People in Kemnal Road

Over the 130 years or so that Kemnal Road has been a residential road, many people have come to live here and gone again. The longest continuous life on the road that we have found appears to be Mrs Sheila Harding, who lived at Woodheath Cottage for 54 years or so. Frank Tiarks lived here from 1877 until 1937, but spent considerable time between 1913 and 1923 living in other parts of Chislehurst or in London.

There will have been many very short stays. Servants would come and go at very short notice, and at any one time between 1880 and 1914 there would have been more than 100 servants and many more estate workers hired at the houses in the road.

Given the nature and the location of the road, and especially the grandness of most of the original properties, it is not surprising that the road has seen its fair share of interesting people. The ones that we have written about here are the people whose interesting lives we have so far uncovered. You can find out more about them by clicking on their names. They include:

Major John Lawrence Benthall (Holly Bowers) Henry Bilbrough (Nizels)
Peter Harding (Woodheath Cottage) Sir Gerald Berkeley Hurst KC (Hoblands)
Sir James Kemnal (Kemnal Manor) Cyril Kinder (Hoblands)
Sir Archibald McDonald (Kemnal Manor) Major Sir Philip Margetson MC (Meadowcroft)
Harold Molins (Mulbarton) Sir Walter Murton CB (Meadowcroft)
Agnes Tiarks (Foxbury) Henry Tiarks 1832-1911 (Foxbury)
Frank Tiarks OBE (Woodheath and Foxbury) Henry Tiarks 1900-1995 (Woodheath and Foxbury)
Herman Tiarks (Foxbury) The Tiarks family of Foxbury
Fryn Tennyson Jesse (Holly Bowers) Charles Williams (Nizels)

We have also identified the graves of a number of former residents who are buried in St Nicholas churchyard. Click here to see them.