RH VIZ 3D VR recreation of Lord Fairfax's New Model Army Muster on Crayford Heath 1648

When I first began researching the story of Crayford in the Civil War, to gather information for our Heritage Fund bid, the only entry we could find in Crayford Library for our town’s participation in the English Civil Wars were a few lines in William Carr’s, ‘ A Spot Called Crayford’ (1951):

Fairfax, with four regiments of horse and three of foot, with some other troops, marched to Eltham, where they lay in the fields all night. The next day they mustered on Crayford Heath, and one wing marched through Dartford to attack the Royalists…

Further research revealed that Carr had taken this information from Archaeologia Cantiana –  Vol. 9  1874 THE ROYALIST RISING IN KENT, A.D. 1648. BY COLONEL GEORGE COLOMB, F.S.A.  https://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Pub/ArchCant/009%20-%201874/009-05.pdf

We liaised with Oliver Wooller, Archivist at Bexley Local Studies and Archives, to see if we could find a contemporary map showing where the ‘Crayford Heath’ muster site would have been, as it is not a name used for any area of our town existing today.  Despite searching the BLSA map collection the search proved fruitless.  However, internet research uncovered the Robert Morden 1695 map of Kent. https://www.antique-maps-online.co.uk/kent-morden-2532.html

I was able to buy a copy of this 1695 map and we were able to look at it closely to see how Morden had indicated heathland at Blackheath and Dartford.  We were then able to locate Crayford Heath as the land north of St Paulinus church close to the site of May Place House.  This Jacobean mansion was sadly demolished in 1959 and its grounds have long since been swallowed up by the creation of suburban Barnehurst.  It is very hard for people seeing the area today to imagine how it would have looked in 1648.  Our challenge was to see if we could bring back what once existed here to tell the story of Crayford in the English Civil War.

https://www.facebook.com/BexleyArchives/posts/may-place-or-mayplace-is-a-familiar-name-in-crayford-the-may-place-estate-lay-to/964041103639374/

As a muster point for the New Model Army, this makes sense as it is on high ground overlooking Watling Street and the River Thames.  It was also the home of Puritan parliamentarian William Draper so Fairfax could muster his men on friendly ground.

As May Place House is no longer with us (today it is the site of Barnehurst Golf Club) and the area was largely built over with semi-detached housing in the 1930s, we set RH Viz the task of recreating Lord Fairfax’s New Model Army muster as it would have appeared on 31st May 1648.  RH Viz worked with four CRAY volunteers and together they have worked to bring back into view Crayford as it was at the opening of The Second English Civil War in Kent.