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Gallery
Grange Way entrance |
St John's Lane (often pronounced "sinjins lane" locally), is one of Hartley's ancient roads, linking Church Road and Ash Road. It has two Smallowners built houses dating to the early 20th century (Glebe House and Orchard Cottage), but the remaining 19 houses date to the 1960s and 1970s. The road was originally named, but is now numbered. The origin of the name is unclear, as there are no obvious links in Hartley to St John, the Church for example is dedicated to All Saints' and the field names do not provide any clue. We are also hampered by a lack of pre-20th century references to the name of the road. Up until the late 1960s the road was very narrow and difficult to pass, locals had asked for widening in the 1930s, but it was not until 1967 that this was actually achieved. The even numbers were built at the same time as Billings Hill Shaw on land that had belonged to Hartley Grange (a Smallowners house built in about 1918) by George Wimpey & Co Ltd. The odd numbers were built on other Smallowners era properties - 1 St Johns Lane was once the centre of a smallholding which included 1-15 St Johns Lane, the Church Centre and the houses around that. The modern houses here were built by Foven Construction Co Ltd. For some years it was the Rectory, before the more modern building next door was constructed. 17 was built in part of the garden of Orchard Cottage (19). And 21-25 were built by Brewster Estates Limited on land that was Cherry Orchard Farm. The house itself was where the back gardens of 23 and 25 are today. Going further back in time, St John's Lane was bordered by no less than three farms. Numbers 1-17 (odd) and 2-12 (even) would have been part of Fairby Farm, odd numbers 19-25 were once part of Mintmakers, Church Road and the two remaining even numbers overlie the fields of Middle Farm. Grange Way is a small cul-de-sac of mostly detached bungalows. It was built in 1967-8 by the firm A P Clifford Limited of St Mary Cray. The land for it was part of the back garden of Amphion (now called Avalon), Ash Road, which the owners (John and Gynneth Tate) sold for £13,500 on 5 July 1966. Previously Mr Tate had got planning permission for 5 houses and 4 bungalows (Ref: TH/58/396; TH/64/1C). The Tates had owned the land since buying it from Smallowners Limited in 1915. Southside and May Cottage are later additions. They were built at the same time as Tates Orchard on the back garden of Brendon, Ash Road. The status of road numbering for Grange Way is a bit uncertain. According to the Post Office website only 2, 4, 5 and 7 have numbers and the others are names without numbers. However all but Southside and May Cottage are numbered on the Ordnance Survey map.
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