Place Name
Agricultural heritage. Named after the Maran chicken, one of the last breeds to be introduced to the UK. It was developed in France in the town of Marans in the mid 1800s and became popular for both meat and egg production. In 1898 Robert Applegarth, a trade unionist and first Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Carpenters took up poultry farming in Bexley and introduced the new breed. The dark brown eggs soon caught on becoming as popular in the UK as they had in France and English farmers began breeding the Maran.
