Place Name
Named after Suffolk Place Farm, which for a time was the property of the dukes of Suffolk and acquired in 1899 by the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society Ltd for housing, the RACS having only recently decided to take a bold step and move away from market gardening to property development. The land itself had originally belonged to the monks of Lesnes Abbey but was acquired by Henry VIII during the dissolution of the monasteries in 1525. He then gave the extensive estate, which included much of Plumstead, Bexley and the adjoining parishes, to his brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk. Included in these lands was the Manor of Bostall around the farm of that name. PlanetSuffolk.com explains: “The Duke of Suffolk held this manor until December 1535 when he sold all his lands in this part of Kent, except for the marshland, to Sir Martin Bowes of Woolwich. The marshland was reserved for wild-fowl, and the Duke of Suffolk kept the marshland for hunting. Part of the marsh is still called ‘’The Duke’s Orchard’’. It was probably Sir Martin Bowes who built the house in the Manor of Bostall that became known as Suffolk Place. It seems that the Duke leased the house as a hunting lodge when he was visiting his marshland property, thus the name ‘Suffolk Place’ became attached to it. Bostall Farm and Suffolk Place Farm remained part of the one estate until 1606 when the two parts were sold separately by the descendants of Sir Martin Bowes. The Suffolk Place Farm, consisting of 122 acres, passed through several hands until February 1656 when the Company for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England purchased it.” The Company or Society was set up to promote missionary activity across the Atlantic in New England and Canada from 1649 until 1786. It supported the early efforts of John Eliot in Massachusetts which culminated in the first Bible translation of a Native American language, known as the Eliot Indian Bible. “In April 1899 the Royal Arsenal Co-operative Society bought Suffolk Place Farm from the New England Company, thus re-uniting the original estate. The plan was to build an estate of about 3,500 houses, ‘suitable for the industrial classes’. Suffolk Place Farm was demolished and building actually started in 1900; it was halted in 1909, restarted in 1912 but stopped again in 1914, by which time 1,052 houses had been completed.”
