1st Visit To Newchurch

A Memory of Newchurch.

My first visit to Newchurch was to see my grandparents who rented a flat at the back of the vicarage. My grandfather was Alfred Rigden and my step grandmother was Dorothy, nee Billing. They were retired at the time, grandad having worked on farms all his life. The family originally came from Goodnestone/ Staple/ Wingham areas of Kent. I was with my mother, sister and brothers. It was the first time we had ever visited any family, arriving by an East Kent bus. We had never seen the countryside before, living as we did in Bromley, quite a large town even then. It was love at first sight, both with Newchurch and our grandparents. We walked down the lane to the vicarage where we were treated to a massive country style dinner! Grandad took us on a tour of his quarters in the vicarage. He showed us the cellars where he pointed out a door in a corner. He said it was to a secret tunnel the smugglers used between the church and the vicarage to hide their contraband. Don't know if it was true or not, but we kids believed every word. The village was small, and going past the church and vicarage, on the way out of the village, I remember a nissan hut used as a shop, and past that a pub.
It is still a lovely village but changed since my first memory. The vicarage has been done up and I couldn't see the bit our grandparents lived in. It was plain brick where as it is now painted white, and a stable block to the left of the vicarage no longer exists.
Newchurch, to us, was in the middle of nowhere, but it was heaven. Opposite the vicarage were fields with sheep in, our first encounter with live ones as opposed to hanging up in a butchers shop!
My brother and I visited again last year, calling in at the church, buying some lovely jam there. The church itself is wonderful and full of history. Long may it survive!