Butchery in Westerham

Bill Curtis

In the early 1900s, Westerham boasted no fewer than eight independent butchers happily trading alongside each other around the town. In Quebec Square, William Dove traded as a pork butcher, Aberdeen House, to the right of the Pheasantry was the province of Master Butcher Edward Skinner; at the top of The Green next to the Grasshopper pub was the Co-Op’s butchery and today’s number 19 High Street, to  the right of the Kings Arms was Charles Levett’s ‘Home and Colonial Meat Stores’. Larratt’s butchers of today was William Inglefield, while Thomas Townsend, a butcher and baker originally trading  from the corner of New Street, had moved to today’s ‘Grace Hair Design’ – premises that would remain in the butchery trade for another eighty-five years. Last but not least was the London Meat Supply Company at ‘Roseville’, now a domestic residence between Squerryes Mead and Verrall’s Corner at the west-end of the High Street.

In 1916 Albert Boddy was the butcher of the day where Larratt & Co now trades.  He placed an advertisement in the Westerham Herald newspaper for Saturday December 16 1916:
Weight-guessing Competition
Mr Albert Boddy’s contribution to the Xmas Dinner for our wounded at Dunsdale Hospital is a fine turkey, which can now be seen alive on his premises in the High Street. In order to raise funds sufficient to purchase as many more turkeys as they require, a weight-guessing competition will be held. Tickets are sixpence each, and a prize of Ten Shillings will be given to the person guessing the turkey’s correct weight when killed and dressed.  Purchasers of tickets must fill in their name and address, with their guess, and return tickets to Mr. A. Boddy by one o’clock on Wednesday next. No tickets will be received later, and no tickets will be personally collected from purchasers. They must be deposited in a box on the premises. Competitors may cut out the coupon attached, or send as many guesses as they like on a signed sheet of paper, but every guess must be accompanied by sixpence.

Sadly, there was no follow-up article, so we will never know the outcome, or how many turkeys were purchased for the wounded soldiers of WWI at Dunsdale V.A.D. Hospital.

And just for the record,  a summary of what butchers were where  from 1891:

1891 Census Edward W. Skinner Butcher at London House [currently  Westerham Barbers]

Butchers at Aberdeen House (to the right of the Pheasantry)

1893 – 1899 E. W. Skinner, Butcher at Aberdeen House and Farmer at Force Green

1908 – 1921 Wallace Pritchard, Aberdeen House [Tel 19]

1927 Frederick Pick, Aberdeen House & London Road

Butchers at today’s  No. 19 High Street [between waterloo house and chow’s] [Tel 28]

Charles Levett Canterbury Meat Stores 1900 – 1903

Charles Levett Westerham Home & Colonial Meat Stores 1904 – 1906

Wm. Dove Manager of Levett’s 1907 [also had a shop in Quebec Sq  until 1915 Tel 28]

Walter George Rogers, Family Butcher living on premises 1910 Advertisement exists [Tel 28] + 1911 Census + 1913 Advertisement (his last year)

William Dove 1914 – 1929 [Mons Bell has  provided photo evidence]

Under same name, taken over by Curly Bell early 1930s

Butchers at Norfolk House (now ‘Larratts’ 17 High St) [Tel 24]

George Inglefield and son – 1891 and 1892 Advertisements

William Inglefield [son] until 1904

Albert B. Boddy 1904 – 1916

Edward J. Kimber – baker and confectioner until that time 1916, 1921, [1922 Advertisement], 1929

Fred Throup 1930 – 1950, though J. F. Woods was the business proprietor by 1935

Cyril Woods in 1951

J. Church early 1960s – late 1970s

Butchers at 31 High St [Magdala Hse] [Tel 100]

Thomas Townsend first one here 1901 [1865 baker and corn dealer]

Richard (Dick) Edwards 1935?

William Evans 1951 little cheeky ad, then Hans Krahl 1964 – 1988 (verified by his daughter Linda (now Weller by marriage).

 
A young butchers boy returning after his round of deliveries poses for a publicity photograph for Boddy of Westerham circa 1908
 
When the London Meat Supply Company arrived in 1906, they took out the whole wall for a shop window and put in a door as well, suggesting their shop was 'stand-alone' in the building. At that time they were one of eight butchers in the town and lasted on that site until around 1912.
 
Mons Bell recalled his early memories of the family butchers business William Dove,…
“...I left school in the Christmas of 1932, a few weeks before term had finished because the cashier in the shop was taken ill. Some weeks later when she returned, I started work as the butchers delivery boy with a bicycle. I did this for about six years until I was 20 and I went into the army in 1939. I was demobbed in 1946 and I went straight back into the business. I never did a formal apprenticeship, it was just expected that you learned quickly, but father showed me how to cut meat properly, how to make good sausages and how to do the trussing. Before the war my father would pay eighteen pounds for a whole bullock that would cost over a thousand pounds now. Just after the war you could buy pigs that were dirt-cheap. We only had a small van then, but we would load it up with pigs and take them down to Dennis Skinner’s slaughterhouse in Chiddingstone as there wasn’t a slaughterhouse working in Westerham at that time.
We used to take our rubbish from the shop to the stoker at the brewery and he’d throw it in the furnace and ‘woof’ that would go up pretty quick - it was a good way of getting rid of the stuff… ...before electricity came in the early twenties, they used to have big ice-blocks delivered from Chatham to keep the meat chilled. People would buy ice as well as their meat so you would be constantly chopping up ice for them as well…"
 
Peter Finch recalled childhood memories of the market and local butchers in the 1930s “... Some of the pigs from the market went straight to the local slaughter house behind Woods the butcher then, opposite where the Co-op is now, and they used to take the pigs up the alley beside the shop, but they could smell blood and didn’t want to go through the passage. I used to feel sorry for the pigs ‘cos they were squealing like hell, but the next thing you’d see they’d be hanging out in the shop-window.”
 
Bob Combley “…the market was almost exclusively cattle, sheep and pigs, and as kids we’d always hang around down there on our way back from school. One episode I can clearly remember was when they were leading a bullock up from the market to ‘Throup’s’ the butchers [now Larratts] - there’s an alley-way next to the shop and there was a slaughterhouse round the back - they were trying to get it down the alley and it knew only too well what was going to happen, so it broke free and ran away. It was running around the town and people were chasing it, but the more they chased it the more it ran around terrifying old ladies who were all running into the shops and shutting the doors - he laughs - it was a very lively market in the 1930s, alongside the grading, there was a lot of buying and selling of stock...”

 
Mons Bell “...After the war we were still rationing in the shop up until about 1953, and things were still pretty tight then. I think I remember people were registered with a particular shop, so each butcher had an allocation of customers. If somebody kept a pig and had it slaughtered they would have to give up their ration - it would be a years ration for a side of pork. We used to go up to the workhouse at Sundridge and kill a couple of pigs for them sometimes, and I ‘despatched’ a small bullock for Mr Churchill on one occasion - I remember he made an interesting comment about a certain part of the animal’s anatomy...”

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