The first photograph (and detail below) shows the hamlet of Bridgen looking west towards Blendon.

The Blue Anchor public house can be seen in the distance on the opposite side of the road to its location today.

Its history is a long one. In 1681 it was known as the Anchor and Cable: from 1713 to 1726 as just the Anchor and from 1729 onwards as the Blue Anchor though it had the more sinister nickname of the Snake and Pickaxe derived from the sign's design.

Up to the 1920s it catered for the 80 or so inhabitants of the hamlet. Against a background of anticipated growth in population and the building's terminally poor physical condition, the Dartford Brewery Company told the licensing magistrates in 1927 that the pub would have to be demolished.

A new pub, with the same name, was erected in 1928.