SHORTLANDS RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION
Guided Walk of Shortlands
Three groups learned about the history of the area and its development and of famous
residents past and present during summer 2009. Now you can take the tour without
having to walk! There will be another walk on Saturday July 14, July 2012
Welcome to this guided walk around Shortlands - brought to you by your local Residents'
Association, which this year celebrates its 75th Anniversary. It will give you I
hope a bit of history and some info about our local landmarks and on a few local
famous men and women past and present. It will last around two hours and be about
a mile and a half long...both uphill and down.
Appropriate to start here at Shortlands Railway Station, as it was with the coming
of the railway and the opening of the Station 150 years ago last year that Shortlands
began to grow from a few scattered farms, forestland and rural estates to a village
community and then gradually to what we see today - a relatively prosperous green
commuter suburb. It is also the site of the Greenwich Meridian line (0 degrees Longitude)
which runs across Church Road and is also visible at the far side of the Shortlands
Golf Course.
First...Why 'Shortlands' - what's in the name? Historically, in fact, Shortlands
was first known as Clay Hill and only became known as Shortlands around 1800. 'Clay'
means a wooded slope. Shortlands is, in fact, a medieval name referring to the outline
of fields. Our Shortlands is based around the Ravensbourne River, which runs by the
Station - mostly now in culvert. The fields would have been on the sides of the river
valley. In some valleys the fields run parallel to the river, making them long and
thin - 'long lands'. Here, though, they ran at right angles to the river up the slopes
either side, making them shorter and wider - 'short lands' - that is how it is thought
we got our name.
From the first settlers to the Normans
Before we move off, just a quick bit of history - Earliest settlers around Shortlands
were almost certainly Celtic farmers from mainland Europe a century or two before
Christ - the Belgae from Gaul (now France/Belgium). We'll see later the site of an
Iron Age fort in Kingswood Glen/Tootswood. 'Toot' meant a beacon or watch -point.
Then the Romans came (around 70 AD) and they had settlements at Tootswood and Keston.
They named the original settlers 'Cantiaci' - from which the county name of Kent
was originally derived. With the fall of the Roman Empire came the Angles and the
Saxons, who created a settlement in Beckenham, which is referred to in a number of
Anglo-Saxon charters. With the Normans came the Domesday Book and mention of 'the
manor of Beckenham (which included Shortlands) in the hundred of Bromley - valued
at £9' ...' with 30 family settlements'.