Road numbering did not exist before 1920, so roads were named to describe where they led to. The A25 of today leading from Quebec Square eastwards was thus called ‘The Brasted Road’ and the A25 leading westwards out of town was called ‘The Limpsfield Road’. Presumably if you lived in Limpsfield it would be called ‘The Westerham Road’…
The first landmarks at the edge of town are Squerryes Park Cottages on the corner of today’s Goodley Stock Road, and the big red-brick Georgian house on the left called ‘Springfields’ (today Wolfelands) in 1895 the home of Major John Board, Magistrate.
A walk along the Limpsfield Road
Bill Curtis
On the south side of the Limpsfield Road are a row of four cottages of great antiquity sitting across the corner of the junction where the Squerryes Park Road meets the Limpsfield Road.
Opposite Park Cottages on the north side of the Limpsfield Road we could admire 'Springfields' the large detached red-brick Georgian mansion standing in its own grounds
Heading eastwards towards Verralls Corner we see 'Pitts Cottage' on the left where William Pitt stayed while his house in Keston was being renovated. The three little cottages in a line perpendicular to the road on the right, were then known as 'Springfield Cottages'
A closer shot of the end cottage of Springfields shows it to be timber framed with brick in-fill and of considerable antiquity.
A little further on towards Verralls Corner lies Moreton House, in 1911 the retirement home of the Rev.d. Carr Glen Ackworth clergyman. An extraordinarily wide building with Flemish roofline details, the house is now divided into three, Moretons End, Great Moretons and Little Moretons.
The General Wolfe Inn - the second building from the left in this photograph - would have been the 'Brewery Tap' for the Black Eagle, in other words, the nearest outlet to the brewery that sold its beers. When this photograph was taken circa 1902 the brewery was 'Bushell, Watkins and Co.' as Ben Bushell had not then clinched the deal on Smiths' brewery at Blighs in Sevenoaks.
Within a year of the last photograph this advertisement from Hookers' Almanack in 1903 shows the takeover was complete and the trading title now read as 'Bushell, Watkins & Smith's Ltd.'
Less than sixty yards further on we can see the grand facade of the Black Eagle Brewery erected in 1899. Between the brewery and the General Wolfe stood 'the other' brewery house, being the home of George Dadds and his wife Jane and called 'Spring Ardens'
Near to the forge at Verralls Corner, this photograph taken from the opposite bank of the Long Pond, shows Spring Ardens, the Brewery frontage and 'Brewery House' the home of Ben Bushell, master brewer and proprietor of the Black Eagle Brewery until just before his death, aged 81 years, a year after the demise of his chief brewer, George Dadds.
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