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Avenue Road,
2 extraordinary house, probably c1880; Gothic porch
topped by octagonal turret with a conical roof.
William Camden,
pub multi-bar roadhouse with mock beams
Bexleyheath
Residential area developed from the
early 19th century, marked ‘Bexley Heath’ on the Ordnance Survey map
of 1876, earlier ‘Bexley New Town’ on that of 1805, so called from the
heathland originally lying to the north of Bexley.
Brampton Road
Former fire station. post WWI Single storey brick building to rear of the Adult
Education Centre. Main building occupied by the Edward Alderton Theatre.
V2 attack February
1945 3 killed, 98 injured. 7.14pm
Broadway
Mediocre
Focus,
opposite the dwarf clock tower in the market place, a massive shopping and
office complex by Fitzroy Robinson & Partners, 1982, brick, with a steep
pitched roof at either end
156 Kings
Arms. pub
c1845 rounding the corner with Arnsberg Way.
Christ Church. 1868.
Site given by Oxford University. Foundation stone 1872. Pinotts folly', finished 1877. Total absence of worthy fittings”. Tall and bulky but
very grand and imposing Victorian Gothic ragstone church by William Knight of
Nottingham, two had won a competition judged by Burges in 1869. A central
steeple had been intended. Fine detailing in the chancel windows, the west
window, and the rose windows in the transepts. The first Anglican church in
Bexleyheath was the Chapel of Ease 1836 in what is now the War Memorial
Garden Bexleyheath parish formed in
1866. New church begun 1872 and completed 1877. Old chapel demolished 1878,
though the steeple was left standing until 1928. The church is so grand, with
such noble, soaring proportions, that one grasps at any facts that will give
substance to the enigmatic Mr. Knight. The materials are ragstone dressed with
ashlar and slate roofs; the plan cruciform with the central steeple, alas,
barely begun. The transepts as high as the nave, the chancel not quite so high,
ending in a canted apse. The style is Early French Gothic, interpreted with
great freedom and originality, and makes effective use of plate tracery in the
window and the nave clerestory. Fine rose window in each transept. Internally
the nave, with arcades of four wide arches on short round piers, yields to the
glory of the chancel, to which the crossing space belongs, and its
exceptionally lofty arches. Well-managed shafts and string-courses high up
however binding all together. Interesting detailing of the crossing arch
corbels. Apse arcading of elemental Norman forms that must have appealed to Burges.
Only the spindly timber roofs do not satisfy - that and the total absence of
worthy fittings to match the scale of the building
Pincott Hall
Pincott Memorial,
obelisk of 1878 to the first
vicar, William Pincott; fountain has disappeared. Originally sited where the Clock Tower is now
Vicarage, macabre Gothic house of 1868 by Ewan Christian,
enlivened by some nice diaper pattern brickwork.
248
Golden Lion. There are records of
a coaching inn on this site going back to c1730, the oldest in the area. In
1761 it was called The Bull. Rebuilt after a fire 1838. The present building is 1901, with its oriels over the
corner entrance and on the main road, heralds the approach to Bexleyheath from
the west. The Golden Lion was the badge of the Lion of
Flanders
Cricket Ground
Trinity Church
Baptist Chapel, frontage 1868 by
Habershon & Pile. Almost extravagantly classical, with an Italianate door
case and four tall Corinthian pilasters surmounted by a great dentilled
pediment enclosing a circular window. There are tall round-headed windows along both sides.
War Memorial Garden, contains memorials for both world wars. “This
stone is erected adjacent to the site of the original Chapel of Ease of Christ Church
Bexleyheath. Chapel erected 1836, demolished 1878, steeple erected 1851,
demolished 1928'. Some old gravestones have survived at the southern end of the
garden.
167 Kwik Save conversion of the
Broadway cinema of 1929.
ASDA, 1988 its spectacular sweep of dark glass above bands of yellow and red brick, and its startling
green signs.
Lord Bexley
Bitter Experience
Hide’s
Regal Cinema.
By Robert Cromie. Renamed ABC in
1962. Quadruple screens in 1974 and the
Crompton Organ was removed. Later became a 10 pin bowling alley and then
demolished inn 1986. ASDA built on site.
Broadway Cinema.
Built 1913 and rebuilt 1929. Ended use as a cinema in 1956. Became a supermarket and then a pub 1997.
Church Lane
20
house of the 1870s, in an Arts & Crafts style.
The
Volunteer, early
19th century pub, with three gables on the frontage.
Upland School for Bexley School Board
Glengall Road
Bexleyheath Postal Sorting Office. Large 1930s brick 3 storey
block backed by a brick sorting office
Graham Road
Bexleyheath Sixth Form Centre. The long, low-lying building on the right as
you enter the Bexleyheath School grounds is the original Bexleyheath National
School of 1883
Lion Road
59
Royal Standard, pub, rebuilt in 1910;
67 Raleigh Villa, a large house cl880, with
ornamental flourishes.
75 Brooklands Guest
House, house 1880s. With chevron
decoration over porch and windows, and diaper pattern brickwork on the side
wall.
78 Robin
Hood and Little John pub looks rural; built c1852, much altered. Bizarre inn-sign.
80 Wye Lodge old farmhouse, possibly as old as 17th, and certainly the oldest
building in the Bexleyheath area. Extended when converted to a house in the
19th century, and restored 1950s old well in the yard.
Council Gravel Pit. Built over as a playing field 1935 and in
1985 developed for leisure.
Oaklands Road
First church in the area where the war memorial is
Pickford Lane
Widened and lined with houses after 1931.
Pincott Road
Bexleyheath Laundry. Part of the site included
The Atheneaum Public Hall converted into a shopping mall after the Second World
War. Also partly developed as a magistrates court.
Red House Lane
The Red
House. By and for William Morris. Very difficult to see and surrounded by
semis. 'It sits in two dimensions' … 'mean subtopian surroundings'. ‘More a
poem than a house’. Philip Webb's first building, specially built
to the specifications of the young William Morris in 1859. Fore runner of the Arts and Crafts movement,
and pioneered the 19th century vernacular revival. Whilst retaining Gothic
forms, it used traditional building materials and design features. An admirable
place to live in too.' Dante Gabriel Rossetti's verdict on it. The plan that
Morris should have a house built for him in the country and that Philip Webb
should design it, had been hatched during a trip to France the two took with Charles
Faulkner, rowing down the Seine and visiting medieval cathedrals, in the summer
of 1858. The contract was signed in April 1859, and late in the summer of the
following year Morris and his bride moved in. Rossetti was not the sort of
person to view Red House objectively, but his contradictory remark reflects the
difficulty one finds. The weather vane on the finial
over the staircase tower is inscribed 'WM 1859'; the house was completed in
1860. Its architect was Morris's intimate friend Philip Webb, who started his
own practice with this commission. It freed him from the limitations of George
Street's Gothic Revival office, where he had been Street's chief assistant and
had first met Morris and enabled him to design a modern house which embodies a
year-long exploration by the two friends of how to apply Gothic principles to
domestic architecture without archaeological imitation; a collaborative effort
in which we cannot separate one from the other. Red House has long been
regarded as a landmark in domestic architecture, not only in England. In Das
Englische Haus (1904-05), Muthesius wrote of it that it was "the first to
be conceived and built as a unified whole, inside and out, the very first
example in the history of the modern house", while Pevsner, in his
Pioneers of the Modern Movement (1936) made this significant reference to
Webb's work: "Red House as a whole is a building of surprisingly
independent character, solid and spacious looking and yet not in the least
pretentious." "The architect", he said, "does not imitate
palaces." Many architects of the Modern Movement shared with Webb and
Morris the firm belief that a house or a factory or a barn is as important as a
church or an opera house. Red House is more than just a small country house:
Morris and Webb were strongly influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite Movement and
were "hungry for romance". The house is consequently full of artistic
and architectural allusions so subtly contrived that there is no mannered
effect, no straining after self-expression, something utterly foreign to the
attitude of the two towards architecture. As Lethaby wrote, both were
brilliantly imaginative designers "restrained only by the fear of
unmeaning expression." These two men — client and architect — also shared
an intense love of the countryside and its flora and fauna beautifully
expressed in one of Morris's first wallpaper designs — Trellis'. The design was
based on the trellis which originally bordered the well court at Red House; the
birds were probably drawn by Webb. When it was built the house was surrounded
by orchards, woods and meadows on the edge of the hamlet of Upton. Close to the
site of its eastern boundary, and still there, is a row of former labourers'
cottages, then known as Hog's Hole. While it was being built, Morris and his
bride lived in an adjoining house, Aberley Lodge. Red House is now surrounded
by a typical London suburb — yet behind its red brick wall, and enclosed by
lime, oak, ash and hawthorn, its fruit trees laden with blossom, the air filled
with bird song, it is still idyllic, and the relationship of house and garden
to the orchard out of which it was created is immediately apparent to the
visitor.
Philip Webb garden prototype,
1/9 Hogs Hole Cottages, long terrace of whitewashed cottages. Basically of 1819, though they may
incorporate some 18th century structure.
Steeple Avenue?
Upland Road
Bexleyheath Cemetery: Victorian 14th style lots of iron
railings, opened 1879, many late
19th century tombs in the southern part.
Upton
Upton Marked
thus on the Ordnance Survey map of 1805, earlier ‘Vpton’ in 1292 and 1332, that
is ‘higher farmstead or estate', from Old English ‘upp’ and ‘tun’.
Upton Lane
44 Hogs Hole Cottages. Originally two cottages
25, 1870 in Tudor style, of brick with massive stone dressings. It is
flanked on either side by houses with Gothick upper floor windows.
14 Upton Day Hospital, originally known as
Bexley Cottage Hospital. The original building of 1884 is small and vernacular,
with a half-timbered jettied upper floor; there is a long later extension to the south.
8 Upton
Road, a one-storey brick cottage orne
1856. Gothic tracery on the round-headed windows, and thatched roof with
pointed dormer.
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