Into The Woods

A Memory of Bexleyheath.

As a child of the Fifties I spent many a school holiday and weekend exploring and playing in our local woods with two chums. We knew them separately as Bostall, Abbey and Lesnes woods, before they were known collectively as Lesnes Abbey woods, and each had its own special magic and hidden secrets. We lived just a short walk away from Bostall Heath and so to Bostall woods, which we believed stretched from Knee Hill to New Road. Hidden within the trees and running parallel to New Road was a little stream, Easy to step over we had endless fun damning the flow to create mini pools and waterfalls. Also hidden were two ponds. the largest enclosed by a wooden fence, the smaller open but disguised by thick shrubbery, This was our secret pond where we caught tadpoles, frogs and newts.
Our Abbey wood lay at the foot of Bostall wood, adjoining the old abbey ruins. Its ancient trees, some over 200 years old, were a canopy for a glorious sea of wild daffodils each spring. The main attraction for us though was a fossil pit where we discovered huge teeth we excitedly believed were from a dinosaur but were in fact from sharks, the whole area was once under the sea - 60 million years ago.
Of our three woods, best of all was Lesnes. Back then it was mostly wild or heathland. We took advantage of the wilderness and could make camp there hidden out of sight. There was also a chalk pit having every boy's dream, a dene-hole. Unlike the dene-holes at Stanley wood Bexley, where you could crawl down the narrow shafts to underground caves formed by chalk extraction, here the shaft was eventually blocked off. There was another secret pond fed by springs that led to the abbey reservoir, and on higher ground overlooking the Thames, there was a Bronze Age tumulus.
The woods were ours and and we loved every magic moment we we spent there.

---

---