On a warm summers evening in Eltham in 1850

The Bridal Lane with the Palace in the distance, 1909

“This interesting lane, one of the favourite walks of Eltham people on summer evenings leads from Eltham to Mottingham passing the Palace grounds on the western side.  

It is sometimes called ‘King’ John’s Lane.” Possibly from the association of King John, of France, with the Palace, or as a corruption of “Prince John’s Lane.’ ”*

It is easy to forget that in the absence of televisions, radio and computers a walk on a fine summer’s evening was a pretty good way to pass a few hours.

This is something we keep promising to do more often but there is usually a reason why we don’t.

But back in 1850 it would have been one of the main leisure activities open to us.  After all I don’t flatter my chances as a member of the gentry or even the professional classes who might sit around discussing the latest plays or listning to a musical presentation.

Walking along the Bridal Lane south to Mottingham 1850

I come from a long line of agricultural labourers and itinerant traders who in the fullness of time moved into the big industrial cities exchanging the hard and seasonal work on the land for equally hard and uncertain labour in the factories and forges.

All of which meant that on a warm summer’s evening I may well have taken the Bridal Lane from Eltham down towards Mottingham, pointing out the Palace in the distance and telling the children half forgotten history stories of its Kings.

Tales which owed more to my imagination than to anything I would have been taught in the National School.

Pictures; The Bridal Lane from The story of Royal Eltham, R.R.C. Gregory, 1909 and published on The story of Royal Eltham, by Roy Ayers, http://www.gregory.elthamhistory.org.uk/ and a detail from the OS for Kent 1858-74

*Gregory, R.R.C., The Story of Royal Eltham, 1909