Braeburn Park

A while back I suggested none of my readers had ever been to Folkes Lane Woodland, a nature reserve beside the M25 in outer Havering. Alas three of you said you had, the most convincing of whom said it was on one of his occasional jogging routes. So I'm going to try again with another London location I don't think any of you have ever been to... unless you live there. Again it's peripheral, again it's a scrubby nature reserve but this time it's in Bexley, not far from Crayford station. Somewhere you've never been: Braeburn Park Where the Dartford-bound railway meets the A2 Rochester Way, a large dead-end wedge of land has recently become Braeburn Park. During the 20th century it was a gravel pit then landfill, so neither an attractive nor accessible spot, thus the built-up edge of Crayford ended high on Heathfield Avenue. In 1999 Taylor Wimpey submitted a planning application to build 200 houses here instead, a mighty task involving full remediation of the contaminated land, starting…