BOB OGLEY considers the impact a major proposal could have on Bromley.

I was invited to a street party last Sunday. Not a party to celebrate a royal occasion or an anniversary, or a special birthday. It was a street party to show that the area of Bromley to the west of the High Street is a living, vibrant, tightly knit community which would completely disappear if a proposed redevelopment, known as Site G goes ahead.

The party was held in Ethelbert Close where 40 maisonettes were built in 1930. Here, by the front gardens, residents and friends supplied food and drinks, listened to a musician and a few speeches and discussed the consequences facing them if they were forcibly evicted from their homes.

I was an outsider, invited to learn more about the heritage of this area of Bromley, but it soon became clear that potential victims of this ambitious town plan could include the town church, the Salvation Army meeting house, a doctor’s practice, dental surgery and the splendid villas of Ethelbert Road, where it is believed the mother of HG Wells was a housekeeper.

Blissfully unaware of the full impact the proposed redevelopment would make if this side of the High Street, from the Churchill Theatre to the new buildings oposite Bromley South railway station, were to give way to new shops and businesses, I spoke to Tony Banfield of Bromley Civic Society.

He told me the site was once open land comprising the estates of three properties – Ravensfell House, Bromley House and Simpson’s Place.

The latter was demolished in 1860 when the road were constructed. Bromley House stood on the site of what is now Metro Bank and went in 1930. Part of Ravensfell House survives as Russell and Bromley. In their place came the shops and villas.

A labour exchange was built in Ethelbert Road, designed with a pastiche Georgian frontage to show off the 18th century portico of Bromley House and salvaged from the demolition.

That is now the town church.

The names of the roads are also part of Bromley’s heritage. Ravensbourne after the river. Ringers after Jeremy Ringer, the occupant of Simpson Place for 50 years. Ethelbert after the King of Wessex and Kent, whose name appears on a charter in the British Museum.

This charter granted land to Ethelbert’s minister Dryhtwald. And that land eventually became Bromley.

I am indebted to Davina Misroch who invited me to come along and say a few words.

She is the mastermind behind the party and the ongoing protests. This is not yet Site G, she told me, it is simply Community G.