Danson Estate

The development of the Danson Estate between Bexleyheath and Welling

The first plans for the development of Welling as a residential suburb were drawn up by Alfred Bean, owner of the Danson Estate in Bexleyheath. An engineer by profession, Bean in 1881 began promoting the construction of a new railway line from Lewisham to Dartford, via Bexleyheath. The South-Eastern Railway Company was unwilling to back the venture, so Bean formed his own company with the assistance of other local landowners and secured the necessary Act of Parliament two years later.

The railway did not make money, but then this had never been its principal purpose. The invention of new refrigeration techniques that allowed the importing of food from America and the Colonies had brought about a great agricultural depression, dramatically reducing the value of farmland in England. Bean saw the wisdom of converting his rural estate into residential property. From 1880 he held the post of Chairman of Bexley Local Board. The Board was the forerunner of Bexley Council, with responsibility for planning, highways, sanitation and other essential services. In this position he was able to lay the foundations of the new community. In addition he gave land for an iron church, which later developed into St John’s, Welling, and used part of his own fortune to build Welling Elementary School and Bexley Cottage Hospital.

When Bean died in 1890 his will provided for his trustees to sell land from the Danson Estate for the building of squares, crescents with gardens, streets, roads and main sewers. But nothing came of these plans. The railway was completed in 1895 under the chairmanship of Bean’s son, Alfred William Thomas Bean. Only after the death of Alfred Bean’s widow in 1921 was the estate finally placed on the market. The 582 acres, 3 rods and 11 perches were divided into 23 lots – of which 22, amounting to 358 acres 2 rods and 6 perches, were sold for a total of £26,210. Bexley Council acquired the manor house and the remaining 224 acres 1 rod and 5 perches two years later.

Pattern of development

The development of the Danson Estate occurred in a piecemeal fashion between 1922 and c.1936. Sometimes a single house would be built, at other times 20 houses would be built at once. Many different developers were involved, resulting in a wide variety of styles and designs – mock-Tudor mansions, pebble-dashed semis, whitewashed bungalows and even the occasional modernist construction. In this Danson differed radically from the two other major developments in the area, the Welling Council Housing Scheme, which had 426 homes built by the local authority in 1922, and the Falconwood Park Estate, where more than 2000 houses were built by New Ideal Homesteads in 1932.

Architecture and plans

Some of the better houses on the new estate were those erected by Jeffrey William Ellingham along Danson Road, Bean Road and the Grove in what had been Lot 9. The houses were detached, with brick exterior and mixed brick-and-concrete interior walls. Those on the north side of Bean Road and the Grove and on the east side of Danson Road were given a living room, parlour and kitchen. A hall and stairs led to three bedrooms on the first floor. The front of each house had two sets of bay windows. One stood under a prominent gable, beneath which lay the living room and second bedroom. The parlour and principal bedroom lay behind the second set of windows, which were set back some 8ft (2.4m). This design gave the house an attractive L-shape. The parlour and principal bedroom were 12ft wide and 13ft deep (3.6m by 3.9m), while the living room and second bedroom were marginally smaller.

The houses on the south side of the Grove were square-shaped. They had the same number of rooms (with similar dimensions) as the other houses and the total floor space was approximately the same. However, the bow windows faced the rear garden. The plain front of each house was distinguished only by porch with a tiled roof.

Most of the houses on the Danson Estate were more modest than those in the Grove. In Lot 2 the semi-detached houses of Thomas Henry Jones were laid out in an elegant circle formed by the two halves of Selwyn Crescent, through which passed Danson Crescent. Each had a living room, parlour, kitchen and three bedrooms, but the largest of these was 13ft by 11ft 7in (3.9m by 3.5m). The bathroom and water closet were combined. There was more concrete and less brick. A porch and bay window under a common roof gave some character to the pebble-dashed exterior.

Ronald Cyril Hammett followed a similar design to Jones. His houses in Lancelot Road each had a living room and principal bedroom 11ft 6in (3.5m) broad and deep, a sitting room and second bedroom only slightly smaller, two small bedrooms, 7ft long and 7ft 6in or 6ft 6in wide (2.1m by 2.3m or 1.9m), a small kitchen, hall and bathroom on the ground floor. The front door lay at the side of the house. The ground floor extended slightly into the back garden, giving the two houses a half H pattern. A glass roof ran between the two wings over the living room window, creating a patio area.

Hammett also built semi-detached bungalows. Those in Lancelot Road all had a drawing room, living room, hall, bathroom and two bedrooms. A kitchenette was added on the side at the insistence of the council. The rooms were quite spacious. The living room was 20 ft long and 9ft 6in wide (6.1m by 2.9m), while the drawing room was 11ft 3in broad and 12ft deep (3.4m by 3.6m). Concrete foundations supported a steel framework surmounted by a web of beams, rafters, plates and struts supporting a pyramidal roof. With a bay window at the front and a gable at the back, the bungalows had an attractive cottagelike appearance.

Frederick Roland Absalom, who had bought Lot 18, sold semi-detached houses along Hook Lane with a sitting room, kitchen, hall, two bedrooms and a bathroom for £425 apiece. The sitting rooms were 13ft by 10ft 8 in (3.9m by 3.27m), while the kitchens were 13ft by 8ft (3.9m by 2.4m). The bedrooms had approximately the same dimensions. They were not spacious compared with other houses on the estate, but then they were marketed with the former occupants of inner-city terraces in mind. Even so Absalom did not neglect to mention the space available for a garage.

Between 1934 and 1935 Martin and Company erected four modernist villas in Danson Road. Each house had plain white-stuccoed brick walls and large picture windows. The simplicity of this design was mitigated by a balcony on the first floor of three of the villas and a water cistern and stairway opening on to the lower tier of the flat asphalt roof. Located directly opposite Danson Lake, they commanded excellent views of the Park. All the houses were slightly different. The first villa had a lounge 17ft 9¾in [nine and three-quarter inches] by 11ft 9½in [nine and a half inches] at the front (5.4m by 3.6m), a dining room 13ft 9¾in [nine and three-quarters inches] by 11ft 9½in [nine and a half inches] at the rear (4.2m by 3.6m), a spacious kitchen, hall and a water closet on the ground floor. There were four bedrooms, a bathroom, but no balcony on the first floor. The largest bedroom was 14ft long and 11ft 9½in [nine and a half inches] across (4.3m by 3.6m).

The second villa resembled the first except for the addition of a balcony. The third villa had a garage and porch under the balcony. As a consequence, the house itself was slightly larger. The dining room at the front measured 14ft 3in by 12ft (4.3m by 3.6m), the lounge at the rear 13ft 10½in [10 and a half inches] by 16ft (4.2m by 4.9m). Upstairs there were four bedrooms, a bathroom and toilet. The smallest bedroom led onto the balcony. The fourth villa was very similar to the third except that the configuration of the bedrooms was slightly different and a larger balcony was entered from the upstairs corridor. The first two villas were designed by a London architect, D.C. Wadhwa. However, for the subsequent plans Martins turned to Frederick Jones, who was based in Sidcup.

Most of the developers did not employ an architect, preferring to draw up the plans themselves. TH Jones used the services of Arthur Kent and Company, while Stevens employed a local architect, Allan Hargreaves.

Planning issues

The 1923 Housing Act provided government subsidies for private houses so long as they were of a certain size and quality. Many of the houses on the Danson Estate qualified for subsidy.

TH Jones was one of the principal beneficiaries of this scheme. In March 1925 he received a subsidy of £75 for each of the 20 houses he was building at Little Danson. In December similar grants were approved for another ten houses. A month later the council approved grants for a further eight houses. The next month plans for first four and then 38 of his houses were approved. Each house qualified for the £75 public subsidy.

In July 1926 it came to the attention of the council that Jones had overcharged the buyers of 36 of his properties. He was obliged to refund the money before the councillors would release £750 he was owed in grants. Even so he remained the main recipient of housing subsidies that year, receiving money for 16 houses approved in July, 26 semi-detached houses approved in September and six houses approved in November. Jones continued to receive subsidies all through 1927, building houses in Dansington Road and Lancelot Road. Housing subsidies were finally abolished in 1930.

The council was not completely enamoured of subsidised houses. Larger houses such as those built by JW Ellingham had a higher rateable value, an important consideration for cost-conscious councillors. Ellingham tried to obtain subsidies for 22 houses he proposed to build in Bean Road in 1924. But he found it impossible to build the houses for less than the £675 maximum price laid down by the Ministry of Health under the 1923 Housing Act and the plans were withdrawn.

He tried again the next year, applying for subsidies for 28 houses in Park View Road. They were to be built using the Dennis Wilde system of construction. A skeleton steel frame would be erected on which the roof would be placed, allowing work to proceed in all weathers. The outer wall, consisting of 3in (7.5cm) breezeblocks, a 3in cavity and a 4.5in (11.5cm) layer of brick would then be built. Above the first floor the walls would become much thinner, consisting of 2in (5cm) breezeblocks and an outer layer of timber covered in ruberoid and hung tiles. The cost would be £650 per house and would qualify for a £51 subsidy. The council rejected the plan and told him bluntly that they wanted a better class of housing in such a prime site.

Ellingham took the hint and none of his subsequent planning applications included a request for public subsidy. This included 32 houses in the Grove, Danson Road and Bean Road in 1926, 20 houses in Park View Road in 1928 and seven houses in Danson Road in 1929. That year Welling was constituted a ward in its own right. It might be significant to note that while the East Wickham ward habitually elected Labour councillors, Welling and Christchurch were usually represented by the local Ratepayers’ Association. Developers’ advertisements highlighted the low level of rates and electricity charges to attract homebuyers to the Bexley area.

The council kept aesthetic considerations in mind. For example, in 1932 councillors asked John Stevens and Sons to vary the elevations of 14 semi-detached houses in Little Danson by installing gable roofs on alternate pairs in order to avoid monotony. However, the councillors did not like being told what to do. When in 1926 residents of Danson Crescent opposed the proposed change of name to St John’s Road, the Planning Committee only backed down in the face of near unanimous opposition from the householders.

Developers did not always observe the standards enjoined on them by the council. In 1933 FR Absalom was fined for breech of the byelaws. The surveyor reported finding a party wall made of timber with gaps in between in 17 houses on the Little Danson Farm Estate. In addition the chimney jambs of these houses were not wide enough to satisfy regulations. The guttering on 58 houses was deemed inadequate, while 134 houses had been occupied prior to notice of completion being given. The surveyor did not hesitate to complain about Mr Absalom’s insolence when confronted with these complaints.

In the same year RC Hammett was rebuked for proceeding with a bungalow in Lancelot Road before receiving planning approval. The council reluctantly accepted the fait accompli, but when later that year Hammett sought permission to construct 21 houses in Lancelot Road he was firmly warned not to commence work until he had received the council’s consent.

Essential Services

Vast sums of money were spent in providing essential services to the new residents. Bexley Council was responsible for supplying electricity in the district. In January 1923 the council agreed to extend the mains to cover 90 houses in Danson Road at a cost of £500. In February 1926 Sandford Road and Rowan Road were connected for £260. Other streets followed. In September that year £150 was spent to provide street lighting for 138 houses on the Little Danson Estate. Added together, such developments represented a substantial investment by the council, which borrowed the money on favourable terms from the Public Works Loans Board.

The gas supply was the responsibility of the privately owned South Suburban Gas Company. It, too, spent a good deal servicing the new estate, laying the first mains down Danson Road in 1927.

The Metropolitan Water Board ran the local waterworks and in April 1927 work began on new mains at Little Danson to cater for the estate. The council was nevertheless responsible for sanitation. As early as 1922 the council was spending £1900 to lay sewers in Danson Road and Bean Road. A further £3819 was spent in 1923. The builders were sometimes asked to contribute to these costs. JW Ellingham gave £1234 towards laying sewers and roadmaking in the Grove.

Adequate sanitation was an important planning consideration for the council. Ellingham’s plans for eight houses in Alers Road were rejected in 1923 because the number of sewage outlets was insufficient. TH Jones’ original plans for the Little Danson Estate were not approved in 1924 because the proposed sewers were thought to be inadequate. Even the new Church of St John’s, Welling, did not escape this regime and the Building Committee was asked to note the need for sanitary conveniences. In 1927 there was a protracted argument between the council and Wade, Archer and Company Limited regarding responsibility for cleaning the septic tanks attached to 36 houses to be built in Blackfen Road.

The General Post Office was installing telephone lines along Alers Road as early as 1925. Park View Road was connected to the system in 1927. Kiosks were erected in Danson Road and Bean Road in 1930, and further lines were laid in both streets the following year. Then over the next three years the network was extended to Danson Mead, Rowan Road, Selwyn Crescent, Danson Lane, Park Approach and Westwood Lane.

Transport Links

Many of the new residents of the Danson Estate kept their jobs in central London. As the number of commuters increased, so did their complaints. In January 1930 the Medical Officer of Health was instructed to write to the Southern Railway Company regarding the overcrowded trains on the Bexleyheath line. The Company did what it could. In 1931 Welling station was rebuilt. The platforms were lengthened and an additional coal siding added to cope with longer and more frequent trains.

In March 1926 the London General Omnibus Company extended its service from Woolwich to Bexley via Welling. Then in May 1933 the Wood Green to Shooters Hill service was extended to Welling High Street. The arrival of the buses was not entirely welcome as they competed with Bexley Council’s own tramways, which operated a route from Dartford, via Crayford, Bexleyheath and Welling to connect with the London County Council service at Plumstead. Although the tramways were intermittently profitable, their decrepit rolling stock and worn-out track put them at a disadvantage compared with their commercial rival. In 1933 both services were taken over by the London Passenger Transport Board, which proceeded to replace the tramways with trolleybuses.

The Council took care to ensure that the roads joining the new houses were of a suitable width. In 1923 unemployed ex-servicemen were hired to widen Danson Road. Although few houses were equipped with a garage, this omission was put right in the years after 1935 as a tidal wave of applications came before the Planning Committee, making it necessary to change procedures to facilitate their processing.

Whatever the developers’ original intentions had been, the Danson Estate was soon very much part of the big car economy, a trend accelerated perhaps by the building of Rochester Way, just south of the estate, between 1926 and 1928. In 1930 the estate acquired a petrol station off Danson Park and in 1932 a car showroom opened in Park View Road.

Hospitals and Schools

There were no hospitals or clinics within the Welling area, but the expansion of suburbs such as Danson throughout Metropolitan Kent no doubt contributed to the decision to re-open the military hospital in Sidcup, Queen Mary’s, as a general hospital in 1930.

The children of the new estates needed to be educated, and this required an extensive building programme. Welling Elementary School was built in 1907 and had provided places for 360 children in 1918. By 1924 this figure had risen to 660.

So urgent was the need for school buildings that when the council obtained possession of Danson Mansion in 1924, it immediately offered the house to Kent Education Committee as additional classrooms. That same year Welling Central School was opened. Despite this expansion some children were forced to attend London County Council schools in neighbouring Woolwich.

In 1926 Kent Education Committee considered establishing a temporary school in Lodge Lane, East Wickham. Permanent sites were also being examined, including one on Alers Road. East Wickham Junior School opened in 1928 and the Infant School the following year. They provided teaching for an additional 300 pupils.

Danson Junior School in Dansington Road was established in 1933 with places for 250 children. Blackfen Central School opened the same year and its Infant Department in 1934. It was designed to take 1000 pupils. Westwood Central School was established in 1935 with 910 places. There were also two church schools. St Stephen’s Roman Catholic Primary School opened in Welling in 1933, and St Michael’s Church of England Primary School was established in East Wickham in 1938.

One serious anomaly, however, was the lack of any secondary schools in the whole urban district of Bexley. The situation was further complicated by Kent County Council’s insistence on maintaining separate Boys’ and Girls’ Schools. The Education Committee agreed in 1932 to build Blackfen School for Girls, and this establishment opened in 1938. But there would be no corresponding boys’ school until the building of Bexley Grammar School at the west end of Danson Park in 1955.

Public Libraries and Parks

The period between the First and Second World Wars was one of rapid expansion for public libraries throughout the country. Yet even by the standards of the time the success of Welling Library was phenomenal. In a single year, 1931, the number of books lent by the library rose by 9718 to 31,298 – an increase of 45 per cent. This compared to a rise of 18 per cent for the district as a whole.

Rising demand placed increasing pressure on space. The council tried to deal with this, firstly in 1927 by the rather brutal expedient of sacking the caretaker and adding his living quarters to the library. Then in 1930 the Public Libraries Committee agreed to an extension of the library costing £650. The new building opened in 1935.

One thing the new estate did not lack was a park. Lot 1, consisting of Danson Mansion and its immediate grounds, was bought by the council for £15,000 in 1924. Initially the council suggested that Christchurch ward should fund the purchase, but after some debate it was agreed that the charge should fall on the district as a whole.

The cost of converting the park to public use was estimated at £3500 and an application was made for a government loan for that amount, to be financed from the sale of National Savings Certificates in the District. The Park soon became a popular attraction in the area. The house was made into a museum. The grounds were laid out with tennis courts, cricket, football and hockey pitches, as well as a miniature golf course. Boats were available for hire for rowing and sailing on the lake, while an open-air swimming pool was opened in the park in 1936.

Churches

Church attendance fell after the First World War, but churchgoing remained a regular part of life for many people. The rapid growth of Welling’s population led to a sizeable increase in the size of congregations. St Michael’s, East Wickham, recorded 73 communicants on Easter Day in 1919 but had 314 on the same day in 1939. The ancient parish church could not accommodate such numbers, so in 1926 land was bought on an adjoining site and work begun on building a new church. This building was consecrated in 1933.

The following year a daughter church, St Mary’s Welling, was established. St Mary’s had 273 Easter Day communicants in 1939, but it did not gain its own building until 1955. These congregation rises were repeated in many churches. St John’s Welling rose from 54 communicants in 1919 to 394 in 1939. It, too, acquired a new building and was constituted a parish at the same time in 1926. This construction programme involved an enormous fundraising effort assisted by a special fund established by the Bishop of Rochester.

Growth was not confined to the Anglican Church. St Stephen’s Roman Catholic Church was established in Bellegrove in 1923. Welling Methodist Church was built nearby in 1935. The existing Congregationalist Church acquired new premises in Danson Lane around the same time.

Conclusion

By 1936 the development of the Danson Estate was complete, except for occasional alterations and extensions and the construction of innumerable garages.

Bibliography

From Country to Suburb by Malcolm Barr-Hamilton and Leonard Reilly
Lewisham to Dartford by Vic Mitchell and Keith Smith
Semi-detached London by Alan Jackson
The Great Estates by Oliver Wooller
The Tramways of Woolwich and South-east London by G. E. Badeley (Ed)

Sources

F. R. Absalom Sales Catalogue 1933
Bexley Council Minutes 1922–1937
Bexley Planning Applications 1922–1937
Ordnance Survey Map of Welling 1936
Bexleyheath Observer 1933–1935
Registers of Services of St John’s, Welling, 1919–1941
Register of Services of St Mary’s, Welling, 1934–1939
Registers of Services of St Michael’s, East Wickham, 1911–1941
Sale Particulars of Danson 1922
Brochure for the opening of Danson Park 1924