South West Welling encompasses the entirety of the Welling area south of the A207 (in this three-and-a-half-kilometre section a straight road made from Bellegrove Road and Park View Road), as well as Danson Park, home to Danson House, which takes up its eastern section. To the west, the suburban housing character of the postcode sector abruptly stops and gives way to Oxleas Wood, in the Shooter’s Hill area, making both ends of this area exceptionally green, with the residential section dominating the middle. As mentioned, the A207 represents its northern border, and the western and eastern borders blend into green and open spaces. The southern border follows the A2 (East Rochester Way). The residential area is cut into two about a third of the way from the west by the Southeastern railway line, but has no stations in its area – although Falconwood and Welling stations are both less than 300 metres from the postcode sector. The central residential area (with the exception of the High Street, which is a mile long with over 300 shops) is overwhelmingly interwar period housing, with three schools (Bexley Grammar School in the east and Hook Lane Primary School to the north, and Harris Academy Falconwood to the west) and a few shops around The Green Parks to the south.

Danson Park to the east was a large estate, with Danson House as its centre piece, alongside a stable block. The park itself is a large, attractive open space with many sporting facilities, such as a playground, tennis courts, football pitches, a bowls club as well as a lake for fishing and boating. The Charter Oak tree in the middle of Mid Park is over two centuries old, being one of the “Great Trees of London”.

Danson Place has gone through several iterations of its name – from Densynton and Dansington in the late-1200s (potentially referring to a farm owned by Denesige), to Danston a century later, and later on Danson when the Danson House was constructed. The area remained in a large estate surrounded by greenery and large lands until 1881, when the owner at the time began to develop Welling. However, it would not be until the 1920s when Bexley council would develop the remainder of the estate with a variety of housing styles.

John Boyd commissioned Danson House in the mid-1700s, with the money coming from his large sugar plantations in the West Indies. Besides the plantations themselves, John Boyd would be involved in all aspects of the sugar industry, from buying the goods to trade for African slaves, to shipping them to different sugar plantations, as well as shipping sugar to Britain. His connections enabled him to coordinate trade to the British Army even during wartime, which only added to his wealth. Boyd spent a lot of time towards the end of his life in recluse in Danson Place, staying away from London society, after the capture of the island of St. Kitts, where his sugar plantations were based, by the French in 1779. He passed away there in 1800.

The Charter Oak is so named as it was the site of where Lord Cornwallis presented the Charter whereby Bexley was promoted from an Urban District Council to a Municipal Borough, and as such features in its Coat of Arms.

The Danson Festival takes place at Danson Park every July. The Country Fair has been running for nearly three decades, with a few interruptions, and today has evolved into a large event with all sorts of events from terrier racing, to historical re-enactments, to petting zoos and many more stalls.

The London Borough of Bexley revoked its grant to the Bexley Heritage Trust in 2016, which resulted in Danson House changing management from the trust to the council, who turned the property into the borough’s Register Office. It remains to be seen how well the council is able to conserve the building.

Some residents claim that there have been overdevelopment in certain areas of Bexleyheath, with old buildings being demolished to make way for new flats. This has been said to hinder the movement of emergency vehicles while increasing the demand for parking and road capacity. Bexleyheath is noted in the council’s latest local plan to remain the borough’s strategic shopping and civic centre and ‘the hub of its bus network, enabling a thriving and diverse daytime and night-time economy.’ Bexleyheath is envisaged to profit from over 1,500 new homes and 1,500 new jobs. From May 2021 to October 2022, Bexley Council established their High Streets for All Programme, securing funding from the Mayor of London’s High Streets for All Challenge, to develop and enact a new vision for Bexleyheath Town Centre. The proximity of Bexleyheath to Welling may mean that development interest in the area could increase following the completion of Bexleyheath’s ongoing projects and enhancements.