Tuesday 13 October 2009

The Smallholders Club - Wigmore Kent

I have received the following message today. If anyone is able to assist can you reply here so that the Smallholders Club can see the responses.

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Can you help, I work for the Wigmore & District Smallholders Club and am trying to track down how long the club has been in exsistant. September 1924 is my last record but there is a picture of the smallholders which could be older than that?
We have no records in the Club before 1976- unfortunetly they were destroyed by fire.

We have no idea if we have a centuary in the near future or if we've missed it.

Thursday 8 October 2009

Changes in the Urban Landscape

From the photos published on the Rainham History website it is very clear how much the urban landscape changes even over relatively short periods of time.


Sunday 5 April 2009

Rainham Cement Works

This message was received from Eddy Newport regarding the cement works at Berengrave Lane.

Dear sir
I like to draw your attention to the following web site

http://www.friendsofberengrave.btik.com/p_Home.ikml

This site has been put together by Brian Baker chairman of Friends of Berengrave Local Nature Reserve. The web site will explain everything we stand for and trying to achieve regarding the reserve site.

At the moment we are undertaking a archaeological investigation in the area adjacent to the two derelict wash mill in the nature reserve. The object is to find out how the actual site worked when it was running in its heyday. On an old OS map we noticed that a building was marked opposite the WMs and two members of FoB have been working on the site removing detritus and discovering many interesting features.

In doing this work we are finding more questions than answers about how it worked. We have found many support structures but we are confused as to what they did. To cut a long story short, I was wondering if it possible that any of your members may have some information or old photos showing anything about the cement and chalk workings that and can give us a clue as to how it worked.
The site has moved on since the web site was updated and a lot more has been excavated.

Feel free to come down and see what we are doing there.ED

Tip. go into the web site click in artefacts and follow the link to the archaeological investigation and see what we are doing.

Wednesday 4 March 2009

Greens of Rainham Vauxhall Car Dealership Closes

It has been announced that Greens of Rainham, the Vauxhall car dealer has been placed in administration. The Greens showrooms in Rainham and Snodland have been empty for several months so the confirmation was no great surprise locally. Sadly some 70 Greens of Rainham employees lost their jobs having been left in limbo since December when they were last paid but without being given any information until now about the fate of the company.

This news would appear to confirm the depth and severity of the current recession by claiming a dealership that has successfully survived many previous recessions and downturns.

[information from Medway Messenger]

Friday 16 January 2009

Freddie Cooper

I have recently heard that Freddie Cooper sadly passed away on 6th January 2009.

Freddie was a former Mayor and a huge source of information on the history of Rainham providing many articles for this site via Action Forum.

You can see an interview with Freddie Cooper on YouTube where he talks about Rainham and how life was in the last century.