Local knowledge with a purpose
Understand the building before changing it
Petts Wood, in the London Borough of Bromley, is a planned garden suburb with five conservation areas: The Chenies, Chislehurst Road, Station Square, The Covert and The Thrifts. This page draws on the Local Plan, the council’s design guide and the appraisals adopted in June 2025 for three of them; The Chenies and Station Square have no appraisal online.
Petts Wood grew in the late 1920s and 1930s on the garden suburb principle. The 2025 Chislehurst Road appraisal credits Basil Scruby, who with his architect Leonard Culliford drew up a masterplan for the roads, amenities and plot sizes that remain largely unchanged, and who used covenants on the plots to control building lines, roof heights and materials; roofs then had to be English tiles of natural clay or stone at a pitch of at least 45 degrees. Station Square was laid out in 1928, and building spread from the east side to the west.
Bromley Council: Chislehurst Road Conservation Area appraisal and management plan, adopted 25 June 2025 · Bromley Council: Urban Design Guide SPD, adopted 5 July 2023
The Local Plan’s Petts Wood Area of Special Residential Character holds around 1,500 detached and semi-detached homes on about 112 hectares, bounded by the railway to the north and the Chislehurst Road conservation area to the north-east, and excluding Station Square. Its prevailing 1930s design remains largely intact. The plan singles out front roof lines largely untouched by roof extensions, the symmetry between pairs of houses, low boundaries and visible front gardens, and rear gardens often over 120ft; some houses are by Noel Rees, who designed every building in The Chenies.
Bromley Local Plan, adopted 16 January 2019: policy document
The conservation areas span four decades. The Chenies was designated in June 1982 and Chislehurst Road in May 1989, where detached houses stand in large plots set well back from the road; most roofs there are hipped, and red clay tiles modelled on Kent peg tiles cover more of them than any other material. Station Square followed in January 1995 after a local campaign, and includes the Grade II Daylight Inn. The Covert, in the south, with Noel Rees’s neo-Tudor houses, and The Thrifts, in the north-west, mainly semi-detached houses against ancient woodland, were both designated on 4 January 2022.
Planning Data: The Chenies, Petts Wood conservation area · Planning Data: Chislehurst Road, Petts Wood conservation area · Bromley Council: Chislehurst Road Conservation Area appraisal and management plan, adopted 25 June 2025 · Planning Data: Station Square, Petts Wood conservation area · Planning Data: The Daylight Inn, Petts Wood (Grade II) · Planning Data: The Covert, Petts Wood conservation area · Bromley Council: The Covert Conservation Area appraisal and management plan, adopted 25 June 2025 · Planning Data: The Thrifts, Petts Wood conservation area · Bromley Council: The Thrifts Conservation Area appraisal and management plan, adopted 25 June 2025
The first local check
Five conservation areas and the ASRC: check your plot
Petts Wood has one Area of Special Residential Character, five conservation areas and several Article 4 plans, and which of them applies is settled plot by plot. One name is a trap: the Chislehurst Road conservation area lies at the northern fringe of Petts Wood, not in Chislehurst. The Local Plan’s written ASRC boundary was also drawn before The Covert and The Thrifts were designated in 2022. Nor is a BR5 postcode or the Petts Wood & Knoll ward any guide: the 2021 order that set up Bromley’s 22 wards does not describe their boundaries in its text. Use the council’s interactive map and each Article 4 plan for the exact plot, and only then turn to the title or lease and the planning record.
