Tag Archives: Parklangley

KENT, LOST HOUSES

LANGLEY PARK

A country colony for Londoners: A house that became part of the ‘garden city movement’. Three years later it was lost

Langley Park 1 - The Bystander - Jun 8 1910 - BNA
Langley Park. Close by the house was an interesting old swimming bath embowered by trees. The old ballroom of the house had a fine painted ceiling. Leading up to the house was an old avenue of trees, a mile and a quarter in length. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

On Monday 6 January 1913, the members of Park Langley Golf Club were shocked to find that their club house was on fire. The blaze had started about eight o’clock at night in the dining-room, the cause unknown, and quickly consumed the interior, including the fine Adam ceiling.

On that cold January evening firemen from Beckenham and Bromley rushed to Langley Park. They laid their hoses to the pond 300 yards away and frantically pumped water into the house. By midnight the fire had consumed most of the building and by first light on Tuesday it was evident that only the outer walls remained. 

The remains of Langley Park were demolished soon afterwards and a replacement club house constructed nearby.

Langley Park - The Sketch - 15 Jan 1913 - BNA
The following day firemen were still pouring water onto the remains of Langley House. All the windows had been destroyed and the roof had collapsed inwards. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.
Langley Park - Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News - 11 Jan 1913 (BNA)
The blackened shell of Langley Park. The Georgian part, completely at odds with an adjacent older section, had been totally destroyed. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.

Previous to this, Langley Park mansion, standing at the centre of Langley Park in Beckenham, Kent, had been an age-old family home. Parts of the house were said to date back from 1476, built for the De Langele (Langley) family, although the main part of the property was Georgian. The Langley family remained until the 1820s when it was bought by Emmanuel Goodhart. In total, there were twenty rooms, many containing valuable objets d’art, Adam fireplaces and about twenty sepia frescos.

After the death of its last occupant, Emmanuel’s son, Charles Emanuel Goodhart, D.L., J.P. in 1903, the property had been empty. However, with one eye on the advance of London, there were plenty waiting patiently to exploit Beckenham’s rural location.

The estate was sold by the excecutors of Charles E. Goodhart in 1908 and 700-acres of its parkland bought by H & G Taylor, a Lewisham building firm, to build a new ‘garden estate’ – Parklangley –‘the most luxurious and beautiful attempt at town-planning in the country’.

The initial phase (1909-1913) was based on the ‘garden city movement’. The layout of the estate and most of the houses were designed by Reginald C. Fry, but there were other designs from Edgar Underwood, H.T. Bromley, Sothern Dexter and Durrans & Groves.

The first roads to be laid out were Wickham Way, Elwill Way and Hayes Way in 1909. Malmains Way, Whitecroft Way and Styles Way followed in 1910. The golf club moved into Langley Park in 1910, occupying the house and remaining parkland.

 

Langley Park - Ideal Home
Parklangley, near Beckenham, was the latest development of the garden suburbs ideal. Its 700-acres of park and tree-studded pastoral lands were to remain a huge garden on which spacious villas, designed for comfort as well as appearance, were built. The houses weren’t crowded together, and the ‘jerry builder’ was kept out of the domain. This is Brabourne Rise in the course of construction. Image: Ideal Home.

Originally envisaged as a self contained garden city complete with circular shopping centre, church and dance hall building, around 80 houses had been built before the development was interrupted by World War I.

Work resumed on the ‘garden city’ in 1918, but the scheme never fully materialised. However, consisting mainly of sizeable detached and semi-detached housing it remains ones of Beckenham’s most exclusive and unspoilt areas.

The site of Langley Park mansion is now occupied by Langley Park School for Girls, behind what is now the 3rd green of Langley Park Golf Club.

Rotunda at Parklangley - The Bystander - Apr 27 1910 - BNA
Shopping entirely under shelter. The Parklangley development covered 700-acres and houses were built fringing broad roads with old trees in them. The roads were to run round and radiate from a central position, which itself was close up to an old avenue of trees a mile and quarter in length. At its centre was to be a large rotunda containing the only shops allowed in the area. People were to enter the rotunda by twenty or thirty arches and enter into a shopping promenade – a circus covered by a glass roof complete with bandstand, fountain, tea-tables and flower-shops. Sadly, it was never built. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.
Langley Park 3 - The Bystander - Jun 8 1910 - BNA
“A beautiful estate, having fallen into the builders’ hands, had, instead of being covered with conventional villas in hard, straight roads, been laid out in truly rural style. The houses were different in design; beautiful old trees lined the roads, there was a first-rate golf course and club-house.” Image: The British Newspaper Archive.
Langley Park 2 - The Bystander - Jun 8 1910 - BNA
May 1910. The new golf course at Parklangley. Charles Mayo putting on the second green. The links were played upon for the first time on Wednesday 25 May, when George Duncan won an eighteen-hole match against Charles Mayo, with a score of 78 against 83. Image: The British Newspaper Archive.
Corner of hayes Way and Wickham Way - Geograph - Dr Neil Clifton
Langley Park or Parklangley? Both names have been used since the early 20th century. One of the ‘garden city’ houses on the corner of Hayes Way and Wickham Way. Image: Dr Neil Clifton.
Langley Park - 1909 - National Library of Scotland
Langley Park. A lot has changed since 1909. Beckenham was historically in Kent, but is now a district of London in the London Borough of Bromley. On this map we can see the black outline of the old house. Today it is the site of Langley Park School for Girls. Image: National Library of Scotland.
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