Blackfen One-Place Study

After piecing together the stories of my ancestors in far-flung places, I became curious about why my family ended up in Blackfen, a residential area now swallowed up into Greater London, and the place where I was brought up. Why did my grandparents on both sides move here in particular?

‘Black Fen’ was just a tiny hamlet in Kent up to the 1920s. It was dramatically transformed in the 1930s as farms were sold off for housing. I started investigating the history of Blackfen, its development and the people who have lived here, and also what ‘Blackfen’ means to residents today. Oral history interviewing and personal memories were an important part of my research, bringing to life the information found in original historical sources in various archives. Blackfen is about its people as much as its landscape.

My book, Woodmen and Fenmen: Blackfen’s story, was published in 2014. However, the story didn’t end there. My Facebook group ‘Blackfen Past and Present’ continued to grow and research is ongoing. Local history is about the present as much as it is about the past, and families continue to come and go, putting their stamp on the local community.