Leyton Cross is a small semi-rural area in Kent, England, that largely falls within the parish of Wilmington in the borough of Dartford, although north of Oakfield Lane the area is administered directly by Dartford Borough Council. The boundaries of Leyton Cross are ill-defined but the residential area is generally said to include the neighbourhood around Leyton Cross Road, Clayton Croft Road, Tredegar Road, Manor Close and Wilmington Court Road, the western tip of Common Lane, plus the section of Oakfield Lane between Heath Lane (Upper) and Old Bexley Lane. Leyton Cross also includes areas of heathland to the immediate north and west of this district, which are parts of Dartford Heath. Leyton Cross may also sometimes be referred to as Heath Side.
Leyton Cross is named after a former crossing of five ways: routes east and west (Oakfield Lane), a route (Leyton Cross Road) leading south-west towards Birchwood, Swanley, and two footpaths heading north-east and north-west, which now exist only as remnants on Dartford Heath, their access from Wilmington having been lost upon construction of the A2 dual carriageway, which runs parallel with and to the north of Oakfield Lane. The north-east branch (towards Dartford) formed part of Heath Lane until the lane's route to Oakfield Lane was diverted over a new bridge to the east when the dual carriageway was built. The north-west fork continued on to Shepherd’s Lane, Bowman's Lodge and Crayford.
The origin of ‘Leyton’ is forgotten, however 'ley' means a land that is for a time laid to grass, clover, etc., and a grass meadow currently exists off Tredegar Road.
A 2018 review by the Local Government Boundary Commission for England resulted in Leyton Cross becoming part of the Maypole and Leyton Cross Ward of the borough.
History
The Leyton Cross Bronzes A small collection of Early Middle Bronze Age (c. 13th Century BC) tools and weapons, dubbed the Leyton Cross Hoard, was found in the garden of a house at Tredegar Road, Leyton Cross, 120 metres east of the present boundary with Dartford Heath. It was discovered by the owner of the property Mr John (Jack) Oliver whilst excavating the foundations of a home extension in 1986. The hoard comprises two axe-heads, a razor and a knife.
Dartford Museum, where the items are currently on display, says on the accompanying item descriptionDartford Museum, 07 December 2017 that they are the oldest man-made objects to be unearthed in the Dartford area, and describes the find as "one of the most exciting archaeological discoveries to be made in the area during the 20th Century". The shaving razor is thought to be the first of its kind to be found in Kent. Minute traces of a rough textile weave were found on the blade of the razor, suggesting the items had been wrapped in cloth before being hidden in the ground.
Bronze was a precious metal at the time and experts have speculated that the hoard formed part of a bronzesmith's supply that was to be melted down for reuse. A larger hoard of bronze items was found nearby at Wansunt Pit on Dartford Heath in 1930.
Celtic and Roman eras At the time of the Roman invasions (55 BC, 43 AD) a tribe of Celts known as the Cassi or Cassii lived in Cantiace (Kent) under chieftain Caswallen. The Cassi had a large settlement in an area of land in the area, including what is now Leyton Cross, Joyden's Wood, Rowhill and part of Dartford Heath.
Julius Caesar led the second invasion and may have made his advance as far as Tyrru (Rowhill); some historians believe that his troops clashed with the Cassii here and at Stankey (now Stanhill) and Caudens Wood (possibly referring to Joyden's Wood), all located a mile or so to the south-east and south-west of Leyton Cross.
The historian Edward Hasted notes in his History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (1778) that this Celtic “city” evidently became Roman. He observed a “great quantity of Roman bricks and other building materials” here and cites an S. Landale Esq., a “labourer in the archaeological vineyard” as saying that he (Hasted) would find “a mass of Roman brickwork in a cart lodge at Hook Green Farm” (some 800 metres south of Leyton Cross), “…It is therefore most probable a Roman mansion was erected there some years after the conquest of Kent; since the city of the Cassii was not at once destroyed after the victories of Aulus Plautius (A.D. 43) but by degrees fell into decay after the divergence of the road from the sea coast into the better formed and more direct Watling Street, aided by the establishment of the station of Noviomagus (Dartford), which by degrees attracted and absorbed the aborigines”.
1000 – 1999 A.D. The parts of Leyton Cross south of Oakfield Lane were, for centuries, linked to the manorial Baldwyns Park estate. The name Baldwyns probably derives from the area’s possession in “ancient times” by a Sir John Baude, “a man of an honourable family in this kingdom”.
Records from the time of King John (c. 1200) show that much of the land in the locality, including Baldwyns, were owned by the Abbots of Lesnes. When King Henry VIII dissolved the abbey in 1524, Baldwyns (then Baudiwins) was granted to Cardinal Wolsey who thenceforth benefited from the land's revenues, until he transferred custody to his Cardinal College, Oxford.
In 1779, France persuaded Spain to declare war on Great Britain and drew up plans for invasion. Britain readied its troops, and in 1780 an encampment of up to 8,000 soldiers were temporarily stationed on Dartford Heath. A contemporary plate published by T. Bish showed the camp covering an area of the heath between Dartford’s Maypole district (east of Coldblow, where Kent now borders the London Borough of Bexley), stretching north of Baldwyns Park and Leyton Cross, to Heath Lane (Upper). The site of the camp's long row of tents was still apparent when Dunkin described the events over sixty years later. A magazine was kept by the present location of Heath Lane (Upper). (The invasion did not take place, though France and Spain’s efforts helped the United States to consolidate their independence from Britain.)
Lands associated with Baldwyns Park then covered an area of Dartford and Wilmington in the south-east and south-west side of Oakfield Lane from Maypole, eastwards to about where the Wilmington Grammar School for Girls now resides, and south to Rowhill Wood and Rowhill Farm (the south side of which borders the village of Hextable in the present Sevenoaks District), Joyden’s Wood, and Ruxley (now in the London Borough of Bromley).
Over the centuries the college leased the estate to various owners, including Sir Edward Hulse. In 1739, Hulse became King's physician and was married to Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Richard Levett, a former Lord Mayor of London, before retiring to Baldwyns several years before his death in 1759. Records from this time also contain the first known reference to an actual manor house on the site. It appears that by his retirement Hulse owned Baldwyns outright, as his will shows his bequeathment of the land to his second son Richard, who also resided at the manor. Hulse was buried in the churchyard at Wilmington’s St Michael and All Angels.
Richard Hulse served as Sheriff of Kent in 1768. Five years after this he sold his interest in Baldwyns to Arnold Nesbitt esq. who took up residence in the manor house. In 1791 ownership of the property rights were transferred to Simon Frazer esq., a director of the East India Company. Frazer's daughter married Alexander Lord Selton who died at the manor in 1793. Hasted’s map of Kent of 1769 identifies the manor house of 'Baldings' as owned by Hulse. Today, Wilmington has two homes and a cul-de-sac named after Hulsewood, an area at the far east of Richard’s land, of which the girl’s grammar is also now part.
Isaac Minet, the ancestor of a Huguenot immigrant of the same name, became owner of Baldwyns Park around 1810, and it remained in his family for over six decades. Minet served as Sheriff of Kent in 1827, and died at Baldwyns 14 March 1839. The Wilmington Tithe map of 1842 shows the lands then in the possession of Thomas Minet. There is reference in Dartford Library to an incident in 1846 wherein a Mr Richard Salmon took issue with Susan Minet − possibly Isaac’s daughter Susan (1805–1882) − about her closing of a public right of way across land that led from Hook Green (700 metres south of Leyton Cross) to the manor house and Bexley village. Salmon calculated the extra distance to walk at 257 rods, the original being 158 rods. The path was reopened and is now Tile Kiln Lane (a private road that ends where Leyton Cross Road becomes Birchwood Road). The pathway can be seen on a 1799 map held in the British Museum.
Notwithstanding this apparent attempt to restrict a right of way, a member of the Minet family was later celebrated for his support of public open spaces: Susan’s brother Charles (1803–1874) was hailed by the local press as the 'Champion of the people of Dartford' for his efforts. Indeed, at the time of his death Charles Minet was involved in a civil action against the 1st Baron Tredegar, who owned some 350 acres of Dartford Heath on the north side of Leyton Cross, adjacent to Baldwyns. Minet had been outraged by the scarring and littering of the heath caused by Tredegar’s large-scale extractions of turf, sand and gravel, and challenged Tredegar's manorial rights to remove any amount of natural resources from it.
The Tredegars were an important family, who may also have had links to the nearby Wilmington Manor. During the Tredegars' ownership of the heath, and probably between the dates 1820 -1874, the heath was extensively exploited. Minet posthumously won his case, which is in large part responsible for the preservation of the remaining heath to this day, though large parts were later destroyed for road building: in 1926, for construction of the first Dartford by-pass (Princes Road), and 1970, for the cutting of Rochester Way (the present A2). Ironically, it was Tredegar who was commemorated when a new road at Leyton Cross was named after him in the 20th century.