Kent Portrait Survey the Society Is Looking for Someone Who Will Take on the Buildings (Commonly Shown in the Background)

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY FOR THE LONDON BOROUGH OF BROMLEY Vol 7 No 4 May 1984 PRICE 10p Free to Members Kent Portrait Survey The Society is looking for someone who will take on the buildings (commonly shown in the background). The work of local portrait recorder. Since 1967 members of national collections are all thoroughly catalogued but there other local history societies throughout Kent have underta is known to be a vastly greater number of portraits in pri ken the surveying and recording of publicly and privately vate possession. Recording is not restricted to “important” owned portraits for the Archive and Research Section of people or “important” artists; neither is artistic merit or the National Portrait Gallery. This survey is carried out value, or any concern. The Survey regards all portraits as under the auspices of the Kent County Local History Com equally important and valuable. mittee (of which this Society if a member). To date 2,800 The work involved is the locating of portraits in private rtraits have been recorded. possession, and the completion of a simple form in respect — The National Portrait Gallery have said how useful the of each one, and the attachment of a gummed label, bear Kent Committee’s contribution to its resources has been. ing a date and serial number, to the back of the frame. Portraits are a valuable source of material for historical and If any member is willing to undertake this task, he or she biographical research giving not only information about is asked to contact the Secretary. people and costumes, but about household interiors and KENT ARCHIVES OFFICE ‘inquisition’ which mentions almshouses in Wickham in May we remind our .members that the Kent Archives Office 1652. at County Hall, Maidstone is about to undergo improve His great achievement was the construction of a series of ments to both the air-conditioning and also the provision of maps of the district which show field names of varying dates a new search room, bookshop and offices during 1984/5 and from the 15th to the 18th centuries. These he compiled so it is regretted that the main archives search room will from the many rentals, probate wills, deeds and other docu close to the public at 4.30pm on Thursday 12th April, 1984 ments he had transcribed - an enormous task which must and a new date for the opening of the new research room have occupied him for many, surely most enjoyable, hours. will not be made until Autumn, 1984. He seems to have based his outline maps on the 1st Edition OS 6" maps of C.1870. I have checked perhaps 90% of the DULWICH Wickhams section against the 1484-5 rental and extent of the manor, which is what he used. This gives the name, size Our Member, Doris Pullen, has written and published and abuttments of tenements and fields, of an area equal to another book about the history of a local area and the about %’s of the pre-1934 parish. I disagree with his results people who lived there. in only a few minor instances, where he appears not to have Her previous books were about (i) Sydenham, (ii) Penge taken into account the acreages given. One exception: he N'-and (iii) Forest Hill. The new one is about Dulwich, an portrays the area of Wickham High Street as a series of interesting area which by some miracle has retained much holdings of varied shape and size, and not even of its village atmosphere and rural charm. The present approximating to 19th century boundaries. In seeking book is written in her usual friendly style and has contribu ‘realism’ perhaps, he has missed one of the most significant tions from people who so obviously love the area. It is a val evidences of the rental, that Wickham village then con uable contribution to the local historical records and is sisted of regular sized tenements which must have been recommended as a good read. This book and the previous planned and laid out not too long before. ones are available from Mrs Pullen, 155 Venner Road, Perhaps other local specialists could put a finger on com Sydenham. (01-778 7189). parable lapses; but on the whole I should credit Mr Davis with a splendid series of maps. However, I believe we should bear in mind that this collection was in fact his work THE BERNARD DAVIS NOTEBOOKS ing notes. I am convinced that some of the material, both in In the last issue of Bromleage John Filmer referred to the the notebooks, and on the maps, is purely tentative and notebooks of Bernard Davis. Mr Davis was a member of remains in need of confirmation. the Kent Archaeological Society who, in the early 1930’s, Certainly use this ‘source’ if you think there may be gathered together a great deal of information on the history something in it for you but, as with any other, check the of the Bromley areas. His original notebooks are in the information wherever you can. The volumes are:- KAS Library in Maidstone Museum, but photocopies have Vol. I West Wickham (with a contents list by Michael been made for local convenience and lodged in the Local Watts) Studies Room here. I have used these notebooks exten II Baston Manor sively myself and would like to make few comments on III Keston them. IV & V Bromley and District As you know anything that is written down is subject to VI Bromley and Chislehurst Wills 1446-1522 ‘human error’ and obviously the more times a document is VII Bromley and Chislehurst Wills 1526-1619 copied the greater the chance of mistakes. On the whole I VIII Bromley and Chislehurst Wills 1608-1739 would say that most of Mr Davis’ transcripts etc are reli IX Bromley and District Wills able, but he has occasionally missed making a note of his X Kent Fines (ie property alienations) reference. This is generally recoverable from the type of also Chislehurst and Scadbury Court Rolls and Rentals and record and the date and so on, but I am still looking for an an Index to Personal Names. Hayes: The Ground Beneath Us The present shape of the Hayes landscape was determined Husseywell pond, and thence underground to join the long before the first known inhabitants of the area arrived. Bourne. The final stages of a successive lowering and raising of The Bourne and the slopes which led down to it were the Southern England drained away what had been an inland main features which all the known Hayes settlements had sea. This lay between what are now the North Downs and overlooked until the early 1930s when rapid and extensive the Northern Heights of London. building development started to fill the valley and the The sea’s gradual retreat laid down, in geologists’ lan slopes with houses. As the estates were developed, the mid guage, tertiary bed - that is, layers of light coloured sands dle course of the Bourne was almost concealed by division and pebbles, or loam, clay and light coloured sand with and culverting. some flint pebbles. These pebbles are only too familiar to In prehistoric and early historic times the upper levels of many a despairing Hayes gardener waging a continuous the north-facing slopes of the North Downs would have battle with the barrowload of stones which every yard dug been lightly wooded. South of the Downs, woodlands grew seems to throw up. up to form the dense forests of the Weald. The forests The various soils of Hayes - sandy or gravelly, or clay- extended south for 30 miles or more, and survived until with-flints, all overlie the chalk which is at or near the sur large areas were felled for shipbuilding, housebuilding and face south of Keston and West Wickham; they form a dip iron foundry furnace stoking in Elizabethan and later slope which inclines gradually from the North Downs times. towards the Thames. Hayes Common is on gently sloping The lower north-facing slopes also tended to be wooded, plateau and most of Hayes itself lies on the slopes of the val with a preoponderance of oak and elm, alder in wet valleys, ley of a bourne (“bourne” means “occasional stream”) fed and probably some beech. The damp lowland areas of by springs which rose where the clay meets the chalk of the southern England were thus particularly suitable for w North Downs at West Wickham and Addington. pigs and deer. Fossilised bones of these have been founder" Coming forwards in time, some quite substantial rivers gravel pits and other excavations. ran down the north facing slope of the Downs to join the Heavily wooded territory was difficult to clear with Thames. Wild life was plentiful and the palaeolithic hunters primitive tools and so long as there were enough areas of of it left behind their flint axes and other tools; examples warmer, drier and less heavily wooded soil which could be have been found in many districts in north west Kent. As cleared and worked, with a good water supply available, the land rose, the rivers became merely streams. The settlements in the more densely wooded areas remained streams of recent times - the Bourne and the sparse or non-existent. Ravensbourne among them - resulted from melt waters of The first settlement in the area which is now Hayes and the last ice age about 10,000 years ago cutting across the Hayes Common was thus determined by the accidents of pebbles, sands and clay beds, and gouging out valleys.

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