Memories of Maidstone

Visit to Maidstone Zoo

I remember the train that ran by the side of the approach drive when I visited the zoo as a young child with my parents. I wanted to go on it, but my parents made me walk. I was just learning to read and asked my Mum what a 'dangeroo' was. On the way out, I felt unaccountably embarrassed because my father helped a man who couldn't walk well to get back onto his coach. I remember that my mother told me that the tiger (or lion I can't remember which), was eyeing me up for a meal.

BUTTERFLIES

I believe my great uncle Edward Goodwin of Canon Court, Wateringbury, donated his Butterfly and Moth Collection to the Maidstone Museum on his death in 1934. Since that time I think the museum was burnt down, and of course, the butterfly collection too.

Ashby's

I remember there being an Ashby's in Tonbridge Road down the road from the old trolley bus depot. My grandfather worked there as a cashier.

Cream Puff

I remember the"Loco" that took you up the drive. Seeing my first elephant plus seeing and eating my first cream puff in the "Cafe". Mother and I had the last one and I remember seeing the cream ooze out of the pores. That is all I remember of the Zoo. I was born 1936, the war finished 1945. I presume the Zoo closed for the duration so when did I visit?

Great Great Grandfather

Actually previous to 1860's. My Great Grandfather was born Under-the-Cliffe, Maidstone in 1845. His name was Thomas Ackworth Parker and his parents were Thomas Edward Parker and Susanna Elizabeth Parker, formally Ackworth. I assume this is what is now known as the Undercliffe.

Mote Park. Our Backyard.

From the age of seven Mote Park was almost our backyard.  We lived in Plains Avenue, just a few houses from the park keeper's lodge. We could also get to Mote Park by climbing over the fence at the bottom of our garden which led across allotments to Mote Park. I spent weeks wandering there and playing by the lake and later when I was working and had the time I would walk from my house to work at John Collier's menswear and back again in the evening. My partner and I have returned to Maidstone a lot recently and spent a great deal of time in Mote Park. So much has changed now though. The road in Plains Avenue used to be beautiful, lined with cherry blossom trees and with each front garden lovingly tended but now Car is King and most of the front gardens have been concreted over for car parking. It's the same all through Shepway Estate.

Mote Park seems to have improved in many ways with large areas being left to nature to attract butterflies and other wildlife. We recently took my mother, who is 92, to sit by the lake and noticed that it now contains terrapin, placed there no doubt by somebody who no longer wanted them as pets.

I'd be interested in hearing from anyone who remembers the same period as I do. I can be reached at kim.hatton@mac.com

Mr K N Hatton
Nottingham

Notes from the Frith files.

Ashby's was a grocery business started by Stephen Ashby in the 1920s. It was then run by his son Aubrey Ashby until the late 1950s when it was sold.