Rainham Kent Photos & Information

The following details were received from Peter Hales. We are very grateful for support like this which helps us to maintain and enhance the details on the site. If you have any similar pictures or information then we would love to hear from you. Please contact us by email or phone here.

I attach a couple of JPEG files scanned from original postcards of Rainham, provided by my Godfather, Geoff Gilbert.

The first is a picture of the upper end of Ivy Street and is taken from a postcard dated 1913, which ties up with the 1912 date on the front of the card, and shows the shop owned by W. E. Jones, who was Geoff’s grandfather on his mothers side of the family. The shop was divided into two, with an Off Licence to the right and a Grocery to the left.

Geoff was born upstairs in this house in the room behind the Colman’s Starch advert, although not until the mid 1920’s. His mother lived for many years in No1 Ivy Street, and I can remember visiting her in the house as a small child in the mid 1950’s. Geoff now lives in Abingdon, Oxfordshire.

The second is a picture of St Margarets Church and Lockup (which is presumably the wooden structure adjacent to the Church gate!) and is dated 1834, although the picture postcard it was taken from is dated 1914

And me? – well I was born in my grandmother’s (May Boakes) council house at 19 Holding Street in 1951. We lived for many years at 79 Station Road on the corner of Webster Road, and I attended both Soloman Road infants School and (the then new) Wakeley Road Junior, before passing the 11+ and going on to Gillingham Grammar, by which time we had moved to 25 Thames Avenue. We moved away from Rainham in 1964.

1 comment

Rainham Kent Photos & Information

These old photos of Rainham Kent were kindly supplied by Paul Ironmonger.

Photos on this page are clickable to view higher resolution versions.

berengrave - Eastgate Cardberengrave by W Naylorberengrave lane rainhamberengrave lane Rainhamchapel lane now mierscourt roadRainham high street c 1950
Pump Lane lower rainhamrainham Station 1958station road by Arthur Adiephoto of station road rainham kentRainham Kent war memorial Photo
Dec 1920

1 comment

Rainham Kent Snow Photos from 1987:Winter 1987/88 Snow in Kent

Rainham and Kent in general were hit particularly badly by snow in 1987 and for some days were cut off completely. I recall milk being flown in by army helicopter due to roads being impassable and major roads being blocked for many days. As outlined below the weather station recorded 22 INCHES of snow in Jan 1987 in Gillingham (in 2010 the roads were brought to a standstill with less than 20cm!!)
At the time I was working at Rainham Co-op as saturday staff. As school was closed due to the snow and being one of the staff that could walk to the shop I worked many extra hours during the snow building up my savings! Later on in the year the great Hurricane hit Kent during October 1987 leaving many trees blown down.

A quote from the netweather website below " The cold spell of January 1987 was exceptional and was probably one of the coldest spells since 1740. The intense cold and heavy snowfalls hit the SE the hardest. Transport was gridlocked and the cold even affected Big Ben's chiming hammer. "

Rainham Snow 1987

Snow on Lower Rainham Rd,Kent looking to The Angel pub 12-1-87 Frozen sea Rainham Kent 1987

Snow at Rainham Station

Rainham station in snow 1987

In 1987 the sea at Rainham (Motney Hill) even froze showing how cold the weather got. See the photo above of the frozen sea at Motney Hill.

Woodside Rainham Kent Snow 1987 outside Spyglass and Kettle pub Marshall Road Rainham, Snow drift 1987 Kent

Severe snow also hit the South East and Kent in 1991. This article from The Telegraph explains some of the recent snow events including the infamous wrong kind of snow quote from British Rail. The article says "During the 1991 event level snow lay 12 inches deep in central London, and on January 12-13, 1987, the deepest snow was in south Essex, Kent, Surrey and south London with 22 inches reported in the Maidstone and Gillingham areas. "

Video of the snow from Thames News 1987 BBC News Great Storm Oct 1987