Park Langley Residents' Association
To promote and protect the interests of the residents of Park Langley
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To join the Park Langley Residents email addess network, please send a message to:
parklangleyresidentsbr3@gmail.com
Your Name:
First line of your street
address:
Phone Number: (optional)
Some useful contacts:
Bromey Councilwebsite:
To report any environmental issue such as potholes, abandoned vehicles, overhanging branches etc, please use:
Telephone switchboard 020 8464 3333.
West Wickham Residents Association:
The history of Kelsey Park.
The original mansion was built around 1408 for William Kelshulle and demolished around 1800. A second mansion was built for Richard Bennett around that time and then acquired by Peter Richard Hoare, the elder (a partner in the banking firm C. Hoare & Co) in 1835. Peter Richard Hoare, the elder converted the manor into a rambling Gothic Revival house. The house passed to Peter Richard Hoare, the younger in 1849: he added a chapel, designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, in 1869. It then passed to Charles Arthur Richard Hoare in 1877. The land adjoining Wickham Road was sold in the 1890s and laid out with large Arts and Crafts movement houses designed by Francis Hooper. The house became a convent for the Sisters of All Saints in 1895 and then became Kepplestone School for the Daughters of Gentlemen in 1901. Following the death of Charles Arthur Richard Hoare in 1908, Beckenham Urban District Council acquired the estate in 1911.
Kelsey Park was officially opened to the public by Right Honourable John Burns MP, President of the Local Government Board, on 31 May 1913. The house itself was used by the British Army during World War I and was demolished in 1921.
History
Up until 1908, Park Langley was a landed estate. 700 acres were then sold by the Goodhart family for development by G & H Taylor whose guiding principle was to 'offer something beautiful, using good artists, materials and workmen'. The project specified spacious laid out detached houses, long curving roads, red brick pavements and much landscaping, using new ornamental trees while maintaining existing mature trees. A golf course was built centered on the old mansion which burnt down in 1913. This is now the site of the Langley Girl's school. Words from the 1914 sales brochure of H & G Taylor 'The old order of things, with street upon street of ugly houses, all of the same design and served often by the same key, causing the dwellers to become morbid, owing to the deadly monotony and sameness of outlook, is changing with the garden estate outlook.'
Under the heading 'Relics of past ages' it states 'Upon the estate is a very fine old barn with magnificent oak timbers and braces, which will be left standing, and it is hoped that ultimately it will be turned into a hall for dances and concerts, while retaining its old timbering and general appearance.'