{"id":18892,"date":"2026-05-07T09:01:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T08:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=18892"},"modified":"2026-05-06T09:49:45","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T08:49:45","slug":"barnes-cray-the-cray-1994","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/?p=18892","title":{"rendered":"Barnes Cray & the Cray – 1994"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Barnes Cray & the Cray:<\/strong> Panoramas made with a swing-lens camera on a walk in September 1994 from Barnes Cray to Crayford Marshes in the London Borough of Bexley.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1750 Miles Barne<\/a>, son of a wealthy London banker of the same name, inherited the large May Place Estate on the death of his father-in-law. Various members of the Barne family played important roles in the development of the area, with their names incorporated into Barnehurst and Barnes Cray. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barnes Cray House had an interesting life not least when it was home to a farmer who went to the High Court to stop neighbouring land being used as a firing range by the company which became Vickers. Vickers eventually bought the house as a home for the man in charge of their Cray works, but when their factory moved away gave it to the local council who opened it as a maternity hospital. This closed in 1936 and the house was demolished.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a>
River Cray, Crayford Flour Mill, Barnes Cray Bexley, 1994, 94-907-23<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Industry came to the area in the Victorian era with a calico printing works using water from the River Wansunt, later making rubber goods, felt and finally making ‘Brussels Carpets’ – patterned carpets which have the loops of the pile uncut before being demolished in 1890. The Wansunt is a tributary of the River Cray which it joins close to here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"River<\/a>\n<\/div>
River Cray, Barnes Cray, Bexley, 1994, 94-904-61<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The First World War led to a great expansion in the arms industry and Vickers built thousands of homes in Barnes Cray to house its huge workforce – at one point almost 15,000. The development was of good quality homes for workers with a nod to the ‘Garden Village’ vision. The development took the name Barnes Cray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Crayford<\/a>\n<\/div>
Crayford Flour Mill, Barnes Cray, Bexley, 1994, 94-904-32<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An iron mill on the Cray<\/a> was replaced in 1735 by a saw mill which in turn became a flour mill. In 1927 this began making Vitbe flour<\/a>, with added wheatgerm to increase its Vitamin B levels, widely used by many bakereries including those of the Aerated Bread Co. In 1956 the company was renamed Vitbe Flour Mills Ltd and it was acquired by Associated British Foods in 1961.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Landfill<\/a>\n<\/div>
Landfill site, Crayford Marshes, Barnes Cray, Bexley, 1994, 94-904-22<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\"Crayford<\/a>\n<\/div>
Crayford Marshes, Barnes Cray, Bexley, 1994, 94-904-11<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I went for a lengthy walk on the Crayford Marshes, taking many panoramic images, but cannot remember the exact locations. Here is one of them but there are quite a few others on Flickr – you can browse this by clicking on this or other images in this post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\"Crayford<\/a>\n<\/div>
Crayford Marshes, Barnes Cray, Bexley, 1994, 94-904-31<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Flickr<\/a> – Facebook<\/a> – My London Diary<\/a> – Hull Photos<\/a> – Lea Valley<\/a> – Paris<\/a>
London’s Industrial Heritage<\/a> – London Photos<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All photographs on this page are copyright \u00a9 Peter Marshall.
Contact me to buy prints or licence to reproduce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barnes Cray & the Cray: Panoramas made with a swing-lens camera on a walk in September 1994 from Barnes Cray to Crayford Marshes in the London Borough of Bexley. In 1750 Miles Barne, son of a wealthy London banker of the same name, inherited the large May Place Estate on the death of his father-in-law. … Continue reading Barnes Cray & the Cray – 1994<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[19254,24154,24165,24157,24158,24160,17,1343,24164,83,21084,24155,24159,24163],"class_list":["post-18892","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-londonphotos","category-my-own-work","tag-19254","tag-barnes-cray","tag-barnes-cray-bexley","tag-crayford-flour-mill","tag-crayford-marshes","tag-landfill-site","tag-london","tag-london-photos","tag-miles-barne","tag-peter-marshall","tag-river-cray","tag-vickers","tag-vitbe-flour","tag-wlak"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18892","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18892"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18892\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18902,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18892\/revisions\/18902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18892"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18892"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/re-photo.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18892"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}