Misplaced Pages

#589410

24-543: Cator Park is a park in Kidbrooke , Greenwich . It has been won awards for placemaking , biodiversity , and landscape . It was resigned by HTA Design in collaboration with the London Wildlife Trust and opened to the public in 2019. The park is made up of multiple biophilic spaces including lakes, wetlands and ponds. It is a protected space for wetland birds. The park also includes sports facilities and

48-519: A 3000m³ play space at the park most elevated point. Kidbrooke Kidbrooke is an area of south-east London , England, in the Royal Borough of Greenwich 7 + 1 ⁄ 2 miles (12 km) south-east of Charing Cross and north west of Eltham . The district takes its name from the Kyd Brook, a watercourse which runs from Orpington to Lewisham , by which point it is part of

72-643: A Very Low Altitude barrage balloon battalion of the United States Army, participated in the June 1944 Normandy landings , raising barrage balloons on Omaha Beach and Utah Beach . They remained stationed at Normandy until October 1944. In January 1945, during Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm raids on the Palembang oil refineries, the British aircrews were surprised by the massive use of barrage balloons in

96-692: A bombing dive. Due to the effectiveness of the Royal Air Force fighters' tactic of waiting for a dive bomber to complete its dive and then pouncing when it was pulling up - a moment when it was slow and vulnerable - the use of dive bombers against the UK was discontinued by Nazi Germany. Balloons proved to be of little use against the German high-level bombers with which the dive-bombers were replaced, but continued to be manufactured nonetheless until there were almost 3,000 in 1944. They proved to be effective against

120-493: A church and likely had a small population, although this presence didn't endure. By 1428, the church lacked a priest, and by 1494, it had fallen into disrepair. Remaining rural until the inauguration of Kidbrooke railway station in 1895, the region was primarily dedicated to farming until the 1930s. Significant development ensued thereafter, particularly following the construction of the Rochester Way. The area contains

144-633: A large amount of 1920s and 1930s domestic housing, developed partly as the Kidbrooke Park Estate, between Shooters Hill and Rochester Way. A large RAF stores base, RAF Kidbrooke , formerly occupied much of the land around Kidbrooke railway station , north and south of the railway line. In 1965 the Government released most of the land to the Greater London Council for housing. The Ferrier Estate , built from 1968,

168-419: Is Sutcliffe Park which includes a lake, acting as a flood defence, and created by partly releasing the Kyd Brook from concrete conduits underground in which it had run until 2006. Rochester Way, a road which was built along much of the course of the old country lane Kidbrooke Lane, was intended as a bypass for Shooters Hill to the north. Rochester Way has itself now been bypassed by a dual carriageway – part of

192-669: Is a part time resident. Barrage balloon France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom used barrage balloons in the First World War . While the French and German forces developed kite balloons , early British barrage balloons were spherical. Sometimes, especially around London, several balloons were used to lift a "barrage net" length: a steel cable was strung between the balloons, and more cables hung from it. These nets could be raised to an altitude comparable to

216-588: Is built on another part of the former base, the former site of a prisoner-of-war camp, barrage balloon centre, and then a military language-teaching facility. (There are several other military facilities in the general vicinity, which is also close to a surviving base in Woolwich , long home to the Royal Artillery and now to other parts of the British Army .) Kidbrooke railway station provides

240-464: The A2 road – built in the 1980s over most of Kidbrooke Green. A small remaining piece of this open land, alongside the road, is now Kidbrooke Green Park, and adjacent to that, a small nature reserve managed by Greenwich Council. The nature reserve is visible, but not open to the public. Little sign of the former RAF base remains. A handful of buildings survive, south of the houses of Nelson Mandela Road, to

264-528: The River Quaggy . It is a tributary to the River Ravensbourne . Kidbrooke, derived from an Anglo-Saxon name meaning 'the brook where the kites were seen,' indicates that the area was uninhabited at the time of naming. With its three streams and heavy, wet clay, Kidbrooke would have been unsuitable for Saxon settlement. However, by the late 11th or 12th century, Kidbrooke had established

SECTION 10

#1732791515590

288-547: The V-1 flying bomb , which usually flew at 2,000 feet (600 m) or lower but had wire-cutters on its wings to counter balloons. 231 V-1s are officially claimed to have been destroyed by balloons. The British added two refinements to their balloons, "Double Parachute Link" (DPL) and "Double Parachute/Ripping" (DP/R). The former was triggered by the shock of an enemy bomber snagging the cable, causing that section of cable to be explosively released complete with parachutes at either end;

312-661: The Japanese defences. These were spherical and smaller than the British type. One Grumman Avenger was destroyed, and its crew killed, from striking a balloon cable. Barrage balloons were partly filled with highly pure hydrogen. "The top of the balloon was filled with hydrogen, the bottom half was left empty, so when it was put up at a certain height it filled with natural air", according to Dorothy Brannan, barrage balloon volunteer in Portsmouth, England. In 1942, Canadian and American forces began joint operations to protect

336-763: The area rapid access to the London Inner Ring Road , the South Circular Road and the M25 motorway . Famous residents have included comedian Jim Davidson , who grew up in Holburne Road; interior designer Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen , who lived in a bungalow on Kidbrooke Park Road until 2004; and singer Sandie Shaw . Former AFC Bournemouth player Junior Stanislas was born in Kidbrooke. Ryan Stanton currently lives in Kidbrooke. Norman Ellis

360-408: The area with Southeastern services to London Victoria , London Charing Cross , London Cannon Street , Dartford and Slade Green . Kidbrooke is served by London Buses routes 132 , 178 , 286 , 335 , 386 and B16 . These connect it with areas including Bexleyheath , Blackheath , Eltham , Greenwich , Lewisham , North Greenwich , Sidcup , Welling and Woolwich . The A2 road gives

384-399: The combined weight and drag bringing down the aircraft. The latter was intended to render the balloon safe if it broke free accidentally. The heavy mooring cable would separate as the balloon and fall to the ground under a parachute; at the same time a panel would be ripped away from the balloon causing it to deflate and fall independently to the ground. The 320th Barrage Balloon Battalion ,

408-428: The location of enemy troops to be bombed. After the war, some surplus barrage balloons were used as tethered shot balloons for nuclear weapon tests throughout most of the period when nuclear weapons were tested in the atmosphere. The weapon or shot was carried to the required altitude slung underneath the barrage balloon, allowing test shots in controlled conditions at much higher altitudes than test towers. Several of

432-422: The more serious incidents, known as "The October Incident", caused an estimated loss of 400 tonnes of steel and 10 tonnes of ferro-alloys. As a result, balloons were stored during the winter months and training was improved. Lessons learned from breakaway balloons led to Operation Outward , intentional release of balloons trailing conductive cables to disrupt power supplies on the occupied European mainland. On

456-669: The north of the railway line, that escaped demolition when the Rochester Way Relief Road dual carriageway was constructed. These are currently used for additional collection storage by the National Maritime Museum , with some now removed to make way for a new purpose-built conservation facility, the Prince Philip Maritime Collections Centre, which opened in 2019. To the west of this Thomas Tallis School

480-583: The operational ceiling (15,000 feet or 4,600 metres) of the bombers of the time. By 1918 the barrage balloon defences around London stretched for 50 miles (80 km), and captured German pilots expressed great fear of them. In 1938, the British Balloon Command was established to protect cities and key targets such as industrial areas, ports, and harbors. Balloons were intended to defend against dive bombers flying at heights up to 5,000 feet (1,500 m), forcing them to fly higher and into

504-515: The range of concentrated anti-aircraft fire: anti-aircraft guns could not traverse fast enough to attack aircraft flying at low altitude and high speed. By the middle of 1940, there were 1,400 balloons, a third over the London area. While dive-bombing was a devastatingly effective tactic against undefended targets, such as Guernica and Rotterdam , dive-bombers were very vulnerable to attack by fighter aircraft when pulling up after having completed

SECTION 20

#1732791515590

528-571: The road to Aachen in west Germany in 1944, the British 2nd Tactical Air Force floated barrage balloons along the American First Army sector front line (a.k.a. "bomb line") to designate the location of friendly troops during the air assault preceding the advance of ground forces, which took Aachen on October 21, 1944. Conversely, during the First Army advance past Aachen to nearby Düren , barrage balloons were floated eastward to mark

552-569: The sensitive locks and shipping channel at Sault Ste. Marie along their common border among the Great Lakes against possible air attack. During severe storms in August and October 1942 some barrage balloons broke loose, and the trailing cables short-circuited power lines , causing some localised disruption to mining and manufacturing . In particular, metals production was disrupted. Canadian military historical records indicate that one of

576-404: Was conceived to be a flagship scheme but became one of the largest and most deprived council housing developments in London. The housing estate was demolished in 2012 and has been redeveloped as Kidbrooke Village , a development of 5,300 homes masterplanned by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands with Design and Build MEP contractor Cilantro Engineering. Immediately south of the former Ferrier Estate

#589410