Blackfen’s roads were notoriously muddy (it wasn’t called a ‘fen’ for nothing!) and when the district was transformed in the 1930s from woodland and fields  to housing and shops there were problems with flooding.

In the Kentish Times 14 January 1938 a columnist wrote, in a rather eccentric fashion, an account of a less than enjoyable night walk in the Blackfen area: Where the Shuttle Flows.