The hilltop above South Darenth was chosen in the late 19th Century for a pioneering and innovative idea for the care of destitute boys and was known for nearly a 100 years as the Farningham Homes for Little Boys. Three London philanthropists and men of vision resolved to build a “real Home”, a “little boys’ colony” where groups of 30 could live in family houses, each with its own house-father and house-mother. A common school would be set up, together with workshops and a chapel. From the outset their intention was to “feed, clothe, educate and train to industrial work, homeless and destitute little boys”. The Homes were set up on the basis that they should be “scriptural, though unsectarian”.

The Tailors' Shop

Alexandra, Princess of Wales, laid the foundation stone on 7th June 1866. It was a momentous occasion for the village.

By 1867 the first of the cottages was ready for use and on 15th June the Earl of Shaftesbury performed the opening ceremony.

The Little Boys' Press

When the first boys arrived five cottages, together with the chapel and the central building, were completed. Each was named after a patron or donor. Eventually there were 11 houses. To save visitors from London the trouble of finding their way from Farningham Road Station, a special platform was built next to the Homes on the down side, with steps leading from East Hill (the entrance can still be seen at the right hand side of the railway bridge). Open days were held every year with as many as 1,000-2,000 visitors taking the special train from London laid on for the occasion.

In total around 500 boys were housed at the Homes for Little Boys or HLB as it was always known. Most of these were orphans, the remainder had fathers serving overseas in the Services.The school uniform was Eton jacket and a 2-3 inch stiff collar. They had one holiday in the year consisting of two complete months in the summer. Some boys visited friends or relatives for the holidays, while those with nowhere to go were sent to a school camp in the country.Every Sunday the boys were led out of the grounds, house by house, crocodile fashion and taken on their weekly walk to local gardens, churchyards and woods.

Some of the Homes’ most dramatic moments came during the war years.

Printers at Church Congress Exhibition Albert Hall 1900

These boys are all set to emigrate to Canada in 1907

In October 1940 Superintendent Bell reported “A very heavy bomb landed a few yards from one of the boys’ houses and another about 20 feet further away. As soon as daylight came we discovered that the house was wrecked, outer walls split, chimney stacks cracked, most of the roof slates gone. Nearly all the windows were smashed, sashes and frames blown out, doors off their hinges and the clothing and personal property of the boys and staff buried under a mass of fallen plaster, ceiling joists and other debris. “The glass-houses nearby were shattered and levelled to the ground. The Hospital building a few yards away had suffered seriously. Much of the roof was open to the daylight, most of the windows were gone and the downstairs passages were knee deep in plaster and wreckage and the beds were smothered in dust and dirt - but most of them remained intact.” All eleven houses were damaged and the Chapel also suffered, with holes in the roof and three stained-glass windows ruined. Fortunately all the boys were in the shelters and none hurt.

In August 1945 Field Marshall Montgomery visited the boys at the Homes. He is quoted as saying: “The future of the British Empire lies largely in the hands of our boys ... But they must be well trained for this great work; and that training is given in these Homes.”

In 1952 the State took over the running of the Homes and renamed them Farningham House. In 1961 300 people packed the Chapel to mark the closure of the Homes for Little Boys after 97 years.