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London village walks - Old Bexley

 

Bexley is at first sight a mass of 1930's housing on the fringe of S.E. London (although expansion started with the arrival of the railway in 1866). A quiet leafy suburb that looks to Kent as much as it looks to London. Many of the residents, however, work in the City or West End and commute in to the centre each day.
The old village is still readily identifiable and contains a number of interesting buildings. John Thorpe's "High Street House" (1761) in the centre of the village, as is the Old Mill (1779, burnt down 1966, rebuilt 1970), currently a rather mundane restaurant. The King's Head dates from the 16th century.
Attractive St Mary's church is at the south end of the village and dates from 1100. Styleman's Almshouses in the centre of the village date from 1755.
Hall Place is just to the east, along Borne Road, beyond the A2.(A more attractive way of reaching Hall Place from the village is along "The Cray River Way" from the south edge of the village and along the edge of Churchfield Wood and under the A2 where it crosses the railway).
Nearby Footscray Meadows were created from the land of Foots Cray Place, which burned down in 1949. Traces of the building can still be found at the northern fringe of the meadows near the carpark off of Rectory Lane.
In Rectory Lane All Saints Church is at the western extremity of Footscray Meadows and can be the end of a pleasant walk along the river Cray past the Five Arch Bridge from the village (Manor Way off of Hurst Road and past the cricket club then past Upper College Farm and land now sadly used for landfill).
A little to the NW of the village Bexley Park Wood is a fragment of ancient woodland surrounded by  housing.
At the south of the meadows on North Cray Road is Loring Hall (formerly Wollett Hall - 1760) which was the home of Lord Castlereagh (Irish and British politician), a blue plaque commemorates his suicide there in 1822.

Stop press! 
"The Red House", William Morris's home in Bexleyheath has been purchased by the National Trust and should be open to the public from the summer of 2003
 
 

Further reading:-
Bexley Village by P.J Tester

Photographs of Bexley
Bexley bird sightings
The red lozenges show the route of the Shuttle/Cray riverways. (Bexley station connects with London, Charing Cross and Dartford)
Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland
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