Parks

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Celebrating St.Blaise & Bromley Palace Park

Last Sunday there was a ceremony marking the connection between Saint Blaise, a 4th century christian bishop & martyr from Lower Armenia in modern Turkey, with this town centre park. He is celebrated as the patron saint of animals, healing of throats, infants, wool workers, etc, etc.

The above spring-fed chalybeate (iron traces) well was established a long time ago in the grounds of the Bishop of Rochester’s former palace – now Bromley Palace Park. To celebrate this an event to bless the current well by the Deacon at St.Joseph’s RC School, Bromley, along with the Mayor and Mayoress of Bromley in attendance, plus approximately 40 members of the public.

In opening the event the Mayor mentioned how Saint Blaise was connected to the healing properties of water and speculated how Bromley might have become a spa town, perhaps rivalling Royal Tunbridge Wells! However he would not recommend anyone drinking the spring waters today. He also pointed out the many wonders of this park which, while so quiet and rural feeling, was only some 400 metres from the busy High Street.

The Deacon of St. Joseph’s then conducted a brief service and official Blessing of the well and its associated spring, with the attendees taking part. After the ceremony people were encouraged to tour the park which, despite the sell-off of the northern parts of the site, was still fully open to the public. To find out more about this park and how you can help the ongoing efforts to restore the park please HERE.

Volunteers are carrying out further work to further improve this historic park. Next work session is on Saturday 15th February, any time between 10am and 4pm.

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Bromley Palace Park: present & future

This is the least known public park in Bromley town centre. With the council sell off of most of the Civic Centre grounds for future building development the importance of this site, and especially the retained park area, is even more important. Also critical is continued access to this park, and details of questions to the council, and their answers on this are included later in this article.

Five photos showing current beauty of park, taken by Kerry Hood.

Led by Kerry Hood (who took the above photos), Friends volunteers are working hard. Their aim is to improve the sites biodiversity, and the settings for its Grade 2 listed features. This involves them cutting back encroaching vegetation, etc. The team have also ‘rescued’ some memorial benches and decorative flower post, and re-sited them within the park.

As part of our ‘Love Bromley Palace Park’ project, we will improve the interpretive signage in this park, and link it into a wider ‘Bromley Town Centre Parks Heritage & Biodiversity Trail’. This will assist people to better navigate their parks, while learning more about them and what they should mean the community. This project is funded by a Bromley council grant from their Platinum Jubilee Fund.

We recently asked questions about our concerns on the retention of public access to this park, both during and after construction work on the rest of the site.

Here are our questions and the councillors’ replies-
From Kerry Hood to the Portfolio Holder for Resources, Commissioning and Contracts Management 
The Friends are worried about future vehicular access to Bromley Palace Park. We are especially worried about being able to get heavy vehicles on the site for maintenance work. Access is required from both Rochester Avenue and Rafford Way. Please can you advise how access will be maintained going forward?
Reply: As a part of the sale agreement, the purchaser has committed to construct and maintain an access route for large vehicles from Rochester Ave to the park, including an area for two tipper trucks to be parked, for the purpose of regular maintenance. In addition, they have committed to provide a route for specialist vehicles and equipment to access the lake for projects or maintenance on an infrequent basis, should this be required in the future. Following a previous disposal, there is no vehicular access to the park from Rafford Way; this is not required by the Council for maintenance vehicles. Pedestrian access is provided. 

Supplementary Question: That is very reassuring that it is in the deeds of the sale, because just having it as a verbal assurance is not quite the same. The pedestrian access from Rafford Way can be locked, which is bad news if you happen to want to go there on a Saturday afternoon. There is a practical alternative to this as there is a gateway that is seized up that could be used instead. We are anxious about the pedestrian access from Rafford Way; we want the Park not to be a dead end, which would encourage antisocial behaviour. So, if you could look into that we would be very grateful. 
Reply: I have nothing further to add, but Cllr Rowlands may have something to add.  Cllr Rowlands, as Portfolio Holder for Environment, confirmed that this was something that could be looked into. 

Additional Supplementary Question from Cllr Sam Webber: Just to clarify, the Rafford Way entrance is closed due to building work now, but it sounds like it will be re-opened for pedestrians as part of the new set-up once construction is finished? 
Reply Yes, I confirm that.

L.B.Bromley Council Meeting 14th October 2024- Questions & Replies

We will continue to keep this under review.

You can find out more about this project HERE

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Glassmill Pond is Blooming

In the recent sunny weather the plants have certainly grown! What was bare earth a couple of months ago has now been covered by green foliage, amongst which are a few attractive flowers including Purple Loosestrife (above) and Great Willowherb (below).

The remaining plants are much less showy, but still important.

With the recent lack of rain the river channel, while extremely low is still flowing.

We look forward to continue monitoring the site, and how it develops in the coming years.

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Its All Happening at the Pond

Over the last few days a lot has been happening at Glassmill Pond, Glassmill Lane, BR2 0EL, with two events! The first on 23rd June was part of the Three Rivers Clean Up campaign. Volunteers cleared some 6 bags of rubbish for pond, including many golf balls which had ‘escaped’ from a golf driving range upstream. They also managed to cut back willow tree branches that had fallen into the river channel. If it had not been removed it could have blocked the river with resulting local flooding. At both events we were very pleased to welcome the Mayor of Bromley, who put on some wellies and got stuck in.

Some new flowers were spotted, just a sample of the many plug plants we dug in a few months ago.

And four days later on 27th June Thames21 organised a community event, as part of their London Rivers Week programme. Yet more volunteers turned up. This time the first task was to reposition some large stones, in order to raise water levels next to the pond inlet, thereby making it more possible for fish to migrate further upstream.

They then had a chance to monitor the really small things normally hidden in the river bed, but which are indictors of good water quality. To do this they had to stir the gravel and using a net collect a sample, and study their catch very closely.

By this means they came across loads of tiny immature sticklebacks. Also the larval stage of; olive mayfly, leeches, hoglouse, gammarus, blackfly larvae and some very small worms. All these are potential food of others, including dragonfly larva. Indeed a few adult dragonflies and demoiselles were spotted flying over the pond. This is indicative of the new arrangements having a great impact on improving the biodiversity of the river.

Finally they all pulled together to gather a more unnatural catch, in the form of a shopping trolley and a Lime bike which had been thrown into the pond.

However we left another shopping trolley in place, as it was being used by a Moorhen mother for her nest, along with some eggs, five when this taken earlier by Chris Holly.

A very satisfactory end to these events. We are looking forward to organising more events on this site. To find out more about this site and our exciting plans for the future of this river please go to our Glassmill Pond Restoration project page.

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Queensmead Defibrillator

AFC Shortlands now have installed an operational defibrillator on the pavilion at Queensmead which is in the process of being registered with the emergency authorities. This is a great outcome for the local community which has only been possible with the support, generosity and collaboration with you all. A huge thank you to you all.

Whilst we hope this asset will never need to be used, we hope you agree that it is re-assuring to know it is available for the community to use should they need it. This joins another defibrillator previously installed at Bromley Town Church, Ethelbert Road.