Old Kent Road - History

History

Chaucer's pilgrims travelled along this route from London and Southwark on their way to Canterbury. At what is the junction with the presently named Shornecliff Road was the bridge crossing of 'St Thomas-a-Waterings', over a small brook, which marked a boundary in the Archbishop of Canterbury's authority of the nearby manors in Southwark and Walworth. The landmark pub, nearby, the 'Thomas a Becket', derives its name from this connection. As such it was a place of execution for criminals whose bodies were left in gibbets at this spot, the principal route from the south-east to the City of London. The fate of burning to death or hanging, drawing and quartering of religious dissenters, both Catholic and Protestant, also occurred here. In 1540 a priest 'Sir' (ie 'father') Godson was executed here for denying Henry VIII's Supremacy. The Catholics John Jones in 1598 and John Rigby in 1600 met their end here.

The same point was regarded as the limit of the City of London's authority, from 1550, there being a boundary stone set into the wall of the old Fire Station there stating this.

Following from the sale of local monastic properties in the Reformation period the Crown let out many long-leases which were acquired by local people. Most prominently was those held by the Rolls family along the route from Bricklayers Arms to New Cross Road. With the urban expansion of the metropolis these holdings were in turn let out on building licences or shorter leases to others by the Rolls family at considerable profit to them, notably the desirable residencial development in the 1750s in the area of what is now Surrey Square and the Paragon which were designed by their Surveyor Michael Searles (a road near this is named after him). Their family tomb is in the St Mary Magdalen Bermondsey churchyard. By the third quarter of the Nineteenth Century they had accumulated so much wealth that they acquired a home at The Hendre (another local street name to show their connection) and a castle at Llangattock-Vibon-Avel in Wales and then through politics in Monmouth as MPs and High Sheriffs for that county, acquired a Peerage of the same name. Locally. they started to support the local communities by letting or granting for free some of their lands for social purposes:- the Library at Wells Way Burgess Park now a youth club, the Peabody Estate (Dover Flats) and the St Saviour's Grammar School for Girls site being the most obvious. This is why the road parallel to the main route is named 'Rolls Road'. The last real local remnant of their involvement is the large detached 'White House' between the Peabody Estate buildings, of the 1750s which was their home, then Searle's and then the management office of their trust estates. These were vacated in 1990 and the building has seen use as a Pentecostalist Church centre since then. The last of the male Llangatocks was the Hon Charles Stewart Rolls who was the pioneer motorist and aviator who formed the partnership with Henry Royce.

The London City Fire Brigade had its 'Thomas Street' fire station placed at the corner site. This was subsumed into the London Fire Brigade from its formation and in 1905 the LCC erected the present building. This was in turn replaced by the modern station on the corner of nearby Coopers Road.

The development of the coal gas utility services was undertaken at the Metropolitan Gas Works, the gasometers remain, principally by the Livesy family. Their local benefactions are Christchurch Church of England and the Livesey Museum for Children, opposite the gas works.

The road once gave its name to a railway station Old Kent Road near New Cross which closed in 1917.