Allotments under threat. Following the second World War local planning was well under way for the development of much needed social housing to expand on that first built on Nursery Site in 1927 and at the Paddock. Some allotment sites were put under threat by these development plans and to that end Westerham Allotment Holders ...
Reference: 0048
Adits is the term used to describe horizontal passages leading into a mine for the purposes of access or drainage. Hosey caves below Kennedy Gardens had no drop-shafts, being quarried into the hillside of the Greensands ridge. There are about six adits in total giving access to a network of quarry tunnels branching off in ...
Reference: WH0461
Home to the Matthews family between the wars, these cottages were originally built to house nursery workers. The origin of the name ‘Newton’ has faded into obscurity, but was well known to older townsfolk at that time. This was one of the first nursery sites to be closed around the area, closely followed by Farley ...
Reference: 0050
As the economy began to grow after WWII it was common for larger businesses to treat their workers to a day at the seaside and this would, for many, be the only holiday they got! Whole families would be invited to join the occasion, Hastings, Margate and Southend being popular destinations at the time.
Reference: WH0470
J. S. Charlton of Sevenoaks opened a branch in Westerham in what is currently (2019) Nisa convenience store. Commonly referred to as ‘Corn Stores’, they would sell anything to do with gardening, smallholdings and allotments – from seed sold in ounce and half-pint measures, to bean canes, spades, forks, dibbers, string and twine – anything ...
Reference: 0052
An earlier business than ‘Charltons’, E. J. Hollingworth had taken over a fruiterer, florist and seedmen’s business started by E. F. Crabb in the 1890s in what is today (2019) the Post Office. Hollingworth grew fruit, flowers and vegetables on his own nursery beside the market field (now Quebec Avenue) and is immortalised in the ...
Reference: WH0465
Like Edwin Hollingworth, Charles Aubrey Botley had his own nursery to supply his greengrocer’s business at the bottom of Vicarage Hill, in the quirky lattice-fronted building which is today called simply ‘Darenth’ after Botley’s Darenth Nurseries shown here.
Reference: 0053