History of Rainham Kent, Old Photos and Life in Bygone Times
A Walk Along Rainham High Street in 1974
Rainham High Street in 1974 was quite different to now as the construction of the Rainham precinct shopping centre in the late 1970s had yet to begin. This shopping centre was on the site of the old blacksmith's forge and old school at the top of Station Road. Memories of which shops existed at which times can get confused over time so it's useful to have a list of the shops from the Kelly's Directory series to check back on.
This edition of Kelly's directory is for 1974 and is one of the latest ones produced although they start in the 1800s. Quite how it would work now with GDPR and data protection is up for discussion!
As can be seen from the above scan from the 1974 edition of Kelly's directory covering Rainham High Street the following shops existed starting from Berengrave Lane towards Sittingbourne.
1 Midland Bank Ltd
5 HW Hidson Ltd (Austin, Morris, Wolseley & MG motor engineers)
-- Quinnell Street
9 Spensley J Ltd Chemists
11 Durrell DH
13/15 not listed
17 Friend David R
19 Ward & Partners Estate agents
21 P Duff optician
23 Telephone Exchange
25 Ronald Bampton Estate agents
Photos of Midland Bank next to HW Hidsons as well as Ward & Partners estate agents in High Street Rainham pictured in 1972
27 Mullarkey T Chartered Accountants
31 Beveridge CE Chemists
33 South Eastern Electricity board
Photo of South Eastern Electricity board shop on corner of Holding Street in 1972
-- here is Holding Street
35a Elliott EC & WA tobacconists
35 Empty
37 Stuarts Express Dyers and Cleaners
39/43 Poultons hardware
45 Woolcrafts, wool shop
47 Walter & Randall estate agents
47A High JA Opticians
47B Trembeth & Sons bakers
49/51 Lloyds Bank
49/51 Simon Langton & Co Solicitors
53 Buckey & Ward estate agents
55 Chatham Reliance Building Society
57 Josephine Hairdressers
59 Empty
61 Rose Frank & Son grocers
63 Pat ladies fashion shop
65 Empty
67A Nicholls WR & Sons Butchers
67B Tuesdays Child, baby wear shop
67C Herta Ladies hairdressers
71 empty
73A Barrett HR motor car agent
77 Forge Garage motor car agent
79/81 Rainham radio
81 Rouse Sidney
83 Reed Bros hairdressers
85 Betabake bakers
87 International Stores
93 Barclays Bank
Betabake & International Stores, Rainham in 1972
-- here is Station Road
95 White Horse Hotel
White Horse Hotel in 1972
103/107 Invicta Co-operative Society Ltd
107A Hutchinson TG, Joiner
109 Barden FT, Fruiterer
113 Brdge E Gordon
117 Post Office Delivery Office
119 Roberts E Confectioners & Post Office
119Fowkes Clifford
123 Redfern Kenneth & Co Solicitors
123 Wall RA, Chiropodist
125 Backman J, Draper
127 Marfleet Wltr
129 Winch Greensted & Winch, solicitors
-- here is Ivy Street
RMGS 4th Year Class Photos 1982 Rainham Mark Grammar School
The first year of Rainham Mark Grammar school name was 1982 when it had previously been known as Gillingham Technical High School - GTHS. You can see in these class photos from 1982 that the boards with the class names all show RMGS but the pupils blazers still have the GTHS badge on.
Are you in any of these photos? Do you recognise anyone? Please post any names in the comments below
Memories of Rainham by Arthur Kimber
I was born in Gillingham, but my connection with Rainham began early. One of my friends at Byron Road Primary School was Brian Jobber, who lived in Pump Lane, and when I cycled to his house we often Went to the centre of Rainham. As a teenager I joined the church youth club, held in the church school at the top of Station Road, and run by Captain Ambrose of the Church Army.
He was a very friendly and approachable man, who got on well with teenagers, and when he married, the youth club members made a collection for a wedding present for him and his bride. Friends I met at the club included Dave Turner, Bob Wicks, Johnnie Wood and Tom Stonehouse. In the early 1950s Reverend Jordan was the vicar at St Margaret’s Church. He was later promoted to the post of Canon at Rochester Cathedral and replaced at Rainham by Reverend Clifford.
My family had a connection with Rainham from the 19th century. One of my great-grandfathers, Thomas Wakefield (1846-1928), was the publican at the Three Mariners in Lower Rainham and his daughter, Eva, my grandmother (1876-1970), was a pupil at the church school in the 1880s. My days at the youth club were interrupted by National Service in the Royal Navy, but soon after my return and back at the club in 1957 I met the girl who became my wife, Pat Swallow, who lived in Solomon Road. We were married at the church in 1960 and the reception was held at the Green Lion. So this year we have celebrated our diamond anniversary.
The Green Lion pub in 2001
Some of my outstanding memories of the 1950s are the cinema, The Royal, in the High Street often known as the ‘bug hutch’, which had the innovation of double seats, which appealed to young cinema goers. The cinema was demolished in 1966 and is now the site of Lukehurst’s Furnishings.
The Coop was a dominant feature of Rainham life, with the grocery shop near the top of Station Road and a larger store in the High Street, with furniture, kitchen equipment, clothes and a branch of the bank. Much of this area is now the site of the Health Centre. Across the road stood grocers Vye and Sons, now a car showroom, next to the Green Lion. Two other venues, now demolished, attracted teenagers for dances, parties and other functions, the hall above the Coop shop in the High Street and the Church Hall in Orchard Street, on the site of what is now the entrance to Hurst Place.
Photo below of the site following demolition of the old Church Hall in Orchard Street in 2001.
Same site once construction had started
Buses were a frequent sight in the 1950s, run by Maidstone and District Motor Company and Chatham and District Traction Company. The latter company had five routes in the Medway Towns and number 2 terminated in the Webster Road cul-de-sac.
The A2 became quite busy during the 1950s and early 1960s before the M2 opened in l967. Trains were less frequent before 1959. Before then electrification went only as far as Gillingham and the old Victorian station at Rainham relied on steam trains to Victoria, or a change at Gillingham for the Charing Cross line.
Photo of Rainham station in the 1980s
Photo of M2 Farthing Corner services in 1960s known as Top Rank Services
To conclude with a later memory. In the summer of 1967 a 30 mile night walk to raise money for St. Margaret’s Church began at the church at l0p.m. and the route led to Key Street, then the A249 towards Maidstone, turning right through the villages of Burham and Wouldham, on to Strood and along the A2 back to Macklands in Station Road, the home of the Mackay-Miller family. Mr and Mrs Mackay-Miller, looked after the walkers very well by driving round the route and serving hot soup. I welcome any comments, including possible corrections in the next issue.
Arthur Kimber
22 Asquith Road Wigmore
(note: original reference to Tudor Grove changed to Hurst Place for Church hall location thanks to Maria Jarvis for spotting)
Memories of National Service by Vic Wickenden
Memories of National Service by Vic Wickenden
I refer to the article in the recent Action Forum edition by the Secretary of the local National Service Association and I would like to convey my experiences.
I was ‘called up’ to commence my national service on the 1st March 1951 (age 18 years & 2 months). I did my initial training - 6 weeks - at the army barracks at Aldershot, then transferred to R.A.S.C. Barracks at Yeovil, Somerset to complete the full training. One good thing come out of this experience was I obtained a driving licence. The army engaged local driving instructors to assist. On completing the 13 week course, I was posted to the R.A.S.C. Barracks near Swindon, Wiltshire.
As I held a junior clerk position in civil street, I was given a position in the Company’s office, where I remained until discharged on 28th February 1953. In March 1952 the entire company were posted to Germany - Where we were based near Munster. I would add that I thoroughly enjoyed the remaining years of my service times, obtaining the rank of Corporal. However, despite pressure from my senior officers, 1 had no wish to continue as a regular soldier.
To summarise I believe National Service was a good scheme to assist in training young men to become good citizens.
Vic Wickenden
01634 26113
20 Years of Rainham History
Obviously the history of Rainham goes back more than 20 years but this website celebrates the 20th anniversary of going live at the end of December 2000 as a project I worked on over the Christmas break starting with some old family photos of Rainham and Wigmore such as the one below of Marshall Road from 1928.
Looking back it's fascinating quite how much has changed in that time both around the local area and in the way the website itself is setup and used. One of the first captures of the Rainham history website from Wayback machine is a 2005 version of the site shown below:
Back in 2000 broadband didn't yet exist and all access was via dial up modem so original photos on the site were very small to keep loading speeds down. Looking back at some of the early articles now it's amazing quite how small some of the photos are; one project for 2021 will be to replace some of them with much larger versions that can actually be properly seen.
Another change is that back in 2000 digital photography barely existed and all the photos I was taking for the site were on film. I got my first digital camera in 2002 which really helped for capturing changes in the local area. Pictures like the one below that I took in 2001 were some of the last ones I took with my film camera before mainly switching to digital - it wasn't completely digital as the Nikon Coolpix digital camera didnt have the same quality as my SLR with different lenses.
The photo below was taken in 2001 before the NHS building was constructed on the A2 High Street opposite Rainham Church on the site of the former Co-op department store. Next door was empty at the time and subsequently became No109 and Eight restaurant before becoming a Turkish restaurant in 2020.
Some of the first digital photos I took in 2003 were of the changes in Orchard Street when new housing was built and to document the M2 widening works and Channel Tunnel rail link over the Medway. Photo below of the M2 at A229 Bluebell Hill looking towards the River Medway at Cuxton.
The site has been through many iterations, initially hand coded in HTML it is now run via a Content Management system (CMS) to handle the number of articles and photos that are on the site.
In numbers the site now has almost 600 articles and thousands of photos of the local area. Most Action Forum magazines since 2001 have been scanned and are available on the site.
I have been very lucky with the help and assistance I have had over the years and would like to thank everyone who has contributed articles and sent in photos for the site. We are still quite light on photos of Rainham from the 1950s and 1960s so if you do have any of those from anywhere around the local area or of any local events please get in touch via
Hoath Lane Wigmore 1930 - Martin's Kiosk
This postcard shows Hoath Way in Wigmore in approx 1930. It's a postcard that was postmarked 1939 so the picture must be prior to that. It's titled on the back "Martin's Kiosk Wigmore Kent" and if you look very closely at the photo you can see a building in the centre with a sign on the roof indeed saying "Martin's Kiosk". The houses in the photo still exist but the road is a bit busier. Just to the right of where the man is standing is now the tunnel under the A278 that leads to Hempstead Hill.
The same location photographed in 2003. The house on the left is still the same although painted white and the large house still exists . The land with the kiosk appears to now be another house that has appeared between them
Memories of Wigmore in the late 1970s
Walking to Fairview School as a child in the 1970s
I grew up in Rainham & Wigmore in the 1970s and went to school at Fairview Infants with Miss Akehurst as head and then Juniors where the headteacher at the time was Mr Queen. The walk to school seemed like a couple of miles going up from Marshall Road to Drewery Drive but looking now on maps it says only a mile! It's surprising how many shops and businesses that used to exist even what I consider that recently (although it's now over 40 years ago!) no longer exist. Walking school buses are seen as a new thing and certainly weren't known as such in the 1970s but we did much the same by meeting friends at different points on the route to school picking up more people as we went. Occasionally if it was raining really heavily then we might get a lift but with only one car in the family at the time this was not a common occurrence.
Walking up Edwin Road there was Munden's Newsagent on Durham Road opposite the junction with Edwin which is now a private house. I'd stop there on a Friday to get my weekly comic and spend a few pence on Space Dust or some similar sweet with the remaining money. Later on it was Smash Hits to find out the latest pop news. On the corner of Edwin Road towards East Hoath Woods there was another shop, initially a DIY shop run by Tony & Betty Sharman as I recall, which became a video rental and finally general store before closing in the late 1980s and converting to flats.
Going along Springvale there was the Smallholders Club which still exists although now much bigger and on the opposite corner of Springvale & Woodside (number 55 Woodside) was a butchers shop shown in Kelly's Directory as Fred Beal, Butcher. Again that's now a private house. Going up Bredhurst Road there was a dairy on the right hand side. Originally this was Terry's Dairy but was bought out by Unigate in the 1970s and the land has now been developed for housing.
Further up Bredhurst Road opposite the turning for Fairview School was Wigmore Park where we'd occasionally go to play on the swings and roundabout. Sometimes we'd take the path opposite the Woodside post office instead and walking up by the side of the Howard Hall, the former St Matthews Church for Wigmore and past another small park next to the Scout hut. I remember this park had one of the old wooden roundabouts you could sit on as it was turned which wasn't something many other parks had.
Memories of teachers at Fairview School include Miss Davison, Miss Kitchener, Mr Roome, Mr Thomas, Mrs Bone, Mrs Terry and Mr Baker who I remember smoking a pipe and the very distinctive smell of pipe smoke afterwards! Every summer the Fairview Schools had a June Fair to raise money for the PTA (Parent Teacher Association) and I remember my parents helping out setting up stalls over several years. My mum was a keen baker with Bredhurst WI and would often be baking trays of cakes or biscuits to sell at the fair. One attraction was the Fancy dress competition and the photo below is of Fairview Junior School fancy dress competition approx 1981.
My grandmother lived on Woodside and often after school we would often go to her house for dinner and being near to school it was a convenient place to get collected from later on. If she'd ever run out of any items for cooking dinner she'd send me along to the Co-operative store at the end of Woodside/Hoath Lane or the butcher's shop next door. When the Co-op closed in the late 1980s it became a pet store and is now a takeaway and Raj Rani. The butcher's shop is now a hairdressers.
View of Woodside looking towards Hoath Lane where the Co-op shop was located
As a keen stamp collector as a child the other place I regularly visited to buy new stamps when they were issued was Wigmore Post Office. I can't remember when it happened but it has been extended and the internal layout changed significantly since then.
Finwell Road Rainham 1967 - Rainham House Prices - Cost of Mortgage in 1960s
Finwell Road Rainham 1967 - Rainham, Kent House Prices in the 1960s
The new Tilbury estate off Station Road including Finwell Road in Rainham was built in the late 1960s and my parents moved there in 1967. This is the photo of the house shortly after they moved in.
The purchase price of a new bungalow in 1967 was £4150. The same house now is estimated by Zoopla to be worth £407,000!
The mortgage on the bungalow was £3500 so it was an 85% Loan to Value in 1967. The completion statement for the purchase is below showing all the items that were added to the final bill including land registry fee on transfer, land registry fee on mortgage, search fees and filing particulars with Inland Revenue
Subcategories
Historical life Article Count: 8
Historical life in Rainham
Rainham Life Article Count: 11
Rainham Life
Local Events Article Count: 52
Local Events
Photos Article Count: 167
Photos
Action Forum Article Count: 263
Action Forum is a free monthly magazine that is distributed to the Rainham area covering Wigmore, Parkwood and Hempstead as well. This archive covers old copies of the magazine dating back to its initial publication in 1969 and give a fascinating glimpse into life in Rainham over the last 50 years.
Link to Article Index - Action Forum Index - Photos and Articles from 1969 onwards
