Cudham

is a large but somewhat scattered village, about 7 miles south from Bromley, 7 north-west from Sevenoaks, and 3 from Farnborough; it is in the Chislehurst parliamentary division of the county of Kent, hundred of Ruxley, lathe of Sutton-at-Hone, petty sessional division and county court district of Bromley, rural deanery of Beckenham and archdeaconry and diocese of Rochester. The church, which is mentioned in Domesday Book, and dedicated to SS. Peter and Paul, was restored from the plans of Ewan Christian, Esq., and a new steeple was added. New bells and a clock for tower were presented by the late G. Richards. Esq. in 1929. There are 260 sittings. The register of baptisms and burials dates from the year 1653, that of marriages from 1654. In the churchyard, which was enlarged in 1930, are two very old yew trees, the stems of which are upwards of twenty-nine feet in circumference. The living is a vicarage, net yearly value £420, with residence. It is in the gift of the Church Association Trust, and has been held since 1918 by the Rev. Bryan O Loughlin, M.A., of Trinity College, Dublin.

A small mission church (St. Mark’s) was erected in 1904 at Biggin Hill on the Aperfield estate, which is the most populous part of the old parish. This is now a separate ecclesiastical district. The living is a perpetual curacy, gross and net yearly value £300, with residence. It is in the gift o f the Crown and Bishop alternately, and has been held since 1928 by the Rev. Charles Robert Bassett, a . k .c., L.Th.  At Biggin Hill there is a Roman Catholic Church, dedicated to St. Teresa of Lisieux, which was opened in January 1931. There is a Baptist Chapel on the Westerham Road, which will seat about 200 people, and another in South Street, erected 1912; there is also a small Wesleyan Chapel, in Cudham Street, served by the Sevenoaks Circuit. On Biggin Hill green is a granite pillar erected in memory of the men of the parish who fell in the Great War. 1914-1918. Seventeen acres of land were acquired in 1932 for a burial ground for Biggin Hill. There is a public recreation ground o f 10 acres adjoining the parish church and another recreation ground of 10 acres on the west side of the parish. The village is supplied and lighted with gas by the South Suburban Gas Company, instituted in 1929. Earl Stanhope P.C., D.S.O., M.C., is the principal landowner. The soil is clayey, with a great quantity of chalk and flint; subsoil, chalk. The chief crops are wheat, oats and fruit. The population in 1931 was 2,731. The area is 5,925 acres. The nearest railway stations are Orpington, 4 miles, and Westerham, 2 miles.

Kellys 1932 Directory