The Cross Roads

Wateringbury Cross Roads were originally known as Wateringbury Cross

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On the South East corner was a Hotel called The Kings Head Hotel. It must have been knocked down in the late 50's to make the junction wider for the increase in traffic. I don't remember the Hotel being there though my good friend Mike does. I only remember the left over rubble from the demolition as we used to play in it. The photo above shows the Hotel in its glory years. Below it on the left, just beyond the car is the Jude Hanbury Brewery now Hanbury Close. This was one of two brewery's in the village. The other was Leaneys further down Bow Road on the left, both later to become Whitbreads and later Fremlins.
The building immediately below the hotel is the shop which I knew as Outrams when I was a boy (now the Snooker shop) next to that was the Butchers owned by Boormans, strangely the butcher working in the shop when I was young was Jack Skinner who was no relation to the other Butcher in the village also Skinners. The next shop was Mac the Barbers.

Between the hotel and the shop was an alley where there still stands today a long narrow single storey building that was used by a target shooting club when I was small, however my mum remembers this as a cinema and later a scout hall.

This picture taken looking towards the cross roads from Bow Road shows the Hotel taking a delivery of beer from the brewery dray.

On the opposite side of the cross roads and behind the dray in the above photo is what I remember as the village bakers, though in my time no baking took place on the premises.

In front of the Bakers Shop are two iron bollards, as far back as I can remember they always look as though a vehicle has clipped them as they are never upright. These were cast in a small foundry behind Southwark Cathedral in London and are dated 1826 and were cast to mark the Clink Liberty adjacent to the Cathedral. They are embossed 'Clink 1826'. Behind Southwark Cathedral there are similar bollards embossed 'Clink 1812' The Bishop of Winchester exercised jurisdiction over this liberty, and the Clink was a private prison attached to the medieval palaces. It is thought probable that the name of prison gave origin to the expression:- "Send a person to clink"

These bollards were brought to Wateringbury on a barge along with some Rag Stone salvaged from the old London Bridge and that stone was used to build the wall in front of Pelican farm just a little further up Red Hill on the same side of the road. Today there are two bollards but only one is the original as some time ago one was broken in an accident.

Cars in the village in the early 60's were a novelty, I remember having a note pad on a roller on which I collected car numbers, it was easy to write down a number and then wait for the next car to come along sometimes this seemed to take ages. Seven or eight years later in 1968 the primary school children conducted a survey at the cross roads when one day between 2:45pm and 3:45pm there were only 192 cars, 62 commercial vehicles, 58 light commercial vehicles, 2 pedal cycles, 4 motor cycles and 12 pedestrians recorded.