Built in 1882 on land donated by Lord of the Manor, Coles Child, and erected by the Bromley Cottage Improvement Company, theese houses were built on the road leading to the new town gas works, around a small green.

The name commemorates the death of American writer Ralph Waldo Emerson in the same year.

They were part of an attempt to improve the standard of accomodation for local workers.

Many early residents were employed either at the neighbouring Pascall Brothers brick and tile works or as railway workers.

Declared unfit as housing in the mid 1970s the area is now an industrial estate.

Copyright Kentish Times