Place Name
Before development this was a field that was part of Warren Farm. Common broom bushes (Cytisus scoparius) were a widespread shrub with golden yellow flowers that grew all over south east London. When in the late 18thCentury people began to move onto the heath, those unable to find work made some small living harvesting these wild shrubs. It is said that they made brushes from the broom plant which grew around the area and sold them in neighbouring villages, hence they were called Broom-dashers. They continued to be a useful commodity up until the invention of the modern broom in the 1800s. J Bryan Lowder in Slate gives a short history of the broom, writing: “Before the 19th century, broom-making was an idiosyncratic art; most were fashioned at home from whatever materials were at hand. The basic design involved binding the sweeping bundle to a wooden stick with rope or linen twine. However, these homespun brooms had short lives and had to be replaced often. The professionalization of broom-making appears to have begun in Anglo-Saxon England, where artisans known as ‘besom squires’ in the southeastern region would take twigs from the many birch trees in the area, trim and then lash them to poles of chestnut and other woods. A bawdy 18th-century folk song called ‘The Besom Maker’ makes fun of a female besom maker’s need to search the local woods for materials, and, along the way, other pleasures.”
