Bromley Town Centre Park Trail – Stop 4/2 (Terraces and Grand Designs)

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Church House Gardens – Terraces and a grand design

Welcome to Church House Gardens and it’s historic features! This location is the second stop in this park for heritage and biodiversity trail around the green spaces in Bromley Town Centre.

Originally these gardens were leased by Abel Moysey from the Bishop of Rochester’s land agent in 1832, and he designed a garden that made the most of the shape of the land to create the first version of the Rockery, shrubberies and lawns.

In the centre was Church House, but unfortunately the house (and many other buildings in Bromley, including the town centre churches) was destroyed in the bombing raid on 16th April, 1941.

In 1923 the gardens were donated to the people of Bromley in 1923, with further improvements made with adding the amphitheatre and the yachting pool in the 1930s.

The yachting pool – a walled pond only about a foot deep – was very popular for decades, and children came from the whole area to sail the model boats they’d made on it. There is one surviving on the River Cray at Fordcroft (the bottom of Poverest Road) in Orpington (BR5 4BQ). It is drained every winter and the fallen leaves removed. There are still model-boat sailing clubs to be found, for instance in Leonardslee, Sussex.

In the 1980s the yachting pool was remodelled into a padding pool, and a local artist added ceramic tiles at the entrances, illustrating various ports around the world. The number of days that a paddling pool is practical in the UK is quite limited, so at the millenium the pool was repurposed into a deluxe sandpit with climbing frame. This incarnation is very popular with families.

All the stops in the Bromley Town Centre Parks Heritage & Biodiversity trail can be found on the page about it here.

There is more information on Church House Gardens at the entry on this park in the Bromley Civic Society site, here.