GREEN STREET GREEN


 
Historically named Greenstreet Green, this is today virtually the first built up area that is reached when approaching Greater London from the M25 along the A21, the former turnpike road from Sevenoaks and Hastings. However, before the nineteenth century it was just a hamlet, with a few buildings clustered around the point where the road toward Orpington and the industrial sites along the Cray Valley diverged from the turnpike road to London.

Unlike today it lacked a church, and was, as a consequence, within the Parish of Farnborough, the centre of which is about one mile and a half away. The parish of Green Street Green and Pratts Bottom came into being only in 1937.

The awakening of the hamlet and its transformation into a village in its own right was due entirely to the establishment of the Oak Brewery by the Fox family, who over three generations not only ran the business, but contributed to the development of the village, and the wellbeing of the brewery workforce. The pages in this part of the website tell the full story of the rise of Green Street Green as a village with its own identity. This is intrinsically linked to  the Oak Brewery, and its eventual decline and liquidation, as a consequence of financial mismanagement,

Further pages describe places just outside the three villages, including High Elms.

Ordnance Survey Maps

Here are extracts from Ordnance Survey maps from 1809 through to 1950. They are copyright Ordnance Survey, and are downloads from the National Library of Scotland website  Click on images to enlarge.

One Inch to the mile, surveyed c 1805 published 1809
This first map dates from long before the Oak Brewery was established.  There is just a small cluster of buildings around the point where the road from the Cray Valley joins Old Hill
.
Six Inches to a mile, surveyed 1870 (left) and 1910 (right)

These two maps show the expansion of the brewery and the village of Green Street Green, during the last part of the nineteenth century, and early years of the twentieth.

    This aerial photograph was taken in the 1930s, when the bypass was under construction.

Oak Farm can be seen adjacent to the main road through the village, where the bus garage is now., The derelict brewery can also be seen, with the chimney and many of the buildings by now demolished.

Six Inches to a mile, revised 1948, published 1950
This postwar image, from the revision published in 1950, shows dramatic change.  The brewery site still exists, although with many of its buildings by now demolished.  Farnborough bypass has now sliced through, starting from a new roundabout at the junction with the A21 and then heading north towards Locksbottom, bypassing Farnborough Village.  The retirement homes in Britteden Close were built in 1950, clearly after this revision to the map was surveyed, as they are not shown.

The new road caused the demolition of a number of shops, and the relocation of the Rose and Crown public house to a new building at the start of Old Hill.

Here is an image from Google maps, click for a dynamic Google maps enlargement
 

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