This week I went to Kent House station.
And I have more questions.
Mainly one big one.
Why is it called Kent House?
It's got to be something to do with the county of Kent and a house, hasn't it?
For context, Kent House is on the railway line between Victoria and Bromley South. The stations to either side are Penge East and Beckenham Junction. It opened in 1884. It's not in Kent although it used to be. And much of this is of importance.
Where was the Kent boundary?
For centuries the counties of Surrey and Kent covered everything we now know as South London. The boundary ran south from the Thames near New Cross to a point just east of East Grinstead. In this particular area Penge was on the Surrey side and Beckenham on the Kent side (although to be upfront Penge was an administrative oddity originally classified as an exclave of Battersea and sorry, I don't have time to go into that again). This meant the Kent boundary ran really close to what's now Kent House station, indeed passed just 30m from the far end of the platforms, so something very Kenty is going on here.
When was the Kent boundary?
Yes the important bit is when. Up until 1869 the historic Surrey/Kent boundary was the historic one. In 1889 the County of London was formed and swallowed the north of Surrey, including Penge, so the local boundary was now London/Kent. Then in 1900 Penge got the chance to shift its allegiance, and wanted to rejoin Surrey but actually ended up part of Kent, hence there was no longer a boundary here. Penge stayed part of Kent until 1965 when the London borough of Bromley took over and the name Kent House thus became an anachronism. What's crucial is that Kent House station opened in 1884 when this was Kent and the adjacent boundary was with Surrey.
Is this the Kent House?
I've long thought this glorious building alongside the station might be the Kent House. It has ornate plaster twiddles, glass whorls and tiled twirls, as befits a structure of fine stature, also it appears to be older than anything else round here. But it's not a listed building despite looking like it ought to be, also it's not on the main road where you'd expect a nominal building to be, also why do the initials 'TW' appear on the facade? More importantly the date on the front of the building is 1887 which is three years after the station opened so can't be the reason for the original name. Ah well.
What's going on with the cafe?
Until the end of last year a smart little cafe called Kent House Coffee and Flowers operated out of here. The words along the window read BEER WINE COFFEE CAKE FLOWERS GELATO, i.e. essentially trying to appeal to everyone. But they closed and the place is now being fitted out by a new operation who've been busy replacing the previous black and white colour scheme with something a lot more leaf green. This fresh outfit are called At Kent House, an offshoot of Home & Happiness on Penge High Street, and this time the words in the window are COFFEE BRUNCH SMALL PLATES HOMEWARE GIFTS & MORE. It all sounds somewhat Amandaland and is opening later in the spring, having currently reached the "yes you can come in and have a look but you'll have to take your shoes off" stage of redecoration.
So what was the actual Kent House?
It was a very old house, the name having first been recorded in the year 1240. For centuries there really was nothing much else around here other than the Surrey/Kent boundary, so Kent House would indeed have been the first Kentish location encountered if approaching from the west. In 1778 historian Edward Hasted wrote...
"KENT-HOUSE is situated on the very edge of this county, towards Surry, and seems to be so called either from it’s having been once the outer bounds of this county, or from having been formerly the first house on the entrance into this parish within this county, from that of Surry. It was for some generations in the possession of the family of Lethieullier; the first of whom was Sir John Le Thieullier a Hamburgh merchant, who had raised himself by his industry in trade, and settled in this parish."
The Angersteins took over shortly after that, rich merchants from Charlton, and in 1806 it became a 178 acre farm called Kent House Farm. A contemporary illustration shows it looking rather more like a manor house than a farmhouse, with tall chimneys and a nice little urn out front. Later it became a nursing home and then the Kent House Farm Hotel, all this while the surrounding land was sold off for housing. But Kent House station opened before suburban encroachment had covered the fields, hence was the only local thing it made sense to name the station after.
How far from Kent House station was Kent House?
About half a mile to the north, reached (unsurprisingly) up Kent House Road. The houses start off enticingly Victorian, then get sturdily but appealingly interwar. Along the way is the Kent House Tavern (alas closed 2013, since unsympathetically converted into housing) and also a run of delightfully throwback shops including an upholsterer, a carpet fitter and ye olde drycleaners. As suburbia goes it's at the very appealing end of not quite posh. However the closest station to the site of Kent House is actually New Beckenham, because logic and station naming don't always go together.
Does Kent House still exist?
Alas no. The hotel was sold for housing, being a fairly spacious plot, and replaced by a run of much more modern houses and a cul-de-sac. That's Beckett Walk, a name I can find no local connection for, a brief dogleg lined by maisonettes and a couple of proper houses. I can't find a date but looking at them I'd say 1970s, give or take. Here I found fresh-mown verges, almost-mature trees and a gentleman sat reading the paper on a chair in his front garden, most surprised at being disturbed. It's a shame that absolutely nothing of Kent House lingers on, save in the name of a station no longer in Kent, but if you rewind back to 1884 it does at least make a bit more sense.
