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Roads of Hartley - Gorse Way (DA3 8AE, DA3 8AF)
Briars Way (DA3 8AD)
Simmonds Drive (DA3 8AG)

Gallery
Click on image for larger picture

Gorsewood Road Entrance

Looking south

Looking north

Footpath leading to Manor Drive

Briars Way

Gorse Way
KCC Ref North - U12437 - Unclassified single carriageway (223 metres); South - P4141 - Private Street (543 metres)

Gorse Way is the product of decades of piecemeal development, but thanks to the spacing of the houses, the trees and grass verges it does not feel urban.

Smallowners sold the land that would make up the Church Road end of Gorse Way in two plots.  On 18 June 1923, they sold the 8 acres of the southern side (including the site of Montaza) to May Symons of Gorse Cottage for £425.  On December 31st of the same year she purchased the northern half, including the site of Bay Trees from Henry Walter Vincent Sherwell.  The Symons home, Gorse Cottage (later renamed Thorn Hedges) was sited about where the end of Gorse Way is today is today.

May Symons was the wife of Hedley, for whom a young Charles Ellerby went to work in 1915: "He owned Hartley Woods and bred pigs.  We cut several acres of larches for pit props and spent much time chasing errant sows through the Hartley gardens."

From these conveyances flowed the birth of Gorse Way.  Mr and Mrs Symons created Gorse Way, presumably as a private access road originally.  It is marked on a conveyance plan of 1 August 1930 as a 16' 6" roadway and right of way.  How it got its name is uncertain, but it was already called so before the war.  

The Symons sold these two large plots to the Fawkham Development Company in on 7 November 1934.  On the same day the company bought a slice of Hartley Woods and much of the north side of Gorsewood Road from Martins Bank (who had foreclosed on a loan).  Fawkham Development Company was owned by Hartley residents - George Samuel Mainprize and his wife Rosalie Marion Mainprize.  He was a builder and estate agent and had previously owned land at Castle Hill, but by then was living in at Blue Bungalow, later renamed Gorsewood House (located approximately where the front of 13 Beechlands Close is today).  The company started acquiring lands and building but ceased trading in 1937 when the money ran out. The company was wound up in 1940.

By 1936 the only houses built were three at the Church Road end - Hartley Wood Cottage and, confusingly, Gorse Cottage.  In this year Bay Trees first appears, and by 1939, Elderberry Cottage, Elizabeth Cottage, Eversley and Applewood (Bellerieve) had been built.  These houses, standing somewhat lonely among the vast open space of land can be clearly seen on the Luftwaffe's aerial reconnaissance photo of Hartley, taken in 1940.

In the years after the war the gaps have gradually been filled in.  The road was completed by joining with Gorsewood Road in 1961, when Gorsewood House was demolished and replaced by the modern houses there.  Both Gorse Way (most) and Briars Way are not adopted roads, but are maintained to a high standard by those living there as a result of the Briars and Gorseways Trust, set up on 14 November 1966.

Briars Way
KCC Ref: P13789 - Private Street (297 metres)
Briars Way is a D shaped road that runs off Gorse Way, consisting mainly of bungalows (3 pairs of semi-detached and 19 detached), built on the beginning of the slope into the Springcroft valley.  How it got its name is interesting - the parish council were debating what to call it, one councillor asked what was there before?  Gorse and briars he was told, "well you have the Gorse, and we'll have the Briars!" was the reply.  Before then it had also been called Gorse Way, a deed from 1955 where the road first appears calls the two roads Gorse Way and Old Gorse Way.  The southern part of the road was built on land that had been the back garden of "The Glen", Manor Drive (demolished and replaced with Ashkeys and Driftways, Manor Drive) - planning permission 53/398.  

The road is maintained by the same residents' trust that manages Gorse Way.

Simmonds Drive
KCC Ref: P14280 - Private Street (144 metres long)
This is a small cul-de-sac built on part of the garden of "Heort-Lea", consisting of the original house and 3 large detached houses.  Heort-Lea has the unique distinction of being at times in no less than 3 different roads.  When it was built in about 1915, Gorse Way then did not exist, so its access to the outside world was via a long road to Manor Drive, which can still be seen today.  Later a shorter access road was built to Gorse Way before this became Simmonds Drive.  The house was advertised for £7,950 in 1966 (Reporter 11.2.66).

The new houses were built by Avonglade Limited in 1995.

Links
Map of area at Multimap.com (aerial photo also available on site)
Profile of Gorse Way (N), Gorse Way (S), Briars Way, Simmonds Drive on www.upmystreet.co.uk
Houseprices at Nethouseprices