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St Mary Cray
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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 activities. 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 of the river.
A dominant feature of St Mary Cray and St Paul's Cray are the industrial estates on Cray Avenue/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 are the local football team, who are the oldest senior side in London.
St Mary Cray has the largest settled Roma and Irish traveller community in the UK.[1] 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.
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Anerley · Beckenham · Bickley · Biggin Hill · Bromley · Bromley Common · Chislehurst · Downe · Elmstead · Farnborough · Hayes · Keston · Mottingham · Orpington · Penge · Petts Wood · Pratt's Bottom · Shortlands · Southborough · St Mary Cray · St Paul's Cray · West Wickham |
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For Romany History the beginnings please see Romani People on wikipedia, this is about the Romany History Orpington, Orpington and surrounding area was a rural area, and had many Farms, and kent had many Hop & fruit Farms so Orpington became along with other area's such as Erith a stopping area or 'Atchin Tan' One of the stopping areas was Corkes meadow 'Corkes pit' and Ruxley Pit another, Corkes pit is not there any more and has been built on, but it was near to the gas works in Sevenoaks road. The other area was Ruxley pit which would of been located at the top of chalk pit avenue.
Many Romany families would have stopped at Corkes pit from all over the uk, not just the kent Travellers, in the 1960s, the hop farms started to use machinery to pick the hops and did'nt require the labour from the travellers, also they started to use labour from abroad. It was now coming 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 Star lane site which is one of the largest in the uk and St Marys cray as the largest group of Romanytravellers, the lucky famlies got plot's on these sites and others took houses kenners with 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 tried up and the travellers could not follow the seasons for picking such as Fruit applespobble CherriesGulos and potatoes and hops, and when it became under 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 attatched from the old nomadic life of the Romany people that left india over 1000 years ago, some are worried that the Romany jib or language will be lost as time goes by, even travellers in there fourties can't speakroker full romany.
The travelling life is now really over for the travellers, but they still stay in touch with some of there past, along with fruit picking the women would of made and sold pegs and flowers door to door which is called 'hawking' they would taken things to sell in baskets called 'kels' This way of selling is now ilegal, and is sadly lost. The Brazil family in Marden are trying to show young traveller the past, along with other throughout kent.
Some of the families from kent and who would of 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 Romanys from Orpington
Rose lee, Gilderoy Scamp,Mark Ripley, Jonny Love, Private Pateman