St Paul's Cray is an area of South East London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley in Greater London. Prior to 1965 it was within the historic county of Kent. It is located south of Sidcup and north of Orpington. The area The village includes a small parade of shops, as well as part of the industrial estate on Cray Avenue that connects to its sister St Mary Cray. The former Broomwood pub is now a McDonald's and lies on the main road. History Though modern in appearance, St Paul's Cray has an ancient history. Romans camped along the banks of the river, and even earlier settlements are suggested by the mysterious dene holes, caverns shaped in the chalk, which have been found on either side of the valley. Sir Simon de Cray held the manor in the time of Edward I. He took his name from St Paul's Cray. He was knighted for his part in the Scottish wars. He became Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in 1275. The name St Paul's Cray has no direct connection with St Paul the Apostle; it is simply an abbreviation of St Paulinus Cray. The 11th-century church, made redundant in 1978 but now occupied by the Redeemed Christian Church of God, is sited on Main Road on the attractive riverside section of the St Paul's Cray Conservation Area. From its structural form, it would appear to be a possibly Saxon foundation and certainly earlier than the thirteenth-century St Mary's. A rare dedication suggests that a church could have occupied the site in the early seventh century. (Paulinus was an early Christian missionary, and a close contemporary of Augustine who subsequently became Archbishop of York and Bishop of Rochester.) The area was known in the 16th century as Paul Crey. William Camden born in 1551 writes in a 1610 travel guide in a section on Kent: "Here the riverlet Crey, anciently called Crecan , intermingleth it selfe with Darent, ? when in his short course he hath imparted his name to five townlets which hee watereth,as Saint Marie Crey, Pauls Crey, Votes-Crey, North Crey,? and Crey-ford in former ages Crecanford, where Hengest the Saxon, the eighth yeare after his arrivall, joyned battaile with the Britans, and after hee had slaine their captaines brought them under with so great a slaughter that afterwards hee never stood in feare of them, but established