These accounts are from a publication that was printed in 1936. The aim was to print the memories of Beckenham’s oldest residents.

MRS ELIZABETH ANN TOWN TELLS THE TALE OF THE POLICE STATION BEING USED AS A POST OFFICE.

Mrs Elizabeth Ann Town of 99, Churchfields Road, Beckenham, who has lived in Beckenham for 89years, has many interesting details to recall in the following contribution:

I was born in a cottage in Fullers Row which was just past the Croydon Road Recreation Ground.

When I was a child I remember playing round the old prison cage which stood with the stocks and pound in Beckenham Village, opposite the place where the Greyhound Hotel now Stands.

Beckenham High Street, as it is now know, was then called Penge Road. Another part very little known was a footpath leading from the Alms Houses in Bromley Road to Foxgrove Farm, in Foxgrove Road, which was then only a narrow road leading to the farm. This path went through some fields where Albermarle Road and The Avenue are now. Just past the Alms Houses in the Bromley Road was a spring.

Where the Memorial now stands was then known as Banyards Corner and from there to Clock House Station was all fields. Crossing the stream which still runs along side of Clock House Station was an old wooden bridge called County Bridge.

On the corner of what is now Sydney Road stood an old cottage know as Sydney Cottage which has a horse pond in front.
Churchfields Road was then a narrow lane just wide enough for a horse and van to pass through. At the Lych Gate which still stands at the entrance to the Parish Church was a stool on which the coffins were rested.

Two more connections with old Beckenham were to toll gates, one which stood opposite the Alexandra School and the other in Long Lane, Elmers End. A well know baker in Beckenham (Levens) had a very busy time on Sundays baking the dinners of residents at the cost of two pence a dish.

It was the custom at that time for the mail to be left at the police station as there was no post office in the place. One very server winter night, the mail cart pulled up at the station as usual  and the police on duty waited for the bas to be brought in, but none coming, they went to see the reason why and found the driver frozen to death, so severe was the frost.

An early recollection was before the line was built through Beckenham junction. An old farm house stood opposite the corner of Foxgrove Road from which an old lane led to the fields across which a footpath led to Kent House Lane. These fields were know as Rushey Meadows.

Mrs. Elizabeth Ann Town

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