The Derelict Farmer’s Pub Site: Progress at Last?
Samuel Bligh, farmer and inn-keeper of Sevenoaks, was a smart man, with an eye for the main chance. In 1852 when licensee of the Rose and Crown in the High Street, he bought a lease on the 16th century farmhouse owned by the City of London parish of St Botolphs without Bishopsgate, turning it into Bligh’s Private Hotel. Once work had started on building a new railway line to Sevenoaks, he acquired another lease for 99 years from Bishopsgate on land opposite the building site for the new station at Tubs Hill and set about erecting another hotel. Publican and now also entrepreneur William Pawley had the same idea, on the other side of the road. The race was on. It was a dead heat. Both Pawley’s Railway Tavern (soon to be the Railway and Bicycle) and Bligh’s Sennocke Hotel (later the Farmers) were awarded a license in August 1868, just five months after the station opened - the magistrates concluding that the increase in traffic and need for respectable accommodation justified the presence of two establishments.
Indeed, both thrived: they were popular with travellers, locals, market-goers and families. But both are no more. A block of apartments and shops now occupies the site of the Railway and Bicycle, and the land on which the Farmers stood has been derelict since the pub was knocked down in 2006. Bishopsgate Foundation was eager to sell its last remaining property in the area, and an application to demolish the pub and build flats and retail units was granted on appeal in 2005. Despite strong opposition, the site was sold to developers, the pub closed and bulldozers moved in. The site lay empty but a second application for a larger scheme with 39 flats was submitted. Again it was refused by Sevenoaks District Council but in 2015 was again granted on appeal. The conspicuous plot still lies vacant and forlorn. As public concern at the lack of action intensified, in 2020 The Sevenoaks Society presented a petition of over 1,500 signatures to the Council, urging it to engage with the owners and consider issuing a Compulsory Purchase Order, arguing that the site is an embarrassing eye-sore at a main entrance to the town and if developed could help meet the chronic need for housing. But SDC’s view was that a CPO was not in local taxpayers’ interests.
However there is hope that after 20 years the site will be developed at last. In December the Council passed a resolution to grant a fresh planning permission in response to a renewed application (SDC reference 24/01339/FUL). The new proposal is for a car-free 6 storey building of 56 apartments and 697sqm of commercial ground floor space, with 3 disabled parking bays and landscaping. A Design and Access Statement on the Council’s web-site provides an overview of the scheme which in the developer’s words “respectfully benefits the local setting, creating a suitably contemporary celebration of this remarkable opportunity to enhance this important gateway into the town of Sevenoaks ..” . Planning permission will not be granted until there is a S106 agreement in place which requires the Council to work proactively with the developer to reach agreement on a number of detailed issues. Progress in this area appears to be slow and the Society hopes that this is not a precursor to more delays and continuing inaction by both parties.
| It is often assumed that the Farmers took its name from the nearby live-stock market. This is only partly true. In May 1982 brothers Eddy and Johnny Farmer acquired the Watney’s house and chose the name as being doubly suitable. |
