Memories of Wakeley’s Hop Gardens

Hop picking dates back hundreds of years in the area with hop gardens and oasthouses once scattered around the locality. Oasthouses still exist at Moor Street Farm, by Rainham railway station and just off the high street although these are no longer used for storage of hops but for other purposes. Although hop picking is now just something from the past 92 year old Marj Lacy from Bradshaw Close in Upchurch still has vivid memories of the hop picking season on those damp and misty autumn days of eighty years ago in Hartlip and Upchurch.

“I started when I was ten years old back in the 1930s and went hop picking with my brother and two cousins at Wakeleys’ hop garden in Hartlip. We shared a bin between us and picked into half bushel baskets which we tipped into the bin. I went picking to buy a new school uniform for myself each year. I earned about fifteen shillings a week and picked for the whole season which lasted for about five weeks starting in September. I worked in the Hartlip hop garden for four years and remember Seymour Wakeley from Rainham inspecting the picking and overseeing the payment of wages at the end of each week.

I worked at ‘Seventeen Acres’ hop garden in Oak Lane during the 1940s. Pickers from Upchurch brought their own equipment consisting of a stool and picking basket. Some pickers brought their equipment in a baby’s pram while others visited the workplace the night before to see which row they had been allocated.

Many Upchurch residents worked in ‘Seventeen Acres’ like Ellen Boast and Win Wraight from The Street, Mrs Goodall and Elsie Waters from Oak Lane and Win Edmonds and Molly Bass from Drakes Close. Mrs Neame from The Street Stores also came with volunteers to raise money for the Darby and Joan Club. Meanwhile, Mr Oldland, the foreman from Rainham, organised the pickers who came by bus from Chatham and brought their children with them while Brian Wakeley from Forge Lane in Upchurch often inspected the picking. Other visitors included a man with a basket of doughnuts and another on a horse and cart selling sweets. The pickers brought tins which were hung on a wire with a hook above a fire for making tea which they drank while they worked. Official tea breaks didn’t exist.

The pickers were paid per basket and chose the hours they worked although the usual working day began at 7 a.m. and finished at 4 p.m. A lunch break took place for one hour. The work was pleasant but the hops that dropped on the ground had to be picked up. This was the hardest work. I didn’t only do picking, I also did stringing and training. The hop bins were collected early afternoon by horse and cart and taken to Moor Street oasthouse situated nearby or to the Station Road oasthouse in Rainham for drying. At the end of a working day I returned home, did the cooking and housework and looked after my two daughters. I thought nothing of it in those days.

The last day of the season was usually a fun day when pickers arrived in fancy dress, had a good laugh and played tricks on each other. On one occasion my mother was put into a sack which was then tied up. I really miss hop picking, it was marvellous.”

The Windmill on Windmill Hill near Otterham Quay

These days Windmill Hill in Upchurch is just a name without any importance for many people other than having a dangerous bend near the top of the hill, but from the early 19th century a towering windmill stood there as a familiar landmark. It could be seen for miles around due to its high location and like Upchurch church it served as a navigation point for boats sailing along the Medway. During the second half of the 19th century it became the property of  ‘Wakeley Brothers’ fruit and hop business in Rainham but by the beginning of the 20th century it no longer functioned. ‘Wakeley Brothers’ allowed the structure to continue standing as a well-known landmark rather than demolish it.

Timber built with a brick base, the windmill’s wood was old and well tarred which made it highly inflammable and this eventually proved to be costly when a fire took hold.

On Thursday September 8^th, 1910 the windmill caught fire. A farm worker noticed a narrow plume of smoke coming from it after he had returned from lunch. Due to the inflammability of the structure the fire took hold quickly and the high leaping flames and black smoke could soon be viewed for miles around. This caused crowds of people to converge on the scene to view the spectacle.

Eventually, after a delay of about 45 minutes, the horse drawn Rainham Fire Brigade engine arrived but there was little that could be done to save the windmill. The fire had become so advanced and the heat so intense that nobody could get anywhere near it and the situation worsened when the burning sails from the windmill broke off and fell into a nearby orchard causing considerable damage to young fruit trees that had just come into bearing. Many of these were badly burnt or scorched.

Police Constables Jenner and Sergeant Ashton from Rainham assisted by several passers-by were able to rescue some pigs in a sty close to the burning windmill otherwise the animals would have been roasted alive. A timber built store owned by Mrs. Stokes, wife of late farmer Sam Stokes also caught fire but the fire brigade was unable to save it. A standpipe positioned at the top of Windmill Hill provided water but due to the low pressure which had resulted from the high location the firemen were unable to access sufficient water quickly enough to make any great difference and were not able to control the fire for about three hours which resulted in the windmill being burnt to the ground.

Eventually the fire subsided but the windmill was completely destroyed and the nearby fruit orchard burnt and damaged. Although Mrs. Stokes store survived it was badly damaged. Several carts, a collection of fruit baskets, wheat and grain inside the store were destroyed or damaged. The cost to ‘Wakeley Brothers’ was about £250 and Mrs. Stokes lost about £100. Both parties were later able to claim insurance but the windmill, such a significant landmark on the landscape for about a century, disappeared for ever and only the name and a few photos survive.

Memories of the Howard School in the Early Years

Moving from Orchard Street to the 36 acre site in Derwent Way Rainham in September 1967, the boys found the new school much more spacious with newer facilities than their previous one. Many boys puzzled over the name and thought it came from the building company that had constructed the site. In reality the building was named after Dorothy Howard who had served as Education officer for Medway and had been involved in local community and political affairs.

With a school population of about 500 and a four house system consisting of Tufton, Queens, Dering and Chaney, Mr Bacon continued as headmaster with his ageing white haired secretary in the adjacent office. Most of the Orchard Street staff continued although a few retired while well-known caretaker Mr Milgate remained at Orchard Street when the transfer took place.

Mr Newell continued as the art teacher and later became acting-head after the retirement of Mr Bacon, while Mr Gibbs continued as the principal English teacher, the librarian and wrote the annual school play. He left the school soon after its opening to teach at the former Sittingbourne teacher training college.

Mr Patterson remained as the geography teacher and Mr Barnes the maths teacher. Mr Powell continued teaching science and later became deputy-headmaster and Mr Rotherham continued teaching craft and organised the school football and cricket teams before retiring aged 81 during the late 1990s. Mr Groves, a muscular rugby player and athlete taught PE and games.

Well-known new teacher arrivals were Mr Ansell and Mr Bullen who also played for Rainham Cricket Club, Mr Clark who taught PE and originated from the Midlands, Vaughn Jenkins, a fat Welshman with a booming voice who ended up teaching English as a Foreign Language in Qatar and Ukraine before retiring to Blackburn. Mr Johns, another Welshman turned out to be a very introverted individual, prone to bursts of temper. Well-spoken Mr Richards taught English and tried to be best friends with all the boys. He wore thick black rimmed glasses and originated from Sussex.

Alan Suttie from Maidstone Road, who later became a graphic artist in London, served as head-boy with a group of prefects who all sat on the school stage during the morning assembly while Mr Bacon or deputy-head Mr Thomas conducted prayers and gave a daily sermon.

The prefect’s room had a table tennis table and many of the prefects played there and sometimes had to be removed by Mr Rotherham when they should have been in lessons or doing private study.

Because the playing fields were new a large number of stones appeared from below the surface, so initially many school football matches had to be played at the Langton Playing Fields, while during the summer some home cricket matches were played at Berengrove Park, the home of Rainham Cricket Club. A red gravel area existed for football practice but many boys complained of serious leg grazes after falling over and the orange dust stuck to their clothes. Outdoor artificial nets existed for cricket practice but the playground was preferred by pupils for sport. With a big gym, spacious science labs, well-lit classrooms and a dining hall, the new school had better and newer facilities than at Orchard Street but not as much atmosphere as the old school was smaller and more centrally located.

Well-known Howard Schoolboys from the period include George Meegan who became the first person to walk from the bottom of South America to the top of North America without any financial backing or special equipment for which he is in the Guinness Book of Records. Footballer Derek Hales went on to play for Luton, Charlton, West Ham, Derby and Gillingham. He later returned to the Howard School as a part-time football coach. Stuart Hart became landlord of the Angel pub in Station Road and a familiar scrap metal collector around Rainham while Raymond Hales, Alfie Fisher, Andy Findlay, Geoff Stone, Mick Arnold, Peter Heath and Malcolm Young became well-known local footballers.

With the closure of Gillingham Grammar School, the boys there moved to the Howard School in 1975 where they formed the grammar section of a new bi-lateral school, one of only five in the United Kingdom led by headmaster Mr Hicks. This amalgamation of the old Rainham Secondary School with Gillingham Grammar expanded the Howard School population to around 1,500 boys. The school remains one of the largest in Medway today.