In the early 1870s, five houses were built along what we know today as South Eden Park Rd. At least some of the land, if not all, belonged to William Rudd Mace whose daughter Emily had married George Stanley Lutwyche. The houses most closely associated with them were Elderslie and Oakfield but there were also Chalfont, Homewood and Harvington. How did the whole area become known as the Harvington Estate?
It is all to do with the Petley family, Bertrand Theodore and Florence Ada, who lived there from 1919 and brought the name Harvington with them. Harvington was of particular significance to them since it was the name of the village near Kidderminster where they became engaged to be married. They took the name to Burmah for their house in the hill station at Maymyo and then back again for their house in Beckenham at the bend in South Eden Park Rd.
Harvington was described as an imposing red brick house with a slated roof, roughly square in shape with a frontage of sixty feet. A twenty-foot billiards room had been added to the original building but it had suffered some damage when a V2 fell near St John’s church over the other side of the fields.
The other two houses Homewood and Chalfont, were of white brick and perhaps the different lodges still there today, Harvington of red brick and the other two of grey materials reflect the different construction of the houses. Oakfield was described in 1904 as a picturesque building in Italian villa style. It was constructed of Staffordshire bricks with ornamental stone dressings and mouldings.
Harvington was thought to be the oldest, built in 1871 according to the date carved by the builders above one of the first floor windows.
As a young man Bertrand Theodore Petley became forest manager of Messrs J. W. Darwood & Co, Burmah, living far away from civilisation. He became known in Upper Burmah for the force of his personality and his intimate understanding of the country and its people. In November 1898, at Rangoon Cathedral, Bertrand married Florence Ada Chappell, daughter of the iron founder, Henry Pegg Chappell from Staffordshire. Their eldest son, James Bertrand, died from dysentery at the age of two years, four months, twenty days in Burmah but they had two more sons, Hugh Henry and Philip Theodore. Their daughter, Dorothy Florence, was born in Katha 29. 9. 1899 and baptised in May 1900 in Mandalay.
The following description of life in Katha comes from a history of the company. “The Katha forest manager lived in a ramshackle bungalow adjoining the native quarter. It poured heavily and relentlessly in the summer. Age-old newspapers and paperbacks were ravaged by silverfish and white ants. Heavy mosquito netting thwarted the whisper of a breeze. Overhead, a steady stream of bats flashed along the veranda and the occasional lizard would fall with a plop”.
4 Responses
I visited Harvington on most days and never realised so much went on there in past times. I took a short cut to go to the Welcome Research Lab across the playing fields. I do remember the pre-fabs along Eden Park Avenue. There was also a very large old tree held together with iron rods.
visited Harvington today with a gps fixing for Eden Lodge. Found old foundations and brickwork in the woodland undergrowth. The large cedar in the woodland could have been on front garden of the lodge
The 1809 map of Burrell estates shows Harvington area as a series of fields numbered to go along with a key to the map but unfortunately the key is missing. Kelseys is to the north, Eden Farm to the west and Langley Farm to the east. No buildiings are shown along what is now South Eden Park Road. The Burrell estates were sold in 1820 which may have led to the building of Eden Lodge. google search ‘nls kent xv’ would bring up the National Library of Scotland archive ordnance survey sheet kent xv for this area showing Eden Lodge. contact me for more details of the British Library material. We only stumbled on it while researching Beckenham Place and Foxgrove/Beckenham Manors. If anyone knows where the 1723 map mentioned by Robert Borrowman is archived I’d like to know, only seen the copy he made for his book.
Prior to the five houses, and before the construction of South Eden Park Road, a map in the British Library of about 1780 shows much of Harvington owned by John Cator and Peter Burrell. Divided into woods and fields, Weblands Wood and fields name West and East Drege the map shows a penciled in outline of the intended South Eden Park Road which the Burrells constructed after land exchanges with John Cator as both of them were consilidating their relative estates. Cator to the north of Beckenham and Burrell to the south.
An ordnance survey map of 1871 shows Eden Lodge, now demolished but the gatehouse remains? and current maps show the driveway though it is overgrown in, I guess, what is left of Weblands Wood.
As Harvington nestled between Langley Park and Eden Park(Farm) presumably the Burrells leased or sold it. Other Burrell estate maps in the British Library of 1809 may reveal more.