You are here:
Otham
Otham maps
Historic maps of Otham and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Otham maps
Otham photos
We have no photos of Otham, although we do have photos of these nearby places:
Bearsted| Langley| Boughton Monchelsea| Maidstone| Leeds Castle| Loose| Sutton Valence| Detling| East Farleigh| Allington| Boxley| Barming| Aylesford| Bredhurst| Teston| Headcorn| Staplehurst| Marden| Yalding| Bredgar| Burham| Borden| Snodland| Tunstall
Otham area books
Displaying 1 of 24 books about Otham and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Otham
Displaying a selection of personal
memories of Otham.
Add your memory of Otham
or of a photo of Otham.
Otham School
l started my first school in Otham in1935 at the age of four, l was living with my grandparents opposite the school called Primrose Cottage. l then moved with my mother and two brothers and sister to the Vicarage Cottage next to the vicarage until 1939 when we moved to Gillingham. My grandfather worked for the Betts family as a shepherd for 35 years. And my mother and her sisters and brother all went to Otham school.
Kent memories
The Bearsted Boys
I have put 1947 but infact it is from earlier than that to 1954.
I think this was a great place for us as kids as we had freedom and not much parental control, I think mainly due to our parents who had just survived the war years, and thinking how lucky we were all to be alive and not under Hitler.
One of my memories was being lifted from the tin bath to watch Spitfires chase 'doodle-bugs' over the village.
I remember sleeping under the table made from steel with mesh around so if we got bombed we may survive. I also remember a shell or bomb going off very close to our house and we as kids were digging the shrapnel out in the morning, the blast broke tiles from our house and the blue tits nested in there every year.
If they had any money for a drink they met with others from the village down at the Royal Oak, and got... Read more
From 1944
Memories from that long ago tend to stick in the back of the mind until an association brings them out. Being a small child, the village green at Bearsted seemed gigantic and the village pond was just a pond. We used to paddle in the pond up to the top of our wellies, hoping that the water wouldn't run over the top and give us wet feet. The green was a favourite gathering place for a lot of children. One particular place was the village pump. There was no pump, only accomodation which looked like a church lich gate with seats around the inside. As kids we had a lot of freedom to wonder the local fields and the golf course. We even went as far as the hills where there was a ruined church/castle. In those days we didn't appreciate the archaeological value of a castle built of flint stone which had fallen into ruin and was largely buried, even tho' there was a standing wall with an arch.
Evacuee
I was evacuated to Bearsted about a week before the outbreak of the last war. I lived at the White Horse Inn on the green, it was run by Mr & Mrs Brook they had a daughter called Tinkle (nickname). I was very happy there and stayed for the duration of the war. If anyone knows where Tinkle lives now I would be grateful if you could let me know, the last I heard she and her husband were living beyond Bournemouth somewhere. I went to the little church school on the green then passed my scholarship and attended the old girls Grammar school. We were not integrated with the Maidstone girls we had a couple of the rooms upstairs. I went to visit the school a couple of years ago but it was no longer there. I always have a soft spot for Bearsted that's where I grew up. I now live about... Read more
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.
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... Read more
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.
