Place Name
Named after the Reverend James Geddes (June 17, 1841 – February 23, 1927) who succeeded John Adey as minister at Bexleyheath Congregational Church. Originally from Scotland he took up the position in September 1868 and stayed there for more than 50 years. According to contemporaries, Geddes was a great preacher with “a style and a method all his own. His sermons were always interesting and always came home to the hearts and lives of his hearers. He had a wonderful gift of apt and forceful illustration”. He was also a great pastor, visiting the homes of his people, and he took a prominent part in temperance meetings. He was buried in Bexleyheath Cemetery, alongside his wife who had died in 1911. In 1988, the church in Bexleyheath’s Market Place was demolished and a new United Reformed Church was built in its place. Amidst significant town development at that time, the road was named Geddes Place and the new church was called the Geddes Place United Reformed Church.
