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
Thomas Walsingham (literary patron) had been engaged on Sir Francis's secret business in France. His timely dedication to Thomas Walsingham, newly come into money through his inheritance, prefaced "A Lament for Meliboeus", an elegy on the death of Sir Francis. Watson's venture was based on the family relationship between the dedicatee and the dead statesman, but Thomas Walsingham proved to be a genuine patron of literary endeavour and other poets followed the example. It is probable that Watson introduced Marlowe, a friend from the London literary circle with whom he was arrested for brawling in September 1589, to Thomas Walsingham (although their paths may