Cray St Mary, Kent

Historical Description

Cray, St Mary, a village and a parish in Kent. The village stands on the rivulet Cray, and has a station on the L.C. & D.R., 15 miles from London, and 4½ E by S of Bromley. It was once a market-town, includes a number of modern houses, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office (R.S.O.) The parish comprises 2028 acres; population, 1988. There is a large paper-mill. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury; value, £300 with residence. Patron, the Archbishop. The church is Later English. There are a church school, Congregational and Roman Catholic chapels, a library, and a police station.

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Ancient County	Kent
Ecclesiastical parish	Cray St. Mary
Hundred	Ruxley
Lathe	Sutton-at-Hone
Poor Law union	Bromley

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

The parish register dates from the year 1579.

Churches

Church of England

St. Mary (parish church)

The church of St. Mary is an ancient structure of stone and flint, in the Early English, Late Decorated and Perpendicular styles, and has a tower with spire, containing a clock and 5 bells: the church has some screen work and four brasses, one being to Richard Greenwood, 1773: there are 300 sittings.

Congregational

Temple Congregational chapel

The Temple Congregational chapel, erected in 1851 at a cost of upwards of £12,000, defrayed by the late W. Joynson esq. is a building in the Italian style, and will seat 900 persons: in 1902 it was renovated at a cost of £1,200, and in 1891 a Sunday school was added at a cost of over £2,000.

Roman Catholic

St. Joseph

The Catholic church of St. Joseph was erected in 1894, and adjoining it is a school, built in 1873 at a cost of £800.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Cray St Mary from the following:

Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Cray (St. Mary))

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Kent newspapers online:

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of Kent, 1619 is available on the Heraldry page, as is also The Visitation of Kent, 1663-68.