London Journeys: the Willett Way Part 2: Petts Wood → Chislehurst
I hope you enjoyed your extra hour in bed this morning. Let's return to Petts Wood and continue retracing the footsteps of William Willett, the man who came up with the idea of British Summer Time. The man who shifted us all sixty minutes into the future. The man who invented saved daylight by inventing time travel. Thanks Willie.
The Willett Way continues up a side alley, underneath the railway and out into deep green woodland. This is what's left of the ancient forest of Petts Wood, the bit that hasn't disappeared beneath a carpet of suburbia. The wood was bought by public subscription in 1927 and handed over to the National Trust, and has since acted as a buffer against unfettered housing development [photo]. And it's rather delightful. Twisting tracks and muddy bridleways lead beneath a leafy canopy, with the occasional view out across sheep-infested fields. And it must have been much the same when local builder William Willett took his morning constitutional 100 years ago. He was riding his horse through Petts Wood early one morning when he noticed that all his neighbours were still asleep in bed. What a waste of daylight, he thought. What if we could shift an hour of summer daylight from the morning to the evening? Being a man of action he went home and wrote a polemic pamphlet entitled "The Waste of Daylight", and campaigned to get his timeshifting plans forced through Parliament. And what do you know, he was actually successful. Eventually.
Introducing British Summer Time took rather longer than William Willett expected. The first Daylight Saving Bill was introduced in 1908, but struggled to get through Parliament despite support from a majority of MPs. It took a world war to focus Europe's attention on the importance of saving daylight, and therefore fuel, and Germany was first to take the plunge. A coal shortage forced Britain to follow suit shortly afterwards, and on 21st May 1916 a bemused nation turned its carriage clocks and fobwatches forward by 60 pioneering minutes. In 1925 a permanent British Summertime Act was passed, and the grateful people of Petts Wood erected this memorial sundial in honour of its trailblazing inventor. It stands in a silent clearing in the middle of the wood [photo] and commemorates William as "the untiring advocate of Summer Time" [photo]. It's another very special hour-ahead sundial, running on BST rather than GMT, with the Latin phrase beneath the dial translating as "I only keep the Summer hours" [photo]. I arrived in the clearing when the sun was almost exactly overhead, so the shadowed time in my photograph indicates 1pm BST rather the more normal 12 noon GMT. Of all the sights along the Willett Way, this was the most special.
But William never lived to see his ideas come to fruition. He died in 1915, just a year too early, and was buried in the churchyard at St Nicholas's in Chislehurst [photo]. The Willett Way passes his burial site, and you can slip beneath the lych gate into the churchyard and search out his grave in the southeastern corner. It's a sorry sight, at least in comparison to some of the more upright memorials close by [photo]. William's marble cross headstone has been snapped off and now lies folornly across the top of a bare earth grave [photo]. Some of the plot's low stone borders have also toppled over, and the text on what's left of the gravestone is barely readable. You wouldn't ever imagine, looking at this mess from the pavement outside, that here was the last resting place of a man once so revered that he had his own waxwork in Madame Tussauds.
The Willett Way terminates just up the road at William's self-built home - The Cedars [photo]. It's an impressive detached pile overlooking Chislehurst Common, and Bromley Council have placed a plaque by the front door to commemorate "the initiator of British Summer Time". Thank goodness a few people still remember William Willett - the ordinary man whose early morning horse-ride ended up changing the world. Ah, if only changing all those clocks back an hour didn't take so long! Damn you William, damn you!
Everyone appreciates the long light evenings. Everyone laments their shrinkage as Autumn approaches, and nearly everyone has given utterance to a regret that the clear bright light of early morning, during Spring and Summer months, is so seldom seen or used. Nevertheless, Standard time remains so fixed, that for nearly half the year the sun shines for several hours each day, while we are asleep, and is rapidly nearing the horizon when we reach home after the work of the day is over. There then remains only a brief spell of declining daylight in which to spend the short period of leisure at our disposal. Now, if one of the hours of sunlight wasted in the morning could be added to the end of the day, many advantages would be gained by all, and especially by those who would spend in the open air, whatever time they might have at their disposal after the duties of the day have been discharged. The Waste of Daylight, William Willett (1907)
The Willett Way continues up a side alley, underneath the railway and out into deep green woodland. This is what's left of the ancient forest of Petts Wood, the bit that hasn't disappeared beneath a carpet of suburbia. The wood was bought by public subscription in 1927 and handed over to the National Trust, and has since acted as a buffer against unfettered housing development [photo]. And it's rather delightful. Twisting tracks and muddy bridleways lead beneath a leafy canopy, with the occasional view out across sheep-infested fields. And it must have been much the same when local builder William Willett took his morning constitutional 100 years ago. He was riding his horse through Petts Wood early one morning when he noticed that all his neighbours were still asleep in bed. What a waste of daylight, he thought. What if we could shift an hour of summer daylight from the morning to the evening? Being a man of action he went home and wrote a polemic pamphlet entitled "The Waste of Daylight", and campaigned to get his timeshifting plans forced through Parliament. And what do you know, he was actually successful. Eventually.
Introducing British Summer Time took rather longer than William Willett expected. The first Daylight Saving Bill was introduced in 1908, but struggled to get through Parliament despite support from a majority of MPs. It took a world war to focus Europe's attention on the importance of saving daylight, and therefore fuel, and Germany was first to take the plunge. A coal shortage forced Britain to follow suit shortly afterwards, and on 21st May 1916 a bemused nation turned its carriage clocks and fobwatches forward by 60 pioneering minutes. In 1925 a permanent British Summertime Act was passed, and the grateful people of Petts Wood erected this memorial sundial in honour of its trailblazing inventor. It stands in a silent clearing in the middle of the wood [photo] and commemorates William as "the untiring advocate of Summer Time" [photo]. It's another very special hour-ahead sundial, running on BST rather than GMT, with the Latin phrase beneath the dial translating as "I only keep the Summer hours" [photo]. I arrived in the clearing when the sun was almost exactly overhead, so the shadowed time in my photograph indicates 1pm BST rather the more normal 12 noon GMT. Of all the sights along the Willett Way, this was the most special.
But William never lived to see his ideas come to fruition. He died in 1915, just a year too early, and was buried in the churchyard at St Nicholas's in Chislehurst [photo]. The Willett Way passes his burial site, and you can slip beneath the lych gate into the churchyard and search out his grave in the southeastern corner. It's a sorry sight, at least in comparison to some of the more upright memorials close by [photo]. William's marble cross headstone has been snapped off and now lies folornly across the top of a bare earth grave [photo]. Some of the plot's low stone borders have also toppled over, and the text on what's left of the gravestone is barely readable. You wouldn't ever imagine, looking at this mess from the pavement outside, that here was the last resting place of a man once so revered that he had his own waxwork in Madame Tussauds.
The Willett Way terminates just up the road at William's self-built home - The Cedars [photo]. It's an impressive detached pile overlooking Chislehurst Common, and Bromley Council have placed a plaque by the front door to commemorate "the initiator of British Summer Time". Thank goodness a few people still remember William Willett - the ordinary man whose early morning horse-ride ended up changing the world. Ah, if only changing all those clocks back an hour didn't take so long! Damn you William, damn you!
Everyone appreciates the long light evenings. Everyone laments their shrinkage as Autumn approaches, and nearly everyone has given utterance to a regret that the clear bright light of early morning, during Spring and Summer months, is so seldom seen or used. Nevertheless, Standard time remains so fixed, that for nearly half the year the sun shines for several hours each day, while we are asleep, and is rapidly nearing the horizon when we reach home after the work of the day is over. There then remains only a brief spell of declining daylight in which to spend the short period of leisure at our disposal. Now, if one of the hours of sunlight wasted in the morning could be added to the end of the day, many advantages would be gained by all, and especially by those who would spend in the open air, whatever time they might have at their disposal after the duties of the day have been discharged.• Walk the Willett Way
