Victorian Chislehurst

Born in 1805, John Robert Townshend, was the only son of the 2nd Viscount Sydney and an eminent figure in Victorian Chislehurst. He succeeded to the title in 1831 and was awarded an earldom in 1874. Highly favoured by Queen Victoria he served her as Lord-in-Waiting. It was he that was instrumental in linking the Queen with the Empress Eugenie on her arrival as an exile in 1870.

Lord Sydney of Chislehurst took an active interest in local affairs. He also exercised his right as Lord of the Manor to sell gravel excavated on common land. Not happy with this, the inhabitants formed a committee, which later was to result in the Chislehurst and St.Paul's Cray Commons Act of 1886 and 1884. This afforded protection for the commons against further damage. Nature has since cloaked the remains of the excavated gravel pits, leaving in its wake the playing pit of St.Nicholas School, the Overflow Pond, levelled by parishioners in 1785 and the now landscaped Rush Pond.

Succeeding to the living of Chislehurst in 1846 it was the enlargement of the church that the Reverend F.H.Murray made his first task. However, in 1857, the steeple caught fire, and being made entirely of timber, it quickly took hold. From some of the salvaged timber, two crosses were made by a parish woodwork class. Amazingly, one hundred years later, one of these was discovered serving as the alter cross on the mission ship 'John Antle' off the coast of British Columbia.

E J May, a late Victorian architect moved to Chislehurst in around 1895 where he remained until his death in 1941. A caring, Christian and family man he was churchwarden at the Annunciation Church in the High Street. He developed his own Neo-vernacular version of Arts & Crafts architecture, his houses built on simple, unfussy lines along with a quiet solidity of appearance. His work is easily identifiable, for much of it displays his distinctive signatures, that of the use of tiles at the base of chimney pots instead of mortar flaunching. Plus, a lozenge motif added sometimes as a window and sometimes as a pattern in the brickwork.

The group of houses he is famed for are the five at Shepherd's Green in Perry Street, each differing in appearance and dating from 1907-1908. The HQ of the local British Legion at the corner of Belmont Lane also displays May's signature of tile flaunched chimneys and lozenge windows in its gables. In nearby Kemnal Road, opposite Foxbury is Foxearth, built for the Tiark's family, where the lozenge motif can again be seen in the chimney stacks.

May first lived in Willow Grove but later in 1913 built 'Wallings' in Heathfield Lane overlooking Prickend Pond. It boasted tile-flaunched chimneys, a lozenge window in the front gable, bold bonnet-hip roof tiles and a solid nail-studded front door, the perfect expression of his particular style. E J May is a recognised national figure in Victorian architecture, his houses adding considerably to the charm of Chislehurst.