St Mary Cray

infobox UK place
country = England
map_type = Greater London
region= London
population=
official_name= St Mary Cray
london_borough= Bromley
constituency_westminster= Orpington
post_town= ORPINGTON
postcode_area= BR
postcode_district= BR5
dial_code= 01689
os_grid_reference= TQ466680
latitude= 51.3920
longitude= 0.1080

St Mary Cray lies on the River Cray and is part of the London Borough of Bromley. St Mary Cray, like St Paul's Cray, has been somewhat overshadowed by the growth of nearby Orpington, which now provides local communities with their main shopping and business facilities. The area is now mostly suburban housing, and features St Mary Cray railway station, a High Street with a small parade of shops (at one time a longer high street, with more shops, than Orpington) and St Mary the Virgin church, after which the village was named. It was originally called South Cray, identifying it as the southernmost settlement on the river.

A dominant feature of St Mary Cray and St Paul's Cray are the industrial estates on Cray Avenue and Sevenoaks Way, home to retail outlets such as PC World, Comet, Land of Leather, Homebase, JJB Sports, MFI, Currys, Carpet Right and Arco. These retailers list their stores as Orpington branches. The art deco tower of the Allied Bakery, formerly Tip Top Bakeries, is a local landmark. Cray Wanderers, the local football team, are the oldest senior side in London.

St Mary Cray has the largest settled Roma and Irish traveller community in the UK. [ [http://poweredby.jobsgopublic.com/media/layouts/146/recruitmentinfopack_management.pdf "Working for Bromley ... making a difference", Recruitment Information Pack for Management Grade Posts, London Borough of Bromley] Accessed 29 September 2007] In the past, hop and soft fruit farms in the area employed large numbers of itinerant workers.

Joseph Hume lived in the district for a time, and his son Allan Octavian Hume was probably born there.

The Romany history of Orpington

"For Romany history in general, see Romani people."

Orpington and the surrounding area was rural, with many farms. Kent had many hop and fruit farms, so Orpington became, along with other areas such as Erith, a stopping area or "atchin tan". One of the stopping areas was Corkes meadow or 'Corkes Pit', and Ruxley Pit another. Corkes Pit no longer exists, having been built on, but was near to the gas works in Sevenoaks Road. The other area, Ruxley Pit, was located at the top of Chalk Pit Avenue.

Many Romany families from all over the UK, not just the Kent Travellers, stopped at Corkes Pit in the 1960s. The hop farms started to use machinery to pick the hops and didn't require the labour from the travellers, and they started to use labour from abroad. It was now becoming hard to find stopping places, and the council made it hard for travellers to stop. The council had to provide permanent stopping areas for these travellers. One such area is the Star Lane site, which is one of the largest in the UK, and St Mary Cray has the largest group of Romany travellers. The lucky families got plots on these sites and others took houses ("kenners"), resulting in a great upset around the Corkes Pit area (Lesson Hill). Others moved from Kent, and continued to struggle to get work and find "kushti atchin tans". After the farm work dried up and the travellers could not follow the seasons for picking fruit such as apples ("pobble"), cherries ("gulos"), potatoes and hops, and when it became demeaning for the women and men to 'hawk', the men started to look for local labouring work and many families settled. Many of the young travellers are very far detached from the old nomadic life of the Romany people who left India over 1000 years ago, and some are worried that the Romany "jib" or language will be lost as time goes by. Even travellers in their forties cannot speak ("roker") full Romany.

The travelling life is now really over for the travellers, but they still stay in touch with some of their past. Along with fruit picking, the women would make and sell pegs and flowers door to door, which is called 'hawking', and would take things to sell in baskets called "kels". This way of selling is now illegal, and has been lost. The Brazil family in Marden, along with others throughout Kent, are trying to show young travellers the past.

Some of the families from Kent who would have stopped at Corkes Pit are: Rutherford, Baker, Buckley, Saunders, Scamp, Lee, Love, Jackson, Chapman, Arnold, French, Ripley, Stanley, Crittenden, Price, Webb, Marley, Smith, Roberts, Jones, Philips, Renolds, Brazil, Ball, Elliot, Taylor, Driscol, Mead, Pateman, and many more. Most of the families still live in Orpington, and others live in Kent or London.

Famous Romanies from Orpington include: Rose Lee, Gilderoy Scamp, Mark Ripley, Johnny Love, Private Pateman.

References