Norman Park (Bromley)
Written by Pam Preedy.
Take a lift to the top floor of the Bromley Central Library and look out over Bromley – you will see how green our town is.
As we all know, the Bromley Borough is a good place to live, with lots of places to meet friends. I like to go to Norman Park but I had always wondered whether the park was named after one of the Norman family because in a moment of public-spirited generosity, he had given the 65 acres of park land to Bromley Council. Perhaps the Norman family had come across with William the Conqueror and was mentioned in the Domesday Book.
I was wrong on both counts: Domesday (1087) presents a picture of Bromley as ‘a straggling and rather miserable place with no signs of commodious far less of a cultured, existence – a handful of rude peasantry in their necessities, their monotony, and their routine not far removed from the animals which they tended or from the earth on which they extended their daily toil… but rather more advanced than the generality of similar manors.‘ The land was owned by the Lord of the Manor, the Bishop od Rochester*.
In the 18th century common land was a system of land ownership where commoners had traditional rights to use it. They could feed their livestock such as horses, sheep and cows on pasture; They could take wood, bracken, heather and other undergrowth (Estovers). Turbary was the right to dig peat or turf for fuel. Piscary was the right to fish in lakes and streams.
The right of soil allowed the peasants to take minerals, stone, gravel or sand and the right of pannage to graze pigs on beech mast and acorns.
And so it might have continued, but on 6th April 1764 the Enclosures Acts came into force. With a rising population, the aim was to change wasteful methods of cultivation to provide more food for people. In 1821, by act of Parliament, the whole of Bromley Common was enclosed.
As a result, the Lord of the Manor, the Bishop of Rochester, gave up his manorial rights and retained the rights of the ‘Common, commonable and waster land‘^. George Norman (1752-1836) was a resolute opponent, but at last yielded with reluctance. Bromley Common and the Scrubs and land around could now be bought and sold.
James Norman Esquire (1716-1787) had made a fortune in the timber trade. In 1755 he leased the Rookery for £120 per annum and later purchased it for £2,2000 and renovated and extended it. When he went to work in London, he rode on horseback and was armed and accompanied by an armed servant; his daughter had been robbed for footpads on Chislehurst Hill. Nearly 200 years later (1946) it was destroyed by fire. As part of the ‘Green Belt’ no houses could be built there. Ultimately it became Bromley College of Further and Higher Education.
In 1825 his son, George Norman (1756-1830) bought Oakley House for £20,000. Over the years land was acquired to add to the estate, including purchases and exchanges made after the enclosure of Bromley Common (1821). The holdings of the Norman family came to dominate Bromley. The Norman family had large families.
George Warde Norman (1793-1882), the successor to George, remained in the timber trade, but was a renowned financier, becoming the English director of the Bank of England. He wrote books on finance and was very busy as a magistrate. He had his hand in many pies, including becoming a fine amateur cricketer.
Archibald Cameron Norman (1863-1948) sold 56 hectares to Bromley Council for £24,000. It was named Norman Park with two entrances – one in Hayes Lane and one from Hook Farm Lane, on the Bromley Common side in 1934.
It is crossed by the Ravensbourne River and is popular with dog walkers, joggers, walkers, cyclists, footballers and children.
* E.L.S. Horsburgh, Bromley; “From earliest times to the present century”
^ Ibid, p.215
Originally published in Life in Bromley magazine (Issue 36, February 2025)