You are here:
Kemsley
Kemsley maps
Historic maps of Kemsley and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Kemsley maps
Kemsley area books
Displaying 1 of 24 books about Kemsley and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Kemsley
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Kemsley.
Add your memory of Kemsley
or of a photo of Kemsley.
Living in Kemsley
I lived in Kemsley until 1970 when I left to get married. All the kids from the village played rounders and cricket together. We always built a huge bonfire for Guy Fawkes Night but it always got burned down, we always blamed one person but many years later the boy who had done it confessed to me! My mum Sheila Hermitage worked behind the bar at the club house, there was always a pint ready for my dad when he came off the late shift from the mill. Happy days.
Kent memories
Courtlands Stores
The shop on the left was where I lived as a child. My father (Ron Stone) bought the property which was an old doctor' surgery and transformed it into a general store. My Mum and Dad used to open the shop in the evenings selling peas pudding and faggots and all the family used to join in preparation. My job was to make onion gravy on a paraffin stove. This was very popular and there were often people queing with their own basins right along the street outside. Those were the days!
Sittingbourne to Australia
My name is Margaret. I was born in Park Road, Sittingbourne on 18.4.45. My parents were Flossie and Cyril Neaves. My dad worked as a machine man in the Sittingbourne paper mills and my mum worked fruit picking in the early days but worked for Shell Research Station later on.
I attended the Holy Trinity Primary School then moved onto Westlands Secondary. After leaving school I worked at Chatham telephone exchange for about 4 years, my hobbies were ballet and skating. I later went on to become a ballet teacher and had my own ballet schools. I was taught in Sittingbourne by Iris Thomas.
I married Neville Cox, formerly of Connaught Roadd, Sittingbourne, in 1963 at St Mary's Church in Park Road. Neville's father was a chiropodist in Connaught Road. Neville and I lived in Keycol Hill for 6 years, we have a son Mark born in 1965, also a daughter Deborah born 1966. Both children attended Borden Primary School for a short while. They both remember trudging through... Read more
Death of Bargee at Kings Ferry Bridge
My grandfather James Britton was a sailing barge skipper. On the 18th or 19th of April 1906 he was negotiating passing under Kings Ferry bridge, linking the mainland to the Isle of Sheppey, this involved lowering the mast. While thus engaged he complained of feeling unwell. He was taken to the nearby Lord Nelson public house where he subsequently died of a heart attack. The incident was reported in an obituary in the East Kent Gazette. If you have further information or wish to discuss the barge families of the Milton Creek and Conyer area I would like to hear from you. email: britpacific@gmail.com
Jim Britton, Umpqua, Oregon.
Life in Borden
I was born and raised in Borden until I got married at the age of 22. My mother and her family all grew up in Borden. My grandfather was the local blacksmith, and I remember very well watching him shoe the big Shire horses and helping him by operating the bellows on the forge to get the coals hot and then watching him shape and fit the shoe to the horse, and then that wondrous smell of the horse's hoof burning so that the shoe would fit neatly to the hoof. Grandad had the forge until his death, Nan then moved to Banister Hill in one of the small cottages on the left-hand side.
The old vicarage was pulled down to make way for a new housing estate called Coppins Way. I personally lived on the old section of the Mount View Estate down by the roundabout with the willow tree in the middle.
We would go to the local village shop owned by Mr Woods and in the old... Read more
Pug Hole
I have many fond memories of the chalk pit and the pug hole, of Borden and many great adventures I had as a boy, along with my chums, Tim, Lou, Roger. There was also a council tip where we got old pram wheels to make up go-karts. I remember hop picking there, and all the scrumping we got away with! The whole area was awash with fruit and veg. I lived just down from Borden by Westlands School (Newlands Avenue). More to come.
Methodist Church Sunday School Oad Street Near Borden
I remember going to Sunday School at the Methodist Church in Oad Street back in the 1950s. My brother and I had to walk all the way from Munsgore Farm where George Whitehead had his dairy. Mrs Mills and Mrs Bourne run the Sunday School, Mrs Bourne played the organ or the piano. They also took all the children on a Sunday School trip, I can remember going on a coach to the coast. And at Christmas we went out carol singing even when it was snowing. My father work for Whitehead dairy until it was sold but my mother carried on working on the farm until 1969, then we moved to Leeds in Yorkshire. But I still go back to have a look round, I have lots of happy memories.
