Wincheap Industrial Estate

WINCHEAP SCHOOL

I have a photo of the 'top class' sitting in front of what had been the connecting passage from the Head Master's Office(Mr Bradshaw) to another part of the school. It was known as 'the drainpipe' after the school was blitzed, we had our school dinners in there!. I don't know who took the photo but we all had a copy. I was then Doris Bailey.

The Present Day Hospital.

St John's Hospital Gateway 1898
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St John's Hospital is home to 35 elderly people. 24 live in the older part. There are 6 houses each holding 4 flats. House six can be seen in the photo, it stands alongside the hospital chapel. The chapel is used twice a week by the residents. Beyond the chapel and graveyard are two more modern buildings, St John's House is about 40 years old and comprises of 2 flats, one of which is occupied by the chaplain of he hospital. Alongside St John's House is St Elisabeth House. It has 8 flats and is for the more frail of our residents. It was built in 1999 and took the name of St John the Baptist's mother. The room above the Gatehouse is still in use by the Bursar of the hospital.

St Stephen's Church Interior c1888
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There are several dating features on both this print and subsequent ones and inspection of the church today that suggest that the photograph is probably correctly dated at 1888.  The pews shown were installed in that year, replacing an earlier box version.  A memorial tablet on the wall in commemorating the life of a local lady who died in 1888 does not appear although it is present on a photograph of 1902. I would suggest that the photograph was taken in 1888 to show the new pews "in situ."

Marten Rogers

The Old Mill

Mill on The River Stour 1903
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The mill bridge shown in the photograph was washed away in a flood in the 1960's. Unfortunately the mill pond was a favourite place for some children to swim in then. We lost one of the children on the hospital estate by drowning there in the pond, whose name was Billy Johnson, whose parents worked as nurses at St Augustine's in 1963. He is buried in Chartham cemetery.

Beech House

The Asylum 1903
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Beech House was the school attached to St. Augustines,which used to be the County Asylum. I was there from 1964-66. I always found the people of Chartham top be lovely and kind. I remember walks down to the church and mill,and waiting on the station to go home for the holidays. I have only fond memories of Chartham and it's people

Asylum

The Asylum 1903
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My ancestor Jecoliah Coleman (nee Roberts) was admitted to the Chartham asylum in the late 1800's, and died here in 1915. She had a husband and 2 sons still alive so I wonder why she needed to be admitted, poor woman.

Hop Picking

The Asylum 1903
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I have good memorys of Chartham. My family used to go hopping every year. We were on a Mr Finn's farm untill the late 1950s when he stopped the hand-picking. I would like to get some photos of the hopping huts we stayed in for 6 weeks. When Mr Finn ceased picking we went down the road to another farm, it was called Robson Farm but later it became Hulmes Farm. I still go back to re-live the good old times, allthough it has changed so much. We stopped hand-picking on Hulmes Farm in the late 1970s.
Don.