The London/Kent Boundary - Coldblow

Boundary London/Kent/Bexley
The boundary cross the current Rochester Way going south west and crosses a footpath between Cold Blow Crescent and Denton Road. It goes down the western boundary of a wood and continues in the same direction following the line of a ditch and a pathway through allotments
TQ 49790 74133

An area on the outskirts of Bexley Village and Dartford Heath including the suburban area called Coldblow

Post to the west Bexley
Post to the north Bourne Road
Post to the east Dartford Heath
Post to the south Tile Kiln Lane

On the boundary
Path from Bexley Road to allotments Deep ditch on western edge of the woods with a bank raised above it. This ditch has been the parish boundary since before 814 AD when described in a charter as "the dirty stream" running from the Faesten Dyke in Joydens Wood to the Cray. Kent is on the other side of the ditch.

London/Bexley side of the boundary
Churchfield Wood
A detached part of Joyden’s Wood.
Woodland. In the south part of the wood are sycamore and hornbeam and felled trees have regrown forming large trunks. To the north is birch, hazel, oak and ash as well as field maple, a native tree which is an an indicator of ancient woodland. in the spring there are wood anemones and bluebells. Mammals include voles and shrews.
World War II anti-aircraft gun site at the further end of the wood just before the A2 in the trees on undulating ground.

Coldblow
No doubt named because of cold winds on the edge of Dartford Heath. The name is a good description when the north-east winter wind is strong. This is an area of prehistoric activity and settlement.
Flint hand-axes of the Palaeolithic period have been found along the Cray valley Bronze Age implements and gold bracelets have also been found in this area. traces of an Early Iron Age settlement have been excavated. However No pottery or other remains of Roman age have been recorded from here.
large houses were developed here above Bexley village but only a couple of them survive..

Cold Blow Crescent
17 Bronze Age gold torques were found on the north side of the A2 in 1906/1907 were found. Iron Age remains were found in a garden by a field in 1957 and more Bronze Age implements and weapons were found in 1930.
4-6 Denehole Shaft. After some heavy storms in September 1977 a shaft opened up on a piece of scrub ground immediately behind the rear fence. It was found to open out into a large collapse in the Thanet Sand at a depth of 106m. The chambers could not be reached and the whole structure was very unstable.

Dartford Road
70 Henley's
56 Heathcroft

Hill Crescent
7 modernist house

Wansunt Street/Coldblow Lane.
Preserves the name of the old manor of Wansunt marked thus on the Ordnance Survey maps of 1805 and 1905, which is recorded as ‘Wantesfonte’ 1270, that is 'spring of a man called Want', from Old English. There was still a pond here in 1880 and the 'spring' could have been a local well.
Dornier shot down 31/10/40. The crew of four were killed

Rochester Way
Confluence of Shuttle and Cray under the road.
Unexploded bomb 150 yards to the north west.

Sources
British History Online. Dartford
Kent Underground Research Group. Newsletter
Chelsea Speleological Society. Newsletter
Maypole Web site.

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