[2] The land was acquired by Lewis Loyd in 1854,[3][4] who built a mansion here and adopted the name of the Monks Orchard wood for the whole estate.

[citation needed] As late as 1923, the area was described in the following way: "The Estate, which has an extensive frontage to the road between the villages of Shirley and West Wickham, is delightfully rural in character, typifying that which is best in the unspoiled English countryside.

The land seems adapted by nature for those who are seeking country houses not too far from London, being already park-like meadow land, well timbered, and dotted with coppices; thus affording almost unlimited scope for imagination, and taste, in laying out grounds, by utilising the natural advantages already there.

"[citation needed] When the estate came up for sale in 1920, only parts of it found buyers, and the rest, including the part now known as Monks Orchard, was offered again in 1924, and this was finally purchased by the Corporation of London for the relocation of the Bethlem Hospital, which had long outgrown its Lambeth home.

A 1937 prospectus for the Tudor-style "Homes of Distinction" in Greenview Avenue extols the virtues of local building ("There are no mass production houses and no mass production methods") and after describing the houses in great detail, claim that the fitted kitchenettes are "the Housewife's Dream virtually come true".