L is for Lamorbey

LONDON A-Z L is for Lamorbey A surprisingly high number of obscure London suburbs begin with L so this was hard to narrow down, but in the end I plumped for one of four in the borough of Bexley. It's large enough to have a park, a parish church and a residents' association, but also very much overshadowed by the town that bled into it. It's called Lamorbey, and today I'm pleased to be able to take you on the Lamorbey Town Trail [pdf] compiled by the Lamorbey and Sidcup Local History Society. Starting at Sidcup station. The thing about Sidcup station is that it was originally in Lamorbey, not Sidcup. But when the Dartford Loop line opened in 1866 this was the closest the line came to the town, linked by a long country lane to the south, so they called it Sidcup anyway and Lamorbey's fate was sealed. At the time nobody lived inbetween but that mile was swiftly infilled so there are now essentially two Sidcup town centres, the one with the decent shops and the one with the trains. A lot…