Bromley Gloss - London Borough of Bromley - Current, Upcoming, Historic

23/07/2026

GROWING UP IN BROMLEY EARLY 2000s. Love this list by Jade who wrote: “Only those that grew up in Bromley in the early 2000s will understand these ❣️

👩🏻 1. Girls were all kitted out in clothes from Tammy Girl

👩🏻 2. You partied in Blush. Yes that underage disco where you followed your crush around whilst wearing half a tub of wet-look hair gel on your head

👩🏻 3. Every Friday evening you went to ‘splash’ at the Pavilion Leisure Centre, which was an adult free zone for a couple of hours and the swimming pools were packed with hormonal teenagers

👩🏻 4. Getting turfed out of The Glades if you were wearing a school uniform

👩🏻 5. Hanging out in Virgin Megastore listening to all the new CDs - probably along the lines of Sean Paul, Britney Spears, Girls Aloud or garage music

👩🏻 6. You borrowed fake ID to gain entry into Delanos nightclub, don't deny it - we all know you did

👩🏻 7. You brought your school shoes from Dolcie's and dolly shoes were the style

👩🏻 8. You persuaded your mum to buy something from fashion store Jane Norman so you could use the bag for your school P.E. kit

👩🏻 9. You tried to get into The Bell millions of times when underage and failed miserably

👩🏻 10. You always hung around in Churchill Park, Norman Park, Foxes Field, Chislehurst Rec or any other green space because there was absolutely nothing else to do

👩🏻 11. You always looked forward to the panto at the Churchill Theatre even if you tried to pretend you were too cool to go to it

👩🏻 12. You purchased "smelly" gel pens from WHSmith and spent most of your time inhaling strange fruity aromas rather then using them to write in your homework book

👩🏻 13. Every boy couldn't wait to turn sweet 16 to get a moped and drive around the borough trying to do a wheelie and sounding like a broken hair dryer

👩🏻 14. Only shopping in Woolworths for sweets, which was basically the most exciting candy experience since W***y Wonka closed his factory

👩🏻 15. You would buy a £1 bus pass and hop on and hop off buses all day with your mates like a group of enthusiastic, really loud, annoying tourists

👩🏻 16. You turned yourself upside down on the hearts and diamonds ride at the Bromley Common funfair - people weren't too heavy on health and safety regulations back then

👩🏻 17. You went to Langtrys nightclub in Beckenham for your 18th birthday

👩🏻 18. The food court down by Boots in the Glades was the place to be!”

21/07/2026

🌿 STORY BEHIND BROMLEY'S COAT OF ARMS

Granted on 20 April 1965, the London Borough of Bromley when merging five local authorities, chose a clean unified design rather than combining the older arms.

The Five Merged Authorities: The central silver flower has five petals to represent the five merged entities:

Municipal Borough of Beckenham
Municipal Borough of Bromley
Orpington Urban District
Penge Urban District
Part of Chislehurst and Sidcup Urban District

The Shield: A green field i.e. the background color of the shield, reflects the area's wooded landscape.

The Acorns: These honor Kent’s iconic oak trees and represent the new borough's growth.

The Crest: Crossed swords mark local military establishments, paired with a scallop shell from the Diocese of Rochester.

The Supporters: A silver dragon links Bromley to Greater London, while the White Horse of Kent honors its former county.

A permanent visual record of the 1965 boundary changes 🛡️
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Local history note: Prior to 1965, Chislehurst and Sidcup were combined under one local district. When the borough boundaries were redrawn, the old district was split: Chislehurst joined Bromley, while Sidcup went to Bexley.

20/07/2026

19/07/2026

FORMER LAURA ASHLEY STORE August 2018, at 54-62 Bromley High Street. This prominent high street unit has sat empty since the nationwide collapse and closure of Laura Ashley in 2020.

WOLFE & HOLLANDER
The historic Art Deco building it occupied in Bromley was originally constructed in the 1930s for Wolfe & Hollander, a well-known furniture shop, and features a distinctive brick and stone facade with a landmark clock. The upper levels are now undergoing major changes. Bromley Council approved a redevelopment project to construct a three-storey vertical extension on top of the original structure for residential use, preserving the historic frontage while the empty retail spaces below await their next chapter.

FOLKLORE
The building’s iconic facade clock is said to have played a role in World War II. N**i propaganda broadcaster William Brooke Joyce aka Lord Haw-Haw explicitly called out this building in a radio transmission, mockingly announcing that "the clock on Wolfe & Hollander's in Bromley High Street was running five minutes slow and would not be there tomorrow!"

STANDING PROUD
The building survived the subsequent Blitz bombing that night, and the clock is still embedded in the masonry today.

19/07/2026

Window into the past. This WW2 Ration Book dated 18 July 1941 belonged to Mr Frederick Eugene Hecquet of 238 Burnt Ash Lane, Bromley, Kent. Back in 2019 Maria spotted it on an American website where it was being sold as a vintage wall poster. Thanks again for sharing💜. It is incredible how an everyday item from the past transforms into such a special piece of history today.

19/07/2026

👨🏼‍🎓Charles Darwin School, Jail Lane, Biggin Hill, in 1982.

19/07/2026

Haircut One Hundred 》Love Plus One. 1980s pop perfection🎺🪘

18/07/2026

FROM KELSEY PARK SCHOOL TO AMERICAN BANDSTAND: Haircut One Hundred in 1982 on American Bandstand. The legendary host Dick Clark—famed for introducing rock 'n' roll to national television across the USA — interviews Nick Heyward and the band. In this snippet from the interview, the group briefly touch upon their background and how music influenced them.

Haircut One Hundred formed in 1980 in Beckenham by Nick Heyward with school friends Graham Jones and Les Nemes. Nick was born 20 May 1961 in Beckenham and spent his early years in and around south London. He attended Kelsey Park School for Boys on Manor Way, further down the road from the historic Kelsey Park. Nick used his time there studying art and photography, eventually leaving at 16 to work as a commercial artist before plotting global pop fame with his former schoolmates.

Nick has mentioned that in the winter of 1980, he and his bandmates Graham Jones and Les Nemes sat in the Three Tuns Beckenham High Street to brainstorm band names. No particular meaning behind the name eventually chosen, they just thought it was funny😃. Local legend says the band returned to Kelsey Park School shortly after hitting the big time to play an exclusive concert for the pupils.

HAIRCUT ONE HUNDRED:

Nick Heyward (Vocals/Guitar): Wrote the catchy hooks and provided the bright, rhythmic strumming style that gave the band its energetic pop heart.

Les Nemes (Bass): Delivered fluid, driving disco and funk basslines that kept the music highly danceable.

Graham Jones (Guitar): Added intricate, scratchy rhythm guitar parts and syncopated funk chords that filled out the background texture.

Blair Cunningham (Drums): Brought an authentic American soul and R&B pocket that drove the band's powerful tempo.

Phil Smith (Saxophone): Injected sophisticated, jazzy horn hooks that defined their signature 1980s brass sound.

Marc Fox (Percussion): Layered fast-paced bongo and conga rhythms to add a vibrant, Latin-jazz energy to the tracks.

17/07/2026

🏠 TOWER HOUSE, TWEEDY ROAD, BROMLEY Lost to the Highway.

Then and now. The first photo shows Tower House (nameplate is on the building) which stood on the corner where College Road meets Tweedy Road, in Bromley North.

It was plaster-coated Victorian detached property with prominent hexagonal corner bay windows with a cone shaped "witch's hat" turret tower.

The house was demolished shortly after this photo was taken, in the late 1980s or early 1990s. It was cleared by Bromley council to facilitate the road-widening project that expanded Tweedy Road into the modern multi-lane layout leading straight into Kentish Way. That section of College Road was, back then, a two way street, but later made into a one-way system.

🌳Then/Now - One photo taken in winter and one in summer, but interesting to note how much greener that part of College Road is now.

The exact footprint of Tower House was never built over. Instead, it remains an open space, forming the wide pedestrian pavement and the grassy corner island.

The photograph was taken in 1989 by photographer Nigel Sims.

17/07/2026

⛪️ The original Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul on Church Road, Bromley BR1, and a newspaper cutting regarding the post WW2 rebuild.

Dating back to medieval times, the church was extensively enlarged in 1830 to accommodate a rapidly growing Victorian-era Bromley population.

Tragically, during the Blitz on the night of 16 April 1941, the building sustained a direct hit from a German Luftwaffe bomb. A devastating blast that completely gutted the main structure, leaving only the 14th-century flint stone tower, remarkably still standing amidst the rubble.

After the war the community rallied to rebuild, choosing a design by architect J. Harold Gibbons that honored the site's rich heritage. To retain a tangible connection to their history, builders extensively recycled salvaged flints and building stones from the ruins of the bombed church.

On 13 October 1949, Princess Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) visited the the town to cheering crowds, to personally lay the new foundation stone.