Wingham, Kent

Living in The Rectory

I lived in the Rectory for the whole Universty year 1968-1969. There were four of us - male students from the University of Kent. A fantastic place to live. I have revisited the place - now an old people's home, still just about the same. The pub was a pub in the 60s - it is now a posh restaurant.
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School holidays

I used to spend all my summer school holidays with Mr and Mrs Curtis who used to live in the school house in Ickham. He used to play the organ in Wickhambreux church. I was adopted in London, and Mr Curtis was a good friend of my birth mother(I will leave it at that). I always remember the awful day that... [more]

Seaton Mill, Ickham

My great uncle Henry Charles Rudd was an India Rubber Manufacturer at Seaton Mill, Ickham, in 1891. He is on the 1891 census. He died there the following year, in 1892. I believe my grandmother, Margaret Hagar Rudd also worked at the Mill. She was married to my grandfather Herbert Edwin Rudd, Henry Charles' brother. They... [more]

Treasury farm

The building on the right-hand side of the photo in the foreground is in fact the wall of the garage which belonged to Treasury Farm, my home for many years. Many a time I was in the forge with my ponies getting them reshod ... to think this is how it looked just one year before I moved there.

1901 Wickhambreux

Sarah Clayden Rudd nee Wacey and her daughters lived in Wickhambreux.  They were listed there at the time of the 1891 census as living 'the green' and in 1901 she and her daughters, Sarah and Rebecca, are living there and recorded as 'lodging house keeper'. Sarah the mother lived there until she died in 1916.

They are distant relatives of... [more]

Family connections

I understand my great grandfather worked in this forge. He was born Charles Holness around 1830 and married Ann Marsh in the 1850s. My father's mother Agnes Annie Holness was one of their children. She had an older sister Alice, brothers Fred and Bert and William Henry who died of smallpox in May 1902. He worked on... [more]

Lamberts Laundry

I called on many customers in Adisham village before the popularity of the automatic washing machine affected the laundry trade. I served all the main traders: Hosking Post Office, Best Bakery, Colmans Farm, and numerous private households. The generosity of the customers in providing tea and cakes added pleasant hours to my journey and I sometimes took the Sunday service at... [more]