Bromley Borough Local History Society
Registered Charity
No. 273 963
Bromley Borough Local History Society
Camden Place
Visit to Camden Place - Friday 15th July 2016
On a dry but rather dull day, following a tour of part of Camden Place (some of the building is let as flats), 24 members of the Society sat down to a traditional afternoon tea taken in one of the spacious rooms of the house overlooking the manicured greens, dotted with numerous old oak trees; a landscape to satisfy Capability Brown.
The first building recorded on the site seems to have been purchased or built in the early 1600s by the antiquarian William Camden who moved there to escape an episode of the plague. He had researched, written and first published ‘Britannia’, a topographical and historical survey of all Great Britain, in 1586. Although rebuilt in 1717, much of the house as seen today was the work of Charles Pratt, Lord Camden (1794). It was then the superb, oak panelled Jacobean entrance hall, with its two secret doors, was placed in its present position.
Nathaniel Strode, a Francophile, bought the property in 1860 and then altered the façade and many rooms in the style of a French Chateau. It was here that Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugenie settled with their son after the French defeat in the Franco–Prussian War and the subsequent revolution of 1870/1. Our guide enlivened the talk by explaining the role of Thomas Evans, an American dentist, in orchestrating the dangerous escape of the family from Paris to Dover. Napoleon, who had not been in good health, died just two years later, controversially followed by his son who was killed in the Zulu War of 1878 while serving as a soldier in the British Army. Eugenie remained at Camden until 1880 when she moved to Abbey in Hampshire and where the family is now buried.
One other notable owner of the 124 acre property appeared in 1890, when William Willett of ‘daylight time saving’ fame, bought the property with the intention of building a new housing estate but he agreed to sell the house and a major portion of the land to the newly created Chislehurst Golf Club in 1894.
As always the combination of history accompanied by refreshment seems to satisfy all taste and made for yet another successful visit – many thanks to Michael for organising it and to Lynne Ramsay, our informative guide!
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