Chiselhurst

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Bromley Road

Chiselhurst Common. A cluster of relic heaths and ancient woodland with heavy visitor pressure mainly concentrated at Chislehurst Common. Although fringed by housing from Tong Farm to Scadbury Park this is a considerable stretch of rural landscape.  Once heath controlled by grazing it was protected under the Metropolitan Commons Supplemental Act of 1888 which established a board of elected conservators to oversee management.  The ground fairly well drained and results in a typically poor acid soil. Former gravel extraction and pockets of clay have caused a number of ponds to form, most of which are in need of sympathetic management to maintain their wildlife interest. Those on Chislehurst Common are suffering from trampling although examples of bur-marigold, marsh penny wort and purple loosestrife still decorate the banks.

Crown Lane

St.Nicholas Church. Standing on the common. The medieval parish church, c 15, of rough flints, enlarged and partly rebuilt in the c19. The tower stands over the bay of the isle, and bears a tall shingled spire, quite a landmark. The windows in tower and aisle segment- headed, of two lights. Four-bay arcade, besides the tower bay, on piers quatrefoil in plan. Arches with two chamfers, tower arch with three. Probably this c15 work was undertaken by the rector of 1446-82, whose monument stands in the founder's position on the side of the chancel. No more of it is left. The wall of the nave however is old, and in the gable a small blocked window rudely turned in flint may be Saxon. In 1849 the chancel was practically rebuilt by Ferrey. There were lancets before the rebuilding. He also added the aisle with the Perpendicular doorway reset, copying the windows but modifying the arcade to make it approach more nearly the style of the late c13. The spire was rebuilt by Wollaston, after a fire in 1857, a little higher than before. The chancel lengthened eastwards, with a fancy wall, by Bodley & Garner, 1896. The Font is Norman with The usual square arcaded bowl on five shafts of Bethersden marble. Chancel screen and screens in the chapel are basically genuine Perpendicular. Organ case 1888. Reredos. 1896 by Bodley & Garnerin Alabaster. A fine red and white Sanctuary pavement by Farmer & Brindley. Stained glass Sanctuary windows 1896 by Burlison & Grylls. Aisle window, 1894 and 1900, by Kempe.  A Rector wrote Hymns A&M. In the Scadby Chapel is a corbel of a little face which is probably a Jack in the Green. Willet of daylight saving is buried there. Alan Porter f 1482. 9 in. brass. Half-effigy of a priest. Sir Edmond Walsingham f 1549. Early c15 tomb-chest, the side panels with tracery of considerable complexity. In 1581 a back piece was added with an inscription to Sir Edmond plus Corinthian colonnettes and embryonic strap work and another inscription added in 1630. The whole repainted. Sir Edmond was at the Field of the Cloth of Gold and was Lt. of the Tower. Also his father James Walsingham Sheriff of Kent.  Tomb of Thomas Walsingham who was Elizabeth’s spymaster. Tomb of Walsingham which was opened in 1956 to see if the Shakespeare MS was in it. Sir Richard Betenson 1679. Big black and white marble tablet with side scrolls and three cartouches attached to the top pediment. Mid-C 17 in feeling. The odd thing is the Tuscan pilaster that supports it, flanked by palm-scrolls. This must be an addition at the death of Lady Betenson in 1681. Sir Philip Warwick f 1682. Large and outstandingly elegant cartouche carved with great finesse. Putto-heads and a skull among the scrolls. The scrolls themselves have a peculiar tendency to assume the shape of half-spread wings. Secretary to Charles I. Thomas Farrington f 1694. Another good cartouche, but not in the same class. Note the wreathed skull at the bottom, and the bravura of its carving. Thomas Farrington 1712. A third cartouche. Putto-heads again around the knotted drapery. Roland Tryon f 1720. Hanging monument, with at the top a medallion bust, and on the cornice over the tablet an urn and two reclining cherubs. Rather flabbily executed. Sir Edward Bettenson f 1733.  The seemingly c 12 corbel on a fat face looks ungenuine.  Large hanging monument, with more marble than ideas. Signed by Thomas Easton. Lord Thomas Bertie f 1749. Hanging monument with trophies of arms at the top, and an urn. What makes it memorable is the relief at the bottom, an exquisitely carved representation of a naval battle, the ships riding on waves as stylized as rocaille work. The monument is not signed, but Cheere's design for it has been recently identified. Roger Townshend 1760. Tablet by Rysbrack. Sir Richard Adams f 1774. Large tablet in the Adam taste. Lord Robert Bertie f 1782. Large tablet. First Viscount Sydney f 1800. Exceedingly large tablet. William Selwyn f 1817. Signed by Chantrey, 1823. Very large hanging monument. A young man stands, two young women sit pensively by a tomb. Chantrey eschews realism, for all the contemporary dress, yet he makes one accept that these really are Mr Selwyn's children and no generalized mourners. Second Viscount Sydney. 1845 by .Brown. Allegorical female too small for the sub- structure. Earl Sydney 1890. Reclining effigy in Garter robes, by Sir E. Boehm, completed by Alfred Gilbert. He was Victoria’s Chief Steward.

Churchyard. Grave of Sir Malcolm Campbell racing driver. Also grave of William Hyde Wollaston physicist.

St Nicholas College contingency plans to move K.CC. County Hall there in the war

Ambulance Centre. 1973 by Greater London Council architect

Hawkwood Lane

Priests House

St.Mary’s Church. RC 1854. The architect of this simple ragstone building was W. W. Wardell

Mortuary chapel In 1874 Glutton added a mortuary chapel. It was ordered by the Empress Eugenic for the body of Louis Napoleon, the home of whose exile had since 1870 been Camden Place, although in the end he was buried in a far grander setting at Farnborough, Hants. Ashlar. The chapel's roof is sharply gabled, but rises behind a rich pierced parapet; an arrangement that echoes the chapel in the chateau at Amboise. Internally there is a stone rib-vault on wall-shafts with naturalistic leaf capitals. Clever Cluttonian detail. – Sculpture Christ in the Tomb. In a recess. - Monument. The Prince Imperial f 1879. He lies recumbent, fully armed

Girls Technical School. 1960 and 1967 by E. T. Ashley-Smith, the Kent County Architect.

Cooper's. A plain brick house of the late c 18, three bays in the centre, with lower wings. It seems all of one date, although the front is yellow brick, the back red. At the back canted bays flanking the centre. The interiors however are of c. 1750, and the staircase has two turned balusters per step and richly carved tread-ends. So it is a matter of recasing, it seems

Police Section house

Manor Park

Cookham Dene. An early house by Sir Aston Webb c. 1882. He uses the Norman Shaw idiom but has nothing much to say in it

Walpole. Much more personal, one of five beetling Queen-Anne-style houses of the 1870s by George Somers Clarke Sen. This was his own house;

Pelham

Harley

Manor Place

Walsingham

Manor Park Road

Manor House. Basically a gabled half-timbered house, with a two-storeyed porch; but now roughcast and greatly added to

Morley Road

2 Morley Cottages

Whin Cottage. A pretty pair of cottages. Part of a larger scheme designed in 1878 by George & Peto. They introduce the leitmotif of late c 19 Chislehurst houses, wide tiled and half-timbered gables over red-brick walls

Shepherd Green

1-5 nice group

St. Paul's Cray Common,

Streams feeding down to the Quaggy. A cluster of relic heaths and ancient woodland once heaths controlled by grazing protected under the Metropolitan Commons Supplemental Act of 1888 which established a board of elected conservators to oversee management. A famous fire that raged out of control for two weeks in 1870 across St Paul's Cray Common may well have encouraged the succession of woodland that the decline in grazing had begun.  The ground is fairly well drained and results in a typically poor acid soil. Former gravel extraction and pockets of clay have caused a number of ponds to form, most of which are in need of sympathetic management to maintain their wildlife interest. The three central ponds in St Paul s Cray are choked with purple moor grass. The secondary woodland is mostly oak and birch with an under storey of holly hawthorn and bracken. Patches of acid grassland survive near two clearings near St Paul's Cray Road. The West clearing has the best example of relic heathland dominated by heather. The East clearing has suffered from insensitive management in woodland becomes damper towards the boundary ditch with Pett's Wood with sedges and buckthorn replacing the meadow grasses on the higher ground.

St.Paul's Cray Road:

Grange Cottage Queen Anne house by Somers Clarke, c 1880,

Crayfield one of a trio rising sheer from the pavement

Cleveland

Warren House dated 1878

Chesil House. Best eighteenth century house in Chiselhurst c 1770. Redbrick. Only three bay sand two storeys, yet all the windows have arched centres making them into simplified Venetian windows. Plain parapet with a centre pediment growing up through it. Lunette window in the pediment. Porch on fluted Ionic columns, with a broken pediment. A date c. 1770 would seem appropriate. Later addition at the right side.

Susan Wood:

Lime kiln, chalk pits etc.


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