With the formation of the South Eastern & Chatham Railway Management Committee in 1899, travelling conditions for passengers began to improve on the Westerham branch line. There were new locomotives in lined Brunswick green and new six-wheeled carriages as well. The elderly Cudworth engines previously used on the branch were replaced with James Stirling’s class ...
Reference: WH0167
Diversity was still the name of the game in the early years of the twentieth century – if you were a fruiterer, greengrocer and nurseryman you would likely have a horse and cart, so there’s extra money to be made – you could also be a carter!
Reference: WH0436
1923 was the first year Timothy Osbourne Weller had advertised electric light installations which was a bit late, but there might have been sound thinking there as this was the year that the voltage was changed from 115 volts to 220 volts resulting in lighter gauges of cable being required. It is interesting that the first ...
Reference: WH0971
Edwin John Hollingworth rented his nursery site beside the Market Field from the Knipe estate, owners of The Grange. He was a fruiterer and florist selling from his shop sited where the Post Office is today (2018) and would be the man to go and talk to for gardening advice between the Wars. Clearly a ...
Reference: WH0434
For many years a tenant farmer on Squerryes land, Jack Steven ran the largest dairy farm in the district. Curiously, the Steven men and the Greenlees, both longstanding farming families in the area were related and both had their roots on Scottish soil. In 1951 Force Green Farm was the province of Jack Steven, Squerryes Home ...
Reference: WH0953
It is interesting to note that even in 1890, local nurseryman Arthur Jeffkins was claiming Darenth Nursery to be the oldest in the district, being over 100 years old then!
Reference: WH0420
Interesting to note that alongside being the contractor for the Sewers in 1879, John Bingham was also contractor for the town’s Water Well in 1880 and for the expansion and rebuilding of the Gas Works in 1882. The Herald from June 3rd 1882: The Gas Company are making some extensive alterations to their works, to enable ...
Reference: WH0933
This rather quaint advertisement appeared on the back of the Westerham Herald newspaper in 1883 and clearly shows where John Cattell’s business was sited, next door to the Grasshopper on the Green. Local nurseryman and seed grower Thomas Wm. Edmunds, purveyor of Cattell’s seeds quotes in the 1899 edition of ‘Wolfeland: a handbook to Westerham ...
Reference: WH0433
This advertisement from Benjamin Quittenden in the 1915 edition of Hookers Almanack quotes that John Cattell had established his seed growing business in 1799.
Reference: WH0435
This curious ‘advertisement’ appeared in the Westerham Herald in the early 1900s, clearly attempting to smooth some troubled waters. It starts by promoting that he, Charles F. Cattell, is the son of the late great nurseryman John Cattell, but then proclaims that the nursery site is remote enough to grow speciality stock and keep them ...
Reference: WH0432
Founded in 1912 the ‘Westerham Fanciers Association’ drew members from those that kept chickens and other fowl for show and breeding purposes. The President of the association was Alexander Owen Wolfe-Aylward, himself a direct descendant of James Wolfe’s uncle, who had in 1914 taken over with his wife as custodians of Quebec House, a position ...
Reference: 0043
The proximity to the M25 is clearly seen here. The station building at Brasted stood where the hard-shoulder is now and the trackbed would be under the inside-lane. The goods yard site is now in private ownership as a gated storage area.
Reference: WH0124
In amongst the undergrowth right beside the M25 on the site of Brasted Station goods yard, the remains of the coal staithe posts, though the boards have rotted away. As well as fuel for the locomotives, coal was sold from this yard to residents from the village by George Alderson, the local coal merchant who ...
Reference: WH0127
At Brasted, a house was built adjacent to the station for the Station Master, as the site was fairly remote, being a good half-mile away from the village in a somewhat wooded area. Built in 1883, the cost of the house at that time was £560.
Reference: WH0129
In 1856 sixty year-old Chimney Sweep John Newman lived in this house with his wife Mary. Working from horse and cart, there was a stable and cart-shed in the back yard. On the 1871 Census, now 76, John was still working as a sweep, but was then employing his 20 year-old grandson John in the ...
Reference: WH0951
A 1903 advertisement for Benjamin Horton, the local coal and timber merchant. Horton’s coal office still survives on the old station site at the edge of London Road, currently housing a barber’s shop (2019).
Reference: WH0111
Carved from Caen stone, the design of the doorway appears as free-form vegetation strings carved in a delicate, balanced way which is not unattractive and complements the rugged stone of the tower itself.
Reference: WH1012
Though no longer supplying electricity from this generating hall, the distinctive building still exists, being used as a store, and now held under a grade II listing option. The site is still involved with electricity, being the U.K. Power Networks training centre at Dunbrik, Sundridge
Reference: WH0947
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