Bow Road

The road from the cross roads down the hill to the station and river is 'Bow Road', it crosses the river medway by 'Bow Bridge' and the field on the other side of the river is 'Bow Meadow' after leaving the village toward Yalding it becomes 'Bow Hill'. In 'Bow Road' there is 'Bow Terrace' and 'Bow Cottages' (where I spent my first seven years). Its thought these were named so from the Old English "boga" which signified "arched bridge" or "bridge".

Standing at the cross roads looking down the hill on Bow Road, one of the the first things to catch your eye will be the "Lock Up" on the right hand side. My Grandfather used to keep his hand cart in this in the 50's as after he retired from the brewery he looked after the street lights and kept the village tidy.

This is the only photo I can find that looks like the barrow my grandad had. It was wooden with two large wheels with steel bands and a single 'T' shaped handle to pull it with.

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Looking up Bow Road from the area which is now the entrance to Glebe Meadow and directly opposite Bow Cottages where I spent my first 7 years is the view below, probably taken long before I was born. The second building on the right was Mrs Austins Handy Stores when I was young. I remember buying paper chains there at Christmas time, they came as a pack of strips of coloured paper with some sticky lick at one end, simply looped and licked and feed the next through and so on to make paper chain Christmas decorations which were hung from the ceiling with a drawing pin. The entrance to the shop was on the far end and from the roadway leading to Bow Terrace. Its now bricked up but can still be seen today in the end wall. The door with the entrance porch as I remember was the front door to Mrs Austins house. My Grandad took me to Mrs Austins house to see horse racing on her TV when I was around five so around 1958, the first TV I had seen and one of a few in the village. The road was not very busy as there was time to pose for a photo!

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Another shot from the same spot a few years later. The Handy Stores sign can now be seen and the entrance to Glebe Meadow, there is also an electric street light.

The photograph below is a much earlier shot taken from a little further down the road outside what I knew as the Nurses house and clinic. We are looking up the road towards the cross roads, the brewery would have been on the right just around the bend. All these buildings are still there today and it looks much the same but there is a footpath on the left.

This shot is taken a few yards further up the road and now the Phoenix Brewery is clearly seen on the right. (this is not a very good copy if anyone has a better version I would be very grateful for a copy).