Chislehurst its earlier format corresponded to the letters IMP (for "imperial"). The Chislehurst civil parish formed an urban district of Kent from 1894 to 1934. In 1934 it became part of the Chislehurst and Sidcup Urban District, which was split in 1965 between the London boroughs of Bromley and Bexley. The Walsingham family, including Christopher Marlowe's patron, Sir Thomas Walsingham and Queen Elizabeth I's spymaster, Francis Walsingham, had a home in Scadbury Park, now a nature reserve in which the ruins of the house can still be seen. A water tower used to straddle the road from Chislehurst to Bromley until
Frances Seymour, Duchess of Somerset 2nd Earl of Essex and his wife, Frances Walsingham. Her paternal grandparents were Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex and Lettice Knollys, and her maternal grandparents were Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth's trusted spymaster, and Ursula St. Barbe. Frances was also a direct descendant of Mary Boleyn, the sister of Anne Boleyn. At the time of Frances's birth, her father, who was a former favourite of Queen Elizabeth and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was under arrest for treasonous behaviour in the Nine Years' War during the disastrous Irish campaign in which he parleyed with the rebellious Earl of Tyrone, and