Swanley History Group – January 2015 meeting
‘Crockenhill – Then and Now’ was the subject of the first meeting of 2015 for Swanley History Group. Presented to a bumper audience, member Keith Whitmore took us on a photographic journey to familiar and unfamiliar scenes.
There was All Souls Church where seats were once marked for the use of the poor of the parish and also The Baptists Church. There were the Alms-houses built in 1860 by Mary Mosyer which still exist. Narrow sleepy dirt lanes and terraces of cottages, originally built for farm workers, now have road markings and parked cars outside instead of horse drawn carts - and we could spot the solar panels on modern roofs.
Scenes of the Village Green taken in Victorian times show the large village pond and forge which no longer exist. There were the children outside the school, dressed in white pinafores and also in formal photographs taken with their teacher.
Keith showed photographs of grander village houses including Highcroft Hall and Sounds Lodge as well as more recent housing estates, such as Newports. Dartford Co-op had a prominent frontage on the corner but what happened to the cottages next door? Hit by a bomb in World War 2 we were told. Photographs of other shops including the butchers, bakers and barbers – not forgetting the florists - produced many comments. Taken outside The Anchor and Hope, a scene showed a number 57 open topped bus going by enroute to Dartford and another featured a landlord posing outside the recently demolished Fruiterer’s Arms.
The importance of fruit growing in Crockenhill was illustrated with photographs of families picking hops and gathering apples at Crouch Farm. We were reminded of how hard rural life was for many by a photograph taken of fruit pickers outside their caravans and bender tents in 1908. Also by a photograph from 1948 showing a tin hut lived in by a villager and his family of six children. Scenes showing strawberry pickers employed by Edwin Vinson of Highcroft Hall and the London Strawberry Train, bound for London from Bexley Station, were enjoyed - as were the photographs of steam engines and the sentinel steam wagon, owned by Thomas Wood, whose Victorian works still exist.
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser
‘Crockenhill – Then and Now’ was the subject of the first meeting of 2015 for Swanley History Group. Presented to a bumper audience, member Keith Whitmore took us on a photographic journey to familiar and unfamiliar scenes.
There was All Souls Church where seats were once marked for the use of the poor of the parish and also The Baptists Church. There were the Alms-houses built in 1860 by Mary Mosyer which still exist. Narrow sleepy dirt lanes and terraces of cottages, originally built for farm workers, now have road markings and parked cars outside instead of horse drawn carts - and we could spot the solar panels on modern roofs.
Scenes of the Village Green taken in Victorian times show the large village pond and forge which no longer exist. There were the children outside the school, dressed in white pinafores and also in formal photographs taken with their teacher.
Keith showed photographs of grander village houses including Highcroft Hall and Sounds Lodge as well as more recent housing estates, such as Newports. Dartford Co-op had a prominent frontage on the corner but what happened to the cottages next door? Hit by a bomb in World War 2 we were told. Photographs of other shops including the butchers, bakers and barbers – not forgetting the florists - produced many comments. Taken outside The Anchor and Hope, a scene showed a number 57 open topped bus going by enroute to Dartford and another featured a landlord posing outside the recently demolished Fruiterer’s Arms.
The importance of fruit growing in Crockenhill was illustrated with photographs of families picking hops and gathering apples at Crouch Farm. We were reminded of how hard rural life was for many by a photograph taken of fruit pickers outside their caravans and bender tents in 1908. Also by a photograph from 1948 showing a tin hut lived in by a villager and his family of six children. Scenes showing strawberry pickers employed by Edwin Vinson of Highcroft Hall and the London Strawberry Train, bound for London from Bexley Station, were enjoyed - as were the photographs of steam engines and the sentinel steam wagon, owned by Thomas Wood, whose Victorian works still exist.
Christina Tyler, Programme Organiser