2 Green Men and the Parish Church

Bromley Parish Church dates from the around the 1090s or 1110sAD when the Bishop of Rochester decided that the parish should worship in their own building rather than the chapel of St Blaise within the Bishops Palace. Our page on the building is here and the church has a page on its history here

However, all the church apart from the tower was destroyed in a German bombing raid, on the 16th April 1941. Church House, St Marks Church, and the Dunns store in Market Square, were among the buildings that were also destroyed that night.

On rebuilding the church, the architect included masonary from the medieval church within the walls, and two Green men can be found.

(1) enter via the car park entrance nearest Primark. Go around to the end wall of the church, and it is about 10 foot up on the right of the window.

(2) continue round to the back of the building, and the second one is above the first doorway:

Green men were quite a popular church decoration in the medieval era, and many churches have them. They were a folklore symbol that combined pre-christian fertility symbols with the Christian themes of resurrection and rebirth at Easter. They also expressed the Medieval sense of humour. It’s also a popular pub name, and there are Jack in the Green festivals held in some towns, along the lines of the Broom Day here in Bromley. There’s a page about them here, from Historic UK, that also says that the stone masons might have been hedging their bets!