Heavy Earth Moving Equipment being used by contractors to make a new car park area in Beckenham Place Park, Lewisham
Beckenham Place Park is a large park located near Beckenham in the London Borough of Lewisham. It lies close to the border with London Borough of Bromley. The Palladian-style mansion that gave the park its name now serves as a community centre and cafe. Although so named because John Cator the younger established the park between 1757/60 and 1785 and acquired the rights of the Manor of Beckenham, it transpires that most of the land in the current park was in the neighbouring Manor of Foxgrove and some nearby Lewisham Lands that once belonged to the Forsters of Southend, Lewisham and the Earl of Rockingham/Sondes/Lees Court estate. Several accounts of the history of the park require amendment due to recent rediscoveries from different archives. The Friends of Beckenham Place Park endeavour to compile an accurate history based on archive material in the British Library, Kent, Essex and Surrey Archives. Bromley and Lewisham Local Studies Libraries. Beckenham Manor has medieval origins and is mentioned in the Domesday Book as belonging to the Bishop of Bayeux. In the 17th century, the whole estate was owned by Walter St John, and later by Frederick Viscount Bolingbroke, who sold the estate with manorial rights passing to the noted Quaker and MP John Cator in 1773.[2] Records show John Cator acquired land here as early as 1757 and built his house by 1762. Cator built the mansion that stands today.[2] Cator's father-in-law, botanist Peter Collinson, visited in September 1762, commenting: "... went, for the first time, to visit my son-in-law John Cater [sic] (who married my daughter), at his new-built house, now finished, at Stump's Hill, half-way (on the south side of the road) between Southend and Beckenham, in Kent, began in the spring 1760, on a pretty wooded estate that he had purchased. The plantations about it, all of his own doing, I found in a thriving condition, and when grown up will adorn so stately a house, in so delectable a situation, and make it a Paradise.
Size: 5616px × 3744px
Location: Beckenham Place Park, Beckenham, UK
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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