The Importance of 1887
NEW ARTICLE, 2021: Kevington Hall in St Mary Cray - The Berens family - A landmark year in the history of Kent and London's oldest football club Cray Wanderers.
Kevington Hall [Photo, 2018] was built for its first owners the Berens family in 1767 to 1769. As of today this grand Palladian house on the St Mary Cray and Crockenhill border is privately owned and is rarely open to the public. We will tell its full history at the close of this article after concentrating first on ‘The Importance of 1887’.
The importance of 1887 to whom? Principally to our famous local football club Cray Wanderers: founded in 1860, the oldest football club in Kent and in London. The Berens family, lords of the manor, occupied Kevington Hall for two hundred years. Cray Wanderers received generous patronage from the family during the 1880s and 1890s. The young Herbert Berens returned from Westminster School in 1886, aged 20. He was a keen footballer and he started to play in the local team. He raised the profile of the Wands by virtue of his superior experience of public school football. Older members of his family had earlier played for posh schools and teams. It was the public schools and the gentry that codified the rules of association football and rugby football in the latter part of the 19th century. Typically at that time, village teams like the Wands played haphazard and hybrid forms of the game. The Cray players would all have been local working-class lads and men: farm labourers, mill workers and the like.
NEW ARTICLE, 2021: Kevington Hall in St Mary Cray - The Berens family - A landmark year in the history of Kent and London's oldest football club Cray Wanderers.
Kevington Hall [Photo, 2018] was built for its first owners the Berens family in 1767 to 1769. As of today this grand Palladian house on the St Mary Cray and Crockenhill border is privately owned and is rarely open to the public. We will tell its full history at the close of this article after concentrating first on ‘The Importance of 1887’.
The importance of 1887 to whom? Principally to our famous local football club Cray Wanderers: founded in 1860, the oldest football club in Kent and in London. The Berens family, lords of the manor, occupied Kevington Hall for two hundred years. Cray Wanderers received generous patronage from the family during the 1880s and 1890s. The young Herbert Berens returned from Westminster School in 1886, aged 20. He was a keen footballer and he started to play in the local team. He raised the profile of the Wands by virtue of his superior experience of public school football. Older members of his family had earlier played for posh schools and teams. It was the public schools and the gentry that codified the rules of association football and rugby football in the latter part of the 19th century. Typically at that time, village teams like the Wands played haphazard and hybrid forms of the game. The Cray players would all have been local working-class lads and men: farm labourers, mill workers and the like.
In essence this was a remarkable piece of social history – a fusion of two polar opposite extremes of the social scale. ‘Young Mr ‘Bert’ the son of the St Mary Cray lord of the manor returned from the prestigious Westminster school in London and gave shape to the working-class village football team. Under the Berens influence Cray Wanderers graduated to play proper organised football, by proper regularized rules, instead of what we surmise was a hitherto rather haphazard and rag-bag arrangement of playing other local village teams or military teams in a farmer’s meadow or some such scrap of open land. Thanks to the leadership of Herbert Berens [Photo, 1890] who played for the team and also was treasurer of the club, Cray Wanderers became one of the leading senior football teams in Kent and London as soon as properly organized league football was founded circa 1894 to 1896. The Wands were founder members of the Kent League in 1894 and won the championship in 1902. They also were champions of the Southern Suburban League in 1899 and the West Kent League in 1904.
1887 was a pivotal year. It was a year that brought perhaps the most remarkable part of the whole Berens / Cray Wanderers story: the decision that the team would switch from playing rugby football to association football (a.k.a. soccer). Many of the club’s modern-day officials and supporters have spent legion time researching the history of Cray Wanderers but have found certain facts to be elusive. Now today in 2021 we finally can nail down what was previously a rumour and possibly even a joke that the Cray team at one time would offer to play rugby or soccer according to their opponents’ choice. Both codes of football were in vogue at the time Cray Wanderers came into being in 1860 and it is wholly plausible that the early matches played at Star Lane and/or in Mr Tyrer’s field were either ‘the handling game’ (rugby) or ‘the dribbling game’ (soccer) or a hybrid of both.
1887 was a pivotal year. It was a year that brought perhaps the most remarkable part of the whole Berens / Cray Wanderers story: the decision that the team would switch from playing rugby football to association football (a.k.a. soccer). Many of the club’s modern-day officials and supporters have spent legion time researching the history of Cray Wanderers but have found certain facts to be elusive. Now today in 2021 we finally can nail down what was previously a rumour and possibly even a joke that the Cray team at one time would offer to play rugby or soccer according to their opponents’ choice. Both codes of football were in vogue at the time Cray Wanderers came into being in 1860 and it is wholly plausible that the early matches played at Star Lane and/or in Mr Tyrer’s field were either ‘the handling game’ (rugby) or ‘the dribbling game’ (soccer) or a hybrid of both.
When we interviewed Mr Bert Booker in 1983 this long-time resident of St Mary Cray told us that older members of his family had been involved with the Cray Wanderers before the turn of the century and that he could remember seeing indoors two framed photographs of the team that were taken on the same day: one of the Cray team in their rugby kit and one in their association football kit: to mark the day that the Wands had decided they henceforth would play only association football.
One of our leading researchers Peter Goringe opined a few years ago that this happened in 1887. In our book Wandering Through the Crays (published 2015, now sold out) we related as much of the story as we knew at that time. Now, in the early weeks of 2021, our researcher Charlie Bradford has investigated the National Newspaper Archive and has found two prize exhibits from The Sportsman, a now-defunct newspaper published between 1864 and 1925. These bring us absolute proof that Cray Wanderers played a rugby (fifteen-a-side) match versus Mr D’Orlay’s team at Crayford in February 1887, but in December of the same year they played an association football (eleven-a-side) match versus Westminster Swifts.
One of our leading researchers Peter Goringe opined a few years ago that this happened in 1887. In our book Wandering Through the Crays (published 2015, now sold out) we related as much of the story as we knew at that time. Now, in the early weeks of 2021, our researcher Charlie Bradford has investigated the National Newspaper Archive and has found two prize exhibits from The Sportsman, a now-defunct newspaper published between 1864 and 1925. These bring us absolute proof that Cray Wanderers played a rugby (fifteen-a-side) match versus Mr D’Orlay’s team at Crayford in February 1887, but in December of the same year they played an association football (eleven-a-side) match versus Westminster Swifts.
Press cutting dated 12th February 1887: The words clearly designate this as rugby football. We don't know why 'Crayford' was stated as the venue of the match (this possibly should have been St Mary Cray) nor do we know who Mr D'Orlay was, but we surmise that he might have been known to the Berens family.
Now for the press cutting dated 24th December 1887: The points of interest here are that Cray Wanderers were this time playing an eleven-a-side football match, one of many against a Westminster school team (e.g. Old Boys team) during the period 1887 to 1890. These regular fixtures must have came about through the Berens family connection and it must have been an interesting mix of cultures when the 'posh boys' came to play the 'village yokels'! Let us mention also that when Cray Wanderers is dubbed the oldest football club in Kent and London this most accurately means the oldest association football club, whereas Blackheath RFC would be the oldest if the category were rugby football.
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Now for a brief history of Kevington Hall. As seen in the photo dated 1886 it looks little different today from the outside. Since medieval times the Manning family held Kevington. They came from Saxony and their family is commemorated by local place names such as Cockmannings. In 1753 the land was sold to Herman Berens of Amsterdam, a prosperous merchant. The big house was built from 1767 to 1769. Several generations of the Berens family lived there. Some additions were made in Victorian times but largely today the house is still as its architect Sir Robert Taylor originally designed it.
During the second world war the house was requisitioned by the Government for use by Canadian troops. Messrs A. & C. Berens were Vice Presidents of Cray Wanderers in 1920, and Mrs Berens was the very first President of the St Mary Cray & St Paul’s Cray Womens Institute founded in 1925. But the family’s presence in the area seemingly had lapsed by 1945 when Kent County Council purchased the house and used it as a primary school. Inevitably there had to be some modification of the interior, with loss of some of the original décor and furnishings. Finally in 1987 the house went into the private ownership of the Jackson family whose business is marine engineering.
Kevington Hall today is available for hire as a wedding venue and it also houses an annual motor cycle event each July, making use of its spacious and hilly grounds.
During the second world war the house was requisitioned by the Government for use by Canadian troops. Messrs A. & C. Berens were Vice Presidents of Cray Wanderers in 1920, and Mrs Berens was the very first President of the St Mary Cray & St Paul’s Cray Womens Institute founded in 1925. But the family’s presence in the area seemingly had lapsed by 1945 when Kent County Council purchased the house and used it as a primary school. Inevitably there had to be some modification of the interior, with loss of some of the original décor and furnishings. Finally in 1987 the house went into the private ownership of the Jackson family whose business is marine engineering.
Kevington Hall today is available for hire as a wedding venue and it also houses an annual motor cycle event each July, making use of its spacious and hilly grounds.
'Let's round up finally with some extra information about Herbert Berens - and let's consider too that thanks to him the Westminster school sports ground [Photo] in the Pimlico district of London has a very direct link to Cray Wanderers FC.
Should you be fortunate enough to visit Kevington Hall on one of its public open days you'll enter via a long gravel driveway that curls from Cray Road up to the house, a distance of a quarter of a mile. The grounds are filled with majestic trees. Think of 'young Mr 'Bert' Berens who all those years ago was a Cray Wanderers player. For on return home from Westminster School he was appointed as manager of his father’s estate. It must have been a big responsibility for him. He was sent to horticultural college in Cirencester to learn his trade.
Tragically when he was aged only 30, Herbert contracted pneumonia and died, in 1897. His gravestone is in the churchyard of All Saints in Orpington.
The following Cray Wanderers officials and supporters have been major contributors to this article and to research of the club history generally: Charlie Bradford, Jerry Dowlen, Ian Fordyce, Kevin Goodhew and Peter Goringe.
No one at Cray Wanderers has ever found or seen the two team photos of 1887 mentioned by Bert Booker in 1983. It would be wonderful if someone, somewhere, has the photos and would kindly share them with us!
Sheila Barnes a former St Mary Cray resident has very kindly given us information about the Berens family after 1945. She advises that Cecil Berens left a widow who married into the Hart Dyke family of Lullingstone. The widow was Mildred Turnour (neé Blackwood), Lady Dyke 1886 – 1984. ‘Former wife of Cecil Berens and later second wife of Sir Oliver Hamilton Augustus Hart Dyke.’ She had a silk farm at Lullingstone that produced trousseaux at famous royal occasions.
Should you be fortunate enough to visit Kevington Hall on one of its public open days you'll enter via a long gravel driveway that curls from Cray Road up to the house, a distance of a quarter of a mile. The grounds are filled with majestic trees. Think of 'young Mr 'Bert' Berens who all those years ago was a Cray Wanderers player. For on return home from Westminster School he was appointed as manager of his father’s estate. It must have been a big responsibility for him. He was sent to horticultural college in Cirencester to learn his trade.
Tragically when he was aged only 30, Herbert contracted pneumonia and died, in 1897. His gravestone is in the churchyard of All Saints in Orpington.
The following Cray Wanderers officials and supporters have been major contributors to this article and to research of the club history generally: Charlie Bradford, Jerry Dowlen, Ian Fordyce, Kevin Goodhew and Peter Goringe.
No one at Cray Wanderers has ever found or seen the two team photos of 1887 mentioned by Bert Booker in 1983. It would be wonderful if someone, somewhere, has the photos and would kindly share them with us!
Sheila Barnes a former St Mary Cray resident has very kindly given us information about the Berens family after 1945. She advises that Cecil Berens left a widow who married into the Hart Dyke family of Lullingstone. The widow was Mildred Turnour (neé Blackwood), Lady Dyke 1886 – 1984. ‘Former wife of Cecil Berens and later second wife of Sir Oliver Hamilton Augustus Hart Dyke.’ She had a silk farm at Lullingstone that produced trousseaux at famous royal occasions.
