Step out of Bromley South station into the centre of Bromley town centre, and you’d be forgiven for thinking this is another faceless, bland London suburb.
And I’ll confess, it took me a while to feel Bromley’s charm. Its centre is essentially a shrine to commercialism and post war concrete, a result of the heavy bombing the town faced during the Blitz.
But Bromley keeps its cards close to its chest. Look beyond the shopping centres and you’ll find a deeply fascinating town, with a rich history told through its buildings, from big brutalist civic centres to little gems hidden among the high street shops.
These ten buildings and monuments reveal how a small Kent market town transformed into a major outer London borough – all within an easy walking route through the town centre.
Medieval Foundations: Bromley Market Square (9th century onwards)
Bromley’s story begins in 862, when King Ethelbert of Kent granted the settlement its first charter – when it was known as Bromleag. This makes Bromley over 1,160 years old.
For most of its time, Bromley was a market town, characterised by its weekly market. The historic area was very small – until the railway arrived in 1858, it was essentially a single-street town, stretching from what’s now Bromley College in the north to what is now Barclays Bank, just off the market square.
You have to use your imagination a little bit nowadays to picture it as a proper market square, but Bromley’s market square is still the hub of the town.
What we see now almost entirely dates from 1933, when the market square was dramatically reimagined. The lovely buildings around the Market Square (such as the building now home to Chisholm Hunter, pictured above) were designed in the Arts and Crafts style – more on that later.
There is still one nod to the square’s medieval past, though: the old town pump. The pump we see today is actually Victorian, but it’s a nod to the Market Square’s past, when this was the community’s water source. Behind it now stands a mural to Charles Darwin, who lived at Down House a few miles away (now one of Bromley’s best museums).
Another nod to medieval Bromley: St Peter and St Paul’s church
A short walk from the Market Square, the Parish Church of St Peter and St Paul also nods to Bromley’s medieval past.
While the current church dates from the 1950s – rebuilt after being almost completely destroyed in the Blitz – the site has hosted worship since at least the 12th century.
The only part of the church to survive was the tower, and within it you can still find Bromley’s oldest surviving architectural elements: a Norman front and a 14th century door. These fragments predate almost everything else in the town centre by centuries
Episcopal Power: The Bishop’s Palace
For much of Bromley’s history, power sat with the Bishops of Rochester. They were Lords of the Manor for more than 500 years, which meant they weren’t just spiritual leaders, but feudal overlords who granted the market charter, collected rents, dispensed justice, and governed extensive Kent estates.
This is why, just a short walk from Bromley South station, but pretty hidden away, is a rather grand building called the Bishop’s Palace. A manor house was first built here almost a thousand years ago – but the building we see today dates from the 18th century, handsome Georgian manor house that replaced the medieval palace entirely. In 1845 it was sold to Coles Child, a wealthy local businessman, who had it remodelled.
It was most recently used as Bromley’s Civic Centre, and is surrounded by ugly municipal buildings. The council has since moved – meaning the palace, and the buildings surrounding it, are currently empty. It’s a bit creepy, like some kind of graveyard for local government buildings, put the Grade II Palace itself remains impressive, and most people walking through Bromley have no idea it exists.
There are plans to redevelop the whole site, which are in consultation as I write this. This should improve the views of the palace that will be available to the public – although heritage campaigners are concerned about the impact this could have on the historic building.
Another fun detail: walking through Bromley, you’ll see lots more little nods to the Bishops of Rochester in the scallop shell, representing pilgrimage and serving as their heraldic device. It’s placed on many (many) buildings throughout the town.
Bromley and Sheppard’s Colleges – the historic almshouses
One of Bromley’s most beautiful spots is totally tucked away, just off London Road: Bromley & Sheppard’s Colleges. These 17th century almshouses are still lived in today, so you can’t explore them fully (and if you do try to have a look, be respectful).
They were built in a tumultuous century for London – the 17th century brought civil war, plague, and the Great Fire of London. But in this difficult era, there were also great acts of charity. The alms houses were funded by a gift from Bishop Warner, who was a Bishop of Rochester and died in 1666.
The best way to see the Colleges is in September, when they give tours for the Open House festival.
Bromley the Georgian coaching town – historic pubs and inns (18th century)
Before the railway transformed Bromley, the town’s prosperity depended on its position on the coaching route between London and the south coast.
You still see nods to this former role in milestones dotted along the route – on the high street, you’ll find a mile stone telling travellers its 14 miles to Sevenoaks and 10 to London Bridge. But around the town centre are also a much more exciting mark of this heritage – historic pubs.
From this era, Bromley had three major coaching inns, which played a large role in the town’s economy. Only one, the Swan and Mitre, survives in this form.
A Grade II listed coaching inn, it dates to at least the early 18th century, though its origins may be earlier. The frotage of the building comes from the Georgian period.
The Swan and Mitre survived the Blitz intact and stands as a fragment of pre-railway Bromley, when the town was still decisively in Kent rather than London. Alas, like many historic pubs, it’s now a Greene King. But despite this, the interior retains much of its historic character.
Victorian Railway Revolution (19th century)
Like much of Outer London, the arrival of the railway in the 19th century completely changed Bromley. The town’s first station opened in 1858 – what we now know as Bromley South. Up until this point, much of what we now consider the town centre was still fields. But within just a few decades, the character of the town was completely changed as it morphed into a commuter suburb.
Two buildings especially nod to this era. The first is Bromley North Station, an Edwardian building with delicate iron grillwork which opened twenty years after Bromley South. While many railway stations across London have been rebuilt, Bromley North still nods back to the peak of the early railway age, when stations were statements of civic pride.
The other is the Railway Inn, a striking Victorian building with gloriously vibrant tiling, built just 21 years after the railway’s arrival. Among its former patrons are some of Bromley’s most famous residents: H.G. Wells and David Bowie both allegedly visited.
Bromley the Arts & Crafts Hub (Late 19th, early 20th century)
This is where Bromley’s story truly surprised me. The Arts and Crafts movement that emerged in 19th century Britain is most associated with Wiliam Morris – and his work in other boroughs, like Merton and Waltham Forest. But Bromley is one of the most important areas for the Arts and Crafts movement.
The Arts and Crafts Philosophy
The Arts and Crafts movement emerged from an attempt to reform design and decoration in mid-19th century Britain. It was a reaction against the perceived soullessness of industrial production – the factories, the machines, the mass production that was transforming Victorian Britain.
William Morris believed passionately in creating beautiful, well-made objects for everyday life, produced in ways that allowed makers to remain connected both with their product and with other people.
Arts and Crafts designers looked back to an idealised past of craftsmen’s guilds, honest materials, and community connection. In keeping with this, their buildings were in an ‘Old English style’.
Arts and Crafts architecture in Bromley
Bromley’s association with the movement centres around an architect called Ernest Newton. Born in Bickley, he was a protégé of Norman Shaw, who had pioneered Bedford Park’s development, which was a key development in the movement.
Newton became a consulting architect for William Willett, a wealthy property developer, which led to sustained investment of Arts and Crafts houses across the area. Much of the finest work can actually be found in nearby Bickley and Chislehurst (I hope to do a blog on this at a later date), but there are some real gems from this movement in the town centre.
The most visible is the Star and Garter. Built in 1898 on the High Street, the pub exemplifies the ‘Old English’ style with its elaborate gabling, decorative timberwork, and richly detailed facade. It features etched glass, wood panelling, and a tiled entrance – all hallmarks of Arts and Crafts craftsmanship.
Just along from it is the Royal Bell building – another public house, though currently empty. It’s a lovely red brick building built in the Queen Anne Style.
Baroque Bromley – the Old Town Hall
At the turn of the 20th century, Bromley gained another of its most striking buildings: the Old Town Hall.
It was designed by R. Frank Atkinson in the Baroque style – much grander than the nearby Arts and Crafts buildings, and designed to evoke power and authority.
After the council moved to the Bishop’s Palace in the 1980s, it entered a period of decline, but it’s recently been beautifully restored as a co-working space, also home to a boutique hotel and a restaurant in the former courtroom.
Art Deco Glamour (1930s)
One of my favourite buildings in Bromley dates from just after this time, when another style was taking the country by storm: Art Deco.
While Arts and Crafts looked backwards into an idealised past, Art Deco looked forward. And Bromley boasts a building by one of the movement’s finest architects.
George Coles’ work is now visible all over London – he was a prolific architect, who specifically built cinemas. Many of his works are now some of London’s most distinctive.
In Bromley, he built one of the original Oscar Deutsch Odeon Theatres, which opened in 1936. It’s an awesome building, a curved, minimalist white façade flanked by two rounded wings. Classic Art Deco geometry and symmetry, shouting over the more subtle surrounding architecture and pulling your eye towards it. When it opened, it would have seated nearly 1500 people.
In the 2010s, Picturehouse spent £4.5 million restoring Bromley to its Art Deco splendour, with Earle Architects using George Coles’ original designs to breathe new life into it.
Sadly, the cinema closed in 2024, and there are concerns over its future because the building isn’t listed.
Brutalist Bromley – Post-war Reconstruction
The Blitz totally changed the face of Bromley. In 1941, he town was severely damaged, with practically every building along the high street affected.
Bromley was especially hit in the Blitz because of nearby Biggin Hill, an important RAF base and one of the best heritage sites in the borough. Much of the town centre we see today, therefore, comes from the years after the war.
In the decades following the war, Brutalism became one of the dominant styles of architecture. It emphasised big concrete structures, and a belief that rational design using honest materials could create democratic, accessible public spaces for everyone. The term comes from béton brut – French for “raw concrete” – and the philosophy was deeply rooted in post-war optimism and socialist ideals.
Some people love it, and some people hate it. But if you arrive at Bromley South station, it’s probably the first thing you notice: the imposing Brutalist tower of the Churchill Theatre and Central Library complex.
Designed by Aneurin John of Bromley Borough Architects Department, the complex took seven years to build at a cost of £1.63m. It was inaugurated on 19 July 1977 by the Prince of Wales – the same Prince Charles who would later become brutalism’s most vocal critic, famously saying of Birmingham’s brutalist Central Library that it looked “more like a place where books are incinerated, not kept.”
Interesting, while the building’s brutalist exterior glowers over the high street, the theatre inside was actually built in the style of European opera houses.
No one’s going to argue that Bromley is the most beautiful part of London. But hopefully this blog has opened your eyes to its fascinating, multi-layered history, which is still told through many of its buildings.
Finally, if you’re interested in delving more in to Bromley’s history, check out the Bromley Civic Centre website. They do invaluable work telling the stories of Bromley’s heritage.
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