The Gospel Hall was the pitch-roofed building next to the lamp post on the left of the High Street, beyond the horse and cart. It is not known why it ceased to be used as a place of non-conformist worship, but by about 1928 it was gone. This may have coincided with an expansion of ...
Reference: WH1073
Following a lot of emotion and heartache the Westerham Hall renovation Committee finally called it a day for the London Road site in favour of starting again with a brand new hall on the site of the Women’s Institute hall on Costell’s meadow, Quebec Avenue. The memory is that the opportunity for more parking swung ...
Reference: WH1071
Originally land belonging to the Grange Estate, including ‘Firs Cottage’ seen on the left in the background, now at the eastern-end of where Rysted Lane meets South Bank, at the bottom of Churchill School drive. The Paddock was the site of football matches for both the Saturday team and Westerham Wednesday team for many years ...
Reference: WH1069
The road with two names 1 When builder Thomas Henry Weller built his showcase terrace as Westbury Terrace there was nothing but a dirt footpath in front of the houses before what became an unruly hedge bordering Farley Nursery. When the Nursery closed the land was purchased by the local Council for social housing between 1925 ...
Reference: WH1070
Between the wars there were two shops either end of Quebec Cottages at the bottom of Vicarage Hill. The one nearest the camera was ‘Quebec Stores’ a little gloomy general store and tobacconist. The other was William Dove’s pork butcher’s shop where the meat would hang outside, backed by the whitewashed wall.
Reference: WH1066
The top building on the left of Vicarage Hill is Colthurst Almshouses. The gap beyond led to ‘Church Alley’ – undeniably the towns’ poorest housing area – tiny back-to-back cottages with few windows, and towards the end, corrugated tin roofs on some of them. The next row of cottages bordering the road were ‘Red Cottages’. ...
Reference: WH1065
While Park Cottages look pretty much the same today as they did in this 1902 photo-postcard, the estate fencing has gone and so has the lamp post – imagine if that was still there at what is today a busy and somewhat blind junction, not helped by overgrowth of hedges on both sides of the ...
Reference: WH1063
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
Ellen King enjoys the sunshine with her daughters Eva and Ethel outside ‘The Cottage’ next door to ‘Roseville’ in the High Street. All the houses on this section of the High Street were owned by the Black Eagle Brewery in the early 1900s.
Reference: WH1055
This photograph taken from Thomas Weller’s builders yard in 1902 shows bunting strung across the road to celebrate the Coronation of Edward VII. The photograph is probably attributable to Weller’s neighbour, Frederick Benson.
Reference: WH1053
This photo-postcard shows the site of the toll-gate leading into Westerham from the east. The charge was 4 pence per horse – so if a wagon and four horses went through the toll was one shilling and fourpence but if they returned the same day they did not have to pay on the return journey. ...
Reference: WH1052
This photograph shows Currant Hill Cottage in the foreground with Richard Durtnell’s ‘Jubilee Terrace’ beyond. At that time there was no development on the south side of the road where the river ran. With that in mind, it always seems a little odd that the road was not called ‘Northbank’. As one of the promoters of ...
Reference: WH1067