The Oval

Bexley witnessed suburban expansion in the 1920s and 1930s and the area is renowned for its large suburban estates of row after row of semi-detached and terraced houses. The Marlborough Park Estates area of Sidcup was typical with long roads of houses in uniform styles. The shops at the Oval, which were built in 1933 as part of the Marlborough Estate, meant easier shopping for the new residents to the area. The Oval was designed as part of the New Ideal Homesteads, Marlborough Park Estate, an antithesis of the suburban norm, a reaction to the rigid row upon row of houses. The shops on the terrace reflect interest in the Arts and Craft style still popular in the 1930s when it was the prevalent influence on house design. The provision of this type of community infrastructure was typical of housing estates being built in the area at this time. New Ideal Homesteads' original ideas for The Oval included shops on both curves. One design, in Art Deco style, was single storey with storeroom in roof, lit by a dormer alternating with an oval window in a gable. Another design, more Arts and Crafts/Tudor, showed 2 storeys with a pair of shops sharing a gable. These proposed shops were 25ft wide but by reducing the width to 20ft, more units were built. The plan shown in the developers sales brochure for the Marlborough Park Estate indicates that a cinema was proposed at the north end of the curve where the final ten shops were erected. A proposed garage was erected at the southern end but this was incorporated into a large Express Dairy. The park is designed to provide ornamental lawns with rose beds, summer and winter bedding and specimen trees. The regular planting of trees along the pavement fronting the shops adds to the homogenous nature of the area.