Cray Wanderers come home to Flamingo Park
Cray 150 Publications is delighted and thrilled to know that Cray Wanderers – the oldest football club in Kent and London – is now open for business and fully operational at its brand new home, Flamingo Park on the A20 Sidcup bypass. It has been a long and winding road for the club to find its first permanent home after 164 years of wandering.
‘Football’s Coming Home!’ We congratulate Gary Hillman the club chairman for his hard-fought endeavour to bring Cray Wanderers back to the Crays. Gary characterised it as a quest to ‘come home’ because the Wands have been in ‘exile’ since being forced out of Grassmeade in Chelsfield Road, St Mary Cray to make way for a housing estate in 1972. Subsequent spells at Oxford Road in Sidcup and Bromley FC at Hayes Lane spanned a whole half century away from home.
Are the Wands entitled to say that Flamingo Park represents coming home to the Crays? Here at Cray 150 we say Yes! On today’s map of Greater London you can't find Flamingo Park in the Crays albeit St Paul’s Cray is near at hand The exact postal address for Flamingo Park is Chislehurst. But let’s go back to 1860 the year when Cray Wanderers was founded. At that time the present-day site of Flamingo Park was in Foots Cray! So it is definitely true in history and in spirit that the Cray Wanderers football club has returned to its homeland.
Cray 150 Publications is delighted and thrilled to know that Cray Wanderers – the oldest football club in Kent and London – is now open for business and fully operational at its brand new home, Flamingo Park on the A20 Sidcup bypass. It has been a long and winding road for the club to find its first permanent home after 164 years of wandering.
‘Football’s Coming Home!’ We congratulate Gary Hillman the club chairman for his hard-fought endeavour to bring Cray Wanderers back to the Crays. Gary characterised it as a quest to ‘come home’ because the Wands have been in ‘exile’ since being forced out of Grassmeade in Chelsfield Road, St Mary Cray to make way for a housing estate in 1972. Subsequent spells at Oxford Road in Sidcup and Bromley FC at Hayes Lane spanned a whole half century away from home.
Are the Wands entitled to say that Flamingo Park represents coming home to the Crays? Here at Cray 150 we say Yes! On today’s map of Greater London you can't find Flamingo Park in the Crays albeit St Paul’s Cray is near at hand The exact postal address for Flamingo Park is Chislehurst. But let’s go back to 1860 the year when Cray Wanderers was founded. At that time the present-day site of Flamingo Park was in Foots Cray! So it is definitely true in history and in spirit that the Cray Wanderers football club has returned to its homeland.
The History of Kemnal Manor
The key to this analysis is the location and history of the Kemnal House estate.
If you read the Kemnal Manor History page you’ll discover that the house and extensive grounds used to be in Foots Cray.
Anyone wishing to know the full history of the site that is now Flamingo Park the home of Cray Wanderers FC can find a detailed account of it by internet search of Kemnal Manor History, viz:
http://www.kemnal-road.org.uk/Pages/Houses/KemnalManor.html
Let us quote from an e-mail kindly sent to us by Simon Finch (Bromley Libraries Local Studies) in February 2024.
‘Although now in Chislehurst, in the 19th century the site of Flamingo Park was in Foots Cray. The field was part of the lands of Kemnal Manor ... Following the suicide of Stuart Kemnal in 1950 the estate passed to trustees, a number of whom lived abroad and the estate became neglected. It was them who sold a northern portion of estate to the Dock Labour Board. There were plans to build flats and refurbish the house in the 1960s on the remaining southern part but after the destruction of the house by fire in 1964 they seem to have turned their back on the estate as its designation as Green Belt meant their plans were constantly thwarted. The trustees eventually found a buyer for the residual estate around 25 years ago.’
The 20th century period of the Kemnal Manor history is recounted under the sub-headings Stuart Kemnal – Occupation by the War Office – Proposals for Development. The page hasn’t been updated to reflect Cray Wanderers setting up home at Flamingo Park but let us simply say that following the opening of the new Green Acres Kemnal Park Cemetery in 2013 it has now been possible in an adjacent part of the former Kemnal Manor grounds for Cray Wanderers to build a new community sports stadium and social club. It is a substantial upgrade of the previous Dock Labour Board sports and social facility that came there shortly after the war.
The key to this analysis is the location and history of the Kemnal House estate.
If you read the Kemnal Manor History page you’ll discover that the house and extensive grounds used to be in Foots Cray.
Anyone wishing to know the full history of the site that is now Flamingo Park the home of Cray Wanderers FC can find a detailed account of it by internet search of Kemnal Manor History, viz:
http://www.kemnal-road.org.uk/Pages/Houses/KemnalManor.html
Let us quote from an e-mail kindly sent to us by Simon Finch (Bromley Libraries Local Studies) in February 2024.
‘Although now in Chislehurst, in the 19th century the site of Flamingo Park was in Foots Cray. The field was part of the lands of Kemnal Manor ... Following the suicide of Stuart Kemnal in 1950 the estate passed to trustees, a number of whom lived abroad and the estate became neglected. It was them who sold a northern portion of estate to the Dock Labour Board. There were plans to build flats and refurbish the house in the 1960s on the remaining southern part but after the destruction of the house by fire in 1964 they seem to have turned their back on the estate as its designation as Green Belt meant their plans were constantly thwarted. The trustees eventually found a buyer for the residual estate around 25 years ago.’
The 20th century period of the Kemnal Manor history is recounted under the sub-headings Stuart Kemnal – Occupation by the War Office – Proposals for Development. The page hasn’t been updated to reflect Cray Wanderers setting up home at Flamingo Park but let us simply say that following the opening of the new Green Acres Kemnal Park Cemetery in 2013 it has now been possible in an adjacent part of the former Kemnal Manor grounds for Cray Wanderers to build a new community sports stadium and social club. It is a substantial upgrade of the previous Dock Labour Board sports and social facility that came there shortly after the war.
Foots Cray: Then and Now
It might startle you that little old Foots Cray was big enough and mighty enough once to have its boundaries extended as far west as the present-day Flamingo Park and indeed almost as far as the Fiveways road intersection. But there is a common history shared by the villages of St Mary Cray and Foots Cray. They each used to be kingpin in their respective territories until outgrown by Orpington and Sidcup respectively. It was between the wars that the growth took pace, resulting from the electrification of the railway lines coming out from London.
By 1921 Foots Cray Urban District Council had been re-named Sidcup; then in 1965 the local identity was swept away into the new Greater London borough of Bexley. At the same time the Chislehurst, St Paul’s Cray and St Mary Cray side of the A20 was taken into Bromley.
For more information about Cray Wanderers FC please refer to Wandering No More! - the big new updated book of the club history authored by Peter Goringe and published by Cray 150 in July 2024. Also please see Richard Bowdery's article Home at Last! published in the August 2024 issue of the Life in Orpington magazine.
Illustration: Kemnal Manor House, 1841.
It might startle you that little old Foots Cray was big enough and mighty enough once to have its boundaries extended as far west as the present-day Flamingo Park and indeed almost as far as the Fiveways road intersection. But there is a common history shared by the villages of St Mary Cray and Foots Cray. They each used to be kingpin in their respective territories until outgrown by Orpington and Sidcup respectively. It was between the wars that the growth took pace, resulting from the electrification of the railway lines coming out from London.
By 1921 Foots Cray Urban District Council had been re-named Sidcup; then in 1965 the local identity was swept away into the new Greater London borough of Bexley. At the same time the Chislehurst, St Paul’s Cray and St Mary Cray side of the A20 was taken into Bromley.
For more information about Cray Wanderers FC please refer to Wandering No More! - the big new updated book of the club history authored by Peter Goringe and published by Cray 150 in July 2024. Also please see Richard Bowdery's article Home at Last! published in the August 2024 issue of the Life in Orpington magazine.
Illustration: Kemnal Manor House, 1841.