During the 1900s Westerham held an annual fair day on May 3 which was initially held on the Green, but moved to market field some time after 1910. The market day would include swings, roundabouts and stalls, but would also be a day of livestock trade. In 1907 Hookers Almanack ‘Epitome of Events’ records: ‘3 May ...
Reference: WH0661
In 1915 army chaplain the Reverend Phillip Clayton was sent to the battlefields of France and then on to the town of Poperinge in Belgium. A few miles back from the trenches around Ypres, ‘Pops’ was a busy transfer station where troops on their way to and from the Flanders battlefields were billeted. ‘Tubby’ Clayton ...
Reference: WH0750
Members of Westerham TocH pack up Christmas goodwill food parcels to be distributed amongst the aged and infirm of the town L-R Lord Colgraine, Norman Peskett, Alan Hobbs, Fred Johnson, Harold Beale, Doug Major and Charlie Taylor. Seated is ‘the pilot’ Bob Strickett Photo courtesy Sevenoaks Chronicle Westerham Toc H gets the ...
Reference: WH0751
A cartoon of Westerham TocH members in characature sketched by Sevenoaks artist Mickey Durling in 1962
Reference: WH0752
Photographs of the actual farmhouse at Delegarde are fairly rare and this is the only one we know of with children in the shot. The other thing you almost never see is that the Oast House has a ‘cowl and cap’ on it as in this photograph. Of the number of shots that exist of ...
Reference: WH1050
The Town Band played on The Green to respect the occasion as the congregation left the church following the United Memorial Service for King Edward VII who had died on May 6th 1910.
Reference: WH0858
Westerham’s Town Band’s ‘Serpent’ dates from the earliest days of the Town Band in 1892 when the ‘First March of the Volunteer Brass Band’ was witnessed under the conductorship of Mr Thomas Hardes. The design of the instrument is much older than that and the Serpent may have been nothing more than a ‘mascot’ for the ...
Reference: WH0862
Built and opened with share capital in 1865, Westerham’s Public Hall (or Town Hall as it was often called) enjoyed a chequered existence as a public meeting place, never quite achieving the profit dreamed of by the shareholders. User groups would suddenly find themselves financially embarrassed and unable to pay their rent, and the charges ...
Reference: WH1079
This photograph, taken around 1908, shows the hall’s close proximity to the kerb-edge. When the road was ‘metallised’ in the 1920s, as much width as could be provided was used, hence it was not surprising that the porch canopy had to be removed along with the gas lamp on the other side of the road. ...
Reference: WH1077