Local resident Tom Thorn reveals another story in the evolution of Coney Hall and the curious case of five missing houses…
Many years ago, speaking to a long-term resident in Kingsway (if not the original occupier), he told me his house was built later than the rest of the estate, as it was on a direct path the rector of St John’s used to get to the church from his rectory on Gates Green Road. The path existed long before work started on the Coney Hall estate in 1933: it ran diagonally from Gates Green Road across the fields to join the path which still runs up to the church through the park today – probablyclose to the location of the current nursery. So when Coney Hall was first built, four gaps were left between houses on Kingsway and Queensway to retain this right of way. There are a couple of very early photos of Queensway which show the gaps left for the path – plus old maps prove thisarticle isn’t a total piece of fiction!
Frustratingly a photograph taken from West Wickham Common in the late 1930s has a tree blocking the view. However, that photo does show that Hawthorn Drive and Sylvan Way were still being built when the photograph was taken, while the rest of the estate is looking well and truly lived in. The old Coney Hall (or Coney Court) farmhouse dating from around 1652 still stands in Gates Green Road. Between 1935 and 1981 it served as the rectory for St John’s church. Historically, the rectory had been on Corkscrew Hill – the building still stands in Bencurtis Park. In the early 1930s West Wickham was beginning to expand, and with the impending Coney Hall estate the decision was made to split the parish in two: north and south. Reverend Shaw Page decided he should move back south, and purchased the farmhouse and farmyard buildings for £3,000 – a mere snip compared to the £1,500,000 the house is on the market for now!
The new and slightly complex route the rector took as Coney Hall was first built can be clearly traced, as shown on the map on the facing page. Starting at the rectory, there’s a footpath between Gates Green Road and Kingsway (1). The Gates Green end of the current footpath may be original, as it lines up with the old map and would trace a direct line to the ‘missing’ houses on Kingsway, but it then bends away towards Princes Way. However, Council minutes from 1940 refer to a path (I assume the newer path), urging the liquidators of Morrell’s Builders to “Complete this path to the agreed specifications made before the liquidation of the company”.
Then you get to the first ‘missing’ houses. Following the line of the original path across Kingsway and Queensway, today there are five semi-detached properties (circled in orange above) which don’t quite match the properties each side, as they lack a gable, instead having a sloping roof to the front. So, after walking through the gap in the houses on Kingsway (2), the rector would head between the gap in the houses on Queensway (3) to reach the original path to the church (4). As the gaps were deliberately a house-width, it seems the continued access for the rector was only ever temporary, and these five properties were eventually constructed. With the demise of the rector’s route, Coney Hall now has a handful more houses – and some residents at the bottom of Chestnut Avenue also gained a bit of garden. Alas, the rector had to endure a less direct route for the next 40 years – although in later years he may have utilised four wheels instead!
Coney Hall Village Residents' Association (CHVRA) 