19 Facts About Bromley

Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley.

Bromley is first recorded in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 862 as Bromleag and means 'woodland clearing where broom grows'.

In 1185 Bromley Palace was built by Gilbert Glanvill, Bishop of Rochester.

Bromley became part of the newly created Greater London in 1965, in the new London Borough of Bromley.

Bromley is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan.

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Bromley was ranked fourth in Greater London by Retail Footprint in 2005, behind the West End, Croydon and Kingston upon Thames.

Bromley competes with both Croydon and the Bluewater centre in Dartford as a shopping destination.

Since May 1929 Bromley has had an annual festival of "dance, drama and comedy" in around the towns venues.

Bromley has a number of theatres in the borough, in the town centre there are three, a professional, the Churchill Theatre, an amateur, the Bromley Little Theatre and an outdoor amphitheatre located in "Church House Gardens" behind the Churchill theatre.

Bromley has a central library in the same building as the Churchill Theatre with a large book stock, Internet and wifi access, reference library and local studies department.

Bromley Picturehouse was opened in June 2019 in the previous Empire theatre.

Bromley has its own team of Morris dancers, The Ravensbourne Morris Men, founded in 1947 as a post war revival team following an inaugural meeting at the then Jean's Cafe, which was located opposite Bromley South Station.

Bromley Civic Society is a civic society for the historic centre of Bromley.

Four rugby clubs in Bromley are, Old Elthamians a National League 2 side, Parkhouse FC, Bromley RFC and Beckenham RFC.

The first was built as a temporary iron church in 1884 to cope with Bromley's growing population, on land slightly to the east of the present church, donated by a local man called Eley Soames.

Wells wrote about Bromley in an early unsigned article in the Pall Mall Gazette in which he expressed satisfaction that he had been born in an earlier, more rural Bromley.

Bromley described Bromley in one of his novels as a "morbid sprawl of population".

Bromley was awarded the Order of Merit, was Vice Chancellor of University of Cambridge, Master of Selwyn Cambridge, Regius Professor of Modern History, Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History, Chancellor of University of Anglia, President of the British Academy, and was a Rugby Union International.

Bromley is notable as the suspect for the 2001 shoe bomb attempt.