Bell House Bakery

A Memory of Wickhambreaux.

My paternal grandfather (Waters) was the baker at the Bell House. I remember the bakery well as I used to travel down from Swanley in Kent on the coach with Dad (Mum stayed at home with my younger siblings) to visit my grandparents. In through the bakery front door - stairs straight ahead - left to the front parlour where my uncle Leslie played the piano! Right to the living room and through to the kitchen, larder in the corner - tiny staircase from kitchen up to grandparents' bedroom. Outside I was sometimes allowed to use Mrs Pestel's garden to walk down to the river (Mrs Pestel used to sell antiquities from her front window). There was a double seated outside toilet block just past the bakery ovens. Drove down to Wickhambreaux yesterday and from the outside nothing has changed but I expect inside it is very different. Dad (known as doughy being the baker's son!) and I would walk up to Ickham post office to visit Mum's cousins, Len and Frank Coombs. That again was a fascinating building and garden - lots of nooks and crannies - in the cellar where the smell of smoked bacon was overwhelming, the tiny rooms which formed various parts of the kitchen. The even smaller post office which formed part of the village stores. Great memories!