The district takes its name from the Kyd Brook, a watercourse which runs from Orpington to Lewisham, by which point it is part of the River Quaggy.

The area contains a large amount of 1920s and 1930s domestic housing, developed partly as the Kidbrooke Park Estate, between Shooters Hill and Rochester Way.

The housing estate was demolished in 2012 and has been redeveloped as Kidbrooke Village, a development of 5,300 homes masterplanned by Lifschutz Davidson Sandilands with Design and Build MEP contractor Cilantro Engineering.

Immediately south of the former Ferrier Estate is Sutcliffe Park which includes a lake, acting as a flood defence, and created by partly releasing the Kyd Brook from concrete conduits underground in which it had run until 2006.

[4][5] To the west of this Thomas Tallis School is built on another part of the former base, the former site of a prisoner-of-war camp, barrage balloon centre, and then a military language-teaching facility.

[6][7] (There are several other military facilities in the general vicinity, which is also close to a surviving base in Woolwich, long home to the Royal Artillery and now to other parts of the British Army.)