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Baston Manor
Medieval wall paintings
found. ‘Bestane’ 1240, ‘Boston’. ‘Bicstane’ 1254,
‘Bastane’ 1301, possibly from Old English "bxc-stan’ - "a baking
stone, a flat stone used for
baking'.
Croydon Road:
Oast House. Built in
the middle of Hayes Common in 1873-4 by Philip Webb for the eccentric Lord
Sackville Cecil. Not a large house, but as independent- minded as any by Webb
and composed with a good deal more finesse
than Red House, as one would expect fourteen years after that pioneering effort.
Long and low, with a deep barn-like roof and the chimneystacks in four massive
slabs. The materials squared ragstone
blocks and red-brick dressings, not always where expected. White window-frames and a little white
weatherboarding in the gables. The
entrance front rather like an enlarged school.
Webb's interest in Butterfield's schools in the 1850s is documented,
ending in gabled wings of equal width but unequal projection. The windows are wide and have his favourite
segmental heads. One or two window sills
lowered slightly in recent years. In the
centre three evenly-spaced dormers of Queen Anne proportions. Low, square porch running out the full depth
of the wing. The side has the memorable
feature of four wide gabled dormers in a row starting up from the foot of the
roof. They impose a rhythm on a facade
otherwise quite without symmetry. The
bow-window at the end not original. The
interior has been altered out of recognition.
Hayes Common
Large area of unimproved
acidic grassland with impressive posh houses. The once
open appearance of the common is only hinted at in an area of closely mown
recreational grassland although some planting has converted this heath to scrub
woodland. Conservators manage this like many ancient commons that survived
c19th enclosure. In the 1920s grazing declined and ended in the next
decade. In 1954 the common was acquired
by LB Bromley.
The Wedge contains the opposing influences of modern
ornamental planting and ancient earthworks. The area is now dominated by oak
with some silver birch. A varied under storey of bracken, bramble and gorse
allows wavy hair grass to grow, while the line of excavation for a gas pipe
line across the common is now colonised by gorse. There is an Especially
interesting patch of heather which contains rare dwarf gorse, cross-leaved
heath and bell heather. The grassland supports lizards, grass snakes and
adders.
Remains of 150 Neolithic
pit dwellings church.
Mill
Preston's Road:
Hayes Grove. The first
view, of a fine Georgian front, is misleading. The centre five bays are
genuinely of, say, c. 1730. Two storeys. Pilaster strips at the corners, the
centre window in a raised surround. Big doorcase with a segmental pediment. The wings however are a
pastiche, and a very clever one. The rainwater
heads dated 1899. Additions on the front
too, doubling the canted bay to approximate to symmetry. Original staircase, with three twisted
balusters per tread. Ernest Newton
designed the additions.
The Knoll
24 resident and
one other person killed as the result of V2 attack on 9th February
1945.
West Common Road:
Hayes Primary School,
nineteenth century Church of England school, bell over the classrooms and the
teacher’s house
Grandfield's nursery gardens sustained a direct hit by a V2 at 5 30pm, 9 February. 1945. The
owner, James Grandfield, aged 62, and his son, Stanley, perished in the blast,
great damage all around. 70 people were injured by flying glass and other
debris. Ihe shock wave caused several dwellings to collapse. More than 300 properties
were damaged,
The separate sonic wave may have been responsible for
houses in the vicinity of Pickhurst Lane losing their windows, for they
were a
mile from the
blast, while some
streets nearer to it
were unaffected.
Hay
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