Place Name
Today this long street is broken into two parts, as it straddles the A207 Albion Road. But this was not always the case. It started life in quite a humble fashion as a rather short road on the north side of the A207 and ending where the street now continues at the bend. By the 1940s the south side of the street had been extended following the route it takes today down to Oaklands Road, that had previously been fields. When the A207 was built it smashed its way through Royal Oak Lane from approximately where numbers 12 to 20 used to occupy and 19 to 25 once stood. According to Bexley’s own archivists the road was originally called Sweeps Lane on account of the 1861 Census revealing that the majority of residents were sweeps. It later changed to Park Street/Road, before becoming Royal Oak Road.
