Swanley History Group – February 2019 meeting
Believe it or not, after the coming of the railway, there were plans to attract mainly genteel business and professional residents to live in Swanley. During his presentation ‘Up The Junction’ – Old Swanley (Part 2) at our February 2019 meeting Keith Whitmore showed photographs of substantial Victorian and Edwardian villas in Birchwood Park Avenue. Some of us remember visiting the doctor at the original Cedars Surgery on London Road and we admired pictures of Woodlands, a large turreted house in Swanley Lane owned by Mr. Hewett whose nearby basket factory also featured. However the many workers employed by the fruit, vegetable and flower growers in the area also needed homes and Keith showed photographs of terraced workers cottages on traffic free lanes. Later, as the nurseries were closed, the land was sold for mass housing for the expanding population.
The old High Street looked thriving in photographs of busy shops with awnings and the original Lullingstone Castle Hotel built in 1874 and named after the home of the Hart Dyke family. Images of advertisements and much loved shops on The Parade and Station Road, such as Betty’s, Matthews and The Sugar Loaf promoting ‘American Ice Cream Soda’, Grahams the Jeweller and Newman’s shoe shop received much comment – as did the imposing gabled former police station. Several members remembered going to the privately owned Corona Cinema which opened in 1938 boasting ‘Cinema Scope’ and seating 900 with page boys and usherettes in brown and cream uniforms. Did the organ played by Eldred Skinner of
Swanley Village rise through the floor? It became a bingo hall before closing in 1968.
In the 1880’s and 1890’s Swanley was blessed with such unpolluted clean air that it was chosen as the place for London hospitals to send their patients after surgery. Exterior and interior photographs surprised many who were unaware that such imposing buildings had ever existed in Swanley. There was debate amongst the audience as to exactly where the sites of these hospitals were as Swanley has changed so much.
Asda’s carpark covers part of the site of Kettlewell, the convalescent hospital for St Bartholomew’s, opened in 1885 by the later King Edward V11 and Queen Alexandra. Known as Alexandra Hospital from 1920, children with chronic joint diseases were treated there. We enjoyed seeing the belts and pulleys in the laundry, which was a major employer of local women. The hospital buildings were destroyed by fire in 1969.
On the same side of London Road Whiteoak Hospital was built in 1903, which cared for 300 London children with contagious eye diseases who were housed in thirty cottages within extensive grounds. The magnificent main building later became the council offices for Dartford and District Rural Council. All that can be seen now is the school building– later known as The Woodlands, a venue for entertainment for many years - which is now boarded up and awaiting probable demolition - and a pair of dilapidated gates on London Road.
At the end of an imposing drive off Beechenlea Lane is Parkwood which opened as a convalescent home in 1893, after money was raised by dedicated founding trustee Peter Reid. It is now a residential special school. The photographs of the buildings, patients and staff reminded SHG members of their visit in 2016 to see the fine gothic colonnaded main building, chapel, stables and nurses quarters (formerly the home of Major and Mrs Fanning).
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser
Swanley map of 1910 showing exact location of Kettlewell and White Oak Hospitals. Birchwood St would later be named Swanley Lane. Black dots shows entrances on London Rd, both hospitals had pillars with iron gates at the entrance.
Believe it or not, after the coming of the railway, there were plans to attract mainly genteel business and professional residents to live in Swanley. During his presentation ‘Up The Junction’ – Old Swanley (Part 2) at our February 2019 meeting Keith Whitmore showed photographs of substantial Victorian and Edwardian villas in Birchwood Park Avenue. Some of us remember visiting the doctor at the original Cedars Surgery on London Road and we admired pictures of Woodlands, a large turreted house in Swanley Lane owned by Mr. Hewett whose nearby basket factory also featured. However the many workers employed by the fruit, vegetable and flower growers in the area also needed homes and Keith showed photographs of terraced workers cottages on traffic free lanes. Later, as the nurseries were closed, the land was sold for mass housing for the expanding population.
The old High Street looked thriving in photographs of busy shops with awnings and the original Lullingstone Castle Hotel built in 1874 and named after the home of the Hart Dyke family. Images of advertisements and much loved shops on The Parade and Station Road, such as Betty’s, Matthews and The Sugar Loaf promoting ‘American Ice Cream Soda’, Grahams the Jeweller and Newman’s shoe shop received much comment – as did the imposing gabled former police station. Several members remembered going to the privately owned Corona Cinema which opened in 1938 boasting ‘Cinema Scope’ and seating 900 with page boys and usherettes in brown and cream uniforms. Did the organ played by Eldred Skinner of
Swanley Village rise through the floor? It became a bingo hall before closing in 1968.
In the 1880’s and 1890’s Swanley was blessed with such unpolluted clean air that it was chosen as the place for London hospitals to send their patients after surgery. Exterior and interior photographs surprised many who were unaware that such imposing buildings had ever existed in Swanley. There was debate amongst the audience as to exactly where the sites of these hospitals were as Swanley has changed so much.
Asda’s carpark covers part of the site of Kettlewell, the convalescent hospital for St Bartholomew’s, opened in 1885 by the later King Edward V11 and Queen Alexandra. Known as Alexandra Hospital from 1920, children with chronic joint diseases were treated there. We enjoyed seeing the belts and pulleys in the laundry, which was a major employer of local women. The hospital buildings were destroyed by fire in 1969.
On the same side of London Road Whiteoak Hospital was built in 1903, which cared for 300 London children with contagious eye diseases who were housed in thirty cottages within extensive grounds. The magnificent main building later became the council offices for Dartford and District Rural Council. All that can be seen now is the school building– later known as The Woodlands, a venue for entertainment for many years - which is now boarded up and awaiting probable demolition - and a pair of dilapidated gates on London Road.
At the end of an imposing drive off Beechenlea Lane is Parkwood which opened as a convalescent home in 1893, after money was raised by dedicated founding trustee Peter Reid. It is now a residential special school. The photographs of the buildings, patients and staff reminded SHG members of their visit in 2016 to see the fine gothic colonnaded main building, chapel, stables and nurses quarters (formerly the home of Major and Mrs Fanning).
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser
Swanley map of 1910 showing exact location of Kettlewell and White Oak Hospitals. Birchwood St would later be named Swanley Lane. Black dots shows entrances on London Rd, both hospitals had pillars with iron gates at the entrance.