St John's Cottages

St John's Cottages are a group of 12 modest one and half-storey cottages built as a philanthropic development by Miss Dudin Brown for a 3% return. She was the daughter of John Dudin Brown, a local landowner and freeman of the Company of Watermen, who was instrumental in building the nearby Waterman's and Lighterman's Almshouses, where his monument was erected in 1855; this is now private housing and renamed Waterman's Square (q.v.). The designer of the cottages was Edwin Nash, who had designed St John's Church (q.v.) in Penge High Street; Plan no. 113 for the 12 cottages was deposited by John Warne of 2 St John Villas, Queen Adelaide Road in 1863. The buildings are in two short terraces (nos. 1-4 and 9-12) and two sets of pairs (nos. 5 & 6 and 7 & 8), facing each other to create a small courtyard, which now provides a central communal garden. This was previously roadway, which was taken away in 1959-60 according to one of the tenants who lived here as a child from the 1930s, later returning in 1958; she also remembers that in November 1958 a number of sycamores were removed. In the 1950s the front gardens to the houses were separated from the road by simple wooden fencing, which is much the same today. Separating the front gardens from the communal garden is predominantly panelled fencing or wooden stockade-style fencing. The entrance is through 2 modern iron gates, erected in 2004, and set into a low brick wall which forms the boundary with Maple Road. The garden consists of a strip of lawn into which are cut 2 beds, with a brick path halfway across, planted with shrubs and flowers. A straight concrete path runs each side between the front garden fence and the lawn.