The River

The River Medway at Wateringbury

This photo was taken on the 7th July 1951, are you in the picture,

or do you know anyone who is?

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The picture above is an earlier picture showing the previous wooden bridge.

Below are two postcards of the river but I am not sure when they were taken.

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Below is a photo of the old wooden bridge taken around 1910

Now the new Bow Bridge. It looks as though it was taken at the same time as the shot at the top as the guy on the bridge looks the same.

The Mill Pond Area

The Mill Pond to me was always the pond at Upper Mill but looking at old postcards there was also a pond at the lower mill which I remember as a kid being very silted up and eventually being dug out into a stream. Though my Mum often recalls how her sister fell in the lower mill pond.

The picture below is of the farm track between the Lower and Upper Mill Ponds, when I was young it seemed to be very long but walking it today its a disappointment.
Not a lot has changed with it as the iron railings are still mostly there, the main difference being there were hop fields on one side and apples on the other.

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Below is the Lower Mill Pond as it was, taken from the above farm track with the Brewery in the background. When the brewery was demolished the weather vane was removed and installed on the roof of the Kings Head. The house you can see used to be owned by the Walters Family and I understand was the original ticket office for the railway.

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Below is the Upper Mill Pond and the Mill in the in the background. In the early 70's the Mill was owned by Mr & Mrs Benham who ran the Mill Pottery, they were pasionate about renovating the Mill at the time.

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Below is the house next to the Mill, if you were looking at it from the position in the previous photo it would have been to the left hand side of the Mill.

Ray, who now lives in the cottage below writes:

We bought the place in December 2006 and are keen to learn all we can about the property - not much came with it by way of documentation, a great pity.

The cottage is mentioned in Michael J Fuller's book 'The Watermills of the East Malling and Wateringbury Streams with a nice pen and ink drawing and, reference is made to a photo taken in 1868/9 of the cottage with Alfred Boorman and his family (the then miller) stood outside but frustratingly not included to Fuller's book.... this is all the more annoying as the text goes on to state that the building is shown with leaded lights and without the current tile cladding. Long shot - but you wouldn't happen to know where this early photograph is? It appears Mr Fuller sought confirmation of the identity of Alfred Boorman from one of his descendants a Mr R. P. Ninnim.

We suspect Mill cottage to be a half timbered building and would love to see this allusive photo - and indeed to gain any other facts that may be available, knowing how old it is would be on top of that list.

If you are able to point the way or help our better understanding that would be greatly appreciated.

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On the farm track below, again looking toward the Upper Mill Pond, originally there would have been some Hopper Huts just over the fence on the right.

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Below is Upper Mill Pond as it is today.

Pubs

In the 1950's there were eight Pubs in the village (counting the Railway which I consider to be Wateringbury buy is in the Nettlestead postal area)

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The Kings Head
This sign was never used on the original Kings Head at the crossroads. Both inn signs are from the new Kings Head.

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The original Kings Head Hotel Wateringbury
The Kings Head originally stood on the cross roads and dated back to the 18th century it was originally a farm house owned by Thomas Luck. William Croson was the inn keeper in 1754. On the 27th December 1876 it was sold to Frederic, Charles Frederick and Augustus Leney for £3100. Queen Victoria is said to have stopped there to enjoy a meal on her way from London to the coast. It closed on the 17th February 1938 to allow for the road to be widened.  The building was not demolished until the early 1960’s

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The New Kings Head Sign introduced in 1951

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The new Kings Head Hotel

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The Weather vane that can be seen on the Kings Head above was the original from the Phoenix brewery when it was demolished. The storm of 1987 blew it down from the roof here and it was sent away for repair and then lost. Today there is a smaller replica on the Kings Head

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The Queens Head

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Located at No 232 Tonbridge Road to the west of the cross roads The Queens Head Wateringbury was a small public house with a Public Bar, Saloon Bar ans Off sales window. The Queens Head closed in 1976 an has since been converted into a private dwelling.

The picture above shows the pub as I remember it right up to when it closed it looked the same.

A pump house in an out building at the rear of the pub supplied water from a well in the back garden of the nearby Gransden House to the Jude Hanbury Brewery which was at the top of Bow Road and is now a residential road called Hanbury Close. Mr Jude lived in Gransden House. Jude Hanbury was later sold to Whitbreads.

As a young lad my Mum and Dad, myself and my brother Brian would often go for a walk on a summers Sunday evening ending up at either the Harrow or the Queens Head where Dad would go in to see his friends whilst Mum, Brian and myself would sit on the wall outside the Public Bar. The wall surrounded a large laurel bushes. Dad would bring us out a drink of Vimto and cheeslets or crisps, sometimes a bar of Fruit & Nut Chocolate. I remember a fight spilling out into the car park on more than one occasion.

When a little older around fourteen I remember going to the off sales on a Sunday lunch time with an empty bottle to get a pint of mild to make shandy with to have with Sunday lunch.

The gent's toilets were outside right up to the day the pub closed and I remember them being frozen solid some winters. Though these did have running water which was a great improvement on the original gent's which were no more than a wall, this can bee seen on the photo above, it is the low wall to the left of the steps. I believe it is still visible on the house as it now is.

As a teenager the Queens Head became my local pub and I remember we had a brilliant landlord Bill & Hilda Munday (photo below) who would always buy his customers a drink. There was a juke box and bar billiard table in the saloon and dart board in the public but I only used the saloon.

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Bill & Hilda Munday

Landlords in the late 60's & early 70's

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The Queens Head a few years before looked like this

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A few years earlier here.

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The Duke Without a Head

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The Duke Without A Head Wateringbury photographed probably 1960's before being demolished in 1990. The pub stood on the outer edge of the village on the Tonbridge road. The name came about when the licence was transferred from the original 'Dukes Head' the licence stated "Permission is given to remove the Duke's Head" The renaming ceremony took place on 16th December 1940. The former "Dukes Head" is now a house and still stands in Pizen Well which was originally directly behind the new building.

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The Phoenix

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The Phoenix Wateringbury was situated half way up Red Hill on the right and today is a private dwelling. The pub closed on the 21st January 1957, it was sold for £1200. It took its name from the Phoenix Brewery in the village.

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The Harrow

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The Harrow Wateringbury as I remember it in the late 1950's early 60's

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The Harrow was closed and converted into a house in 1968. It stands on the side of Old Road which was was the main road to Tonbridge until the "new A26" was built. At one point in the 1930's my Grandfather Frederick James Gilham ran the pub.

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This is a photograph published in the Daily Mirror is of Mr & Mrs Martin calling 'time' in 1954. A letter had been published asking why publicans throw a towel over the beer pumps when time is called.

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The Railway Hotel

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The Railway Hotel was technically Nettlestead but right on the border. The pub is still open and looks much the same structurally. It was once called 'The Kent Arms' but the name changed in 1875 when the Maidstone to Tonbridge line opened, though the railway line came to the village on 25th September 1844. The Railway always flooded and I remember in 1968 and 1974 in was particularly deep.

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A much earlier Photograph.

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The North Pole

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The North Pole Wateringbury

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The North Pole Wateringbury is still open as a public house. Standing at the top of Red Hill overlooking the village it was built in 1826. For many years the inn sign was replaced with one showing a 'North Pole' in a hop field but I am glad to see very recently the old inn sign has been reinstated with the polar bear as above. The North Pole was built by Richard Gibbon on land belonging to Mathias Prime Lucas of Wateringbury Place. Richard went on to buy the freehold of the land on the 4th November 1828 but the business failed to meet his expectations and it was sold to John Beal Jude in January 1836 and later came into possession of Jude Hanbury & Co.

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The Telegraph

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The Telegraph Wateringbury is in Bow Road and this is the pub where I tried my first half pint of Bitter with my best friend and his dad. I didn't enjoy it too much then but I have persevered and I now enjoy a whole pint!

Bill Green was the Landlord and he used to say the only way the brewery would get him out of the Telegraph was in his box and that is how it was. Bill ran it from 28th May 1951 until it closed in around 1975. The pub then stood empty for years and was later demolished in around 1989.

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A much earlier photo.

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The Fir Tree

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The Fir Tree stood at the top of Cannon Lane until 1938/9 when it was demolished to make way for a larger West Malling Aerodrome. It was known as an Ale House and run by Edward & Gladys Kirby. I dont have an Inn Sign for it as I understand there never was one produced.

Shops

Shops in the Village were plentiful when I was at Primary School.

The Post Office was run by Mr Barnes as far back as I remember, a photo of Mike and Cecily in 1971 above. Before coming to the village Mike was a former bank clerk in South Africa.

The sweet shop and News Agent on the corner of Bow Road, known as the General Stores (No 1 Bow Road) was run by Mrs Diane Outram in 1971 when this photo was taken. Before this it was run by Mr & Mrs Wiseman.

Glebe Meadow Photo Album

Any Photos related to Glebe Meadow will get posted here so please send them in.

All photographs are available in the Gallery

Kindly donated by Yvonne Waghorn this photo was taken in the garden of number 11 Glebe Meadow in the early 1950's. Yvonne is in the centre on the front row. Then going anti-clockwise is David Apps, Lynnette Apps and Sherry Apps. Do you know who the others are?

Bill Sharpe the local Chimney Sweep and odd job man. He came from a large family who included sisters Gertie and Annie. I remember that Gertie had a little dog called Chummy who always had a red bow in his hair. I am reminded that Annie always wore a black coat and hat and high lace up boots.

This photo was taken of me (Back) and a friend in the back garden of No 30 Glebe Meadow, but I cant place my friend with no shirt, maybe Paul Shippey? was it you or do you recognise him?

Wateringbury School Photo 1948

A little before my school days but a very interesting photograph taken in the school playground in about 1948 kindly donated by Janet Barden who now lives in Durban, South Africa.
The Head mistress at the time was Miss Kellam-Smith.

Janet thinks the names are as follows, let us know if you can help fill the gaps.

Front row: Daphne Waghorn, Martin Town (his dad had the Post Office) Martin Rogers, Peter Martin, ? , Jean Hubbard, Dawn Walton, Pat Butcher, Ann Pearson, Janet Barden, Pauline Petrie.


Middle row:Pauline Hatful, ? , ? , ? , ? , Josephine Underhill, ? , ? , Vanda Lambert, Kay Clark, Peter Targett.
I can't remember any of those in the back row. Although I think the girl fourth from the right with the fringe is Elaine Seager.

Wateringbury Aroma

There were three aroma's in the air in Wateringbury when I was young.

The Brewery
The smell of the brewery was fairly constant but it did change in intensity depending on the stage of the brew. Several times a week there would be shipment of spent Malt and Barley which would leave the village in large yellow lorries still steaming and dripping.

Hop Picking
In September and early October each year it was hop picking time, this along with the drying process that took place in several oast houses around the village, produced a wonderful smell in the air that is rarely experienced today.

Sewerage
At the bottom end of Glebe Meadow where the bungalows and garages are today, there was a waste ground area probably where the building materials were stored when the houses were built. Here there was what we called the 'sand pit' probably just left over building sand and an area that had grown over with grass, as kids we knew it as 'down the grass' where we played. The estate was not on main drainage until the late 60's and so had two large cesspits which were basically large brick built tanks with a huge pipe covered with concrete and bricks feeding it, one from each leg of the housing estate. These cesspit's were built above ground and were constantly weeping raw sewerage from cracks in the bricks and concrete walls. As kids we thought nothing of playing on them, running along the pipe ways, one of which I remember had a flat top and the other had a rounded top and a little more difficult to run along. The top of the main tanks were made of concrete with huge concrete lids that were often lose or not properly in place. I remember one of the kids fell into one (Sherry Apps since reminded me it was her brother David Apps). Every so often when the cesspit's were full a tanker would come and empty them, it would take several trips and the smell was different from both the Hops and Brewery!

More that I have since been reminded of:-

School Soap
Yvonne Gill (Nee Waghorn) has reminded that the pink soap in the school toilets had a strange and memorable smell. I also remember the smell of the washing up liquid that was used in the school kitchen and I even remember the name of 'Teepol' it was also pink.

Pubs & Breweries in Wateringbury

In the 50's and 60's that I remember there were eight pubs and one brewery though a few years before there had been an additional Pub that was demolished to make way for the airfield during the second world war, there was also a second brewery. Two breweries in the village, one owned by Jude Hanbury at the top of Bow Road where Hanbury Close now is and one further down Bow road owned by Leneys where Leneys Road now is. Both were later owned by Whitbreads and then the lower owned by Fremlins. All the brewing families lived in the village.

The Kings Head Hotel was in the Tonbribge Road on the Maidstone side of the cross roads, probably the newest as it was built just before the old Kings Head on the Cross Roads was demolished. The Queens Head was on the other side of the Tonbridge road towards Tonbridge, The Harrow was next in Old Road and this was run for a while by my grandfather, further towards Tonbridge was the Duke Without a Head, in Bow Road there was the Telegraph where I had my first half pint of bitter and the Railway, up the hill in Red Hill was The Phoenix and at the top The North Pole. and then there was Wateringbury Working Men's Club. Today only the Working Men's Club, Kings Head and the Railway survive.

I remember when I was very young living in Bow Cottages, whenever there was a thunderstorm my mum would say the thunder was where the men were rolling the beer barrels at the brewery! at this end of the village there was always a smell of malt from the brewery which we never really thought about. I remember large yellow trucks constantly taking steaming barley and yeast away. I wish I had some photos of the brewery in Bow Road.

The brewery was just across the garden where Leney Road now is. I remember coming home from school for lunch one day and found a beer tanker had been parked outside the brewery without the hand brake being secure and it ran down the road straight across Bow Road into Wardens Close opposite , down the hill straight into the house at the bottom of the hill. Great

excitement!

The Jude Hanbury & Co Brewery at the top of Bow Road seen here as the large building on the right as taken in 1915

Below you can see the Phoenix Brewery on the right as looking up Bow Road towards the Cross Roads.

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The Inn Signs for Whitbread were designed and painted at Phoenix Brewery as seen below.

Above shows Leonard Smith outlining the Inn Sign 

Kindly confirmed by his Granddaughter Clare Nicholls