Forstall, The

There appear to be several meanings to the word “Forstall”.  One is that it is the land in front of a farm and its farmyard.   Another for the word found in Kent (Sussex or Norfolk) is that it means “a small opening in a street or lane too little to be called a common”; a piece of waste land; a green before a ‘place’ or house; a paddock near a farm house; a farmyard or a ‘way leading from the high road to a great house’.   However, the naming of this site for housing was decided at a Parish Council meeting on 25 March 1948 – after the name of “Kennards Road” was rejected by Sevenoaks RDC and that of The Forstall proposed.

The Forstall in Leigh is on land that was formerly part of Kennards farm.   As well as the area of the Forstall today, it also comprised the piece of land on which Old School House was built, land which had probably been given to the National School Society by the Rev Thomas May who had inherited the Kennards lands from his father, the Rev Nathanial May who had died in January 1830:  Leigh National School had started in 1831 according to the website “formerchildrenshomes.org.uk”.   The description of a Forstall given above would have been apt to describe the piece of land that was at the edge of Kennards farm.

As mentioned, the School House was the first property to be built on this piece of land.  It consisted of the National School and attached cottage and small garden.  However, it is not easy to pinpoint who lived in this attached cottage, it is a bit of a guesswork really from the censuses, but in the 1891 census there is an actual mention of the word Forstall for the cottage, when we find a building called “The Fausted occupied by Thomas Young, a gardener and domestic servant.  This is the only time this name is applied to what would have been the School House cottage.[i]

However, during the period until 1945, the School House is the only property in this area we know as the Forstall, and the land behind it remained a piece of waste land or woodland.  The 1937 Ordnance Survey map shows the land as an area of woodland, just south of Old Kennards, where the field of today’s Forstall is numbered 339 and consists of 1.92 acres.  ‘Field’ numbered 340 is that of Old School house with what looks like an attached small building on a plot of 0.91.  Next to and behind School House is what we know as the Forstall land, next to which Applegarth.   John Batchelor says that Bernard Thompsett (who lives at Garden Cottages) remembers playing on the green area as a child and that there were lots of ash trees there.

The land would remain as such until after the Second World War, when the need for more homes in the village became pressing.  According to John Batchelor, five Airey houses[ii] were built on the site, all semi-detached, and finished about April/May 1949.  They were all semi-detached. They were made of poured concrete.  He lived there as a child and would have been about 2 months when the family moved in in 1949.  The house had three bedrooms plus a dining room (some were used as bedrooms) and a living room and were built to house families.

 

The 1953 electoral register shows 10 households living in these five houses as well as the occupants of Old School House.

A small map (6”), undated, but between 1950 and 1967, shows these five houses on the Forstall site in front of Old Kennards, with what is Old School House squeezed next to the road.  (This map also shows the start of houses being built at Lealands:  some of the houses at Green View are already there.)

John Batchelor also says that the Airey houses were pulled down in about October/November 1984 as they were considered unsafe and also as, again, more houses were needed.   The last five families moved out of the Airey houses within a week or two of Christmas 1983 into 1-5 Meadow Bank which were being built at that time and were almost finished (and, according to John, the builders did not want them empty over Christmas).

The rebuilding of the Forstall took place during 1984 and took about ten months, and families could move back.  Twelve homes were built, and re-numbered from no. 3  (there were no numbers 1 or 2).  As you entered the new Forstall site, an area on the right was grassed and was a children’s play area.  However, in 2000/2001, two chalet bungalows for the elderly were added.

However, only twelve houses were initially rebuilt on the site, and then a further four making sixteen.  An additional two extra chalet bungalows were added on the ‘Forstall’ playing field in around 2001.  There are still no numbers 1 and 2 The Forstall.  Perhaps there may be two more added at some point.

Joyce Field (May 2021)

Sources:

1937 OS map; plus later OS maps available as well
1953 Electoral Register gives list of residents
John Batchelor, resident of The Forstall.

 

Pictures of the Airey Houses and the pulling down of the Airey Houses :

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[i] By 1911, the building and cottage attached in Powder Mill Lane, given as Old School in the 1911 Census Summary Books, is unoccupied.  However, in earlier censuses we find the following: 1841: it was possibly John Lidlow, who lived in a cottage next to Kennards, the next building being Little Barnetts.  1851: School House is occupied by Sarah Baker, a charwoman (7 people occupy this cottage).  1861:,School House is occupied by Samuel Cook, a gardener, again next to Thomas May at the Vicarage.  So perhaps the Vicarage used this attached cottage for his staff.  1871: the occupancy is not clear, but it was possibly occupied by William Peerless a Gardener or James Lidlow.  1881: possibly occupied by James Bourner, a gardener, but this particular cottage might have actually been that at The Woods.  1891: we find a building called The Fausted occupied by Thomas Young a gardener and domestic servant.  1901: a cottage next to the Vicarage is occupied by John Sturt.  1911: the census summary books list in Powder Mill Road, Old School, a building, cottage attached uninhabited: next to this is J Sturt at Kennards Cottage, a private House.  What is clear, it was never occupied by a schoolmaster!

[ii] An Airey house is a type of prefabricated house built following the Second World War.  Designed by Sir Edwin Airey to the Ministry of Works Emergency Factory Made housing programme, it features a frame of prefabricated concrete columns reinforced with tubing recycled from the frames of military vehicles. A series of shiplap style concrete panels, tied back to the columns, form the external envelope.  In 1947, the Central Office of Information commissioned a propaganda film, Country Homes,  which promoted the building of Airey houses in rural areas as a solution to the poor conditions following wartime neglect of much of the housing stock outside Britain’s conurbations.  Prefabricated sections could be transported to remote areas easily.  Today many of the Airey houses, being over 50 years old, are in disrepair. The houses are one of a number of precast concrete systems listed in the Housing Defects Act. This meant that Government help for private owners was available in certain cases. Generally they are not accepted for mortgages unless repaired in accordance with certain prescribed methods. In the mid-2000s, one company began testing a refurbishment programme. Their programme involves replacing the concrete slabs with blocks, covered the blocks with insulation, and then facing the structure with brick. It is hoped this remodel will result in a warmer and more structurally sound house.