Always ready to adapt to new technology. Where else in Westerham would you be able to buy a wireless? The BBC only started broacasting in1922.
Reference: WH0019
Here follows a series of 5 invoices to John Hooker from Ernest Blackton at the Wolfe Garage for repairs, supply of motorcycle parts and purchase of a motorcycle in the mid-1920s
Reference: WH0043
‘Q’ class 0-4-4 tank-engine number 136 is about to leave Westerham pulling a ‘birdcage’ set of coaches. This peculiar term was used to describe coaches with the little top-light window that the guard would use with a periscope viewer to look at the state of signals ahead – not so easy for the engine crew ...
Reference: WH0131
Albert Harold Octavius Streatfeild was one of the strong cricketers in the family. Known by his friends as Harold Streatfeild, he was known within the family by the younger members as ‘Uncle Poodle.’ As the Estate manager at Squerryes, he married Dorothy Warde in 1911, thus creating family ties between the Wardes and the Streatfeilds. He ...
Reference: WH0413
The car closest to the pavement and the one half out of shot on the left are Model T Fords. The doorway with the curtained window on the left of the photograph was the site of the ‘Ostlery’ of the establishment where horses and carriages would have been booked some fifteen or so years before ...
Reference: 0015
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
Charles Aubrey Botley had his Nursery and shop beside Quebec House at the bottom of Vicarage Hill. The shop, which Gwen Smith remembered for its “long white marble counter and gleaming scales” is the distinctive low building with carved wood lattice-work window, called ‘Darenth’ today. As a nursery-man’s shop this dates back to the mid-1860s ...
Reference: WH0437
Another “Jolly Boys” outing waits outside Hookers ‘Herald Steam Printing Works’ in a charabanc packed to the gunwales. The term “Jolly Boys” comes from the description given to a series of drinking vessels grouped together and joined by tubes. With a couple of barrels of ‘bright beer’ tucked away in the back, ’nuff said…
Reference: WH0155
