PUBLICATION OF THE BROMLEY BOROUGH LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY

SEPTEMBER 1992 Price 20p Free to Members The Chislehurst Connection Camden Palace and Camden Town (Continuation of article in Bromleage, November 1991)

The Emperor Eugenia Guzman y Palafox, the 26-year old daugh­ ter of the Count of Montijo of Spain; she became Prince Louis Napoleon was bom in Paris in 1808, the Empress Eugenie of France. The only child of the third son of King Louis of Holland, who was the marriage, Eugene Louis Jean Joseph, the Prince brother to the Emperor Napoleon I. As a young Imperial, was bom in 1856. an he was fired with the ambition of emulating The chief link between Napoleon IH and Camden Tiis uncle, but in the disturbed political conditions Town in North London relates to the memorial of the 1830s and 1840s he was often exiled from statue of Richard Cobden, the advocate of free France and spent some time in England. It is trade, who died in 1865. A few years previously he curious that during this period Louis developed two had negotiated a commercial treaty between Great connections with Camden Place. For a time the Britain and France, which promoted the restoration house was let to Henry Rowles, of Mayfair, whose of friendly relations between the two countries. young daughter Emily met Louis Napoleon in the Napoleon was duly grateful and made a major late 1830s. Subsequently, he often visited contribution towards the cost of the statue, which Chislehurst to see her, and according to one was erected at the Southern end of Camden High account he was engaged to her. Street and unveiled in 1868. In 1840 Napoleon attempted a coup d'etat in

France, but was arrested when he landed at % * * * * Boulogne and imprisoned in the castle of Ham on the Somme. He was a captive for six years but eventually escaped with the assistance of Emily During the 1860s tension built up between France wvowles, whose practical help included a parcel of and Germany, and hostilities were triggered in July clothes for disguise. He returned to London, and 1870. The war was short, and neutral countries were the next target of his affections was Elizabeth surprised equally by the strength and readiness of Howard, a lady of property, whose trustee was Germany and by the weakness of France. On 2nd Nathaniel William Strode; he later purchased September Napoleon HI surrendered with 100,000 Camden Place. men near Sedan and the siege of Paris began a few days later. The Third Republic was proclaimed and Meanwhile, in the turmoil of the 1848 revolution a government of national defence was formed By Prince Louis had returned to France, and with January 1871 Paris faced starvation and capitulated. financial help from Elizabeth Howard he secured sufficient political support to be elected president. In 1852 the Second Republic gave way to the ***** Second Empire and Louis was proclaimed Emperor Napoleon ID, with absolute power. As Emperor he Nathaniel Strode had made extensive additions to needed a legal wife and an heir. His liaison with Camden Place, which he decorated and furnished in Elizabeth Howard came to an end, and in 1853, in French style. Carved in the facade above the main Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, he married Maria entrance was the motto of the Strode family "Malo mori quam foedari" (I would rather die than be special train, with the Queen's saloon carriage in dishonoured), which the Empress Eugenie said the centre, was routed along the London & South might have been her own. It has been suggested that Western Railway from Windsor to Waterloo, and it Strode surmised that Napoleon III might one day be passed through the terminus without stopping. In in need of a house in exile. It has even been those days there was a spur line connecting the conjectured that Napoleon was the real owner. main station to Waterloo Junction (now Waterloo East) on the South Eastern Railway, the line to Following the surrender at Sedan, Eugenie fled from Paris. The Prince Imperial had been alongside Chislehurst. Crowds had assembled there to greet Her Majesty, and she drove up the steep hill to his father with the army but escaped through Camden Place in an open carriage which had been Ostende to Hastings. He was joined there by the sent in advance for the purpose; it was drawn by Empress and they reached Camden Place on 20th September 1870. After a period as a prisoner, Napo­ four grey ponies and there were two outriders. She was accompanied by her two youngest children, leon HI was released by the Germans and on 20th Prince Leopold and Princess Beatrice, and they March 1871 he arrived at Chislehurst to join his were received at Camden Place by the imperial wife and son in exile. family, including Prince Murat, a first cousin of the Emperor. The Queen stayed half an hour and then returned to Windsor.

The South Eastern Railway was promoted in the 1830s to secure lucrative continental traffic between Dover and London. Initially, however, parliament Camden Place became a focus of interest and would not allow the company its own line into a there was a succession of distinguished visitors. London terminus. It had to use the London & The prime minister, Gladstone, was less eager than Brighton rails from London Bridge to Redhill, from the Queen, but went there in the autumn of 1871. A where it built its own line in an Easterly direction small colony of French emigres became established through Tonbridge to Folkstone and Dover. Later, in the neighbourhood: there were stories of spies, the South Eastern gained control of the north Kent either Prussian or French republican, installing line from Gravesend and Woolwich via Lewisham themselves in the windmill overlooking the into London Bridge. A shorter route to Tonbridge mansion. and Dover was authorised, and the company's new main line from St John's near Lewisham was A later royal visitor was the heir to the throne of opened for traffic to Chislehurst in July 1865. At Spain, Alfonso Prince of the Asturias. He was first there were temporary arrangements for almost the same age as the Prince Imperial; as passengers at a station at the foot of Old Hill, but small boys they had met at Bianitz, and Alfonso the permanent stations with its lavishly broad was at a spectacular fete held in Paris for Louis' platforms was completed shortly afterwards. In fourteenth birthday. During 1874 he visited 1868 the line was completed to Tonbridge and could Chislehurst while training at Sandhurst and at the be used for through services to Dover. By then the end of that year was proclaimed King Alfonso XU. line into London Bridge had been extended North of Napoleon had been in bad health for many years; the Thames into Charing Cross. he died at Camden Place on 9th January 1873 and Being situated close to this new direct line between his funeral was held six days later. A procession of Dover and central London was an additional point more than a thousand, including several members in favour of Camden Place as a residence for the of the British and French royal families, took half exiles. Shortly after Eugenie and her son arrived in an hour to make its way across Chislehurst Chislehurst they were visited by Queen Victoria. Common to the small Roman Catholic church, St The following March, when the deposed Emperor Mary's. A year later the body of the Emperor was landed in England, the Chislehurst stationmaster transferred to a granite sarcophagus in a mortuary attended Camden Place to inform the Empress of chapel specially added to the South side of the arrangements made for a special train to bring him building. from Dover to Chislehurst. Within a week he went A very different occasion took place on 16th to Windsor to pay his respects to Queen Victoria March 1874, to celebrate the coming of age of the and on 3rd April 1871 she returned his visit. A royal Prince Imperial on his eighteenth birthday. 6,000 of his fellow countrymen, from all parts of France, gathered at Camden to do honour to le petit prince. 68 Thicket Road, Penge The railway ran special trains from Charing Cross and the tricolour was flown at Chislehurst station; What is special about this address? Did someone there was a service at St Mary's before speeches in famous once live here or was it the scene of some a marquee in Camden Park. dastardly deed? I am sorry to disappoint you, but 68 Thicket Road has no claim to fame. It was selected Prince Louis became a cadet at Woolwich Royal by me as the subject of a school project by virtue of Academy, the military school of the engineers and it being a particularly well preserved building in a artillery, commonly known as "the shop", only six part of Penge which has escaped the worst miles from Chislehurst. He graduated in 1875. He attentions of modem developers. was not eligible for a commission in the British Army, but was attached to a battery of the Royal At first glance, Penge appears to be just another Artillery at Aldershot. He became restless for dingy London suburb, but once you start to explore, military action and eventually was allowed to it is obvious from the size, style and faded splen­ volunteer for service in South Africa against the dour of the houses, that this was once an area that Zulus. He sailed from Southampton on 27th Febru­ attracted rich Victorians. ary 1879 and anived in Durban on 31st March. On The name Penge is derived from 'Penceat' 1st June he was dead, killed by Zulu spears. His meaning 'edge of the wood'. However, over the official status was that of observer, the British centuries the name has been spelt in at least fourteen '-officer who was in command of the Prince's escort different ways. For approximately nine hundred was charged before a court martial of failing to years Penge was a detached hamlet of the parish of defend him, but the verdict of guilty was not con­ Battersea and between the 12th and 18th centuries firmed by the authorities in London. much of the land was held in common. The So there was another royal ceremony in common was finally enclosed in 1827. The growth Chislehurst. The military funeral of the Prince of the population of Penge was very slow until the Imperial took place at St Mary's on 12th July. The middle of the nineteenth century when the coming Bonapartes and the Murats, the Prince of Wales, of the railways and especially the rebuilding of the royal dukes, foreign royalty and ambassadors, all Crystal Palace on Sydenham Hill made it a highly attended the service, while Queen Victoria and desirable place in which to live. Princess Beatrice stayed with the Empress Eugenie Thicket Road was originally called Thickwood at Camden Place. Road and was almost certainly laid out round about In 1881, as the result of a local appeal, a the same time as Crystal Palace Park which it memorial was erected to the Prince on Chislehurst overlooks. The first use of the present name which I Common. It is a granite Celtic cross, 27 feet high, have seen is in the Aspinall Directory of 1867/8. It s ^ t stands near Camden Place; the road that passes it also appears as Thicket Road on a Lewisham Board was later named Prince Imperial Road. Eugenie of Works map dated 1875. wanted to build a mausoleum next to St Mary's, but The houses in the vicinity of No 68 are of a could not acquire the land. Instead she bought a substantial nature and although now subdivided into property in Hampshire - Famborough Hill - and flats, they were obviously intended originally for founded St Michael's Abbey nearby. The crypt has wealthy families with living-in servants. The three tombs: the bodies of Napoleon HI and Prince proximity of Penge West station led me fust to Louis were transferred there in 1888. The Empress assume that the houses in Thicket Road, No 68 died on a visit to Spain in 1920 and was buried at included, were originally the residences of City Famborough also. The floor of the empty mortuary businessmen. However, a study of the local chapel at St Mary's, Chislehurst, has a stone directories was to prove me wrong. recording that "on this spot rested for many years the remains of Napoleon HI, RIP". The directory published by Burdett & Co in 1886 John Winter-Latimer was my most useful starting point for it identified the side of the road on which No 68 stood and enabled me to pinpoint its precise position on the (To be concluded in the next issue of Bromleage) 1875 board of Works map and confirm it as the same property I am studying today. It also proved mori quam foedari" (I would rather die than be special train, with the Queen's saloon carriage in dishonoured), which the Empress Eugenie said the centre, was routed along the London & South might have been her own. It has been suggested that Western Railway from Windsor to Waterloo, and it Strode surmised that Napoleon HI might one day be passed through the terminus without stopping. In in need of a house in exile. It has even been those days there was a spur line connecting the conjectured that Napoleon was the real owner. main station to Waterloo Junction (now Waterloo East) on the South Eastern Railway, the line to Following the surrender at Sedan, Eugenie fled Chislehurst. Crowds had assembled there to greet from Paris. The Prince Imperial had been alongside Her Majesty, and she drove up the steep hill to his father with the army but escaped through Camden Place in an open carriage which had been Ostende to Hastings. He was joined there by the sent in advance for the purpose; it was drawn by Empress and they reached Camden Place on 20th four grey ponies and there were two outriders. She September 1870. After a period as a prisoner, Napo­ was accompanied by her two youngest children, leon HI was released by the Germans and on 20th Prince Leopold and Princess Beatrice, and they March 1871 he arrived at Chislehurst to join his were received at Camden Place by the imperial wife and son in exile. family, including Prince Murat, a first cousin of the Emperor. The Queen stayed half an hour and then returned to Windsor.

The South Eastern Railway was promoted in the 1830s to secure lucrative continental traffic between Dover and London. Initially, however, parliament Camden Place became a focus of interest and would not allow the company its own line into a there was a succession of distinguished visitors. London terminus. It had to use the London & The prime minister, Gladstone, was less eager than Brighton rails from London Bridge to Redhill, from the Queen, but went there in the autumn of 1871. A where it built its own line in an Easterly direction small colony of French emigres became established through Tonbridge to Folkstone and Dover. Later, in the neighbourhood: there were stories of spies, the South Eastern gained control of the north Kent either Prussian or French republican, installing line from Gravesend and Woolwich via Lewisham themselves in the windmill overlooking the into London Bridge. A shorter route to Tonbridge mansion. and Dover was authorised, and the company's new A later royal visitor was the heir to the throne of main line from St John's near Lewisham was Spain, Alfonso Prince of the Asturias. He was opened for traffic to Chislehurst in July 1865. At almost the same age as the Prince Imperial; as first there were temporary arrangements for small boys they had met at Biarritz, and Alfonso passengers at a station at the foot of Old Hill, but was at a spectacular fete held in Paris for Louis' the permanent stations with its lavishly broad fourteenth birthday. During 1874 he visited platforms was completed shortly afterwards. In Chislehurst while training at Sandhurst and at the 1868 the line was completed to Tonbridge and could end of that year was proclaimed King Alfonso XU. be used for through services to Dover. By then the line into London Bridge had been extended North of Napoleon had been in bad health for many years; the Thames into Charing Cross. he died at Camden Place on 9th January 1873 and his funeral was held six days later. A procession of Being situated close to this new direct line between more than a thousand, including several members Dover and central London was an additional point of the British and French royal families, took half in favour of Camden Place as a residence for the exiles. Shortly after Eugenie and her son arrived in an hour to make its way across Chislehurst Common to the small Roman Catholic church, St Chislehurst they were visited by Queen Victoria. Mary's. A year later the body of the Emperor was The following March, when the deposed Emperor landed in England, the Chislehurst stationmaster transferred to a granite sarcophagus in a mortuary chapel specially added to the South side of the attended Camden Place to inform the Empress of building. arrangements made for a special train to bring him from Dover to Chislehurst. Within a week he went A very different occasion took place on 16th to Windsor to pay his respects to Queen Victoria March 1874, to celebrate the coming of age of the and on 3rd April 1871 she returned his visit. A royal Prince Imperial on his eighteenth birthday. 6,000 of that No 68 was one of the earliest houses in the road In addition to William Chichester, the head of the to be built as it appears on the 1865 map when the household, living at No 68 were: road was still called Thickwood Road. By compar­ Mary Chichester, his wife aged 41 ing the various surviving directories of the period it Edward Chichester, aged 18, working in a Colonial appears that the earliest recorded resident of No 68 Bankers office was a William Chichester and the the house was Emily Chichester, aged 19 initially numbered No 14 and called Camphill Laura Chichester, a scholar aged 13 House. The reference to a John Chichester in the Margaret Chichester, aged 12 1871 Penge Diretory is probably a mistake. The Constance Chichester, aged 3 1872 census return, although somewhat difficult to Edith Chichester, aged 1 decypher, produced a surprise. Mr Chichester was Norah Made, Sister-in-law, aged 39, Assistant not a City businessman but a 55-year old landowner Catherine Squire, aged 37, Cook and farmer of 300 acres, employing 9 labourers and Mary Bums, aged 20, Housemaid horseboys! This provides an interesting comment on Edith Baggety, aged 15, Hussy! the rural nature of the area at that time and leads one to speculate where was his farm? Was it per­ Only the two youngest Chichester children were haps in the immediate vicinity? The composition of bom in Penge, Margaret was bom in Gloucester­ the family and its servants as listed in the census shire about 1859. The big gap in ages could be due return is worth recording for the picture it provides to the high infant mortality common in Victorian of the household at that time. times or possibly to Mary being a second wife. These facts are not inconsistent with William Chichester being the first occupant of the newly built property sometime in the mid 1860s. Wards 1878 directory reveals that by then the Chichesters had been replaced by one James Shaw who reveals in the 1881 census return that he was a 72-year old Scot, a retired Inspector General of Hospitals presumably in India, as his wife, aged 44, and two daughters, aged 14 and 21 were bom there. The place of birth of a son aged 11 is not stated. Like the Chichesters they had three servants, Mar­ garet Paton, aged 57, a widow bom in Scotland; Elizabeth Saunders, aged 35, a housemaid bom in Somerset, and Clara Romsdale, a parlourmaid bom in London. Wards 1890 Beckenham Directory still lists James Shaw as resident at No 68 but also a John Pickering, presumably the latter entry is a mistake, possibly they got the digits the wrong way round when setting up the type. Later information is meagre. Kellys 1908 direc­ tory lists a Michael H Pattinson and by 1990 the voters list reveals the house in multiple occupation. I would like to express my appreciation to the staff of the libraries at both Anerley and Bromley for the help and encouragement which they gave me whilst carrying out this project. Alex Harris

(The Charles Darwin School project on which this article is 68 Thicket Road based won a 'Young Historian Prize' awarded by the Historical Association earlier this year - ed).

EDITORIAL CONTRIBUTIONS TO: MRS NANCY TONKIN, 23 BRAMLEY WAY, WEST WICKHAM