Buying or selling a house in
Petts Wood
Petts Wood is a garden suburb in the London Borough of Bromley, laid out in the late 1920s and 1930s and in Greater London since 1965. It was planned by the developer Basil Scruby with the architect Leonard Culliford, whose masterplan still sets the road pattern. It has five conservation areas and direct trains to three London terminals. Vine Estates handles a small number of sales here personally.
What it’s actually like
Petts Wood was planned as a garden suburb in the twenties and thirties and it was done properly — covenants on materials and rooflines, five conservation areas, and three hundred acres of National Trust woodland on the doorstep. People still ask for houses by the name of the builder, which tells you how well they were made. The Daylight Inn by the station is listed, and named after William Willett.
“People still ask for a Noel Rees house by name, ninety years on. That tells you how well it was built.”
David Johnston
The houses
A planned garden suburb of the late 1920s and 1930s, with covenants that fixed building lines, roof heights and materials — brick, stone or roughcast walls, clay or stone tiles at not less than forty-five degrees. Black timber, white render, red brick and Kent peg tiles against a green setting. Birchwood Road is the grandest, with large brick and timber neo-Tudor houses and diamond-set stacks. Great Thrift is idiosyncratic, The Covert consistent, and the closes off Tudor Way are modernist.
Getting to London
Petts Wood station opened in 1928 on the South Eastern Main Line, and the suburb was built around it. Southeastern run direct services to London Cannon Street in about 31 minutes, London Charing Cross in about 38 and London Victoria in about 39.
Schools
Crofton Infant School and Crofton Junior School on Towncourt Lane, and St James' Roman Catholic Primary School, serve the suburb. There is no secondary school in Petts Wood; the nearest are in Orpington and Chislehurst.
Common questions
How many conservation areas does Petts Wood have?
Five: The Chenies, designated 1982; Chislehurst Road, designated 1989; Station Square; The Covert; and The Thrifts. Despite its name, the Chislehurst Road area is in Petts Wood, not Chislehurst, which has a separate conservation area of its own designated in 1971.
Who built Petts Wood?
Basil Scruby master-planned it with the architect Leonard Culliford, and as many as forty-five builders worked on the eastern side. Noel Rees is the best known, along with Cecil Pamphilon on Chislehurst Road and W. H. Love on Birchwood Road. West of the railway was developed later by the Morrell Brothers, without Scruby's covenants.
What is the connection to daylight saving?
William Willett, the Chislehurst builder who campaigned for daylight saving, is said to have hit on the idea while riding early one morning through Petts Wood. The wood was bought for the nation in his memory in 1928 and is National Trust land; the memorial sundial there is kept permanently on British Summer Time.
Thinking of moving from Petts Wood
If you're weighing up a move here, a short conversation now costs nothing and commits you to nothing. I can tell you honestly what's realistic and when.