Place Name
Descriptive. Chislehurst and Bickley Park opened at the Old Hill/Chislehurst Road junction on July 1, 1865 as part of South Eastern Railways’s network across Kent. Within three years it was replaced with a larger station 600 yards further up the road and simply called Chislehurst, Station Approach later being used as a station car park. The station, which dates from 1868, is regarded as a fine example of its type of that era. The arrival of the railway in Chislehurst nicely anticipated the increase in interest in the village that followed the arrival of Emperor Napoleon III and his family in 1870 after his defeat at Sedan and exile from France. Merchants and professionals were attracted to this interesting village and could more easily commute from here, and as a result, new roads of large houses were built to accommodate them. Both Orpington and Sevenoaks stations, built at the same time as Chislehurst, were relatively cheap clapboard structures; Chislehurst’s superior brick building reflected the clientele it was expected to receive, given the growing number of large properties in the area.
