Beckenham The Village

THE VILLAGE HIGH STREET Cont'd..

ELM COTTAGE stood opposite the entrance to Village Place, and was so called because of a large Elm tree in the grounds, measuring nearly 15 feet in circumference and standing 100 feet high. Tradition says that this building once stood in Wickham Road and was moved brick-by-brick to the new site!

Rev. Andrew Brandram, M.A., Rector of Beckenham from 1838 to 1850, lived there at one time, but later Mr. Legg used the building as stables for the local horse-bus. In 1900 the Cottage was used as a Territorial Headquarters for the Volunteer Corps, from which some men went to the Boer War; and it was also used by the Territorials up to the time of the first world war.

AUSTIN'S SHOP was below the Three Tuns, a small shop built in the 17th century as a gardener's cottage for The Cedars opposite. The lower part was of brick and stucco, and the upper part of green oak weatherboarding on timber framing.

Thomas Austin opened the shop in the early 1850s for making and selling port and beef sausages, and at the rear he kept cows, sheep and chickens. He had a son Charles W. Austin and two daughters who were all born there. Charlie Austin was quite a character of the Village days. For over 60 years he was a bellringer at the Parish Church, and for many years one of his sisters helped him in the shop and with the little farm.

The building was too badly riddled with woodworm to be retained as an historic building and was demolished in February 1959 for the erection of the Jade Room Restaurant.

THE THREE TUNS is one of the oldest licensed housed in the High Street, and with The George and The Jolly Woodman in Chancery Lane, we may well have three among the very oldest in the Country. In 1820 it had an Assembly Room when the landlord was John Scagell; later the landlord was Mr. Ruston followed by Mr. Ovenden who took over, and ran, the horse-bus previously owned by Mr. Legg.

Next came the Village POLICE STATION which in 1884 was moved to the new building on Church Hill where it still remains. The old site is now the entrance to the Three Tuns car park.

THE OLD FIRE STATION, a red brick building on the corner of Kelsey Square (at one time the main entrance to Kelsey Manor), had a variety of uses. It was the first meeting place of the Rural Sanitary Authority in 1872; then it was the Fire Station with the warning bell in the turret, which bell is now the 'closing time' bell in Kelsey Park; later it was occupied by the Y.M.C.A. and now the lower part is a greengrocer's shop while the rooms over are used as a surveyor's offices. On the corner of the building is one of the old Village Pumps.

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