History of the Brickfield and Local Area

Rate Book, Strongs and Kelly’s directory entries for the Brickfield

The shorter Account:

(History of Havelock Rec, affectionately known as the Brickfield)

The open space you see before you has only been like this since 1963, before that it was the scene of industrious activity, supplying bricks for the expanding suburbs of London.

From the 1860’s to 1934, clay and gravel was excavated from a huge pit, with the brickworks situated where Mornington Avenue and Waldo Road are now. The map of 1863 shows the brick works with a field to the east where the bricks were set out to dry.

When the clay was all exhausted the gravels underneath were taken out to be used, though we have found no record yet what for. During this time, there is a Coroner’s record in 1933 of a 28-year-old man, Frederick Lettington from Stanley Road, who died when the gravel slope collapsed.

After the death of J.J.Peill, the pit was purchased by the Gas Board, who seem to have used it to bury the waste products from their Town Gas plant, situated just the other side of the railway; part of that site is now occupied by Tescos. It’s not possible to find out from their archives what was put there, without paying a substantial fee.

In WW2 this area suffered in the bombing of the Blitz , the blocks of flats in Havelock Road mark the sites of two of the bombs. The Crooked Billet pub on Southborough Lane, half a mile to the north east, was destroyed by a V2 rocket on 19th November 1944. It was the largest single incident for casualties in the old Borough of Bromley during the Second World War: 27 people were killed and dozens more were injured, many very seriously. The Crooked Billet was rebuilt in 1957 and is now a Harvester restaurant. The British counter-intelligence had fed the Germans the mis-information that their V1 bombs were landing ten miles too far north, and the consequent adjustments meant that those that were not shot down in “bomb-alley” landed in this part of Kent. Just half a mile north, this side of the Crooked Billet, in what is now Jubilee Country Park, was the Thornet Wood Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun Site, one of a defensive ring of gun sites encircling London during the Second World War. **

Much of the rubble from the bombing was placed in the pit, along with household rubbish.

At this time, there was a ‘wall’ built on ?[near Avondale Road], to keep the inhabitants of The London Corporation’s estate in Downham out of Bromley. Bromley was part of Kent until the boundary changes of 1965, so the houses in the area still have ‘kent’ in their addresses. At this time Orpington residents were given a vote as to whether they wanted to join the new borough or not.

Bromley Council provide a short history of Bromley Borough at this page.

History of the Brickworks with Maps

With thanks to Tony Deary, who did vast amounts of research in the Local Studies area and the internet, Felix for his work, but most of all, to all the people who have composed and contributed their recollections of our park.

	1863: there’s fields around, you can see the bridge over the railway without either Murray Avenue or Wendover Road to join up to it. The field to the SE of the brickworks could be an orchard, or it could have been the outdoor tile drying field that was said to be there. The numbers in the fields are apparently lot numbers.At the bottom you can see the old Shooting Common, which our park is the sole remainder.
1897 The Brick and Tile works are there, and Homesdale road by its old name, Brick Kiln Lane. The well is still marked in the boggy bit by the side of where the Nursery is now. The farm is still there. The only remnant of the farm is the large Bay tree in one of the gardens of Havelock Road.Godwin and Gundulph Roads are not built yet.
	The brickworks were owned by J Pascall, and his name can be found on the bricks and tiles of Rose Cottage, formerly a laundry, Chislehurst: “the typical handmade red bricks of the period all being manufactured locally at the long-gone Chislehurst brickworks (at the time, Widmore green and this area was called Chislehurst West), that stood on Red Hill. Evidence for this is seen in the name “J Pascall”, found on many bricks, and on some of the original chimney pots.”
An old map from 1909: you can see that Bourne Road is only partially completed and Fashoda has no houses. The pit has extra levels at the SE side, presumably where it is deeper. From a Facebook post from Jane Evans: “My husband’s family sold the brickfield – we think late 1920s – have papers from buying not selling. Have some anecdotal stuff – not least mires with cart horses dead in them…”
	Tony: “1933 now just a quarry brick and tile works has moved to Chislehurst caves”. In 1921, J Rhodes photographed the cliffs of sands and gravels exposed in our brick pit, called Peills Brickpit, and these photos are in the archive of the British Geological Survey. See our Bricks and Local Geology page for pictures of our brick pit working. From Kelly’s directory of 1930: “Holmesdale Brickfield, of James John Piell, proprietor, of Homesdale Road.” (last entry in Kelly’s directory) BWKM 20.7.34 p5. Death of J.J. Peill.

There’s more about Cole-Child’s “extensive” brick-pit on the site at our about-cc-brick-pit page, and pictures of both our brick-pit and the Widmore pit at our working-pictures page.

The Ivy Bridge Disaster (Wendover Road)

(photo thanks to BBLHS and Max Batten)

The notable event of the early Bromley railways happened just a quarter of the mile up the railway, at the bridge between Wendover Road and Murray Avenue: Max Batten explains about Bromley Railways and the events of Thursday 23rd October, 1882

Contemporary Brick works photos

To give an idea of what the working brick pit would have resembled:

victorian country brickmakers constructing a clamp kiln

Edwardian workers constructing a brick clamp. This is probably how they made the bricks for Havelock Road, as these houses have the good quality bricks on the external walls while there are extremely burnt and other inferior ones on the internal walls, from “Old Bricks – history at your feet – Flintshire & Denbighshire – North East Wales”

sittingbourne museum men digging brickearth

Contemporaneous picture of men digging brick-earth near Sittingbourne, from Sittingbourne museum. There’s also an account of brick-making, probably the same as was used in Bromley, at Doric Columns site and another with some fascinating photos at bottlesford

Photos of our Brick-pit in 1921


BGS Asset photos of our Brick pit when it was working, when it was called Peill’s Brick Pit, a decade before it closed. There’s more on our page Pictures Of Our Brick-pit Being Worked

Local Edwardian Photos

These are from Ideal Homes website:


‘Improvement Cottages’ in Waldo Road (now demolished)	Homesdale Road, looking uphill towards Widmore Green from the Lord Holmesdale, 1910.

…You can see that this picture is drawn before the Shortland Pumping station was constructed. Martin’s hill may be named after a local baker, or because the house martins used to congregate in the thermals there.

From Bromley Common Cricket Club’s site: “Bromley Common’s early cricket ground is believed to have been in the area of Brick-Kiln Lane (now Homesdale Road), where a connection can be made with the local game and the Norman family. George Warde Norman (1793 to 1882) mentioned in his memoirs that he played there. He was a member of a family which had extensive lands around the south of Bromley, including Bromley Common. The Norman family name is continued locally, with a large local park being named after the family.”

War Time Photos and Accounts

In 1940 in particular, Havelock Road suffered considerable bomb damage in the Blitz. The block of flats now occupying numbers 24-41 Homesdale Road are the result of an aerial mine. This explosion also destroyed the chicken cabins at the back of 21 Havelock Road.

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Photo of bomb damage in 1940. In the background of this picture you can see heaps of rubble, and faintly, at the back, the pit.
Mrs T Coombes, daughter of J. Pepper (Headmaster of Raglan Road Junior School 1941-59 and previously master in Senior Boys) in Raglan School’s Centenary 1889-1989: Something I shall always associate with wartime is seeding grass – it grew along every pavement and at the bottom of every fence This contributed to the general air of shabbiness in the streets. The houses mostly had peeling paint, gates leaned on their hinges or were propped open, and windows were obscured by sticky netting or replacement parchment, or were blacked out with old lino or impenetrable dark air raid curtains. The disused brickfield behind Havelock Road, which was used as a tip for industrial and household rubbish, was an irresistible adventure playground. We called it the Brickie and would sometimes wander there at lunch break and scramble about through the rubbish via little pathways, having to take care to avoid the more unpleasant patches.
	Some recollections from Arthur Sheppeck, who played in the brickfield, mainly from 1941 to 1949. He remembers the Brick Pit being 60 feet deep. He told me ‘One day, one of the ARP wardens approached us boys. He told us “For God’s sake don’t do what I’m going to do” and he took an incendiary bomb he was carrying and lobbed it into the pit. It exploded with a blinding flash of white light, and the warden told us “that could have been you”. I can tell you, it fair put the wind up us…!’

A dumping ground:

Arthur Sheppeck recalled that bomb rubble from all over south London, for miles around, was put in the pit. In a similar vein, Andy posted in February, after visiting Wellington Road, “Met some very interesting people who had some very interesting stories. Including one retired builder who remembers working around the area, breaking down garages, which had asbestos roofs, filling a skip with the spoil and watching it being dumped in the landfill that is now Havelock Rec.”,

And, from another supporter: “Saw another lady who lives in Elliott Road… she used to live in Havelock Road. As a young girl, she remembers playing in the brickworks. Then it was filled in, and then grassed. She said they used to have a big bonfire and fireworks on the field for a number of years…”. Finally, a contribution on our Facebook page from Jane Evans:

“My husband’s family sold the brickfield – we think late 1920s – have papers from buying not selling. Have some anecdotal stuff – not least mires with cart horses dead in them…”

1953 and the transformation into a community Recreation Ground:

A report from the Bromley Times, from 9 August 1963:

“Bromley’s new oasis … what was an ugly brick works and later a tip for the local Gas Board, has now been converted by Bromley Council in to an attractive stretch of grassland which, during the long summer weeks of school holidays, should be a boon for mothers in the Bromley Common area”

More information can be found at the Bromley Borough Local History society’s site, and there’s a history of local names on the council site page

** Our thanks to local historian Jennie Randall for helping us out with details of the Crooked Billet and the Thornet Wood battery; she has two books on sale, “Not Forgotten – The Crooked Billet” and “Jubilee Country Park – It’s History and Heritage”. They can be purchased at local WHSmith stores, visitor centres and libraries, please see the Instructions to purchase on Jubilee Park website for details. That’s not to say that we are ungrateful to Max Batten, Arthur Sheppeck, Felix Corely, Tony Deary for all their research and contributions too!

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