King Harolds Way was the centre piece of St Helier Estate built by Absaloms in 1931.

Unusually the estate consisted of bungalows, quite different in character to developments that were to take place in Bexley and Sidcup only a few years later.

Many developers did not include services or facilities in their estates and very few included public libraries. The time taken to provide a library is a measure of how determined the council was; Erith Urban District Council took eight years to respond, when it converted 115 King Harolds Way into Bostall Library.