You are here:
Hayes
Hayes maps
Historic maps of Hayes and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Hayes maps
Hayes area books
Displaying 1 of 13 books about Hayes and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Hayes
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Hayes.
Add your memory of Hayes
or of a photo of Hayes.
Hayes - Gateway to London
What a great picture of Hayes High Street - brings back so many memories. I lived in nearby Coney Hall from 1953 to 1976. As a child it was 3d to get to Hayes Station on the 138 bus. I recall Woolworths (bottom right) had one of those big red weighing machines outside that dispensed a picture card ( a series on steam engines I think) with your weight printed on it.
My mum bought me the first yoghurts I ever sampled from the Express Diary shop on the left going down the street - these came in a jar and were unsweetened so I used to mix in sugar. I can still taste them.
Hayes Station was also the place to get the train to London (Charing Cross) and I can still pretty well list all the stations on the route - West Wickham, Eden Park, Elmers End, Clock House ..OK I won't bore you with the lot.
Great cars in the picture as well... Read more
Living in Hayes in The 1950s & 1960s
I lived in one of the council houses in Mounthurst Road from 1954 to 1970. I have a very good memory of growing up there. The prefabs in Mead Way, there must have been hundreds on both sides and we used to play on this site around 1963 to 1965 when they were being demolished. Hayesford Park was being built and I remember this massive earth pile that we used to roll down. Barnfield School at top of Mead Way, I can still picture the building and when it was about to be demolished we walked around inside, there was a massive staircase. Hayes Estate where I lived was always busy with young families and the shops in Chilham Way were always busy. I went back there last year and how times have changed. Most shops are shut down, the whole estate is very quite and I now see that the Beacon pub has been flattened. Anyway I loved growing up in Hayes and maybe one day I would like... Read more
Kent memories
Coney Hall 1950/60s
This picture brings back many memories. I was born in 1953 and lived in Coney Hall until 1972, attending school at Wickham Common and then Hawes Down Secondary.
The view from where this picture was taken is not dramatically different today. The parade of shops that can be seen on the right included the newsagent and confectioners, Butts ( for whom I did a paper round for 2 years) and a pet supply store (Pearson's??). The Coney public house ( a place of exotic mystery when I was growing up) is just out of view. On the far left can be seen the rather stylish garage and petrol station. I remember using this facility to put a pounds worth of petrol into my first car, a Hillman Imp. The last time I was in Coney Hall this was a DIY store.
Out of view on the left is another parade of shops, one of which was the Harry Minting music store from which I bought my first ever record,... Read more
Discos And Status Quo
A college full of young female teaching students on my doorstep - what more could an 18 year old ask for? Yes, Coloma College was , for a short while , a weekend hotspot for me and my friends. There were regular discos , and also, on occasions, live music. And, in 1971, none other than Status Quo played a gig there. It should be pointed out that they were, at this time, at something of low ebb in their career. Having left behind their poppy Pictures of Matchstick Men period, they were still far from Rocking All Over the World - just rocking all over West Wickham to about 50 unimpressed people.
A few years before this, I used to deliver papers to Coloma College, and I remember scaring myself silly on dark winter mornings when I had to negotiate the narrow tree lined avenue that led to the college. It was amazing the number of bushes that looked like hunched crones that were about to leap out... Read more
Coloma Convent
I have fond memories of Coloma Convent and would love to visit the old place again just to compare it with my memories of it 45 years ago. My mother used to be a cleaner there in the mid sixties and I used to go to work with her during the summer holidays. I remember the church and the smell of pledge, I also recall the day they gold leafed the rail around the altar.Just across the from the church was a large aviary where there were lots of Miner birds kept.The old building was fascinating with a sweeping staircase and a filled in tunnel in the basement, which I was told an escape tunnel leading to addington village shoiuld Henry V111 wish to escape.I went down it one day and it was a good 50ft long and I found a sword.
Fond memories of the old place when the sun seemed to shine everyday, and everytime I hear daydream believer by the Monkees it always takes me back there.... Read more
The White Hart in 1881
I've been researching my ancestors and discovered that my great-great-grandfather, William Fox, was living at the White Hart in High Road, West Wickham, in 1881 with his daughter Mary Ann Reading and her husband John Reading, who I presume was landlord. Wlliam Fox died in 1881. He had been a farmer in Womenswold before retiring.
Roger Lancaster.
Payantake Stores
My dad was the manager of Payantake Stores in West Wickham High Street for many years (from 1959 onwards). It used to be where Oxfam is now. We lived in the flat above the shop. There were regular break-ins at Croft Radio, which was on the corner across the road but nobody took much notice of the alarm going off because it used to go off all the time. I spent many happy hours helping my dad in the shop, weighing and packaging dried fruit and biscuits, cutting and wrapping cheese (it was all done by hand in those days!), as well as filling shelves. Living above the shop, we had no garden but my sister and I used to play badminton on the roof above the shop. On one occasion the shuttlecock went on the corrugated part of the roof above the bottle store at the back of the shop. We had been on there before and my sister went on the roof to get it. She was there... Read more
