KEMNAL ROAD CHISLEHURST CollectedA HISTORY and edited by Tony Allen and Andrew Thomas . KEMNAL ROAD CHISLEHURST A HISTORY Collected and edited by Tony Allen and Andrew Thomas Printed privately Chislehurst, Kent 4th edition February 2011 Kemnal Road - a history ‘One of the prettiest walks in the neighbourhood’ (Canon Murray) ‘Lovely woods and songbirds’ (Agnes Tiarks) 'The whole of Kemnal was an absolute paradise for young kids growing up' (Jerry Bourne) ‘Kemnal Road retains the character of a rural lane through dense woodland’ (Bromley LB) First published 2007 This edition, February 2011 Copyright ©Tony Allen and Andrew Thomas, 2011 All rights reserved The moral rights of the authors have been asserted Printed in England by CPI Antony Rowe Eastbourne East Sussex BN23 6PE February 2011 Typefaces used: Chapter headings and subheadings - Perpetua Titling MT Main body text - Adobe Garamond Pro roman Comments and captions - Adobe Garamond Pro italic Memories, recollections, or descriptions - Perpetua italic 2 Kemnal Road - a history Preface to fourth edition e have been extremely gratified with the way that this modest book on Kemnal Road has been received, and by the continued response of past residents and Wvisitors to the Road and its houses who have provided us with memories and/or images. This fourth edition of the book has been radically revised in terms of style and format, and there are a number of significant additions to content, most of which are already reflected on our website www.kemnal-road.org.uk These include the addition of information on Woodlands, which is strictly not on Kemnal Road, but which shares a boundary with it for a considerable part of its length, a wonderful photograph of the Hutton family in the early years of last century, and a number of photographs of the Nelson family at Kemnal Warren, together with much new information. Kemnal Road remains a desirable place to live, and it is not surprising that development continues here, even in difficult economic times. In the space of three years since the last edition, Hoblands Cottage, Woodheath Cottage, Kemnal Lodge and Columbine have been demolished. Some of the development is welcome, but it is important that development is sympathetic to the unique environment of Kemnal Road. Keep an eye open for further news on the website! Tony Allen and Andrew Thomas February 2011 3 Kemnal Road - a history Preface to the third edition hen Worsley Grange was being built Tony inherited some maps from the developers which they had used to check the water courses in the Kemnal Road area over the Wperiod since 1870. The maps revealed not only the water courses on both sides of the road, but all the original houses that were built here in the 1870s and 1880s. This coincided with the release of the 1901 census information, and with the discovery by Andrew of an old photo album of Wyvelsfield, Walter Murton’s book, and the print of Nizels. This enabled us to put together a brief outline, and from this we discovered and uncovered much more. A major recent find has been the diaries of Agnes Tiarks, covering almost half a century of living at Foxbury. The following pages trace the development of the Road and set out what we know about the houses and the people who have lived and worked here. While we have included information up to the present time for the older houses, we have not generally included information about present residents, nor about individual residents at the houses and apartments which have been built since the last war. We are aware that there is more to uncover, though this third edition is now substantially more complete than the first two. Much of the information comes from public sources, including the censuses of 1881, 1891 and 1901, Kelly’s and other street directories, which published information on Chislehurst up to 1940. The registers of voters in Chislehurst provide more information from 1912 to 1939, and again from 1945. These bare details have then been filled out by information from past and present residents and from books, web-sites and libraries. There must be a great deal of further information about Kemnal Road in people’s memories, papers and photograph collections. We hope that this book will stimulate more people to look out old photos, and let us have more information to fill the gaps in our incomplete history, as a number of people already have. Please contact us if you would like to share your knowledge with us. Most of the information here is also on our web-site: www.kemnal-road.org.uk We acknowledge our sources where we can. See page 192 for a list of acknowledgements. Tony Allen and Andrew Thomas November 2007 4 Kemnal Road - a history Contents 3 Preface 6 Kemnal Road – introduction 9 Seven maps of Kemnal Road 18 The original houses in Kemnal Road 21 Meadowcroft 24 Woodheath (rebuilt as Hoblands) 35 Nizels 40 South Home (originally The Hollies, now rebuilt as Oaklands) 44 Inglewood 48 Kemnal Warren (originally Homeleigh) 54 Wyvelsfield (renamed and later rebuilt as Mulbarton Court) 59 Foxbury 84 Kemnal Manor 112 The Foxearth (formerly Woodheath Cottage) 116 Holly Bowers 123 Kemnal Wood 126 Selwood (originally Timara) 129 Westerland (originally South Laund, now Worsley Grange) 135 Woodlands 140 The Amenity Strip 142 Kemnal Road - the future 143 Appendices 5 Kemnal Road - a history Kemnal Road – introduction emnal Road is both new and old. New, because it was first developed for housing only 130 years ago; old, because it follows the route of an old footpath and track which for Kcenturies has crossed the area called Woodheath. Chislehurst is an old village. Even though the earliest records date from about 974 and there is evidence that it had been a community much earlier than that, it does not feature in the Domesday Book. According to Bushell this is because it was a royal manor (probably an outlying part of the Royal Manor of Dartford), and there was therefore no need to enter its tax capacity, which was the purpose of the compilation of the Domesday Book. Kemnal Road took its name from Kemnal Manor, one of the earliest houses in this area. First mentioned in deeds in 1250 it was then referred to as the home of Alexander of Chomehole. Throughout its history the name has evolved: Chomehole, Cunehale, Kimehole, Kimenhale, Kymenhole, Kemenhole, and most recently Keminghole. Locally the name had been contracted to Kemnal, and this contracted name was given to the last house built on the site in the 1870s. It was an unremarkable residence, but it is now gone, destroyed by fire in 1964. The old footpath was used for the collection and transport of timber and charcoal from the ancient woodland which largely covered the area, and in later times, even before the development of the land on either side of the road, it provided a short-cut to the Maidstone Road (now the A20) and was regarded as ‘one of the prettiest walks in the neighbourhood’. Canon Murray, rector of St Nicholas for much of the 19th Century, was one of those who would use this path to walk to the Maidstone Road to catch the ‘coach and four’ which ran daily from Maidstone to London. This was before the building of the railway station at Chislehurst in 1865. The extension of the railway to Chislehurst enabled relatively easy daily travel from Chislehurst to London, whilst allowing families to live in the countryside, and inevitably led to increased demand for housing in the area. The development of Kemnal Road started when Mr Samuel Asser bought the freehold of the Kemnal Estate in 1871 from New College, Oxford. A right of way had existed from Kemnal Manor to the south, over the Woodheath footpath, since at least 1607, when there had been a dispute over its use, settled in favour of the owners of Kemnal Manor. In December 1873 Asser purchased the right of way from Earl Sydney of Frognal, and at the same time he made a new road northwards to the Maidstone Road, thereby creating the full length of Kemnal Road (see page 188 for the text of the indenture). In 1874, Asser sold 57 acres of his newly acquired land to Mr Henry Tiarks, a wealthy London banker, for the building of his great house at Foxbury, and provided him with rights of way from the north and the south. At the same time Earl Sydney was disposing of individual plots of Woodheath on both sides of the newly created road. The development of the road was completed within ten years. It turned the southern part of the footpath into a distinguished private road with large fine houses, ‘whose beautiful grounds owe much of their charm to the retention of their woodland character’ (Webb, The History of Chislehurst). 6 Kemnal Road - a history By 1884 there were 13 large houses in Kemnal Road. In these houses 21 adults and 39 children were looked after by 84 servants. In addition there were 14 other households in the lodges, cottages and stables, and here there were another 20 (largely male) servants, living with their wives and 37 children. In all 210 people were living in the Road at this time. The census information provides details of where residents were born, and the data for Kemnal Road show just how much movement there had been from country to town: in particular the servants and their families came from just about every corner of the United Kingdom. See page 186 for a description of the various duties and rates of pay of the servants in the late Victorian years.