Editing Welling (section)

==Etymology==
Local legend has it that Welling is so called because in the era of horse-drawn vehicles it could be said you were "well in" to Kent,{{cn|date=February 2025}} or had a "well end" to the journey up and down [[Shooters Hill]]{{cn|date=February 2025}} which, at the time was steep, had a poor road surface and was a notorious haunt of [[highwaymen]].<ref name="DoverRoad">{{cite book|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/36589/36589.txt|title=The Dover Road|author=Charles G. Harper|date=1895|publisher=Wildhern Press|isbn=9781848300101}}</ref> Until the 1800s, most of Welling down to [[Blackfen]] was covered in woodland which offered excellent concealment for outlaws and robbers who would prey on vulnerable slow-moving horse-drawn traffic.

Local historians have recently concluded that the origin of the name is most likely from ''Welwyn'' (meaning 'place of the spring'), due to the existence of an underground spring located at Welling Corner, or possibly a manorial reference to the Willing family, who lived in the area in 1301.<ref name="Mills2011">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tXucAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA488|title=A Dictionary of British Place-Names|author=David Mills|date=20 October 2011|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-960908-6|pages=488–}}</ref> The town was referred to as 'Wellen' in [[John Ogilby|John Ogilby's]] 1675 road atlas.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wareham |first1=Tom |title=Oxleas: History, Conservation and Connection in a suburban Woodland |date=2020 |publisher=Independently published |isbn=979-8656197311 |page=20}}</ref>