Bromley Civic Society

Come along and do our new family Heritage Treasure Trail on half term Friday and Saturday! http://www.bromleycivicsociety.org.uk/… /half-term-fun-do-o…/ Discover 20 interesting historic points around the centre of Bromley. Find us at the Local Studies Centre, 2nd floor of the Central Library from 1 - 4pm.

'Conserving and Celebrating the Historic Architecture of South East London' - talk by Benedict O'Looney 28th February 2019, in the Small Hall (4th floor); Bromley Central Library, High Street, Bromley, BR1 1EX

Family Heritage Treasure Trail in Bromley town centre at half term.

Please note the venue change! http://www.bromleycivicsociety.org.uk/… /historic-architect…/ The venue for Benedict O’Looney’s talk on historic architecture in south London has been changed to the Small Hall, Bromley Central Library (see below). Benedict will also speak about progress with the current plan to restore the Royal Bell hotel.
Royal BellBenedict O’Looney Talk on 28th February 2019, 7:30pm: Small Hall, Bromley Central Library... ‘Conserving and celebrating the historic architecture of South London’ Benedict will be able to give us an update on progress with the Royal Bell – also his experience in restoring and building new work around Peckham’s historic townscape and what was involved with the initiation of central Peckham’s conservation area (£3 voluntary donation).
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From the national civic society: they are wondering if it’s the ugliness that means that so many new developments are not welcome:
Does all new housing look the same?
We were copied into a twitter discussion this week which was critical of the design standard of mass house building estates across the country today. This was robustly challenged by a well-known housebuilder. But it got us thinking, does all new housing today generally look the same? Is it a problem if it does?... And is this one of the reasons why many communities oppose new housing development in their area?
The image above is a collection of photographs that have been sent into Civic Voice recently. Each photo is of a different housing development in a different part of England, by a different volume housebuilder. Yet there certainly does seem to be a similarity between them! But what do you think? Would you say that these developments are beautiful? On the other hand, are they poor quality schemes?
What one word would you use to describe the housing in the above image? Send your thoughts to info@civicvoice.org.uk.
Clearly this is relevant to current discussions around creating 'beauty in the built environment' and the Government's Building Better, Building Beautiful Commision which Civic Voice will be participating in. Civic Voice is genuinely interested in your feedback and will be holding several discussions on this topic over the coming months as we formulate our response to the Commission. To kick start the discussion, we have put together a survey and would be grateful if societies and their members could fill out the survey available here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/building bettercommission This will enable Civic Voice to gather evidence to inform the community response to the Commission
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Bricks or steel? Rebuilding Bromley South is part of the master plan so this might come to Bromley!

PRESS RELEASE: http://www.bromleycivicsociety.org.uk/… /press-release-20-s…/
Please share!

Here’s one of our high street buildings that I like, by Bromley Gloss.

Here's the first of an occasional series of posts about some of the more noteworthy (heritage) buildings in our High Street: http://www.bromleycivicsociety.org.uk/… /70-high-street-brom… This one is about the 'new gothic' 1930s building at 70 High Street, Bromley.

https://www.facebook.com/1798649670209683 /posts/2186861361388510/

Bromley Civic Society has been featured in the winter edition of the London Forum, in their 'Spotlight' article! https://www.londonforum.org.uk/newsforum/ newsforum80.pdf Here's some extracts from the article: "The chair, Tony Banfield, describes the tremendous (and on-going) battle to save Bromley’s historic town centre
Bromley or Bromleag, in Anglo Saxon, is an historic Kentish hill-top Market town now subsumed into London… late Victorian flowering of the town with its fin...e examples of buildings by architects of the Arts & Crafts movement… and the battle to gain a Conservation Area for the historic buildings that survived the council's “worst piece of new townscape he had seen in any town in the country” (according to the Deputy Secretary of the Royal Fine Arts Commission in 1982).
[of the BCS] Founded in 1982 as The Heart of Bromley Residents Association, fighting the … massive redevelopment of Victorian Housing areas and the Palace lands... Regrouped as BCS in 2007 to deal with the emerging Town Centre Area Action Plan. It has been one battle after another to save what is left of our heritage and to avert harmful development…the same anti-conservation prejudice we experienced 30 years ago is still in evidence in all their [the council as a developer] proposals. The main obstacle to our work is the state of the planning system with so much being granted on appeal…. and the depletion of Council staffing. We once had a well staffed Heritage and Urban Design department and we are now down to one conservation officer ... Consequently, societies like ours are filling the gaps without the status or authority to be properly heard."
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Bromley South station is 160 years old today!

We've got some great reviews of the Halloween edition of our 'Murders, Mystery, Highwaymen and Ghosts' walk:
"Absolutely wonderful and ressurected my interest in Bromley heritage" - Jeannette
"Just to say it was a very nice Ghost Walk.... The alternate people who would speak at the stopping points and the ‘very novel’ projection of images, the clopping sounds of a horse in the darkness, made it all wonderful. When Peter speaks his voice creates the dreadfulness, the gravity of the situation and the creepy, frightful atmosphere. When Tony speaks, his voice has a calmness, a more refined, cultured tone of what he is saying, you can tell that he has researched the material. The projectionist who read the passage from E. L. S. Horburgh’s book “Dwellers in the comfortable, if unromantic, villas of Ravensbourne, Ringer’s and Ethelbert Roads, they are not troubled at night by visions of a lady dressed in white with a lighted torch in her hand, accompanied by a gentleman in dark clothes with a high-crowned broad-brimmed hat which flapped over the sides of his face” ………….. and Jane who has a sense of humour and appears to have a very practical manner…………..all of you in your contrasting styles and costumes made this a very interesting and entertaining Ghost Walk. Thank you very much. Pamela"
"On behalf of us both, many thanks to you and your colleagues for a thoroughly entertaining evening yesterday. We loved the banter, learnt a lot and very much appreciated all your efforts. Thank you. I think we may meet up again before too long as our appetites to learn more with the Civic Society have been well and truly whetted.
 Kind regards, Dick and Linda"
"A heartfelt thanks to you and all your colleagues for a brilliant evening. It was wonderful how you all dressed in costume and I really appreciated all the effort you all made to take along a slide projector and screen. Having been born in Stone Park Hospital Beckenham, growing up in West Wickham and being educated in Bromley schools I learnt a great deal that I never knew. The pumpkins in the park were also a nice little touch. It was great also to finish at the Bromley Little Theatre and hear some more ghostly talks. I also had the chance to have some mulled wine. Keep up the good work and I hope to come on another of your walks in the future. Regards Mary"
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Meet at Belgo in Queen’s Garden beside the north entrance to the Glades from 6:15pm for a 6:30pm start. Tour 1 hour 30mins, ending in the spooky Victorian labyrinth of the Bromley Little Theatre (in Compass Lane off North Street) where we will hear the strange story of the white lady of the theatre! Wrap up warm! There will be one fairly steep walk up Martin’s Hill. A torch would be useful. Voluntary donation of £3 All funds help our campaigns to preserve the heritage of our... town centre Children welcome BOOKING ESSENTIAL! Email: chair@bromleycivicsociety.org.uk http://www.bromleycivicsociety.org.uk/… /halloween-ghost-wa…/
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There's a ghost walk for the evening of Halloween ... details at http://www.bromleycivicsociety.org.uk/… /halloween-ghost-wa…/ ... you need to book at chair@bromleycivicsociety.org.uk