Westerham Gas & Coke Co Advert 1931
June Ingram reflected on her families involvement with the Gasworks “…around 1950 when I was about six, my parents moved from Granville Road into the Gasworks Cottage. Mr and Mrs Herbert had been there for some years as he was manager of the works. Westerham was by then on a piped supply of town-gas from Sydenham Gasworks, so the local works had closed down and Mr Herbert was retiring – my dad had been a stoker at the Gasworks when it was run by the Westerham Gas and Coke Company and they needed somebody to keep an eye on things and ensure the gas holders were always full enough. If the demand was high – Christmas was a good example – and the gas holders got too low, dad had to phone through to Sydenham on the works phone and ask them to boost the supply.
Not surprisingly the house was gas-lit and I remember my mum used to say ‘mind the mantles’ as it was always open house and all my brothers friends and my friends used to congregate there, despite it being a fair walk from the town…”
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