The main Blackfen road was a country lane meandering from Avery Hill Park to the Chapel House, past woods and farms.

There were only a few cottages alongside the old-bay windowed Woodman Inn with its tea gardens, making it an obvious place to stop for refreshments.

The Woodman public house near the junction of Westwood Lane with Blackfen Road.

In the early part of the 20th century Blackfen was only a small part of the peaceful Kent countryside, just outside the boundaries of London.