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Crayford
Crayford maps
Historic maps of Crayford and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Crayford maps
Crayford area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about Crayford and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Crayford
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Crayford.
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There's Always Been A Chip Shop
At leas,t for as long as I can remember - there's always been a chip shop on the Parade at Crayford. Just like there's always been on the corner of Station Road - a little way further through the town - if you can call Crayford a town. There was another that we used to call Greasy Lils - only ever went there once and for good reason. But it was many a time I went into the chip shop on the Parade first, on the way home from school, then on the way home from work or a night out. It was in the early 60's that chip shops began to branch into more exotic food, and suddenly you were able to buy pies and sausage rolls as well as the tradiitional cod or rock and chips. The suddenly it was lumps of chicken - something that in the 50's we only ever saw at Chirstmas Dinner. The chip shop is the only thing that has remained constant on... Read more
Iron Mill Lane
My mother's sisters (and she had a number of them) all seemed to live in Crayford - Aunts Mag, Martha, Maud, Rose, Phyllis, Violet and Freda. My favourite aunt lived in Iron Mill Lane and she had four children - Harold, Leslie, Margaret and Ann. We visited often. Next door to her house was a sweet shop where one of my younger cousins, Violet, helped out on Saturdays and earned half a crown for doing so. In the evenings we kids had a ball while the grown ups went down to the Jolly Farmers pub. My grandmother lived on the other side of Iron Mill Lane. She was a very hard woman indeed who ruled her family with a rod of iron. She had never been to school so was totally illiterate.
Kent memories
Barnehurst in The Late 40s/50s
I still live in Barnehurst having moved back in 1947. The picture of Barnehurst Road, although the scenery hasn't changed much the shops have. The corner shop on the right was United Dairies and there was a butchers shop a coal shop, a cleaners, two grocers a post office. two newsagents. Nowadays it is mostly take away restaurants and estate agents. If you turned right at the end of the road, went about 400 yards there was a little farm house with no electricity owned by a Mr Brazier whose land at the rear was an orchard. I then lived in a house that backed on to it. He used to patrol it at night with a lantern in case someone scrumped his apples. He lived with his two sisters and was rarely seen. The trees in the background are Bursted Woods which are still there. I must have climbed virtually every tree in those woods. The pub (Red Barn) is still there. Trolley buses were the mode of transport... Read more
A Pool of Evocative Tears
I was 8 years old when this picture was taken. It is hard to express how evocative this innocuous little picture is to me. Is that a box of tissues on the right?. Well this picture really set me off blubbing. At this end of the pool was a toddlers pool, part of but fenced off from the deeper part. I was there with my little brother Paul and we called him Doughnut. He must have been just three. Well I lost him, there was quite a crowd and I looked all over Martens Grove for him asking everyone if they had seen him. I was absolutely alone and terrified, as it all emptied out I think I must have got a bit hysterical. You didn't wander round with a mobile phone like today. There wasn't a phone box very near. We didn't have a phone at home anyway, but I was too scared to go phone the police in case he came back to the pool. It was beginning... Read more
Barnehurst - Where I Grew up
I lived in Mayplace Road East - firstly at no. 332 (from the age of 4) and then (after returning from living in Essex for a couple of years), at no. 310. Both these houses were more or less opposite to the Manor House and the delights of the golf course where we wandered for hours finding stray golf balls and birds nests! I recall the ruins of what we thought was a wonderful old castle - I have never found out what it really was.
I had been born in March 1949 at my auntie's house in Manor Road, which although just round the corner was actually Crayford. My parents had left the area when they married in 1946 as my father was then to work at Huyton, just outside Liverpool. But my mum was so home-sick and the Xmas before I was born they went down to stay with her sister and mum never returned to the North. Dad sold the house and they bought a house a... Read more
Mayplace County Primary School
Absolutely loved my time at Mayplace County Primary! It is sn old cliche but they were best days of my education! Great atmosphere at the school - I remember two teachers, Mr Jakeways the headteacher and Mr Cooker my form teacher. We lived in Bexley but used to cut through Shenstone Park and in the summer go to the open air pool near the school (Martins Grove).
I now live in NW England and work as Director of a disability charity. I went through the education route myself with PGCE and M. Ed, and am very grateful to the school for giving me such a great start in life.
Colin Thornton.
Halcyon Days
During the Second World War a land mine fell by parachute in Courtleet Bottom, somewhere near the junction with Rydal Drive, I believe they called in the navy bomb disposable team. I went to Barnehurst School, Mrs Mumford was the head teacher. The sheltered accommodation wasn't built then, it was all overgrown. On the way home from school we had good times playing on the steep path and in the bushes (including kiss, chase, and truth, dare, promise or must!). That path was brilliant for toboggans in the winter. My mate Chris Rainsbury's family was something to do with one of the shops, I also worked as a paper boy in the newsagents and also the other newsagent corner of Merewood Road, Mrs Clark owned it. The car showroom at the corner of Grassmere was a petrol garage, in the mid fifties I used to get my scooter petrol there, 3/6d a gallon! I moved to Barnehurst in 1940 after being 'bombed out' from Catford SE6, we were the 'Blitz' refugees, not... Read more
