Town, not borough
The name belongs both to a town and to a whole London borough, and this page is about the town alone. Its reference line is the town centre conservation area, about 43 hectares, and each figure below describes that designation or the two statistical areas wrapped around it, never the borough at large.
Other places in the borough have pages of their own, grouped in the South East London guide, and anyone weighing an address away from the centre should start there instead of applying these numbers.
Public records for the town centre
Every statement below links to the public record it comes from; sources were re-checked on .
Designation details
Council reference CA44, a designation date of 22 January 1985 and an extent of about 42.8 hectares are what the conservation area entry on planning.data.gov.uk records for the town centre.
Because the designation is drawn around the centre only, a house a few streets away can sit outside it, so the mapped line is compared with the exact address before anyone decides which planning controls bite.
The council publishes an appraisal and management plan for the designation, and its Urban Design Guide SPD is the companion document while a shopfront, extension or roof change is being drawn.
Listed entries, two of them Grade I
Checked on 1 November 2026, Historic England list data holds 24 list entries within the designation: 20 at Grade II, a pair at Grade II* and a pair at Grade I.
At Grade I are Bromley College and the Gateway at Bromley College, while the Grade II* entries are the Church of St Peter and St Paul and the Bromley War Memorial, St Martin's Hill.
An entry is one record that can take in several structures, and listed building consent runs separately from planning permission, so for a property on or next to one of these the entry text is read before any works are scoped.
Article 4 and permitted development
Nothing intersecting the designation shows up in the England-wide Article 4 dataset, though an empty result there falls short of proof that no direction exists.
For that reason the council's permitted development page and its conservation areas page are where current controls are confirmed before anyone relies on rights that hold good elsewhere.
Sand beneath the centre
Three of the five sample points sit on Harwich Formation bedrock, which the BGS describes as sand and gravel, and two on the Thanet Formation, a sand, in British Geological Survey mapping at 1:50,000.
Four of the points carry no superficial deposit in that BGS mapping, and the fifth is overlain by Kempton Park Gravel Member, again a sand and gravel.
Sandy ground does not move with the seasons the way clay does, but water escaping from a cracked drain or a tired soakaway can carry fine particles out from under a footing, so where the geology viewer shows sand, drainage is among the first things a surveyor examines.
River flood zones
Flood Zone 2 shading covers 11.1% of the designated area and Flood Zone 3 shading 1.2% in the Agency's zone mapping for planning, and rivers are named as the source in both.
Planning zones like these leave defences out of the calculation and are not set building by building, so an address is also run through the government flood risk checker before a purchase or a basement scheme goes ahead.
Housing beyond the centre
The two LSOAs wrapped around the centre, E01000677 and E01000676, contain about 1,960 dwellings in the VOA stock figures for 2025, each count rounded by the VOA to the nearest 10.
Flats and maisonettes are 69.9% of that stock, with terraced and semi-detached houses at 12.8% each, detached houses at 1.0% and bungalows at 0.5%, in the type tables.
By age, the VOA figures date 40.8% of dwellings to before 1900, 16.8% to 1945-1972, another 16.8% to 2000 or later, 10.2% to 1919-1939, 9.2% to 1900-1918, 5.1% to 1973-1999 and 0.5% to an unknown period.
Only 3.6% are in bands F to H of council tax, with band C the largest at 36.2%, in the band counts, and because the two areas approximate the setting rather than the conservation area, they say nothing definite about a particular building.
With flats at almost seven in ten of the VOA total, many enquiries here are likely to concern a flat, where the lease, the shared roof and the record of past and planned major works need as much attention as the rooms themselves.
Local pages for the town
The local pages listed first deal with single instructions in and around the town centre; the second list links the matching services offered across London.
Elsewhere in the borough and beyond
Nearby towns and districts have separate overviews, among them Beckenham, Chislehurst, Orpington, Hayes, Bromley and Catford, and the South East London guide gathers the wider area.
Town centre questions
Does this page describe the whole borough?
It does not. The page covers the town centre only, using the 42.8-hectare conservation area in the national register as its boundary. Places such as Beckenham, Chislehurst and Orpington have their own pages, with figures drawn from their own records, and those are the better starting point for an address outside the centre.
When was the town centre conservation area designated?
planning.data.gov.uk gives a designation date of 22 January 1985 for the conservation area, council reference CA44. The council also publishes an appraisal and management plan for it, which is worth reading before a proposal for an extension, shopfront or roof is drawn up.
Which buildings in the centre are listed at Grade I?
Two entries are Grade I: Bromley College and the Gateway at the college. Altogether the national list data gives 24 entries within the conservation area, of which 20 are Grade II and 2 are Grade II*, the latter being a church and the war memorial.
How much of the centre is in a flood zone?
A little over a tenth: the Environment Agency's map for planning shades 11.1% of the designation as Zone 2 and 1.2% as Zone 3, all from rivers. Those zones leave defences out, so surface water is looked up separately for the address on the government's long-term service.
What ground do buildings here stand on?
Mostly sand on the published map: the 1:50,000 bedrock is Harwich Formation sand and gravel at three of five sample points and Thanet Formation sand at two. Seasonal clay movement is less of a worry, but drains, soakaways and local variation are examined at the building itself.
What should I send with an enquiry about a town centre flat?
The address and flat number, the lease or at least its length, service charge details, any notice of planned major works, and photographs of the building front and rear if you have them. For a house, add drawings or planning references for earlier extensions.
How we work on an instruction
Hampstead Chartered Surveyors is a RICS-regulated firm (RICS Regulated Firm No. 923064) working from its registered Hampstead NW3 office. The firm does not claim premises, staff or completed instructions in an individual locality, and it does not treat a neighbourhood name as evidence about a particular building.
An instruction starts with the full address, the decision the client faces and the documents already available, such as leases, drawings, notices or earlier reports. The scope, fee and inspection date are confirmed in writing only after that review, and access to roofs, lofts, basements or common parts is agreed before the visit.
Reports include RICS Level 2 and Level 3 home surveys, building and defect investigations, party wall appointments, reinstatement cost assessments, contract administration and schedules of condition. Each report records what was inspected, what could not be seen and what further investigation the evidence supports.
Public datasets such as the conservation-area register, the National Heritage List for England, British Geological Survey mapping, the Environment Agency flood map and Valuation Office Agency housing statistics describe areas rather than individual properties. They frame questions before an inspection; they never replace it.
Reviewed by Savas Bulduk BSc (Hons) MRICS, Director & Chartered Building Surveyor at Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy. Last reviewed: . Our people · RICS firm record