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BIRKBECK AND CHURCHFIELDS

The road from Penge to Beckenham was, even less than a 125 years ago, a country lane and a Guide Book of 1827 reads - "Beyond Chaffinch's River there is an enticing field-path to Beckenham with arched trees overhanging". Originally known as Penge Road, it was not altered to Beckenham Road until about 1900. On either side were fields and meadows, and by the middle of the 19th century cottages and farms began to be established.

There is a description of a piece of land in a will of 1490 which reads "Upper Cokks, lying betwixt Bakk Lane and the highway that goeth to Croydon". Nothing is known of 'Upper Cokks' but the land (now Churchfields Road) which ran the whole distance from Penge Road to EImers End Road, has appeared on maps as Bakk, Back's, Baxe's and Beck Lane.

In 1820 there stood on the right hand corner, in Penge Road, a small cottage with a 'neat sporting-box and chaise house'. Borrowman suggests this may well be 'Woodbine Cottage' which disappeared in 1880. A map of 1835 shows a strip of fields in this area stretching to beyond Eimers End, belonging to the Cator Estate.

Farms in this area were ELM FARM, situated between the present railway bridge and Barnmead Road, and THAYERS FARM (1869) of only 41 acres, approached by a track leading from the stables of 'Clock House'. Roads on this side of Beckenham Road, on the Cator Estate, are mostly named after farm fields and features, such as Barnmead (1880s), Thayers Farm (1880s), Chaffinch (1900) and Rowden (1900). In Plawsfield Road, also named after a farm field, there are no houses at all.

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