please empty your brain below
That multiple 'Public Footpath' sign has an 'Alice in Wonderland' feel about it.
Chislehurst Motor Mowers - Lawnmower 'Engineers', one way he's kept cost down is by not updating his signs, does that fax number still work?
Yup, found where you went. A nice way to increase my eclectic knowledge.
Well, back in '60s it was still the sports ground for the London Dock workers and as a family we visited on several occasions. On one visit me and my dad went for a stroll along the lane. I remember it then as being a flytippers paradise.
By about the age of 14 a schoolmate had moved nearby to Brownspring Drive and on a couple of occasions we climbed through the fence of Kemnal Manor to explore - well you did as kids, back then - '68/69. Walls were still up to 1st floor level and all very much vandalised. Looking back, very dangerous. I'd imagine nothing remains now.
I'm fairly sure that is the shop that was meant when we asked someone to recommend for someone who could do repairs. We just got the directions we were given wrong... probably turned left instead of right somewhere.
The woodlands around Kemnal Manor have bluebells in spring. Loads of them. Worth a visit that time of year.
A Private Road is just that. The general public have no right to pass and re-pass, be it on foot, on a bike, or in a car. The Private Road may be owned by the adjacent landowner (the frontager) or some-one else. The owner is responsible for maintaining the road as they see fit, i.e. it does not have to be suitable for traffic. The status of the road must be upheld by either signs or closure at least once year, otherwise after a period of time it can become a Public Highway Not Maintainable at Public Expense.
Although the pubic have no rights to traverse a Private Road they still have the right to walk, run or skip up and down a Pubic Footpath, be that across a field, a Private Road or indeed some-one's back garden! Very strictly speaking it is solely a Footpath and thus wheeled passage, as in a push-chair or indeed a wheel-chair is not permitted. The landowner of the footpath land is legally obliged to maintain the footpath in a freely traversable state - thus styles and openable gates are ok, locked gates are not.
Don't ask how I know all this!
As well as being fairly local and having known the area, for walking, since my early teens - which led me to finding evidence of a barbed wire fence around the grounds of the former Kemnal Manor - I'd also heard occasional references to it having some MoD / military role during WW2... although I never found out much more about it than that.
The post led me to do a bit more investigating, which unearthed first this and then this.
I'm happy to now know something more about it, and it's the first time I've come across any pictures of how the building looked.
Yes, the Glass House which you mention also had a MoD past, having been converted from a nuclear bunker built in 1951, and which also stood abandoned and derelict for several years between being decommissioned and redeveloped.
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