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.

The Railway - Wateringbury 1910

A great photo from 1910 which I assume would be Hopping Time as there seems too many people around for any other time of year and there were Hopper Huts on the riverbank around this time. Amazing to think so much fun outside the Railway pub and looks like even The Telegraph pub a few yards up the road with no traffic on the road. This photo is available to purchase from Fotolibra.

Click on the photo to go to Fotolibra website.
or click below: 

http://www.fotolibra.com/gallery/960189/near-wateringbury-rail-station-c1910/?search_hash=5825780926b8c266609a2604e4738f01&search_offset=0&search_limit=100&search_sort_by=

Wateringbury Railway Station

Wateringbury Railway Station (Front Entrance)

Wateringbury Railway Station

Wateringbury Railway Station

Kent County Council workers repairing the road outside the Railway Inn

 

Colin Brotherwood kindly sends us a photo we have seen before and he says: 

This is a copy of a poor photo of council workers mending the road in front of The Railway pub. My father when he was alive said that his dad Charles Brotherwood (leaning on the front of the lorry) was best pals with Ernie Morgan. I believe that Ernie is to the left of my Grandad next to the drivers door. The photo is probably from the 50's.

John Gilham replys....Indeed I can confirm the guy by the drivers door is Ernie Morgan who was my Grandfather ..

This is a certificate my brother recently gave me that was presented to my Grandfather Alfred Ernest Morgan (known to all in the village as Ernie Morgan) on his retirement from The Kent County Council in July 1955 where he had worked for 36 years. He spent the remaining four years of his retirement working part time in the village for the council changing bulbs in the traffic lights and keeping the roads and pavements clean.

 A News cutting with Ernie Morgan

Floods by the Railway Wateringbury

The floods by the railway as seemed so often back in the 50's and 60's

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

The Railway Hotel Outing to Dymchurch

The Railway Hotel outing to Dymchurch

Photo courtesy of Janet Barden

This photograph was kindly donated by Janet Barden. It looks as though all the men but one were at work. Can you help put a date to it, are you in the photo or do you recognise anyone?

Back row sith lady from the left holding a baby is Elsie Norton holding Adrian, ninth from left is Bet Trip.

Jean Groves (nee Porter) known as Nib or Nibs Porter, is in the front row sitting down, third from the left trying to hide behind the boy standing next to her.

Jean Groves also sends us these names:-

Wateringbury Railway Station in 1886

Wateringbury Railway Station in 1886

Photo courtesy of Hayden Brown

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.