Place Name
Named after engineer Alfred Bean, owner of the Danson Estate in Bexleyheath, who was Chairman of Bexley Local Board in 1880. He gave land for an iron church, which later developed into St John’s, Welling, and used part of his own fortune to build Welling Elementary School and Bexley Cottage Hospital. It was Bean who promoted the construction of a new railway line from Lewisham to Dartford, via Bexleyheath. Bean had realised refrigeration meant that cheap food coming from America would depress the prices of homegrown produce, in turn reducing land prices. By buying up the land at a fraction of its previous price it could be developed for residential use if there was a railway. When the railway companies rejected the idea he formed a consortium to get it built. But it was when his son, also named Alfred Bean inherited the estate, that the estate was sold, in 1921, allowing development to begin. This road had been on lot 9 when it was parcelled up for building. The properties were originally built by Jeffrey William Ellingham.
Formerly, Clock House Lane.
