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THE NEWSLETTER OF THE LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY FOR THE LONDON BOROUGH OF BROMLEY V O L .3. No. 1 S E P T E M B E R 1977 P R IC E 10p Free to Members BROMLEY LOCAL HISTORY No.2 .fter the success of the first publication “ Bromley Local advertising card will be available. The general experience is listory, No. 1.” arrangements are proceeding for the that most agents are only too pleased to take booklets for jcond issue. It is intended that it will be the same size as sale and they do not have to be persuaded. This is a way in ist year’s i.e. 48 pages. Nearly 4,000 copies of the No. 1. which you can help the Society, so please volunteer to take ere sold and it is thought that with more publicity and copies of the booklet and persuade your local bookseller or ilesmanship a greater number can be sold. Members are newsagent to exhibit them in the shop for sale. Offers to sked to help by taking copies to local booksellers and the Hon. Secretary, F.J. Whyler, 163 Tubbenden Lane, :ationers for them to sell. The terms of sale are quite good Orpington. (Farnborough 58679). □ - r py case it is a sale or return basis — and an attractive THE SANDERSONS OF BULLERS REGISTRATION AS AN WOOD, CHISLEHURST DUCATIONAL CHARITY Miss S. Bunnett of Bullers Wood School, St. Nicholas’ .t the annual general meeting held in March, it was Lane, Chislehurst, is collecting information on the family jported that the Committee were of the opinion that the life of John and Agnes Sanderson, who lived in Bullers ociety should be registered as an Educational Charity. It Wood House from c.1871-1920. If any one has any as then agreed that application should be made to the information or recollections about this family, will they ■harity Commission for the Society to be registered, and please contact her. She is on the telephone at 01-460 9436. te amendments to the Society’s objects, which the ommission asked for, before they would consider :gistration, were approved. The Charity Commission were informed of the decision f that meeting and formal applications for the Society to s registered was made, as a result of which the Society is aw an Educational Charity — Registration number, 73963 — with the object of promoting the advancement f education of the public by the study of the local history f the London Borough of Bromley. □ >F_3 AND WATERING PLACES >ne of our members, Miss Muriel Searle, has written a ook which through contemporary descriptions, pictures, irtoons and even doggerel, as well as handed-down temories, evokes the atmosphere of such places as Bath ad Tunbridge Wells, from the days of George III to the dwardian era. This was the age of the spa and watering laces. The book contains 160 pages and is published by A CHURCH??? lidas Books Ltd. Copies can be obtained from the author Can anyone identify the church in which this photograph :ost £4.95) at 164, Queen Anne Avenue, Bromley. □ was taken? It is almost certainly a local church and should be easily identifiable. Information please to Miss Marie Owens, 26 Cambridge Road, Bromley. lN introduction t o t h e IISTORY OF BECKENHAM his brief introduction has been prepared by the staff of CLASSES IN LOCAL HISTORY le Beckenham library, with the help and encouragement f Mr H. Rob Copeland, who is a member of the Society The Society’s Vice-Chairman, Miss M. Hughes, B.A., will id the Committee. The booklet is available (price 30p) at be conducting the following classes:- ie Beckenham and Central libraries. Local History. Tuesdays, 7.30 p.m. Starting on 27th The reference library at Beckenham contains a wealth of September, at Elmfield Upper School, Aylesbury Road, aterial on local history. Members who wish to pursue a Bromley. udy of Beckenham’s history are invited to make use of Mediaeval History and its Local Aspects. Mondays. is special collection. The staff will be pleased to help 7.30 p.m. Starting 26th September, at Newstead Wood >u. □ School, Avebury Road, Orpington. □ Chislehurst’s Lost Curiosity Every time the monster called Progress opens his jaws and swallows, some roadside landmark vanishes. Over the last few years he has been specially well fed by fellers of fine trees, diggers up of sylvan copses, knockers down of country cottages and dumpers of concrete lamposts. Sometimes the fancy for a more solid meal has become too much for him when, instead of removing a mere wall or a pretty tree nothing less than an entire building, preferably historic and irreplaceable, would do. In such a mood was Progress when his hungry eye spotted Chislehurst’s attractive Water Tower. Helplessly lovers of the unusual watched him munch it to the last brick, destroying something that was not only unique in Britain but possibly without a like anywhere in Europe. Every West Kent motorist knew Chislehurst Water Tower, straddling the main road like a medieval city gatehouse though its true period was — dreadful word — Victorian. No driver could ignore it, standing across his path controlling traffic flow and creating its own one-way system as effectively as anything installed in modern times for the purpose. Short of crawling over the top, oncoming vehicles could only wait their turn, squeezing through the narrow central arch one by one. Pedestrians fared better, with their own needle’s eye arch at one side. This unique gateway, originally standing by another vanished feature of old Chislehurst, its hilltop windmill, was built by the local landowner, George Wythes, who in Before: Chislehurst Water Tower, about 1962 1860 resolved to develop his already extensive private estates around Bickley and Chislehurst. His scheme driver placed his vehicle carefully in line with the dark, included a new road at a less taxing gradient than the narrow and exacting central arch before sliding through existing route from Bromley, a difficult pull up for horse with literally inches to spare, while cars queued behind. drawn vehicles, and a number of new houses. Many a regular bus passenger confessed to a long standing To supply the latter Wythes built as a grand entrance to “thing” about the arch, expecting every time to feel the the estate this dual purpose gatehouse and water tower bus crunch into a squashed metal concertina against the standing across the road, the huge tank above the central arch. arch being intended to hold no less than 200,000 gallons of The obstruction, the preservationists however pleaded, water pumped from some of the many springs for which was a telling fact in the tower’s favour, being in itself a the whole district is noted. safety device, slowing traffic at the brink of a highly The tower also housed two estate families, one either dangerous hill. In its century of existence only one fatal side of the road, but the gates themselves were never accident on the hill had apparently been recorded. actually installed. Their plea failed. Sadly for lovers of the unusual, Ceremonial entry and water storage apart, Wythes had Progress the monster was allowed his giant bite of old another use for his almost fortress-like building, hoping to Chislehurst in 1963, leaving the road wider, smoother, and use it as a barrier protecting private rights over an shorn of its unique character, while the wheeled herd at important road, raising much local controversy and ill last could stampede like lemmings downhill. Demolition feeling. Only reluctantly was he eventually forced to grant began on a Friday. “And Friday the 13th” at least one public access. observer was heard to remark. The coming of large scale public water supplies soon Even a plan to preserve so small a fragment as Wythes’ made the tower’s massive storage tanks redundant, and by coat of arms on a stone panel, from above one of the the mid-1870s it had been bought by the then Kent Water Company, which linked most of the neighbourhood to its own network. By about 1875 the great tank was empty. .... and after (1976) Public waterworks facilities were however sited close by, and a small installation is still to be seen beside the tower’s old site. The picturesque building remained to span the road for nearly a century more, seeing a trickle of horse vehicles displaced by a growing flood of horseless carriages and by today’s armada of cars and lorries. By the first post-war years it was apparent to all but-lovers of the picturesque that the Water Tower could be removed on the grounds that it impeded modern traffic movements. For twenty five years controversy continued while the tower stood its ground. A quaint survival of Victorian Kent that should be preserved for its attractive turrets, mellow brickwork and pretty yet not over-ornate decoration, said the preserva­ tionists. Get rid of this nuisance of a Victorian monstrosity, said the modernists, who wanted to see the dangerous hill guarded by the gateway become an exhilarating big dipper for motorists. Certainly an obstruction existed, particularly when a red single decker bus slowed to a maddening crawl as the 2 Some Recollections of Seventy Years Ago I was bom in 1897 and lived in Lewisham till 1930, when I stretch of gorse, over which I remember being lifted as a moved to West Wickham. small boy. I do not recall many trees, apart from the From Catford our main outlet to the country was avenue of lime trees and the beech trees a little further on.

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