Bromley Gloss - London Borough of Bromley - Current, Upcoming, Historic

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Bromley Gloss - London Borough of Bromley - Current, Upcoming, Historic

LONDON BOROUGH OF BROMLEY! PLUS occasional pieces on ANYTHING from ANYWHERE. You Can Share EVERYTHING Local Bromley Borough & there Abouts to This Page.

This Page: facebook.com/BromleyGloss Featuring LONDON BOROUGH OF BROMLEY plus occasionals about ANYTHING from ANYWHERE. Photos, Videos, Gems, Legends, Info, History, Nostalgia, Topical, News, Muses, Music, People, Artists; Places, Facts, Memories, Long Lost, Alternative; Surprises, Stores, Stories, Sport, Fashion; Events, Comedy, Nightlife, Nightclubs; Pubs, Peculiarities, Pick'n'Mix! All the Bes

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Debz: facebook.com/dzadewalsh
Page Founder/Manager/Editor/Narrator, Researcher - Historical/Topical, Post Creator, Administrator, Videographer/Photographer. Bjorn: Page Researcher, Videographer, Photographer
Dave: Page Researcher; Historical Detail, Current Affairs. Lucas: Page Researcher; Historical Detail, Current Affairs.

17/08/2026

TIME MACHINE EDWARDIAN BROMLEY CIRCA 1914 ⏳. This super clear street scene by S. Phillips of Catford captures a lively view looking north down the central High Street. On the immediate right is the large awning of George Pyrke, while the original gothic-style Bromley Town Hall stands prominently at the end of the road, where it dominated Market Square until its demolition in 1933.

MARKS & SPENCER ORIGINS
The attractive, bow-windowed building behind Pyrke’s awning survived the century and houses today’s Marks & Spencer. Back then, it was a drapery called Wright Brothers and stood at half its current size. M&S bought the property in 1931, much later extending it so flawlessly that it is still impossible to spot where the original building ends and the 1950s extension begins.

THE BRITISH "DRUG STORE"
We think of "Drug Stores" as an American expression, but the hanging sign and clock on the left for "E. Felce Drug Stores" prove otherwise. Tying the scene together is an early motor car sporting an "LN" registration plate, introduced by the London County Council in 1913 to manage the growing traffic numbers.

SOFAS AND COFFINS
Look closely at George Pyrke’s awning and you’ll see he was an Upholsterer, Cabinet Maker, & Undertaker. Because furniture makers had the best timber and tools back then, they naturally doubled as the local coffin builders—just like the famous Dunns over at Market Square.

Thanks very much to Jay for sharing.

17/08/2026

BROMLEY’S "TOY TOWN" STATION 1920s🕰 This photo captures Bromley North station circa 1927. Before this, the station was a collection of run-down wooden shacks. The railway company demolished them in 1925 to build the beautiful brick ticket hall we know today - with its neo-classical brickwork, elegant arched honeycomb entrance, and striking copper cupola on its roof. To the left in this photo is the "Southern Electric" sign, erected in 1926 to mark the arrival of the brand-new electric trains. While it operates as a short shuttle to Grove Park today, this station once ran mainline trains direct into Charing Cross, Cannon Street, London Bridge, Victoria, and Holborn Viaduct.

PEOPLE POWER
British Rail pulled the last direct services in 1990, and since then multiple attempts have been made to shut the entire branch line down. However, intense pressure from the local community and Bromley council successfully fought off the closures to keep the station open. If it weren't for the sheer grit of local residents, that beautiful building might well have been torn down and replaced with who knows what.

😏DID YOU KNOW?
According to the Bromley Civic Society archives, the station is locally nicknamed Bromley’s "Toy Town" station because of its imposing structure compared to its 30+ year miniature railway line. It remains one of London's shortest commuter rail journeys.

16/08/2026

BROMLEY HIGH STREET NORTH (1912) ⏳ This photo captures the north end of the High Street looking south towards Market Square over a century ago. On the immediate right stands the historic Swan & Mitre coaching inn with its distinctive columned porch. Just along the pavement is the large brick wall advertising E.A. McKenzie, a staple Edwardian bookseller and stationer, while an early London General Omnibus motorbus on Route 47 navigates the road on its journey towards Shoreditch. In the distance on the left is the distinctive turret of the old Star and Garter hotel. Adding to the charm of the street scene is a woman walking two small terriers. While the photographer remains unrecorded, similar to many vintage photos, it perfectly captures a window into local Edwardian life, and it is lovely to see it. Thanks very much to Jay for sharing.

16/08/2026

BROMLEY’S HIDDEN HISTORY🌸 What sat behind the High Street before the 1990s. This vintage postcard shows the old Phillips Memorial Homeopathic Hospital and Queen’s Gardens (originally White Hart Field) in the early 1900s. An Edwardian haven but a view that was completely transformed by the 1960s and 1970s.

To understand why this view vanished, you have to look at the post-war changes that took place long before the 1980s Glades developers arrived:

The Lost Park: The original park was once much larger. The exact paths and grass pictured here were systematically paved over in the 1960s and 1970s for commercial infrastructure. The Queen's Gardens you walk through today is the leftover southern pocket of the original green space.

The Hospital: The beautiful building shown here was not cleared by modern developers. It sat right along Lownds Avenue bordering the gardens and was completely destroyed by N**i firebombs during the Blitz in 1941.

The Brutalist Church: Nearby, the mid-century Holwood Road church was built in a heavy, brutalist style that completely altered the traditional look of the neighborhood.

The Infrastructure: By the 1970s, mid-century planning had swallowed up the remaining open land, turning it into a sprawling commercial zone of tarmac car parks, concrete walkways, and office blocks.

When the architects designed The Glades in the late 1980s, they weren't clearing out a pristine historic neighborhood. Although some traditional houses on Lownds Avenue survived until the end, the wider area had already spent decades operating as a tired, grey, mid-century commercial zone.

16/08/2026

BROMLEY HIGH STREET SOUTH: REFLECTIONS ON A VANISHED VIEW. Here is a historical comparison of The Broadway looking south down the hill towards Bromley South station.

🏤 1930s View: The top photo captures a mid-transformation moment around 1935. While many of Bromley's vintage buildings were lost to 1950s and 1960s redevelopment schemes, this plot was cleared earlier during a the interwar development phase. The entertainment boom was coming to the Broadway in the form of the grand Gaumont Super Cinema which opened in 1936. The houses that originally filled this open space were flattened, completely removing the traditional residential footprint from this section of the hill.

🏤 Fate of Surviving Houses Nearest the Camera (1930s photo): The buildings on the right are still untouched in this 1930s snapshot despite nearby demolition. Prominent is York House, home to the Bromley College of Music (note its business sign in the upper bay window), next to its semi-detached neighbour.💡 In the modern photo, the parade containing MK Law Solicitors and the adjacent modern block sit directly on the site of the old music studio and its adjacent house. The narrow 1930s pavement and roadway were also widened for the modern street layout.

🏤 Piano Advertisement: The massive billboard on the garden wall is a commercial advertisement for Morleys Pianos. Morleys paid to use this prime commuter wall, targeting people walking to the station. Their actual showrooms are believe to have sat down the hill at Nos. 3–5 High Street (where Tesco Express sits today).

🏤 Date Confirmation: In the near distance is a bank of promotional billboards. One poster features a real-world advertisement for the Hollywood film Cardinal Richelieu starring George Arliss, which anchors the date of this photo to 1935.

🏤 House That Defied The Wrecking Ball 💪: Further down the hill in BOTH photos, corner of Ravensbourne Road, a distinct white building stands tall and intact. Incredibly, this structure survived every single 20th-century redevelopment phase. Originally built as a Victorian villa during Bromley's early railway boom, local records and community memories indicate it spent the post-war decades operating as a doctors' surgery, then Derwent TV Rentals in the 1960s, and later a dental practice on the upper floors. 💡Looking beyond the White House further down the hill, it is clear that it’s direct neighbours had been demolished too! Large wooden hoardings covered in theatrical posters function as a giant construction fence shielding a cleared demolition site. Somehow despite everything around it being levelled, this one vintage gem remained a profitable occupied building that nobody was ever trying to sell off to developers💚. Let’s hope things stay that way.

🏤 From Gaumont to Dreams: After the Gaumont cinema closed in 1961, the building became Nicholsons Department Store, then Debenhams, before a complete and much needed modern makeover by Habitat. It once even housed a furniture offshoot of Allders, and of course much later Wilko. Today, its main occupant is Dreams Beds.

15/08/2026

🍔WIMPY BAR BROMLEY 1970s! WEEKEND TREAT. Wimpy Bars were a core fixture back in the 1970s. Locals had two branches to choose from. Up at Bromley North you had the branch right on the high street, in the exact building where The Diners Inn sits today. Meanwhile, down at Bromley South, the other branch sat in that short block of shops opposite the station, where Caffè Nero and Subway operate now.

PENCE INSTEAD OF POUNDS🪙
Here is a vintage menu from around 1975. Back then, a full Wimpy International steak dinner would set you back a grand total of 54p, a Wimpy Brunch was 36p, and you could finish it off with a Knickerbocker Glory for just 25p.

A DIFFERENT DINING STYLE 🍽
Visiting Wimpy back then was a completely different kind of fast-food experience. Instead of standing in line at a counter, you sat down and enjoyed full table service. Your burger and chips were served on real china plates with proper metal cutlery, as eating with your hands was considered rather common at the time.

WIMPY GENERATIONAL DISAPPROVAL😡
Not everyone was a fan of the new ways however. Older generations of Bromleyites often found the entire concept of a "Wimpy Bar" rather crass and unrefined. To those accustomed to traditional, quiet British tea rooms, the neon lights, tomato-shaped ketchup bottles, and American-style ground beef were viewed as an unwelcome, cheap invasion of the traditional High Street.

ARRIVAL OF MCDONALD'S🍟
But high street tastes shifted quickly and locals were incredibly excited when Bromley welcomed its very first McDonalds to Market Square. Both Wimpy and McDonalds styles brought their own distinct way to enjoy a burger in the Town Centre.

YOUR GO-TO?
What was your go-to order back in the day? Were you team Wimpy Brunch or did you switch over to a Big Mac and fries? Did your grandparents simply refuse to step foot inside either one?

🔦See comments for photo of Wimpy Bromley North where the Diners Inn is now.

15/08/2026

BURGER KING BROMLEY occupies a site with a grand and varied local history. Long before the flame-grilled beef, this spot belonged to IMPORTERS TEA & COFFEE HOUSE from the 1930s until the mid-1980s. A massive coffee roaster sat right in the front window, pumping a heavy aroma down the High Street. Scent is highly subjective, of course. While thousands of locals loved it😋, others admit they had to sprint past holding their breath to avoid a wave of nausea🤢. Still, it is a business that completely captivated the town's senses, a memory that continues more than 40 years after they closed down.

CHRONICLES OF NO 117. Behind that divisive scent sat a mahogany-panelled restaurant where the waitresses wore traditional uniforms complete with neat, lace-edged aprons. Going even further back, the original late-Georgian townhouse was home to the Marquis of Townshend. Between its days as an aristocratic mansion and its time as a coffee house, the building had a varied life. It served as a hub for the Navy and Army Canteen Board in the 1920s just as the High Street was transitioning into a modern commercial centre, before being repurposed during the Second World War as an Army and Navy Canteen Board Tenting Warehouse to support the military effort.

PLANNING SHOWDOWN
The property's fate shifted in the mid-1980s😶. A City pension fund bought the plot to redevelop it, sparking a massive planning showdown. The Greater London Council (GLC) had just designated the site a Conservation Area—a move Bromley Council fought against, as they already had a reputation for orchestrating sweeping town centre demolitions. The developers offered the Council three distinct options:

Keep the historic front.
Build an exact replica.
Tear it down and start fresh.

DEMOLITION AND DESIGN
True to form, the demolition-friendly Council chose to tear it down completely. While losing the original building was a tragedy, the 1980s architects deserve some credit. Instead of a boring concrete box, they actually built something with vintage, pseudo-historic character.

Info Credit: Bromley Civic Society

14/08/2026

🚂 EDWARDIAN BROMLEY SOUTH RAILWAY STATION. Credit: London Transport Museum collection.

14/08/2026

🕺🏻 “PEGGY GETS HER BLUE PETER BADGE” 🙂 PENGE 1973. This photo captures the moment a Blue Peter film crew headed down to Royston Road to shoot a segment of the show at Penge’s legendary Royston Ballroom.

That's presenter John Noakes in the middle, learning a dance routine. To his right is co-presenter Lesley Judd, who came to the show with a background as a professional dancer with The Young Generation—the BBC's popular resident pop dance troupe of the late 1960s and 1970s.

Leading the instruction on his left is the ballroom’s iconic co-owner, Peggy Spencer MBE, who actually won a Blue Peter badge of her own for her many appearances on the programme. That badge is now safely kept as a permanent piece of her historical collection at the Bishopsgate Institute Special Collections and Archives in Central London.

Peggy was a massive household name who spent forty years choreographing formation teams for the BBC's original Come Dancing series. She frequently collaborated with Blue Peter, hosting the production on the venue's massive 5,000-square-foot dance floor and inviting her young Penge students to demonstrate steps for the broadcast.

Do you remember heading to dance classes at the Royston Ballroom or at Peggy’s dance studio above the ABC Regal cinema Beckenham? Did you end up on Blue Peter? Tell all😊

14/08/2026

STREET SCENE CHISLEHURST HIGH STREET 1918. A passing policeman walks across the foreground of this photograph as an open-top 119 bus waits on the forecourt of The Queen's Head pub during the final year of World War I, bound shortly for Charing Cross.

Wearing his traditional high-collared tunic and distinctive custodian helmet, he anchors the front of the scene as he patrols the high street. The passengers sit exposed to the elements on the top deck, with several looking directly at the photographer.

Down on the ground, the transport crew gather around the front of the vehicle, while a little girl stands watching on the right.

Main Stops to Charing Cross (WWI Era Route):

* Chislehurst (The Queen's Head)
* Mottingham
* Lee Green
* Lewisham
* New Cross
* Old Kent Road
* Elephant & Castle
* Westminster
* Charing Cross

*see comments for zoomed out image.

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