Crayford

Crayford is a town and electoral ward in South East London, England, within the London Borough of Bexley. It lies east of Bexleyheath and north west of Dartford. Crayford was in the historic county of Kent until 1965. The settlement developed by the river Cray, around a ford that is no longer used.

==History== An Iron Age settlement existed in the vicinity of the present St Paulinus Church between the Julian and Claudian invasions of Britain, from roughly 30 BC to AD 40. Roman ruins have been discovered and Crayford is one of several places proposed as the site of Noviomagus Cantiacorum, a place mentioned in the Antonine Itinerary as being on the Roman equivalent of the later Watling Street. Crayford is also plausible as the site of the bloody battle of Crecganford ("Creeksford") in 457 in which Hengist defeated Vortimer to become the supreme sovereign of Kent. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle written around 400 years later describes how Hengist and Æsc defeated the "Brettas" at that battle.