Hopping Tokens

Dail sends the following explanation for the Hopping Tokens:-

Hop Tokens

There is far more history surrounding hops and subsequently hop tokens than is written here, but very briefly, hops were first cultivated in Kent in 1525 by immigrants from Flanders who brought hop plants with them, and the knowledge of how to grow them.  By the 18th century, the number of hop grounds in Kent had greatly escalated, particularly in the Canterbury, Faversham and Maidstone areas.  Subsequently the available local labour force became inadequate during the height of the hop-picking season, so hop-pickers were hired from elsewhere, predominantly people from London who treated hopping as a long working holiday.
Hop tokens were used as an on-the-job currency for the hop-pickers.  For each bushel picked the farmer would pay with tokens which were exchanged for cash at the end of the hop-picking season.  This arrangement generally facilitated the farmer's cash flow as well as discouraging the pickers from leaving the job and moving on.
Hop tokens are almost exclusively associated with Kent and East Sussex.  They generally date from about 1770 up to the start of World War Two, but because hop cultivation was not confined to this period, it seems reasonable to suggest that some sort of token currency may well have been in use before and after these dates.
The very early tokens were made of cast lead, gradually moving over to white metal alloys in the early nineteenth century.  Other metals such as brass, bronze, copper, and zinc were also used to a much lesser degree.  Early tokens would have had the farmer's initials or full name on as well as the monetary value, but from about 1835 tokens became more ornate, and may well have been embellished with either the Invicta horse, oast houses, family coats of arms, hop pokes and even hop binds.  In more modern times non-metal materials were used such as printed cardboard.  Hop tokens finally became obsolete in the 1940's when increased literacy led to written methods of accounting and payment, such as hop-pickers books.

W N Vinson.  Wateringbury.  Hop Tokens

Regarding your own Hop tokens bearing the name W N Vinson.  Wateringbury.
The fruit and hop farmer William Nash Vinson was born in Swanley Kent in 1885 to William Vinson, a farmer, and Mary Hannah Nash.
William junior, eventually married Mildred Laidlaw in Chelsea in 1909, and soon after moved to the beautiful Hall Place in East Barming.  I cannot find where his Wateringbury hop ground was situated, but suggest it was on the outer boundary of the village, as most hop grounds here are well known, and well documented.
William Nash Vinson died aged 29 in the district of Bromley in 1914, which perhaps dates your tokens between 1909 and 1914.

Hop Picking Time

September each year the village would come alive with the smell of Hops being picked and dried.

Until the 60's the hops were picked into a bin by hand, then the Mill Farm introduced a Hop picking machine. I can remember the working Oast Houses at Mill Farm and the farm behind the Post Office, there are also Oasts in Cannon Lane farm and Pelican Farm but I am not sure when they stopped being used. Tractors would be seen running from the Hop Garden to the Oast Houses constantly.

This is a photo of my Mum & her Mum Hop Picking at Mill Farm in the 40's. Behind them is a large Victorian greenhouse installed by  Richard  Fremlin who lived in the house then called May Lodge, later Broomsdown.   By the 1940’s  I think Canon Keys lived there.
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My brother Brian Gilham and Elizabeth Marchant Hop Picking in Wateringbury around 1967/8

Hop Picking at Wateringbury

A Postcard sent From Wateringbury possibly by someone on a hop picking holiday. The photos on the card do not indicate where they were taken so may not be in the village.

Hop Picking - Wateringbury

Hop Picking Wateringbury

A boy growing up in Wateringbury c. 1955 by Nick Bond

This is where I always sit when I take car numbers.  It’s right on the corner of Canon Lane and the main road.   I write down the car number, the make of the car and where it’s made.  Fords are made in Dagenham, Jaguars are made in Coventry and Austins are made in Longbridge.  I see other cars too, like Morrises, Rileys, Wolseleys, Hillmans and Humbers and motor-bikes like BSA and Norton.  They’re all English cars and bikes.  I don’t see any foreign cars but I wish I did. If I get stuck on a car I look it up in my Observer’s Book of Automobiles which I’ve always got it in my pocket.   One day in the Summer an MG sports car stopped and the driver asked me the way to the village. He had the roof down and there was a lady with him. She smiled at me.  She was nice.  I don’t do vans and lorries.  I put my bike against the seat.  It’s my sister’s blue two-wheeler and I’ve only been riding it a little while after I stopped using my trike which is green with white mudguards.  I’ve fallen off loads of times and grazed myself a bit but it’s all right.  Riding a two-wheeler is really good fun and a bit tricky but I love it.  When I’m finished taking numbers I ride home past the church.  That’s where we go from school at Christmas and Easter and some other times too.  I had to read the lesson from the Bible once standing up in front of everyone.  I was so scared but Mrs. Collins our Teacher said afterwards that I did very well.  l like Mrs. Collins she’s nice though I don’t like school much.  My school is called Wateringbury Primary School.  I don’t really like the men teachers because they get cross with you.  Mrs. Collins reads us stories when we’re in class.  I always want to look at the book Mrs. Collins reads from because it seems to have loads and loads of stories in it. Sometimes, when Mrs. Collins is reading to us some of the class go to sleep. It’s funny because you’re not supposed to wake them up.   Miss Kellam-Smith is the Headmistress. I’m scared of her but I do know that she’s got a Hillman Husky and keeps dogs called Chows, I think.   And she smokes cigarettes.  I sit next to Caroline who I like a lot and sometimes we are the milk monitors for our class.  We all get the same amount of milk in a small, glass bottle with a straw but some children have a small bottle of orange but I don’t know why.  We use a plastic thing to push down onto the bottle top to open it.  When everyone’s finished we have to put all the bottles back in the crate. We walk in twos from school to church and sometimes I walk with my friend Ida or my friend Michael and when we get to church we line up outside the porch and look at the big stones next to the path.  There are names and numbers on the stones and I think people are buried under them.  When we’re in church we sing hymns like “We plough the fields and scatter” and at Christmas “Oh, come all ye faithful” and listen to Canon Soar tell stories about Jesus. I quite like going to church but we have to be very quiet.  Then we all walk back to school.  We go right past the top of the lane where I live.  It’s called Mill Lane and I can just see the gate to our house if I look down the lane.  Sometimes I want to run across the road and go home but I know it’s not allowed. On the way back we go past Mr Bolt the newsagent where my Mum buys my comics like the Dandy and the Eagle.  I wouldn’t go into Mr Bolt’s on my own because it’s all dark inside and smells funny - I think it’s the newspapers.  We also pass Mr Furze the Grocer and over his shop front it says “Service with a smile”.  My mum taught me that.  And we pass Mr. Towns at the Post Office and opposite the Post Office is the Youth Club where my Mum serves drinks in the evenings on a Friday.  My sister goes there, she’s older than me and they do dancing to records sung by Buddy Holly and Elvis.  I can sing like Buddy Holly.  Then we walk a bit further and get to the cross-roads and turn left up the hill to school.  There’s a ladies clothes shop on the corner which has funny, orange plastic curtains in the window so you can’t really see the clothes and the orange makes them a funny colour anyway.  If you go straight on you come to Maidstone which is big town near us.  When we get to school it’s usually dinner time so we have to line up again after we’ve hung up our coats. Everyone has their own hook. Mine’s got a picture of a parrot on it.  Mrs. Long does the dinners and we have dinners like shepherd’s pie and apple and custard and sometimes Semolina that’s my favourite.  If you get strawberry jam and drop it into the Semolina and then whiz it round with your spoon really fast it goes all pink.  I love it.  We also have salad which I don’t really like.  When I was little I went home for dinner with two older girls called Hilary and Margaret who walked along with me. After dinner we go outside and play.  Sometimes we swap Whitbread Inn Sign cards.  I’ve got loads and some of them are metal which is interesting.   I love all the different colours and pictures on them.  Some of my friends skim the metal ones across the playground but I don’t because I think it’s a bit dangerous.  The boy’s toilets are in the playground and if you want a wee you go in and you have to stand outside and it doesn’t smell nice.  From our playground I can look across and see the hop garden. I think I’d like to be there.  I know my Dad’s there.  Anyway, sometimes on my way home I go into the Post Office and get an OrangeMaid lolly that I eat as I walk.  They’re fourpence.   I walk to school and back home on my own now.  Mum meets me at the top of Mill Lane when I get there and watches me cross the road.  At Christmas we have a party at school.  The main hall is laid out with long tables and everyone has a drink of orange and a hat and cake and ice-cream and there’s the smell of candles burning and glue from the streamers that go across the room and are stuck to the walls and there’s a big fire in the stove and sometimes we get presents.  And there’s a big Christmas tree. My Mum gives presents to the Dr.Barnado’s boys and girls who don’t have a Mum and Dad.  She gives the boys Dinky toys but I don’t know what she gives the girls.  They all live together in a big house.  Michael is one; he’s a friend of mine.  When there’s snow I get a lift to school sometimes with my Dad or one of the other Dads who’s got quite a big Austin car.  We pick up other children on the way and they all get in the back or the front.  I can sit in the front because I’m one of the first to be picked up.  Sometimes we have six or seven of us in the car.  We all squeeze in. It’s fun.  When we get to school we change out of our Wellingtons and put on our plimsolls.  Then the whole school goes into the main hall for assembly.  We sing a hymn like “Onward Christian Soldiers” and say “Our Father......” and one of the teachers talks to us and tells us things.  This happens every day.  Anyway, this is my house.  I live at Mill Lane House, Mill Farm, Wateringbury, Kent, England, the World.  My bedroom’s at the back and looks out over the tennis court which is really just a big, grass lawn with a tree called a Silver Birch right in the middle.   Sometimes I shoot arrows out of my bedroom window to see how far they go.  Once I got one all the way up to the greenhouse at the end of the lawn.  My Dad says I should watch out that I don’t hit Mum’s washing or I’ll “cop it”.   Our house has got a back-yard, garage, workshop, rockery, steps going up to what we call the tennis court, a Summerhouse with a thatched roof and a huge tree next to our gate.  It’s called a Yew tree and Dad says that its red berries are poisonous and not to touch them.  So I don’t.  Across the road from our house lives a man called Admiral Moore.  I see him sometimes and he says hello.  Once I threw my hat over his wall and he threw it back – it was funny.  An Admiral is someone who is in charge of a big ship.  My Dad’s manager of Mill Farm.  He grows apples and hops.  He says he’s a pomologist.  He taught me that word.  He’s got an office down in the yard.  It’s a really big farm and I’ve never been to the end of it.  I go down to the yard quite a lot on my bike though you have to dodge the spray if they are spraying the apples in the orchard next to Mill Lane. The spray is all yellow and doesn’t smell nice and you don’t want to breathe it in or get it your mouth.  It’s used to kill aphids and red spider, my Dad says.  Aphids are tiny insects that get into the apples and my Dad showed me a red spider once.  They’re little too.  Sometimes I take my cart which our gardener, old Vic, made for me.  It’s got pram wheels and you steer with your feet on the front axle.  The axle is the part which the wheels are fixed to at each end.  I get a good run-up and then go as fast as I can down Mill Lane to see if I can get from home to the yard without stopping.  Down Mill Lane it’s a bit narrow. Once I crashed into the hedge but that was alright really.  I go fast and I have to steer round puddles and use the hand brake which got stuck under the cart once and turned it over.  I fell out and cut my knees but it wasn’t much.  The cart was alright and that was the main thing.  When you pass the pond you go left round the mill and the track goes down so you can pick up speed.  One day I met my Dad coming the other way in his car and I had to go straight into the stinging nettles.  That was a bit bad and I had to rub Dock leaves into the stings which helped but my legs were covered in stings.  I did cry a bit, I suppose. When I got home Mum put pink stuff called Calamine lotion on the stings which was cold but it sort of helped.   After I’ve had a run down Mill Lane I have to pull the cart all the way back home again.  I love my cart and when I’m driving it I pretend I’m Stirling Moss in his racing car.  One day my sister fell into the pond.  We were there with some friends and they said she went down under the water, came up and went down under again and then came up again.  She was all wet and had green bits in her hair.  I didn’t know what to do really and I sort of cried a bit but we walked her back up Mill Lane to home.  My Mum came out and took her straight indoors.  On a Friday the fish-man parks outside our house.  He’s got a green Bedford van but when he opens the rear doors it’s all white inside and there’s large lumps of ice all smoking and loads and loads of fish in trays and a fishy smell.  My Mum gets kippers for my Dad and plaice for me.  A plaice is a flat fish sort of grey colour with pink spots.  The fish-man slices it up and gives it to Mum in newspaper and he throws bits of fish to our cat Misty.  If Mum gets some I know we’re going to have plaice and chips for tea.  It’s my favourite.   On Saturdays and in the holidays my friends and I play around the farm.  In the orchards we build forts out of apple boxes.  We make a square of boxes and then build them up really high so when you climb to the top you can see a long way and the boxes sway about so you have to be careful not to make them tip over.  The boxes smell a lot of apples.  Sometimes we might take an apple off the tree to eat.  You’ve got to make sure you’re taking an eater and not a cooker because they’re not sweet like an eater.  Then you’ve got to give it a good wipe on your shirt or something in case it’s just been sprayed.  Sometimes the fort does tip over which is a bit dangerous I suppose but really funny.  Anyway, we have knife-throwing games because we’ve all got some sort of knife like pen-knives or ex-army knives or sheath-knives.  Mine’s got a horn handle and five inch blade.  I wear it on my belt in a sheath.  We use our knives to sharpen straight sticks to make arrows and cut thin, straight branches to make bows.  You cut a notch in each end of the branch and fit your string and tighten it and you’ve got a bow.  With arrows, you strip off the bark, sharpen one end to a point and cut a notch in the other to fit the string of the bow.  We never cut ourselves or anything with our knives because we’re using them every day and know how to use them the right way.  There’s always loads of string around because they use it for the hops.  My Dad is in charge of the hops and the hop gardens.   Our hop garden is really big; you can’t see the end of it.  To get there you go past the Mill and carry on up past Canon Key’s house along a narrow track with a wall on one side and suddenly you come out into the hop garden.  There’s rows and rows of hops and hundreds and hundreds of hop poles.  Sometimes I go into a row and take a handful of hops and put my face in it.  I love the smell of hops.  I know that our hops are called Goldings.  In September loads of hop-pickers come to pick the hops.  There’s hundreds of them and they arrive riding on the backs of lorries with their tables and chairs or in old cars all the way from London. They bring their children with them too but they aren’t like us, they look as though they want to fight you and they’re a bit dirty too.  My Mum won’t let me play with them – I’m not sure I want to anyway.  The ‘pickers live in huts around the farm but they don’t have electric light or water.  Well, there is a tap outside the huts which they use.  And they build fires and sit round them.    They have fights too so my Dad said.  He says it’s because they drink too much beer.  One night the policeman came to speak to them – and there was a fight so my Mum said.   It’s always the end of Summer at hop-picking time and near the end of the holidays too and me and my friends are outside all day and right up until teatime and sometimes after tea and our arms and legs and hands and faces go all brown in the sun.  It looks really funny ‘cos the rest of you is white.  I really like that time of year when the hops are being picked.  What we do is we wait for a trailer to come by on its way to the kiln really piled up high with hop pokes full of hops and then we climb right to the top when the trailer’s moving and the driver can’t see us.  When you get to the top of the trailer you can look down on the tractor driver or you can lie on top of the pokes and have a ride down to the oast house.  When we do that I just want to go to sleep because the tractor and trailer is going really slowly and it’s hot and sunny and I feel sleepy.  But you’ve got to still make sure you’re hanging on tight but it’s like lying in a bed.  When we get to the oast house we have to climb down really quickly so we don’t get seen.  Sometimes we go into the Oast house which smells really strong and shuffle amongst the hops.  We kick them up and cover ourselves in them and rub our hands with them.  If you rub your hands with green hops they go all brown and smell funny - your hands, I mean, not the hops.   You’ve got to be careful in the oast because there’s a hole in the floor where they fit the pocket.  The dried hops are pushed into the pocket by the men and then when it’s full the pocket is sown up.  I’ve watched them doing it loads of times.  Sometimes the driver leaves the tractor’s engine running.  I like to stand and watch the tractor – it shudders and blows out smoke and it’s like it’s alive.  It’s blue and a Fordson tractor.  In the hop field my Mum does the tallying.  Tallying is when baskets of hops are emptied into a big round metal bin. She does that all day and makes notes in a notebook.  At the end of each week my Mum and Dad pay the pickers.  The pickers line up outside my Dad’s office window which has got bars and they get paid their money.  In the office is where my Dad keeps his shotgun.  He says it’s a 4/10. I don’t know what that means but he let me shoot with it one day. I fired at a metal drum.  When I pulled the trigger there was a bang and the drum went flying and I went backwards.  Afterwards I looked at the drum and it was full of little holes.  I asked my Dad if I could have another go but he said no.  I used to go with my Mum sometimes when she was tallying but there’s not much to do except watching the men cut the hop bine or ride on the mudguard of the tractor.  It’s really bumpy and you have to hold on really tight because the driver sometimes goes fast and it’s really noisy and smoky.  Or you ride right at the back of the trailer and let your legs dangle over the end.  It hurts a bit because you’re bouncing around and hanging on tight at the same time but it’s really good fun.  After tea I ride my bike round past my Dad’s office when he’s there.  I go past his office, up the slope, go right past the hop dryers - that’s the best bit because as you pass the open door of the dryer you get a hot blast of air, then you hit the cold air, then you get a blast of hot air from the next dryer then you hit cold air again and then you’re at the top where you go down and go right, along and then past my Dad’s office again.  I go round and round making lots of wheel tracks.  When I get home in the evening my Mum takes me and puts me in the bath and then bed.  She says a little prayer which I listen to but I’m sometimes asleep before she finishes.  Then it’s morning again but straight away.  It’s funny.  Sometimes I stay in bed for a while listening to the Rooks in their nests quite a long way away.  A Rook is a black bird – quite big and goes “caw, caw, caw” and builds its nest at the top of tall trees.  As well, I love to watch the Swallows swooping and diving and building their nests right outside my bedroom window and listen to them tweeting.  They fly so fast.  At the end of the hop-picking my Dad gives me a 10 shilling note for being really good.  Sometimes my Dad drives me round the hop field in our car which is an Austin Somerset.  It’s a bit bumpy as we drive round and sometimes my Dad stops to talk to someone and he can be gone ages.  Our car is black and it’s got column-change.  That means that the gear lever is just under the steering wheel and not on the floor.  Also, the hand-brake comes out under the dashboard.  I know what all the switches and knobs do on the dashboard but I’m not really allowed to touch them.  Dad says he’s going to teach me to drive when I’m a bit older – I can’t wait.  Sometimes, if I’ve got my bike I go into the orchard where it’s easier to ride.  I’ve got some tracks I’ve made for riding round really fast.  Once a tractor and sprayer slid down into a ditch - a long way down.  I went to see it and it was a bit scary as the driver was hurt so my Dad said.  The tractor and sprayer were on their side still joined together.  It did look funny.   When I’m not with my friends I like to lie on the grass in our garden and watch the clouds go by and listen to the birds singing and watch the trees blowing in the wind and feel the warm sun on my face.  Sometimes I might read a book like The Wind in the Willows which I’m reading right now or I chase Butterflies – there are so many around with so many colours.  I wish it could be like this for ever but I sort of know it won’t be.  Anyway, that’s what I do when I’m not collecting car numbers.

As written and sent to us by Nick Bond

       

Home Farm Wateringbury in the 1950's

 More lovely photos from Colin Brotherwood taken at Home Farm in the 1950's.

Thank's Colin for sharing the following.

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The first image down the lane due to the newish barn in the background is probably from 1957. 

As is the Hop fields picture I think. 

Hop picking at Home farm with the Watsons is probably taken in the early 50's before I was born. 

L-R is Rodney, my mother Jean, Harold, and their mother Alice. 

My mother always told me she hated picking hops.

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Hop Farm Stilts

Looking up at the Hop Farm Stilt Walker on a farm in Wateringbury. 
These were used to enable the worker to get high enough to work on the top of the hop bind at stringing stage early season and to cut the hop binds at picking time. It was a common sight before the tractor was used to cut and take the hops to the picking machine. When the tractor was used it had a 'crows nest' on the trailer which the worker stood in to do the same job.

Wateringbury Railway Station

Wateringbury Railway Station is still much as it was when I was a boy but of course it is not occupied in the same way. It used to have a resident stationmaster Mr Mayes and Ken Philpot worked at the station. There was a ticket office with a real fire in the winter. The signal box must be one of the last to be used in a village but I am sure someone can confirm or put me right. Today the signal box looks like the photo below and the signal man still opens and shuts the crossing gates by hand.

Below is a much earlier photo but as you can see the major change is the train was then steam.

The platform and station building as it is today.

As it was below, the key difference being the Paddock Wood bound platform waiting room has gone and there is no foot bridge. I think the footbridge was a standard design as it is the same as the plastic one I had in my Hornby Triang train set!

Not sure what year the concrete bridge arrived but it is not in the above but is in the photograph below and I am sure is still in use today. The photo immediately below seems to have been taken in May 1961 and the Hop Pickers train below was taken in September 1952 and the bridge is absent then so the bridge must have arrived sometime between 1952 and 1961. Does anyone know exactly when? 
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Anne Stephens, Nee Mayes writes from Adelaide South Australia
 

My father was Station Master from 1956-1960 .When we arrived there was no footbridge but it had been there for a year or two when we left so would suggest it was 58 or 59. regards Anne s,

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This should probably be on the Hop Picking insert as it is the Hop Pickers special.

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Other than use it when young, mainly to go to Maidstone, I don't remember much about the station. I will need your help to make this section more interesting.

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One event I do remember was a goods train derailment just beyond the crossing on the Nettlestead side of the station. The above picture was taken of my Mum and brother and probably dates it around 1965/66. We all went home with cans of fruit that had spilled out all over the bank.

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.

Village People

Keith Harden recently left a note on the message board which read:

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I never lived in Wateringbury! but my mother, Gladys Harden, nee Kirby did. Indeed, her mother and father, my grandparents, are the same Edward and Gladys Kirby mentioned as running The Fir Tree Ale House on your 'old pubs' page. She lived there together with sisters Joan and Betty and all three of them had to help in running the pub in their teenage years. The pix of hop picking strike a chord with me because, even though the family moved away when The Fir Tree was demolished, we still hop picked every years (I think they lived at Paddock Wood then). I remember little else of the time but some names stick - Cronk (another website gives the Cronks as licensees of The Fir Tree) and Ada or Ida Shepherd. Anyone remember my family? A house fire 8 years ago destroyed most of our family archive and I am trying to resurrect it. Thank you.

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Keith has now kindly sent some photos which we hope will jog some memories and enable us to help him put some names to some of the people and places.

Over to you Keith:...............

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Well, I hope these photos are good enough for you to do something with.  They are, as you can see, poor quality and somewhat fire and water ravaged.  However, now that my interest has been excited by your website I felt I must send them; you will probably have seen the latest from Diane Hayes on the message board and it turns out that although we are not actually related, we nearly are!  Words of explanation to go with the photos are as follows:

The family group of Ted and Gladys Kirby with daughters Gladys (back) and Betty.  The gent sitting in the front is my maternal Great Grandfather Henry Martin, who was landlord of the Queens Head was Whitbreads longest serving licensee at 47 years. (his son in law Fred Cronk was landlord of the Nort Pole).

This is my Aunt Joan (Cheeseman, daughter of Gladys Kirby from her first marriage), my mother Gladys and the youngest sister Betty.  The family used to refer to this photo as “The Bisto Kids” – that too should bring back memories for your readers.

 This lady is Evelyn Adams, nee Martin.

Possibly taken on the wedding day in the photo at top right – my mother on the right with Doris next to her but I do not know the others.  I do have a dim recollection of the very tall, elegant lady second from the left.

Dawn has since kindly written to say that the elegant lady is her Gran Ada Shepherd and that from left to right is: Mrs Latter, Ada Shepherd (Dawns Gran), Lily Shephard (Dawns Aunt) and Doris Huggett (nee Shepherd).

 

A real piece of social history – May Day at Wateringbury CofE School. My Aunt Betty Kirby is seated to the immediate right of the May Queen with Gladys Kirby standing far right.

'The Handyman, Queens Head'

I have no idea who this gentleman is but am guessing he might be an ancestor of mine.  Any help from readers would be appreciated.

This is of Ted and Gladys Kirby in their garden at Northbourne in 1937 where he was licensee of the Hare & Hounds.

I am guessing that this house is/was in Wateringbury because it was on the same page in the family album as many of these other photos.  Address or connection to my family, unknown.

The wedding of Dick Huggett and Doris ? – is the lady on the right Ada Shepherd?  

It was taken in May 41.

 Dawn again later writes to say this is William Shepherd (Dawns Uncle), Dick Huggett, Doris Huggett and Ada Shepherd (Dawns Gran).

 

This is my Great Grandfather Walter Kirby with two of his daughters, Louie and Ivy.

One final plea, my reference above to Glady’s Kirby’s first marriage to someone called Cheeseman who was killed during World War I.  I have not been able to identify him from the numerous soldiers of that name, all from Kent, and was wondering if any of your readers might be able to help.  I know there is a soldier of that name on the Wateringbury War Memorial but the military records show him as leaving a widow Alice rather than Gladys, so I doubt it is him.  My father’s research came up with the theory that he died fighting with the Black Watch (I hope that means fighting with rather than against them !) but he would not have been Scots.  If any of your readers can identify who he might be (name, regiment, etc) I would be most grateful.

All the above photos are courtesy of Keith Harden

The People of Wateringbury 1650-1841

Steven MacDougall has published an eBook that may be of interest to our readers

The Book

People of Wateringbury 1650-1841

 Click on the Book to buy and Download immediately

The records of every person who lived in Wateringbury between 1650 and 1841 were researched for this book, which tells what it was really like to live in Wateringbury at that time, through the lives of the people who actually lived there.

Who were the poor families? Who were the rich? How did the rich control the poor? and how did the poor control the rich? How did they interact? Some families remained poor over the whole period and others remained rich, but some changed their position in the village hierarchy. As families change their position they appear in different types of records and interact with others in different ways. Individual people also change their position in the hierarchy as part of their life cycle from single person to married person to old age. The book deals with different aspects of their lives in a chronological way. Some families can be followed from the beginning of the book in the 1600's to the end in the 1840's but Wateringbury was not an isolated village: It was in the county of Kent, not far from London so it is not surprising that people and families were moving in and out of the village the whole time. The book ends in the 1840's when the railway reached the village and the rate of movement increased.

By this time Wateringbury was well known as a hop growing area and the quantity of the harvests was regularly reported in the newspapers. Some of the people who picked the hops came from as far away as Ireland and they often caused a lot of trouble by attacking the locals and breaking into houses. One amusing aspect of this is that from time to time when people appear in court in London and they want an alibi, they say they were not in London but in Wateringbury hop picking !

There is a whole chapter on the Tomlin family, which is a detailed case study of one family over several generations. The Tomlins were the ancestors of the Perrin family of Wateringbury through the marriage of Elizabeth Tomlin to Thomas Perrin in 1754 when he moved to Wateringbury. Thomas Perrin and his family ran the main carpentry and building business in Wateringbury for the next one hundred years. The carpentry yard was behind Vine House and was there for hundreds of years before it was knocked down in the 1990’s. No photographs of the yard have been found yet. Has anyone seen a photograph?

Other families descended from the Tomlins include the Reeve family at Wateringbury and the Boorman family from William and Rebecca. Both of these were butchers in Wateringbury. The chapter on the Tomlins will be of special interest to  descendants of these families.

Thomas Perrin's house next to where the yard was.

The side of Charles Perrin's house where he kept his horses

Hop Picking Token from W.N Vinson

We received the following from Jonathan King.

These tokens were paid for hops picked and exchanged for real money when the hop pickers finished their time and went home. It was a good way to stop the husbands of the pickers spending the earnings in the local pubs.

Thanks Jonathan

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I have found a 1d WN Vinson Wateringbury while metal detecting in Dover Kent . After some research on the net I cam across your very interesting site that gave me plenty of information regarding my find. Thank you kind regards Jonathan .

From our Message Board

The following was left on the message board by Paul Reynolds which I though would be good to share with you all and Paul kindly agreed.

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Hello all. I was born in Wateringbury in 1948. My mother was Dorothy nee Thorne, father Bill Reynolds. We lived at 12 Glebe Meadow. My mother kept in touch with a number of village people over her life. We left in 1954, but by some irony I had a job for awhile in the early 90's at West Malling Airdrome. Mrs Apps lived next door. my grand parents lived in The Garage Flat, opposite Dr. Severns House. I remember my mother talking about John Severn and the now famous Fighter Pilots who visited his house during the battle of Britain era. She had a friend Helen Long on Red Hill I believe. Her father Gus Thorne was in the Merchant Navy in WW1 and had the Cricketers Pub in Maidstone before moving to Wateringbury. My father lived for some years wih his Cousins in Pheonix Cottages Nettlestead. I remember the Bardens, Eileen, who married Sid Targett. I went to Peter Targetts wedding in Maidstone, a good old fashioned beery punch-up type. I do not remember anything of school or if I had school friends. I remember the Tramps and going Hop Picking. The Gypsy fights in the Pubs. There was a Flop House for tramps on the road to Teston. The Garage Flat was supposed to be built from the Old London Bridge Stones that formed the Gallows. It was a cold place full of huge black Spiders, the biggest ever seen. There were Oast Houses at the back of the Yard, and used to be very busy. For a small village there were lots of shops. Eric Boreman, Skinners, all people my Mother knew well. There was the usual village simpleton all the children were warned not to talk to. All I remember of those childhood days were the walks in the Orchards and lanes, the River Medway, and busy village life. Best regards to all of you.

Memories of Anna Harvey

Richard Harvey kindly sent the following

 

I was involved in an interesting debate about Whitbread miniature innsigns on the More Memories of Maidstone Facebook page yesterday, which led onto some reminiscences about Wateringbury pubs, which also involved Eric Beadel. I sent the link to my sister, Anna, who lives in Northern Cyprus and who, like me, spent her early years at the King's Head,Wateringbury.

Anna has emailed me today with some lovely memories of life in Wateringbury immediately after World War Two, and I thought you might be interested in this edited version in which, quite rightly, she corrects one or two of my memories - but then I was only a tiny sprog, who has subsequently spent his entire adult life in journalism and is therefore bound to make a mistake or two!

Anyway, I attach some of her thoughts, which you might like to add to your interesting Wateringbury website, and perhaps you might like to copy in Eric.

Thanks and kind regards

Richard

WATERINGBURY MEMORIES

By Anna Harvey

I am 99% sure that John and Hilda Harvey never were the tenants of the King’s Head, but simply worked there to learn the ropes of running a pub. The tenants were the Strattens, possibly Dutch.

John became very friendly with Dr Severn, the village doctor, one of whose sons was a Battle of Britain pilot. They had a lovely Georgian house and surgery over the crossroads, on the right hand side going towards Tonbridge, with a swimming pool no less, into which I fell and nearly drowned!

During the war, John served as a Major in the Royal Corps of Signals, and Hilda and I moved to The Orpines, Wateringbury, probably in 1943 or 44. As I recall a grey stone manor house in large grounds with a huge kitchen garden. I think it is now a housing estate, but maybe the old house is still there.

The Pratt Boormans, who owned the Kent Messenger, lived downstairs after living in South Africa. Their son, Edwin, is responsible for my paranoia over snakes, having regaled me with some lurid South African tales!

The house was owned by an elderly lady and her daughter, the Hornbys. I recall mum saying they were very kind to her, and as they had a car were able to  take her to Fant Lane Maternity Hospital, Maidstone when 'her time came' for brother Richard to be born.

When John was demobbed in 1945, our family moved over the road to the King’s Head. Whilst there, I recall a travelling cinema coming to set up in the large hall at the pub.  It was freezing cold, but I used to sneak in the back and then have the wits scared out of me watching fearsome native indians about to put someone to death before Tarzan came swinging through to the rescue!!  

Albert Jukes owned the garage next door to the pub, while his wife Doris ran the local shop at the top of the hill running down towards the river. Opposite was an old forge where we watched the smithy at work.

At hop-picking time, when all the Londoners came down, she used to erect a very high metal screen across the counter, and all transactions had to be passed over the top!

I started at Wateringbury Primary in 1945. Headmistress Miss Kellam Smith – shades of the Prime of Jean Brodie. She wore a pinstriped suit with a man's jacket and a skirt with  2 pleats at the front and 2 at the back & lace-up brown brogues. All topped with a short haircut…..

The school was situated at the top of Red Hill, and we walked to school every day. I remember the evil winter of '47, the worst on record, and coming out to the front of the King’s Head to find the huge in/out car park covered in frozen ruts which the cars had churned up. I literally had to cross it on my hands and knees and then walk on to school.-.at just 7 years old!

Ice and rubber-soled wellie boots don't mix, and don't even mention the chapped legs!  There were the usual snowball fights, and long icy slides in the playground of course, but worst of all was that the toilets at the back of the playground had frozen solid, so they had to bring in Elsan chemical toilets which could only be placed in the cubicles with the doors wide open!! On the way back to the classroom, I would break an icicle off the asbestos gutter for a lolly!

Some little time after the war ended I recall a Pageant being held at the big house. which I now presume as being Wateringbury Place. We little girls had to dance round the maypole in our prettiest summer dresses. and the rest is rather hazy but I do recall lots of stretchers laid out with soldiers on them. Perhaps the house had been requisitioned for a military hospital? Could have been celebrating V.J Day.

Two other post-war memories…

First, Mum grabbing me by the hand, and rushing along through the village to the grocer’s shop on the left, out past the doctor’s house, saying “Hurry, hurry,I have heard they have got bananas in”. What’s all the fuss, I thought. What’s a banana? 

And secondly, dear old Mrs Jukes. When she finally got a delivery of ice cream, she instantly sent a message up to the school with this news. All lessons stopped. Teachers lent us all a penny each, and soon after a basket was sent up (perhaps her son on a bike) full of those little Lyons Maid cylinders that sat in the top of a cone. But no cone, just the delicious ice cream! What a sublime treat.