane.   Houses were being built on it. The 'front part' was in the hands of the military.

The Wickham Brickworks Ltd.   Wickham Lane Brickworks. W.Dawson 1842-1882 A.Gregory 1892-1905 and J. Stevens to build the Stevens Estate 1923-1929

Runs along a valley made by Plumstead Common on the south and Bostall Woods on the north. Some houses on south side, the north side is taken by French beans and rhubarb fields. South past public house along a line of cottages called Cemetery Cottages. Active brickfield is opposite a large newish cemetery on a hill on the north side of the road. The Lane rises to the east here. Nearly the top of the hill being where it meets Lodge Lane, which forms the eastern boundary of London. Ground rises here to the north until the level of Bostall Woods are reached. Raspberry fields on east side and a few old strawberry gardens on west, now being plotted out for building. Houses on west side only. Some old, some new, beginning and ending without any particular reason in batches from two to ten. Notices badly written on boards in front of some inviting the wayfarer to "winkles & watercress, eggs and cake".  (Booth)

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Bethel Road

Welling was turning into an important dormitory for Thameside workers, especially at Woolwich. The developments were almost exclusively working class; estates were built where small units of land were available close to the tram route on the margins of the Danson and Goldsmith estates.

Burnell Avenue

part of the Welling Council Housing Scheme. The total cost of the scheme was approximately £460,000 with the building costs of the 426 houses approximately £408,000.

East Wickham Open Space

Fields of East Wickham Farm. In 1934 bought as an extension to Woolwich Cemetery but never used. Then a became a tip for debris from wartime bombsites. Grassed over and used as allotments. Called Fanny-on-the Hill which was the name of a pub demolished and rebuilt on Wickham Street. Part of the land of the farm on Wickham Street.

Edison Grove

41 Glenmore Arms.

Gipsy Road

Welling was turning into an important dormitory for Thameside workers, especially at Woolwich. The developments were almost exclusively working class; estates were built where small units of land were available close to the tram route on the margins of the Danson and Goldsmith estates.

Granville

Welling was turning into an important dormitory for Thameside workers, especially at Woolwich. The developments were almost exclusively working class; estates were built where small units of land were available close to the tram route on the margins of the Danson and Goldsmith estates.

Lewis Road

Welling was turning into an important dormitory for Thameside workers, especially at Woolwich. The developments were almost exclusively working class; estates were built where small units of land were available close to the tram route on the margins of the Danson and Goldsmith estates.

Station Approach

Welling Station, 1^st May 1895 .Between Bexleyheath and Falconwood Maze Hill on South Eastern Trains, wooden shelter on the north side from original 1895 buildings. On the Bexleyheath Line.  The line enters the station on an embankment.. In 1936 the Original gas lit building on the up side was replaced A footbridge was built prior to electrification in 1926. Original passenger shelter on the down side has been modernised.   Platforms extended 1953-1991.

Goods yard was at the country end. Single track goods sidings closed in 1962.

Coal sidings

Upper Wickham Lane

Mortimer Terrace 1-8 rear of it is gas works site.

Fosters School. Main building and schoolmasters house in residential use. In 1728 William Foster of Croydon left an endowment to found a school at East Wickham where 20 poor children of the parish were to be taught reading, writing and arithmetic. By the 1820s organized on the plan of the National Schools and united with the National Society, although there had been nothing in the will to suggest Church management, the school was instructing 51 pupils. By 1860 the number had increased to 78, the population of the parish (666) having expanded owing to the settlement in the area of labourers from the Arsenal at Woolwich. Under the instruction of the Court of Chancery the school was thrown open to the whole parish, but twenty were exempt from the weekly fee of 2d. Paid by the others. The Vicar of Plumstead in his request to the National Society for aid for Fosters Endowed School described the existing room as "thoroughly unhealthy and at times unsupportable, the children even fainting". He stressed that the School was strictly Church of England. The new building completed in 1879 is still used, and has the original foundation stone of 1727 set in the front wall. Each year in July the staff and pupils of Foster's School still hold a festival to mark Founder's Day.

Hopping Brothers.  Pre-second World War timber distributors.  1930s office block. Demolished 2003.

Odeon Cinema.  Built in 1934 by George Coles. Bingo from 1960 and now then forms the central blocks of three storey shops and flats. the first Odeon by Coles,

172 Duchess of Edinburgh.  Very large roadhouse pub

Westbrooke Road

Fosters School moved here.

Wickham Lane

Greek Orthodox Church of Christ the Saviour was St. Michael's church. Orthodox since 1967. Situated on the north-western boundary of the Borough, it may have been originally a chapel-of-ease of St. Nicholas' Plumstead, with which the parish was combined until 1852. Parts of it date from the early 12th century. It is a small rectangular building of flint and brick with vestry and belfry added at a later date. The end was rebuilt in the early c 19.   Brasses to John de Bladigdone, c. 1325 -  two tiny prim half-effigies in a frame. On the shaft his name in large letters - The date 1325 on the base is modern and note Arabic, not Roman, numerals.  It is believed to be the earliest surviving brass showing civilian dress as opposed to Armour. Other features to note are the Jacobean pulpit, mediaeval font and royal coat-of-arms.  Monument to William Payn 1568 wearing the uniform of the Guard.  Some brasses etc. now in the new church. 

Vicarage

Parish hall

Foresters Arms. Collection of darts trophies

St. Michael's Church.  Behind the old church.  1933, modelled on church in Ravenna. Stones from old manor in the pillars, iron chest from a Spanish galleon, icon, brasses and so on from the old church transferred here.

Hutments built in the area in 1916 for munitions workers.  The outbreak of the first World War led to the building of a large estate of prefabricated dwellings to house munition workers from Woolwich Arsenal: these hutments were eventually replaced by modern houses.  Known as the East Wickham Hutments, built in tidy rows, set up south of St Michaels and also on the west side of Wickham Lane south of Wickham Street and east of Lodge Lane near the border with Woolwich.

Wickham Street

Housing. Stevens' and Norman's estates mainly modest semi-detached houses filled the space between Wickham Street and Central Avenue

German fighter plane shot down 24/8/40 A.Friedman killed. Buried in Bexleyheath Cemetery. ,

East Wickham Farmhouse. Very old used as riding stables.  Façade dates from 1843 but the timbers are much older.  Council housing built in the fields of the farm.   Kate Bush grew up in the farmhouse.

Bruce Gibson’s Farm on the west side. Pond beside the house

St. Mary the Virgin. 1954-5 by Thomas F. Ford. The exterior is no more impressive than St John. Red brick, in a sort of Georgian-Early Christian style, with a thin Lombard s tower. . A building like this epitomizes all that mid-c 20 architecture ought not to be, yet one at least feels that Mr Ford got a kick out of designing it.  

Green Man pub

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Bellegrove Road

Beyond Shooter's Hill we come to Welling, which with Bexley Heath EXtends for the next two miles along the Dover Road. Here the latter is too narrow for traffic requirements. It is being considerably widened in places, and unsightly rows of mean houses have lately been pulled down and replaced with new blocks of shops. The removal of the tramways in 1935 in favour of the more up-to-date trolley buses has further eased the traffic congestion at Bexley Heath. T

In the early 1930s the Bellegrove Park Building late was developed to the configuration of Bellegrove Park, a small country seat on the southern side of the Road.

Moon and Sixpence

124 Station Hotel

143 Plough and Harrow

310 We Anchor in Hope

Granada Cinema.  Built 1938 and designed by George Coles. Venetian Gothic interior plus a large central lighting electrolier.  The three rank Wurlitzer is now at Woking.  Triple screen eventually. Closed 1983 and demolished 1985.

Dansington Road

estates on a much smaller scale and the houses generally of a higher class such as on

Danson Junior School 1933

Danson Lane

St.John the Evangelist The parish church built in 1926, though the first Anglican church in Welling, an iron building, was put up in 1869 by Alfred Bean, of Danson Park.

Danson farm, Demolished in 1930. at the junction of Danson and Bean Roads

Faraday Road

High Street

Watling Street

Russian Gun,

17/35,

15 Rose and Crown. The pub name symbolises the union of York and Lancaster in the marriage of Henry VI  and Elizabeth of York. 

37 Old Nags Head, fake beams

21b blacksmiths forge,

23/25,

31/35,

Library

St.Stephen

Guy, Earl of Warwick. Watling Street bends slightly northward outside it.

Kelvin Road

Congregational Chapel,

Latham Road

estates on a much smaller scale and the houses generally of a higher class such as on

Park View Road

Guy Earl of Warwick pub

110 Watkins and Doncaster

Roseacre Road

St.John. 1925. by Evelyn Hellicar. Brown brick,

Welling

Developed by Danson Park owner Alfred Bean from 1881. bean died in 1890 but the estate was not subvided until his widow died 30 years later.

Wrotham Road?

Lord Kitchener pub

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Co-op Woods owned by Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society. First outdoor school there in 1907, London County Council. Became campsite. Site of building depot for the estate, which was all, made on site, bricks, and all. Chalk mine under the site. Social services building was the work canteen, entrance to mine at the back,

Gardens of big properties to the east of the road have become part of the Abbey Grove

St.Benet, R.C. 1909 by F. Coyle.

Abbey Road

500 The Harrow.   Typical locals pub

Abbey Wood

Named for nearby Lesnes Abbey and associated woods, which belonged to it.

Abbey Wood Road

St.Michael and All Angels, 1908, Blomfield & Son.

Palanga House,

129-131 Rose Lea Villas,

Commonwealth Way

Co-op Estate.

Congress Road

Coop estate,

RACS bought Bostall Farm in 1899, characteristic names

Harrow Manor Way

Barge Pole. Unprepossessing exterior and a well  looked after interior and an expanding range   of   real   ales.

Hurst Farm Estate

Hurst Farm,

Hurst Woods

West of New Road

Chalk Pit,

Hurst Woods Pond

Fossil beds. Rich in fossils it is the Blackheath Beds. National importance and SSSI

Pine Pond,

Knee Hill

woodland plus an ornamental pond.

Greenwich and Bexley Hospice on site of Shornells, which had been built by architect of Woolwich Library, Henry Church. In 1914 it became a convalescent home for officers and bought by Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society as Jubilee Memorial 1918. Education and rest home. Second phase of hospice 2003.

Bostall House

Belvedere Private Clinic was The Cottage

Deneholes. three deneholes were examined 1906- 1908.   The result was inconclusive.   Each hole yielded six chambers in the chalk.   Some bones were found but no dateable evidence

Lesnes Abbey

Fossil Beds, Blackheath beds, Site of Special Scientific Interest,

'Lessness' might mean 'little nose'. Marked as ‘Leesing Heath’ on Bowen's map of c.1762 and as ‘Lesness Heath’ on the Ordnance Survey map of 1805. Named from ‘Leosne’ mid 11^th, ‘Lesneis’, ‘Loisnes’ 1086 in the Domesday Book. ‘Hlosnes’ in the late-11^th, ‘Lesnes’ 1194. It has been suggested that it might be from an Old English word ‘hieosn’ -  'burial mound' or 'shelter' in a plural form ‘hleosne’, later showing association with Old English. Thus possibly 'the burial mounds' or 'the shelters'.  It was the name of one of the medieval hundreds of Kent, the meetings of which were held here on the heath.  Lesnes Abbey Woods, is marked Abbey Wood on the Ordnance Survey maps of 1805 and 1888 - hence also the name of the residential district of Abbey Wood - so called from the Abbey.

Lesnes Abbey.  Founded 11^th June 1178 by Richard de Lucy as an Augustinian abbey. Henry II's Chief Justifier to Thomas a Beckett,  De Lucy had Lesnes Abbey built as penance for Beckett’s murder,  although excommunicate,  and retired in 1178. He died within months and was buried in the grounds. The Order of St Augustine possessed large parts of Plumstead and the monks reclaimed the marshland north of the abbey and it is thought built the first river wall here. Farms were established and the Abbey prospered.   In 1283 financial control was taken from the abbot and given to the canons because of mismanagement. King Edward I visited it, on his way to Canterbury in 1300.  In 1381 Poll Tax rebels from Erith came here on their way to join Wat Tyler at Blackheath taking a boat from the canons to cross the river. In the 15^th they got into debt because of over-sale of corrodies. So it was ‘Grubbed up, but already stripped of its honour  -chewing meat and sniffing women’. In 1525 Wolsey's agent, Dr William Burbank, took possession and closed it down and the income used to set up Christ's College, Cambridge.  In 1537 the river banks burst and 2,000 acres were flooded and not fully reclaimed till 1563 when an Act of Parliament allowed exiled Italian theologian and engineer Giacomo Aconzio to reclaim part of the land. Within two years he had embanked a quarter of the land and by 1587, three quarters. By 1630 the abbey was described as a ruin, its stones used on other buildings. In 1844 it became Abbey Farm, 350 acres, on the site of Abbey Grange. Sir Alfred Clapham excavated the site in1909-13, but the remains were only laid bare after the mid 1950s. In 1930 it was bought by the London County Council

The abbey is believed to have been built from Normandy stone but on the outer walls are blocks of flint. These were probably came from the river that used to flow downhill from the south.   Much of it is now low walls and foundations but the sections of the abbey are signposted and the foundations provide a useful diagram fromwhich to learn the layout. The church had an aisled nave in a plan more normally Cistercian. The bases of several shafts remain, with leafspurs of the under curling kind called 'waterleaf, typical of c.1180. The Lady Chapel was east of the transept and built in 1371. Other buildingslay on the north side of the church for drainage reasons. On the side of the cloisters was therectangular chapter house, North of this was the dormitory and reredorter. The refectory can be recognized by the steps up to the pulpit and the kitchen witha serving-hatch through the wall. The only complete feature to survive is a doorway. There was a separate infirmary block.  There are a few 13^th tiles in atransept chapel. The ruined walls support rare plants – rue leaved saxifrage. 

Medieval harbour line identified by deep channel to the west of the ruins,

Lesnes Abbey Wood was controlled by the Augustinians and stretched as far east as Erith. Sweet chestnut trees used to dominate the forest and can still be found along with sessile oak. Ancient areas of heathland and acid grassland.. It is now a habitat of Metropolitan importance. There are dangerous caves where there have been fatalities.  There are important bat sites.

LCC Park opened 1939. Flower beds and mulberry, thyme, leaved sandwort, black mendick, wall barley, harts tongue, black spleenwort, maidenhair spleenwort, polypody male fern. Plaque to antiquarian,  Erwood.  The site is beautiful with simple but neat ornamental gardens and the massed trees of Abbey Wood rising on mounds to the south. The daffodils are the best in London. There are also wild daffodils, wild anemones and bluebells, and wild service trees.

West Wood, stream running through it

Chalk pit

Hurst Pond. Was pond of Hurst House and called Pine Pool. Ponds were once linked by rustic bridges. Willow Pool and Fountain Pool now silted

Memorial to William Morris

Wilton Road

31 Abbey Arms

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Abbots Walk

In 1930 the first of the new roads, Abbotts Walk, was marked out. Other new roads followed in rapid succession, although the Urban District Council's planning scheme and building byelaws prevented the sudden influx of speculative builders experienced in some neighbouring areas. During the 1930's an average of 495 new houses per annum were built, rising to over 800 per annum in the last two years before the war. The original new inhabitants of Bostall were by v/ay of being pioneers. The new houses preceded any amenities such as shops or schools and in most cases preceded the actual roads themselves. The rows of houses spread across the open fields, the building materials being delivered by a system of narrow gauge railways, white the concrete roads were made afterwards. The original residents of Abbotts Walk spent their first winter by candlelight until the electricity mains were connected.

St. Hillary’s Estate by Messrs Absolom in 1930s. No electricity when houses were built. Distinctive bungalows on cabbage fields.

V2 attack 18 February 1945 6 killed, 17 seriously injured, 87 slightly hurt.

V2 10^thNovember 1944  disintegrated above Erith. Its break-up did not do.any good for those on the ground, because the warhead exploded in the centre of the road-way of King Harold's Way. The blast demolished twenty homes, killing two people and injuring 24. Peter Gilham, aged 13, whose home was in King Harold's Way, was at school in Northumberland Heath at the time. He saw the flames and smoke of the explosion in the direction of his home but was not too worried because he knew that his parents were out. When he returned home for lunch, Peter found the house in a reasonable state, being about half a mile from the point of impact. In a neighbour's garden were firemen working to lift out the engine of the V2 from the soil into which it had imbedded itself. a woman had been killed while taking a bath and another person was killed in the street.

Brampton Road

St.Andrew. Began as a wooden hut in 1935. New building in 1957. Became the mother church of a new parish in 1984.

Brampton Road Brickfield. J.  Amos 1847 and J.H.Sankey and Sons 1907-1918

Clam Field

Anti aircraft gun site

Dixon’s Farm

Fields and orchards of Dixon's farm disappeared under the extensive development of Messrs. Feakes and Richards, although many of the original orchard fruit trees still survive in the gardens of the houses

East Wickham

East Wickham. ‘Wikam’ in 1240, ‘Wykham’ 1254, ‘Estwycham’ 1284 ‘Est Wycham’ 1292,’ East Wickham’ c.1762, probably ‘homestead associated with a vicus’, i.e. an earlier Romano-British settlement', from Old English ‘wic-hdm’. -East' to distinguish this place from West Wickham, which lies some 10 miles south-west and has the same origin: both names are likely to belong to the earliest stratum of Saxon names. Its situation is significant, lying as it does just north of the old Roman road from London to Dover and some 3 miles from the probable site of the Roman town of Noviomagus.  Much of the area owned by the Surrey based Leigh family.  In the 20^thdevelopment in Welling meant that what was left of the old hamlet of East Wickham became a relic feature eclipsed by twentieth century development.

Roman road followed the parish boundary,

St. Thomas More RC began in a temporary building, in 1936, which continued in use as the church hall after the new church replaced it in 1951

East Wickham House, for nearly 200 years the home of a family named Jones, some of whom are commemorated in the old church.

Elmhurst

Another council development commemorates the name of the large house previously situated there. The house survived to become an auxiliary fire station during the Second World War, suffering bomb damage before its final demolition to become a site originally occupied by temporary prefabricated housing

Goldie Leigh Drive?

Cottage at edge of woods was lodge for big house,

Avenue of trees behind it,

Goldie Leigh Hospital: Site of Old Park House. Built 1902. Part of Sir George Leigh's manor of East Wickham. For handicapped children. Transferred from Metropolitan Asylums Board to London County Council.

Hartley Road

Home of Raymond friend of Lenin

King Harold's Way

Parachute mine in 4.1941. Damaged 1,072 properties

Library After six years of service from the mobile library, Bostall was provided with a permanent library service in 1939, when Erith Borough Council purchased a bungalow in King Harold’s Way for conversion to a branch library.

St.Hilary Estate– distinctive bungalows on cabbage fields between here and Abbot’s Walk. Preceded any amenities such as shops. The building materials were delivered by a narrow gauge railway.

V2 attack 18^thFebruary 1945. The Gilham family were seated around the dining table when the huge explosion blew doors open and sent tiles flying off the roof. Everyone dived under the table. A terrific whoosh sound like a train entering a tunnel rose in the sky and faded away 7.44 pm

Longleigh Lane

Horse trough

Pantiles

Odd corners, such as the council estate here remained to be built on until after World War II

Methodist church was opened in 1955

West Heath Road

The area of Erith adjacent to the Heath remained rural in character until 1930, the only houses being a few villas in Woolwich Road and West Heath Road. The years between the wars saw a spate of new development by which the built-up area of Greater London expanded rapidly into surrounding districts, and in 1930 the building of the "new estates" in the Bostall area was begun. New houses appeared in West Heath and Brampton Roads

West Heath recreation ground portion of Gray family property, which survived. Opened by the Minister of Health, Sir Kingsley Wood, on July 2nd 1937.  Temporary housing for bombed out families from the war occupied it for several years, where a collection of adapted Nissen huts was known as Nissen Way

Woolwich Road

The Gray family's extensive property fronting Woolwich Road was built on by Messrs. Thoburn, although the splendid line of trees along its frontage was preserved

St.Joseph’s. Antedating the churches by 30 years, St. Joseph's Convent was established in Woolwich Road in 1904. Its attendant Secondary School for girls grew steadily in number of pupils, and the large modern wing was added in 1956.

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Crook Log

This area called Talehanges – a grassy area in which to cut firewood near a road

Crook Log. Early 19th pub in appearance, but may contain some 18th century structure. The extension at an angle to the east is also early 19th century, though much altered.  Said to date from 1605.  Mentioned in ‘A Tale of Two Cities’. 1786 was called Fox and Hounds and was required to build stables. Was with Gravesend Brewery Beckett, then Russels, then Kidds, then Charringtons. By 1887 was Crook Log Hotel.

2 Drayman pub

4/6 Crook Log, 1880s with decorative features.

Polo Bar, formerly called the Upton Hotel and The Jolly Draymen, a pub of 1870 though much altered.

A toll-gate stood on the Dover Road, the main gates of Danson Park on the site.

Brampton Road

Crook Log Leisure Centre with bar.

Danson Park

Marked thus on the Ordnance Survey map of 1805, preserving the old name ‘Danson’ found as ‘Dansington’ in 1284, ‘Densinton’ 1301, ‘Danston’ 1327, ‘Danson’ c.1762, possibly "farmstead associated with a man called Denesige', from an Old English personal name with medial connective ‘ing’ and ‘tun’. The Manor of Danson is first mentioned in a Subsidy Roll of 1301, the owner being Gregory de Densinton, and again in a deed dated 1407. The next known reference dates from 1574 when the manor belonged to Matthew Parker, second son of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Other deeds date back as far as 1598, but until 1695 there is no deed relating to the whole manor.

Grounds landscaped in the later 1760s in the manner of Capability Brown - Fean Garwood, the head gardener, a disciple of Brown laid out the new estate.  A belt of trees were planted all around the edge of the park and an old cottage at Blendon was given a spire and renamed Chapel House There are Ring belts of trees deliberately uneven in contour, clumps, and avenue. Trees used as punctuation. Graced by many varieties of trees, of several generations' growth, including Wellingtonia pines, poplar, lime, oak, plane, beech, elm, cedar and others, and fine drives and ornamental water with waterfowl of various kinds, the park is a delightful spot at every season of the year.  Estate purchased by the Bexley Urban District Council for use as a public park in 1924. They were formally opened on 13th April, 1925 by H.R.H. the late Princess Royal. The park has a fine rock garden, water garden and Olde English Garden an open-air swimming pool, and facilities for boating, tennis, football hockey netball, bowls and putting. The park now looks a little bare, with its second-generation trees and the park boundary is now marked by all-too-visible semi-detacheds. Field patterns can be determined in the adjoining streets

Doric temple was there and is now The Bury near Stevenage

Danson House - was a farm originally settled in Anglo-Saxon times. The name probably came from the first settler. In the middle Ages, the landowner was the Archbishop of Canterbury, and there was a succession of tenant farmers. In the course of the 17th century the house was enlarged and in 1695 it was sold as a gentleman's seat to John Styleman. When he died the land was acquired by John Boyd, a London merchant and a director of the East India Company. Boyd bought up adjacent land over three times the area of the present park and he wanted a grander house. 

Lake. The stream was dammed, the old house becoming submerged beneath the lake, which was constructed in 1775 by Nathanial Richmond by damming Woodside Brook. The 11.5 hectares lake is now a major feature. The Dam is 152.4m long and is an earth embankment with a drainage sluice at the south end. It makes for a Large, rather uncompromising lake this being the largest sheet of ornamental water, with the exception of the Serpentine, for many miles around.

Danson House'Crystalline villa'. Built 1759- 62.1762 by Sir Robert Taylor for John Boyd. Grandest of the suburban estates. Geometric purity - the height of fashion in its day and in splendid isolation - A model for less exalted suburban dwellings. It shows the individual and his family as the icon of independent family life. The house consists of a piano nobile and half-storey above a stone basement, the walls rendered, the roofs low and slated. It has five windows on each side, but is not square.  The decoration of the three main rooms was completed, probably in c. 1770, with exquisite marble chimneypieces.  The saloon is decorated with fine inset paintings of gods and goddesses between foliage panels - 1766 and the artist's name 'Pavillo' is recorded. This is probably Charles Pavilion, a little-known French painter, who died in Edinburgh in 1772. Several artists were commissioned to paint the panels in the- main rooms. Greek or Roman antiquities were acquired for the house and for the grounds - The Danson Vase, carved for the Emperor Hadrian, is now in the Orangery, Kensington Gardens. Sir William Chambers had been engaged to design the ceilings, chimney pieces and cornices. An unusual feature of the interior was the one-manual organ in the music room, built in 1766 by George England, and restored in 1959.  The estate was sold to John Johnson, a retired captain of the 62nd Regiment of Foot who had the stables built. The next owner-occupier was a railway engineer, Alfred Bean, Chairman of the Bexleyheath Line in 1895. When Mrs Bean died the estate was acquired by Bexley Urban District Council and The Mansion was used as a museum. During World War Two, it was used as the headquarters of Civil Defence. Later the principal floor was used for receptions while rooms above were used by the Parks Department. Fortunately, English Heritage has stepped in and has refurbished the mansion.

Stables. Free standing pavilions demolished. Designed with the same lucidity. Semi derelict but became a pub. Designed with the same lucidity, though built c. 1800,

Swimming pool

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Albert Road

Prince of Wales, c. 1863

Second World War, when German bombs started a clearance of nineteenth century buildings. The greatest damage to Belvedere was done in the air raid of the night of the 19th/20th April 1941, when a heavy bomb blasted the shops and houses in Albert Road facing the Recreation Ground. 

Belvedere Green

This small triangular green, which has survived from LessnessHeath, is a focal point and gives a village atmosphere to Upper Belvedere. It iscontinued further west by a narrower green with a line of trees.

Gloucester Road

Heron Hill

Went from Lesnes Heath to Picardy. From Lessness Heath Heron Hill led downhill northwards to Picardy, sometimes called Herring Hill, was also the name of an ancient house standing on its slope, which was long held by the  Abell family. Sir John Abell accompanied Edward 1 at the Siege of Caerlaverock, and his son Walter owned Footes Cray Manor. Samuel Abell was the last of the family in the reign of James I, when the property passed to the Drapers, another prominent local family. In 1725 the property was sold and divided into three. The house was in the hands of the Gilbert family from 1770 until the death of Moses Gilbert's widow in 1882, after which in 1884 it was again sold, and the land developed for building.

Leather Bottle.The Building dates from 1643 but it was altered in the 18^th and early 19^th. It had a Home brew licence in 1740 and was called ‘The Bottle’. The ‘Leather Bottle’ name dates from 1803 when a full licence was granted. It is Highly attractive. a small east extension was added in the early 19th century but the pub is still standing today much as it was at the end of the 18^ththough it replaced an earlier which is said to have been there since the time of Henry VIII.

Lessness 

'woodland belonging to Lessness Abbey'. Lessness, also spelt ‘Lesnes’ on some modern maps, was the 'meadow promontory' projecting into the Erith Marshes. ‘Lesneis’ 1086:

Lesnes Abbey Woods

Lots of Daffodils, lots of bulbs, wild Service trees, tumulus in southern part of woods. Woodland from Lesnes Abbey. Sweet chestnut and oak.  Part of an extensive area of deciduous ancient woodland surrounding a ruined abbey which occupies a steep small valley next to the borough of Greenwich and overlooking Thamesmead new town. Belonging from the 12C to Lesnes Abbey and then to the charity of Christ's Hospital, the wood was coppiced to provide fuel and timber for repairs. The highest areas of the wood which contain heather suggest there has been some colonising of heathland. It was purchased by the London county council in 1930 and within a year was opened as a park. Ownership and managment passed to Bexley following the abolition of the GLC. The wood was identified by the habitat survey as being of metropolitan importance with the NW section designated as a geological site of special scientific interest. One of the most striking features is the startling appearance of primarily natural wild daffodils in the spring. The more general impression is of former coppice allowed to mature with fine examples of hornbeam, gean and field maple as well as oak. The edge of the valley is mostly on chalk and reveals ancient earthworks.

Lessness Heath

In the Domesday Book this is ‘Loisnes’ and had three fisheries. Lessness was a Hundred and this was the site of the meeting place.

Lies to  the west of Belvedere House and its park as an extensive and irregularly shaped piece of common land with a the parish gravel pit on the north side. there were a number of farms and cottages around the edges of the heath, some of them ancient. Enclosed in 1815 and given to Christ’s Hospital.   Area around owned by William Wheatley and Sir Culling Eardley who exploited it for building.

Lessness Park

Denehole recorded in the area ‘near the gates’

Napier Road

Nelson Road

Raglan Road

Victoria Street

2 Victoria pub. cheery. back-street local run in a traditional  manner. The L-shaped bar is split into a sports themed area to the left with sporting    memorabilia in the darts area, and local history holographs in the seated area

Wellington Road

Woolwich Road

33/45 interesting group; note in particular

33 fine Italianate house of 1879

43/45, large and distinguished, c. 1862.

50/64 four attractive and dignified pairs 1860s.

16a mysterious shaft opened up in the night

44 Eardley Armsattractive pub with nice decorative details; 1860s, on the site of an inn of 1789. Over the corner doorway is the coat of arms to the Eardley family, who owned Belvedere House a picturesque white walled inn with a tiled roof, much covered by creeper, which was replaced later in the nineteenth century by the present building. Pub called after Lord Eardley

building converted from the village smithy..

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Bedonwell Road

South of Lessness Heath was the Bedon Stream,

306-320 Two adjacent groups of farm workers houses c.1894,impressive, each group having fine end gables.

Baptist Mission chapel

V2 attack February 1945 Overhead electricity lines brought down in Bedonwell Road. 5 killed, 62 injured. 4.34 pm

Elmhurst

Council housing. Name of old house

Langdale Crescent,

V2 rockets struck on 8 February 1945. At noon one person was killed and 82 injured.

Little Heath Road

Earl Haig. Built by Charringtons 1936.

Nissen Way

Because of Second World War, huts for bombed out families.

Nuxley Road

Baptist church, 1805, older foundation,

Shops replaced in 1963, Library in 1964,

39 Royal Standard,

Lessness Heath Primary School

Orchard Road

Orchard area of Dixon's Farm built up by Freakes and Richards in 1930s,

West Heath

Area west of Lessness Heath.Built up from 1882. another tract of common which meant that heathland stretched almost continuously as far as Bostall Heath.

Tyndale Preparatory School

West Heath Recreation Ground opened by Minister of Health in 1937

Westergate Road

Considerable open land was retained to the west of the West Heath House until 1924, when it too was sold for building development, and Westergate Road was made

Woolwich Road

The West Heath was sold for development in 1882, and the large houses formerly fronting Woolwich Road between Belvedere and Bostall were built.

West Heath House, where the one-time owner General Hulse was visited by George IV, still survives in modified form in Woolwich Road. In later years the property belonged to the Seth-Smith family, but for many years until 1921 the house was occupied by Sir Tom Callender of cable fame. The house had extensive coach houses and stables, in which were kept the horses for a local hunt. Part of the stables was converted into a bungalow which still remains.

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Avenue Road,

2 extraordinary house, probably c1880; Gothic porch topped by octagonal turret with a conical roof.

William Camden, pub multi-bar roadhouse with mock beams

Bexleyheath

Residential area developed from the early 19^th century, marked ‘Bexley Heath’ on the Ordnance Survey map of 1876, earlier ‘Bexley New Town’ on that of 1805, so called from the heathland originally lying to the north of Bexley.

Brampton Road

Former fire station. post WWI Single storey brick building to rear of the Adult Education Centre. Main building occupied by the Edward Alderton Theatre.

V2 attack February 1945 3 killed, 98 injured. 7.14pm

Broadway

Mediocre

Focus, opposite the dwarf clock tower in the market place, a massive shopping and office complex by Fitzroy Robinson & Partners, 1982, brick, with a steep pitched roof at either end

156 Kings Arms. pub c1845 rounding the corner with Arnsberg Way.

Christ Church. 1868. Site given by Oxford University. Foundation stone 1872.  Pinotts folly', finished 1877.  Total absence of worthy fittings”. Tall and bulky but very grand and imposing Victorian Gothic ragstone church by William Knight of Nottingham, two had won a competition judged by Burges in 1869. A central steeple had been intended. Fine detailing in the chancel windows, the west window, and the rose windows in the transepts. The first Anglican church in Bexleyheath was the Chapel of Ease 1836 in what is now the War Memorial Garden   Bexleyheath parish formed in 1866. New church begun 1872 and completed 1877. Old chapel demolished 1878, though the steeple was left standing until 1928. The church is so grand, with such noble, soaring proportions, that one grasps at any facts that will give substance to the enigmatic Mr. Knight. The materials are ragstone dressed with ashlar and slate roofs; the plan cruciform with the central steeple, alas, barely begun. The transepts as high as the nave, the chancel not quite so high, ending in a canted apse. The style is Early French Gothic, interpreted with great freedom and originality, and makes effective use of plate tracery in the window and the nave clerestory. Fine rose window in each transept. Internally the nave, with arcades of four wide arches on short round piers, yields to the glory of the chancel, to which the crossing space belongs, and its exceptionally lofty arches. Well-managed shafts and string-courses high up however binding all together. Interesting detailing of the crossing arch corbels. Apse arcading of elemental Norman forms that must have appealed to Burges. Only the spindly timber roofs do not satisfy - that and the total absence of worthy fittings to match the scale of the building

Pincott Hall

Pincott Memorial, obelisk of 1878 to the first vicar, William Pincott; fountain has disappeared. Originally sited where the Clock Tower is now

Vicarage, macabre Gothic house of 1868 by Ewan Christian, enlivened by some nice diaper pattern brickwork.

248 Golden Lion. There are records of a coaching inn on this site going back to c1730, the oldest in the area. In 1761 it was called The Bull. Rebuilt after a fire 1838.  The present building is 1901, with its oriels over the corner entrance and on the main road, heralds the approach to Bexleyheath from the west. The Golden Lion was the badge of the Lion of Flanders

Cricket Ground

Trinity Church Baptist Chapel, frontage 1868 by Habershon & Pile. Almost extravagantly classical, with an Italianate door case and four tall Corinthian pilasters surmounted by a great dentilled pediment enclosing a circular window. There are tall round-headed windows along both sides. 

War Memorial Garden, contains memorials for both world wars. “This stone is erected adjacent to the site of the original Chapel of Ease of Christ Church Bexleyheath. Chapel erected 1836, demolished 1878, steeple erected 1851, demolished 1928'. Some old gravestones have survived at the southern end of the garden.

167 Kwik Save conversion of the Broadway cinema of 1929.

ASDA, 1988 its spectacular sweep of dark glass above bands of yellow and red brick, and its startling green signs.

Lord Bexley

Bitter Experience

Hide’s

Regal Cinema.  By Robert Cromie.  Renamed ABC in 1962.  Quadruple screens in 1974 and the Crompton Organ was removed. Later became a 10 pin bowling alley and then demolished inn 1986.  ASDA built on site.

Broadway Cinema.  Built 1913 and rebuilt 1929. Ended use as a cinema in 1956.  Became a supermarket and then a pub 1997.

Church Lane

20  house  of the 1870s, in an Arts & Crafts style.

The Volunteer, early 19th century pub, with three gables on the frontage.

Upland School for Bexley School Board

Glengall Road

Bexleyheath Postal Sorting Office.  Large 1930s brick 3 storey block backed by a brick sorting office

Graham Road

Bexleyheath Sixth Form Centre. The long, low-lying building on the right as you enter the Bexleyheath School grounds is the original Bexleyheath National School of 1883

Lion Road

59 Royal Standard,pub, rebuilt in 1910;

67 Raleigh Villa, a large house cl880, with ornamental flourishes.

75 Brooklands Guest House, house 1880s. With chevron decoration over porch and windows, and diaper pattern brickwork on the side wall.

78 Robin Hood and Little John pub looks rural; built c1852, much altered. Bizarre inn-sign.

80 Wye Lodge old farmhouse, possibly as old as 17th, and certainly the oldest building in the Bexleyheath area. Extended when converted to a house in the 19th century, and restored 1950s old well in the yard.

Council Gravel Pit. Built over as a playing field 1935 and in 1985 developed for leisure.

Oaklands Road

First church in the area where the war memorial is

Pickford Lane

Widened and lined with houses after 1931.

Pincott Road

Bexleyheath Laundry.  Part of the site included The Atheneaum Public Hall converted into a shopping mall after the Second World War. Also partly developed as a magistrates court. 

Red House Lane

The Red House. By and for William Morris.  Very difficult to see and surrounded by semis. 'It sits in two dimensions'… 'mean subtopian surroundings'. ‘More a poem than a house’.  Philip Webb's first building, specially built to the specifications of the young William Morris in 1859.  Fore runner of the Arts and Crafts movement, and pioneered the 19th century vernacular revival. Whilst retaining Gothic forms, it used traditional building materials and design features. An admirable place to live in too.' Dante Gabriel Rossetti's verdict on it. The plan that Morris should have a house built for him in the country and that Philip Webb should design it, had been hatched during a trip to France the two took with Charles Faulkner, rowing down the Seine and visiting medieval cathedrals, in the summer of 1858. The contract was signed in April 1859, and late in the summer of the following year Morris and his bride moved in. Rossetti was not the sort of person to view Red House objectively, but his contradictory remark reflects the difficulty one finds. The weather vane on the finial over the staircase tower is inscribed 'WM 1859'; the house was completed in 1860. Its architect was Morris's intimate friend Philip Webb, who started his own practice with this commission. It freed him from the limitations of George Street's Gothic Revival office, where he had been Street's chief assistant and had first met Morris and enabled him to design a modern house which embodies a year-long exploration by the two friends of how to apply Gothic principles to domestic architecture without archaeological imitation; a collaborative effort in which we cannot separate one from the other. Red House has long been regarded as a landmark in domestic architecture, not only in England. In Das Englische Haus (1904-05), Muthesius wrote of it that it was "the first to be conceived and built as a unified whole, inside and out, the very first example in the history of the modern house", while Pevsner, in his Pioneers of the Modern Movement (1936) made this significant reference to Webb's work: "Red House as a whole is a building of surprisingly independent character, solid and spacious looking and yet not in the least pretentious.""The architect", he said, "does not imitate palaces." Many architects of the Modern Movement shared with Webb and Morris the firm belief that a house or a factory or a barn is as important as a church or an opera house. Red House is more than just a small country house: Morris and Webb were strongly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Movement and were "hungry for romance". The house is consequently full of artistic and architectural allusions so subtly contrived that there is no mannered effect, no straining after self-expression, something utterly foreign to the attitude of the two towards architecture. As Lethaby wrote, both were brilliantly imaginative designers "restrained only by the fear of unmeaning expression." These two men — client and architect — also shared an intense love of the countryside and its flora and fauna beautifully expressed in one of Morris's first wallpaper designs — Trellis'. The design was based on the trellis which originally bordered the well court at Red House; the birds were probably drawn by Webb. When it was built the house was surrounded by orchards, woods and meadows on the edge of the hamlet of Upton. Close to the site of its eastern boundary, and still there, is a row of former labourers' cottages, then known as Hog's Hole. While it was being built, Morris and his bride lived in an adjoining house, Aberley Lodge. Red House is now surrounded by a typical London suburb — yet behind its red brick wall, and enclosed by lime, oak, ash and hawthorn, its fruit trees laden with blossom, the air filled with bird song, it is still idyllic, and the relationship of house and garden to the orchard out of which it was created is immediately apparent to the visitor.

Philip Webb garden prototype,

1/9 Hogs Hole Cottages, long terrace of whitewashed cottages.  Basically of 1819, though they may incorporate some 18th century structure.

Steeple Avenue?

Upland Road

Bexleyheath Cemetery: Victorian 14th style lots of iron railings, opened 1879, many late 19th century tombs in the southern part.

Upton

Upton Marked thus on the Ordnance Survey map of 1805, earlier ‘Vpton’ in 1292 and 1332, that is ‘higher farmstead or estate', from Old English ‘upp’ and ‘tun’.

Upton Lane

44 Hogs Hole Cottages. Originally two cottages

25, 1870 in Tudor style, of brick with massive stone dressings. It is flanked on either side by houses with Gothick upper floor windows.

14  Upton Day Hospital, originally known as Bexley Cottage Hospital. The original building of 1884 is small and vernacular, with a half-timbered jettied upper floor; there is a long later extension to the south.

8 Upton Road, a one-storey brick cottage orne  1856. Gothic tracery on the round-headed windows, and thatched roof with pointed dormer.

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Abbey Crescent

Prince Alfred probably c.1870

Forms a wonderful townscape as it descendsthe hill; the houses are on the west side, and provide fantastic views eastwards; towards the river. Steps lead down to AbbeyCrescent, where a terrace continues curving to the west and rounding the corner withthe pub probably 1860s,

Bedon Stream

To the south of the heath ran the Bedon stream, a small tributary of the Thames which is now converted to an underground drain for much of its length. A fifteenth century form of the name was Beton Well, and despite plausible conjectures about this meaning "praying well" its derivation is unknown, though the Old English "Bydan", a shallow valley, seems a probable origin. Bedonwell, also referred to in the fifteenth century as Bedynstrete, was a small hamlet reputed to have been a manor. It was held in the 14^th century by the Burford family, which became extinct during the reign of Richard II, and was afterwards in the hands of the Draper family for many years. In the reign of Charles I the property was divided, and lost the title of a manor, being later subdivided still further.

Bedwell Road

The connection with Bedwell is commemorated to this day by the name of Bedwell Road.  Sir Culling Eardley died in 1863 at Bedwell Park, leaving two daughters and a son

6 similar to the Vicarage, with fanciful barge boarded porchand gables, probably 1860s.

Belvedere:

Until 1888 called Lessness Heath.  Crossroads at Blinks Hill (?? Is this Picardy Road) and the building of three big houses

Berkhampstead Road

14 Heathfield.  Impressive detached Italianate villa, only survivor of an 1860s development in Berkhampstead Road /Essenden Road. 

Bourne Wood:

Stream east and west into the Cray. No access

Brook Street:

Well there until 1864 providing a water supply

22  Brewers Arms. Trueman’s green tile pub frontage with fake beams inside

Duchess of Kent pub

Cheshunt Road

4-12 4/12 a terrace of cottages of the 1860s, with quaintdormers and Gothic windows.

Erith Road

Erith TechnicalInstitute became Campus of Bexley College, and then the original building of the Erith College of Technology. Amagnificent building 1906, prominent turret and octagonal cupola, lavishuse of terracotta, and ornamental flourishes.

47 Redcliffe Campus, part of Bexley College, agrand house with a magnificent bargeboarded gable, c.1905.

37/45 unusual terrace, c.1905, doorways flanked bybulbous columns, pointed oriels, and other interesting decorative features.

7 The Laurels, attractive house 1860s, a tower and along parapeted first floor terrace.

All Saints Church.  A Victorian Gothic flint church, looking like an elongatedvillage church. 1853. Colossally deep transept 'not in accordance with ecclesiological ideals’. Knapped flint walling. Cast iron foliage 1853. Built by William &Edward Habershon as a proprietary chapel for Sir Culling Eardley, and the towerwith shingled spire; added in 1861 when it became the original parish church of Belvedere. Shortish chancel. CarefulDecorated tracery and careful knapped flint walling. The interior long andstriking when viewed from the west door, and eccentric when one looks at the details.  As the nave arcades carry straight past thetransepts. Galleries in the transepts, with curvaceous balconyfronts of cast-iron foliage, part naturalistic, part palmettes.  Long northtransept with triple dormers, similar single dormers on the south transept andon each side of the nave roof - transeptsadded in 1864, when the church assumed its present appearance.The nave arcades continue straight past the transepts and up to the chancel. Thetransepts have galleries, with extraordinary curved balcony fronts of cast-iron foliage;there is a large rose window above the north gallery, and the south gallery is taken upby the organ. The fine hammerbeam roof rests on fantastic carved and vividly paintedcorbels, including some grotesque heads. The reredos is lavishly decorated. On theeast wall of the north transept are tablets to Isabella Lady Eardley 1860 and SirCulling Eardley 1863, commemorating their role in the foundation of the church. To replace the Tower Church, Sir Culling Eardley erected this church and it was dedicated on 20th October 1853. He was soon in disagreement with the minister, transferred from the Tower Church, and with the Vicar of Erith, when in 1855 it was proposed to join the Church to the Church of England. After a lengthy battle conducted by pamphlets published by the various parties, this was accomplished on 10th May 1856, when the Archbishop of Canterbury licensed the Vicar of Erith to perform divine service at All Saints. Some of the congregation protested that the church was still really dissenting, and its liturgy incomplete. Lady Eardley's dying wish was for the church to be fully consecrated, and this was done on 2nd August 1861 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. John Bird. Sir Culling made a gift of the church, with its parsonage house and its schoolroom, which had cost him altogether £6,000 to build. The tower was erected in memory of his wife, and the transepts were added in 1864, since when the flint-walled church, with its   substantial Victorian vicarage and churchyard trees, has changed but little.

Essendon Road

Douro Lodge

Franks Park

Called after Frank Beadle who donated the open space a local industrialist living at The Oaks who bequeathed the moneyfor the purchase; a pillar near the children's playground commemorates the bequestbut its plaque has disappeared. Earlier called Belvedere Park.  Originally part of the grounds of Belvedere House, it was acquired by Erith Council in 1920. Highly attractive, with a grassed area surrounded by a horseshoe of precipitous hills which are densely wooded witmagnificent oak, sweet chestnut and beech trees and forms the eastern point of theridge which runs from Bostall Heath through Lesnes Abbey Wood and Belvedere.On top of a hill in the northern part of the park is a sunken concrete bowl, theremains of a garden feature belonging to Temple Mount, a mid 19th century housedemolished after the last war, which was on the hill. Fox House Road goes through the park.

Freemantle Road

5 Lodge for the Manor a large late 19th century house,now demolished, which had become the infirmary for the seamen's home.

Gilbert Road

Gilbert Road commemorates the name of the last owners of Heron Hill.

St Augustine, A large red brick Romanesque church by Moore 1916, west front and porch added 1962. Clerestory of round-headed windows and gable with Lombard arches. The interior is very imposing, with great round red brick arc.  Church hall projects as an extension. To serve the growing part of All Saints' Parish at Lower Belvedere, a mission church was built near the Leather Bottle in what was then called Bottle Road. Dedicated to St. Augustine, it was poularly known as the Iron Church, and was opened by the Bishop of Dover in March 1884. By the turn of the century the population of the mission district had reached 4,000, and a larger  church was required. At a meeting held on 25th February 1909 a building fund was started, but the area was far from prosperous at that time, and there was much unemployment among the local  factory workers. As the curate-in-charge observed, "to collect money for building a church from people on the verge of starvation was very difficult". The plans prepared by the architect C. Hodgson Fowler were altered to reduce expense, and the building of the new church was begun in October 1914. The foundation stone laid on 26th June 1915 was dedicated by the Bishop of Rochester, but the original plan for the church could not be completed until 1965. St. Augustine's became a separate parish covering Lower Belvedere and Abbey Wood in 1916.

Lower Belvedere called ‘Picardy. Parish’ in 1916. Not finished until 1956. By Temple Moore to a design by Hodgson Fowler and consecrated in 1916. Red-brick Romanesque, front finished off in 1961

New flats in gay colours with bright shops

Greenmead.  1982. By the G.L.C., 1977—82, and is an interesting example of the new policies of the later 1970s. A mixture of public and private housing, 553 houses and flats in low broken terraces ingeniously stepped and angled so that nearly half directly overlook the green fingers which penetrate from the local park.  This housing sectionhas a remarkably rural setting, with small greens and longer green fingers penetrating amongst the low terraces of houses and flats. The housing is all in one style, vernacular revival in dark brick, in informal and irregular groupings. The area has a pleasant local shopping centre in similar style and incorporating some intriguing metal sculpture.

Greenmead Centre,

Halt Robin Road

Large semi-detached houses date from the 1850s.

Denehole recorded in 1885

5/8, impressive pairs 1860s with pediments andround-headed windows.

7/8 retains a rusticated ground floor.

Heathdene Drive.

Belvedere House. Houses at the eastern end occupy the site ofBelvedere Houseof Lord Saye and Sele. Built for Sir Sampson Gideon c. 1775 byJames Stuart, author of The Antiquities of Athens. There waslittle about it that was Grecian. Originally built c.1740, and in 1751 acquired bySampson Gideon, a Citysss financier. He died 1763, and in 1764 James ‘Athenian’ boughtthe house for his son sir Sampson Gideon, later to become Lord Eardley,the estate was inherited by Sir Culling Eardley; who built All Saints Church in1853 and developed the Belvedere Estate from 1859, and was thuslargely responsible for the development of the area of Belvedere. He died in 1863 andthe mansion was sold in 1865 to the Shipwrecked Mariners Society, and later becameknown as the Royal Alfred Home for Aged Seamen.In 1920 the eastern pan of the grounds became Frank's Park. In 1959 the old mansionwas replaced by a large modern block, but this was in turn demolished in 1978.  Thewestern part of the grounds, were later developed for housing

Little Heath Road

Was the name of part of Lessness Heath. . The former Little or Nuxley, Heath remained as farm land until the 1930's when it was also built over.

Lower Park Road

13-15 three distinctive large houses 1860s. The mainentrances are on Lower Park Road, but they also have entrances on Picardy Road,each entrance having a different address.

13 Lower Park Road / 10 Picardy Road, classical;

14 Lower Park Road / 8 PicardyRoad, Tudor porch;

15 Lower Park Road / 6 Picardy Road, prominentgables on both sides.

Milton Road

Forms a wonderful townscape as it descendsthe hill; the houses are on the west side, and provide fantastic views eastwards; towards the river. Descends from a small green, and then becomes a flight of steps with terraced houses directly on the steps leading down to AbbeyCrescent. Probably 1870s

Nuxley

On the south side of the Bedon stream was a further area of heathland, called Nuxley or Little Heath, which occupied the area around the present Belmont Primary School. The name Nuxley, sometimes spelt Naxley, is possibly a corruption of Knocksley, from Knox, a hill.

Nuxley Road

Nuxley Road is the former Bexley Road which was renamed in March 1939.

A minor shopping centre, and retains a village atmosphere, withseveral older buildings, though some have been quite drastically altered.

Vicarage of 1853, adjacent to the church, fanciful bargeboards over theporch and gables. Later extension to the south, and contemporary coach-house.

27/37 Belvedere Social Club, originally a unified terrace 1860s, much altered. Note the series of different sized gables, and the Gothic door and windows in the northern block. 

39 Royal Standard pub

45 formerly called the Coffee Tavern, now a restaurant, late 19thcentury, though it looks like an older cottage.

79 Fox. Décor to rival Kew Gardens. an attractive and bold pub, basically of 1853 but refronted 1921. The interior is one large, L-shaped room with  comfortable seating  There is a children's playground in the rear garden.

104 Queen’s Head pub.

Coffee Tavern. As an alternative to the public house, run by a management committee under the chairmanship of Charles Beadle for many years.

Belvedere Public Hall For meetings and functions with seating for 500 people. It was built in 1871, at a cost of £1,500, and in later years has been employed for various purposes not originally envisaged, such as a food office, clinic, school canteen, and finally as a Catholic Church, for which function its gothic style of architecture rendered it not inappropriate.

Old Baptist Chapel. On August 10th 1800, two young Baptist evangelists, one John Chin, the other unknown, were crossing Lessness Heath on their way to a preaching engagement at Erith, when they stopped there to hold an open-air meeting. From this modest beginning the Baptist community at Belvedere originated. John Chin became pastor of a church in Southwark in 1807, but in the meanwhile the work at Lessness Heath had been continued by Benjamin Lloyd, a native of Chatham and a member of the Woolwich Baptists. A small group of Baptists was formed but they encountered opposition, and met in various local houses in turn. Eventually they used a wooden building erected for them by a local carpenter at a rent of £5 per annum, and soon afterwards purchased it for themselves. In 1805 they replaced it at a cost of £300 by the chapel which still stands in Nuxley Road, and is the second oldest church in Erith. It probably stands on the site of two previous cottages, whose sculleries remain as small rooms behind the existing building. The church was actually formed on 5th November 1805, of six persons. The church was of the strict, that is restricted communion, Baptists, but a rift occurred in 1862, when Pastor Davis favoured the open communion Baptists, and left to found a new chapel nearby. Despite the division the original chapel continued to flourish, and a Sunday school room was added in 1921. Although superficially damaged by a flying bomb and a V-2 rocket during the second World War the chapel still retains its simple but dignified appearance, and is often referred to as the old Baptist chapel.

New Baptist Chapel. By the middle of the nineteenth century, there was some desire for an open communion Baptist chapel in Belvedere, the supporters of the idea including the Rev. Ebenezer Davis, pastor of the strict chapel, as mentioned above. The group wished to found a separate chapel, and Mr. Davis appealed for help to Sir Culling Eardley. In his letter of reply sent on 26th September 1862 Sir Culling said: "I have made up my mind to meet the wishes of yourself and your friends, and to give you the promised site for an open communion Baptist Chapel, in the Bexley Road". He also gave £50 towards the cost. Although only nine out of the twenty-five leaders of the church favoured the offer, the nine decided to accept and went ahead and launched a successful appeal for the necessary funds. Sir Culling Eardley was unable to lay the first stone himself as had been arranged on 23rd April 1863, owing to illness, and he died a month later. The church opened for worship on 29th September 1863. but the following year Mr. Davis surprisingly withdrew as pastor. His successor had been in office less than a week when the chapel was damaged by the Gunpowder Explosion of 1st August 1864.  Nevertheless the new church prospered, and by the turn of the century had about 250 pupils in its Sunday school, and in 1900 the chapel was enlarged and renovated, and a second schoolroom added.  The Second World War brought greater troubles, for on 20th March 1941 the church and school were wrecked by the blast of a nearby bomb, and for several years services were transferred to the Coffee Tavern and the local Cooperative Hall. After the war the new church and school were built on the site of the old, and opened in September 1950.

Parsonage Manorway

Site of Erith Parsonage Farm. Up to the Reformation the advowson of the Parish of Erith was in the possession of Lesnes Abbey, and afterwards passed to the owners of the Parsonage Farm. Until the end of the nineteenth century the farm retained medieval remains indicative of its former ecclesiastical importance, including several hundred feet of surrounding wall and two ponds over 200 feet long for fish, supplied with water from Bedonwell Stream. The farm also had a walled garden and a bowling green. In the later years of the nineteenth century it belonged to the Vinson family, who were at one time sufficiently important to issue their own trade tokens in lieu of coinage, and owned much of the farmland to the south and west of the village until it was sold for building from 1930 onwards. The house itself survived to be used as an auxiliary fire station in World War II, and afterwards fell gradually into final decay and was demolished.

Picardy Road

Picardy Street was built on land belonging to the Parish family, a prominent family in nineteenth century Erith, which was sold by public auction at the nearby Railway Hotel in 1865.

Second World War, when German bombs started a clearance of nineteenth century buildings. The greatest damage to Belvedere was done in the air raid of the nightof the 19th/20th April 1941, when a parachute mine effected a massive clearance at Picardy Street. there was a comprehensive redevelopment; the road was straightened and widened, the Co-operative stores, which dated from 1899, were replaced by new shops, and some blocks of flats and a branch library were erected. The whole scheme was completed in 1962.

163/169 interesting group

169 The Priory. Very large house of 1866.  Barge boarded porch and Gothic doorways. The archaeologist Flaxman Spurrell lived here in the 1880s

Coach-house barge boarded contemporary.

165/7 imposing Italianate pair, 1860s.

163 Chilton Lodge, 1860s, white and fanciful, centraltower and barge boarded porch with Gothic doorway.

51 Chequers

Belvedere and Erith Congregational Churchintricately patterned Gothic frontage built in 1897, replacing an earlier iron structure dating from 1865 which stood nearby.

Welfare Centre

Belvedere Methodist Church, a striking Gothic church of 1876, with a fine Gothic porch and a wheel-window above.   typically Victorian

Stapley Road

18/20 two houses set back from the road, probably early19th century, and the oldest surviving houses in Belvedere.

Free Grace Baptist Chapel a simple classical building opened as a strictchapel in 1805; interior, which is small and pleasing, with a gallery

83 probably mid 19th century

The Queens Head 1871 masks along the upper floor

106 shop 1871. Masks along the upper floor

Upper Abbey  Road, 

40 Prince Alfred pub

V2 attack 26 February 1945. In  front  of  houses  6 killed, 21 seriously injured,110 slightly hurt. 11.26am

Upper Belvedere

Developed when the Eardley estate was broken up in 1856. Upper Belvedere was developed as a good class residential area, and apart from a few rows of cottages, the new houses were mainly large and substantial villas, many with extensive gardens. . Gas for private and public lighting was extended to Belvedere in 1860, being supplied by the West Kent Gas Company from their Crayford Works, and then from their Erith Works when it was built in 1862. Water was still available only from wells, many of which gave a limited supply, the exception being a well in Brook Street which was inexhaustible, but from 1864 piped water was provided by the North Kent Water Company. Some of the new roads were taken over as public highways in 1869, and the remainder in 1878, the Erith Local Board of Health assuming responsibility for their maintenance.

Upper Park Road

Merchants Seamen's Home.  Opened 1959. Was built as the Royal Alfred Home for Aged Seamen 1957/9 by Gollins, MelvinbyWard. Long four-storeyed block facing with a shortcentral projection at the back. Curtain walling, the spandrelpanels the palest of blues. Single-storey ranges snaking out atfront and back. In design and colour a little insipid perhaps forthe old salts.Before 1957 the seamen occupied the eponymous Belvedere demolished in 1978

Woolwich Road

St. Joseph's Convent 1904. Secondary School for girls enlarged in 1956

Technical School

16a April 1984 opening of a 15ft. shaft beneath the feet of Mrs.  Trott in the garden No explanation for the shaft was suggested.1

138 Prince of Wales Pub