Shortlands Residents' Association

Know your Road

 

 

Hayes Lane:

The original lane from Beckenham to Hayes. Burrell Cottage (at the roundabout) and Kingswood Cottages (at the Kingswood Road junction) are the only 19th Century buildings; both are about 100 years  old.

Kingswood Road:

Laid through the King’s Wood, said to be so called because trees were felled there for the royal dockyard about 1830. First developed early 1870s.

Mays Hill Road:

Said to take its name from May trees in the vicinity. Developed early in the 1870s and 1880s.

Scotts Lane:

Comparatively ancient, and known 150 years ago as Shortlands Lane. Takes its present name from Dr. James Scott, wealthy physician and manufacturer of anti-bilious pills, who died at Oakwood  House (Oakwood Avenue) in 1848.  About half a dozen houses are 19th century. Widened in 1926, at which time it was still "a pretty country lane".

Shortlands Road:

First road to be laid through the King's Wood in the early 1860s. Name 'Shortlands' has medieval origin, descriptive of the length of strips of cultivated land. Dinah Craik, Victorian novelist and poet, lived there. Developed at intervals from about 1870 onwards, but the old farm cottage at the Bromley Road junction is much older. 

South Hill Road:

Developed wholly between the wars. Height of 250 ft. above sea level at the Tootswood Road junction, the highest hill between Bromley and Shirley; a beacon was lit there for Victoria's jubilee in 1887. This hill is the site of a prehistoric earthwork.

Valley Road:

Follows the line of the Ravensbourne valley. First house built early 1870s, but most of the Victorian property is later. The Pumping Station, which handled up to four million gallons a day, dates from 1864. The water was apparently so pure it required only routine chlorination.

Westmoreland Road:

Developed in the 1880s as part of the South Hill Park Estate. One of a group of roads named after northern counties - though in this case the county is misspelled - at the insistence of W. J. Nichols, who owned much of the land. Some things may have changed since the 1960s!

 

If you know the history of your road let us know and we'll add it here.

 

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