The Woodman - Sweets Lane

Taking a stroll in the blistering sun last Sunday down Sweets Lane (15th April) I came across a building that used to be The Woodman Pub in East Malling (if it had still been a pub I would have been in there like a shot to ease my sun-drenched thirst). I had previously seen the old picture below and was therefore confident I would recognise the the building in its current form. What sealed it, however, was the empty sign frame, which appears to be the original. What is a shame is that I took my photo from a different angle! When I am next on Sweets Lane I will take a shot from the right perspective and replace the one below.

I have carried out a quick search on the Internet, which reveals that the building is now a nursery school. Also, on comparison of the photos there are a few changes to the building to note. Firstly, that it now has three windows at the top and a one bottom centre where the door to the pub used to be. The entrance to the house now appears to be on the right of the building, hence the gate.

Unfortunately, the old photo of the Woodman did not come with a date. If anyone knows (even approximately) when this was taken please let me know.

Many thanks to Kent County Council for permission to use the The Woodman photo.

East Malling Halt (2)

Here's one for you....why is a train station called a halt? Because it is unmanned of course. Except, however, in the case of East Malling. The feedback I have received is that our beloved station was, in its early days, actually manned even though it was called a halt. I'm sure there's a simple explanation. Maybe it later became manned after being given it's title, particularly as it has been described as a very busy station (pre-war that is) due to the lack of automobiles at this time and Maidstone being only a short distance away. My original post on the station identified what appeared to be a waiting room on the platform. I have been kindly informed that this was correct and the adjacent platform also had a waiting room. I also noted that the perspective in the photo appeared to be from the current station car park. I'm likely to have egg on my face on this one, as it has been suggested that the photo was taken from the other side, i.e. on the corner of Rocks Road looking toward the London-bound platform. Hence, the wall in the photo looks like the side of the road bridge on the High Street.

I can also report that David Glasspool (the author of Kent Rail) is going add East Malling Halt to his website later this year. I soon as I learn of this I will post something up.

Thanks to Godfrey King and Sarah Carling for their contribution to the above.

Sweets 'n Treats (2)

When a shop has greyed-out windows it's usually a sign that it is being refurbished and will eventually be unveiled as something new and exciting. Hopefully this will be the case with Sweets 'n Treats, as it is looking a bit in between places at the moment. The shop, in its current form, was a short-lived venture as a sweet shop. Thankfully, the building has a much more exciting history. The shop used to be the village bakers, which was very popular and heavily used in the 1930s. The baking ovens were located at the back of the premises. The shop was run by successive bakers in the 1970s and 80s before it was eventually shut down and all the equipment was sold off. In the shop's heyday all the bread could be sold out as early as 10am. A local resident, Diane Brazier, bought several of the Hovis Tins that were sold off when it was finally shut. Hopefully some photos of the old bakery will come my way and I will post these up. Thanks again to Godfrey King and Diane Brazier for the above information.

East Malling Halt

For those of us who commute, now the clocks have gone forward we can again enjoy the train journey to and from East Malling in the daylight and appreciate the fabulous scenery of the Kent countryside along the way. Admittedly, I'm usually asleep on the train in the morning, but it makes all the difference in the evenings. There's nothing worse as the working day draws to an end than the thought of getting on a train where all you can see is your own reflection. Anyway, this leads me on to East Malling train station or, as it was originally called, East Malling Halt when it opened in 1913. This information was sourced from a great site called Kent Rail. For those of you wondering what a 'halt' actually is (i.e. in terms of rail transport), Wikipedia has the answer: "a halt is a small station, usually unstaffed and with few facilities" and the entry goes on to say that many stations have now removed the use of 'halt' in the title, as in the case of 'East Malling'. I attach photograph of East Malling Halt taken circa. 1950 (thanks again to Diane Brazier for supplying me with this). It looks as though the photo was taken from the perspective of station car park (though I could be wrong). And could the hut on the adjacent platform be the one that stands there today? Although the hut in the photo looks as though it has a door to the left (a waiting room perhaps?). If any one has thoughts on this, or any more photos, please let me know.

No Sweets 'n Treats?

How the mind wanders. I'm currently on the train to East Malling from London and thought it would be a good idea to introduce some present information to the blog to counter-balance the marvelous historical facts we have learned so far. Since I moved to the area last September I have wondered about the disused Sweets 'n Treats shop on the High Street with the greyed-out windows. Did this used to be the village newsagents? And, if so, are there any plans to reopen it? If anyone knows the answers please post or let me know.

Streams (3)

The East Malling stream has attached much attention since my original post reporting on a mention in the parish magazine ‘In Touch’. Following this, Godfrey King detailed the route of the stream from its source in East Malling to the river Medway. The latest information comes via two emails from Diane Brazier. I have edited these to provide the information below. Diane is lucky enough to have the stream actually wind its way through her back garden! As a resident of East Malling 33 years Diane has seem much stream-related activity and an abundance of wildlife!

When Diane first moved to East Malling from London in the early 1970s the stream was full of brown trout. The children used to drop lines with bait in the dip hole to catch them. Diane once saw a tiny water shrew doing water acrobatics in the dip hole. The stream has also attracted kingfishers, grey herons, moorhens, mallards, black caps and even water voles (please see the attached drawing carried out by Diane of a water vole on the cress beds). Diane also found two large crayfish whilst clearing out the stream. When the stream dried up last year they caught the last trout and ferried him upstream in a bucket together with as many of the tiny fish they could save. When the stream returned after the drought Diane once again saw the kingfisher in her garden. Diane’s late neighbour, Jack Watts, told her that in his childhood the stream was the village's main source of drinking water.

If anyone has any drawings or photos of the old stream or the wildlife it has attracted I would be happy to post these on the site. If these are only in hard copy I'm happy to receive these by post (if you are happy to send them). Please email me and I will forward on my address.

What's in a name?

Have you ever wondered where the name "East Malling" originated? I expect not. But to be fair nor did I until I found myself in West Malling library today (I don't normally spend a Saturday afternoon in libraries, but it is cold and miserable outside).

According to The Place Names of Kent (Glover: 1976), Malling derived its name from a tribe settlement in 942 called Mealla's people. East Malling appears to be the original settlement of this tribe, as a "charter dated 942-6 refers to....[the] boundary of the East Meallingas" (p.124). This is particularly interesting as it infers that East Malling originally had the "Malling" name because of the settlement and, therefore, West Malling must have derived its name because of the westerly proximity it has to East Malling. However, the same tribe also settled at South Malling in Sussex. According to the BBC's Kent Place Names page the records of the settlement are slightly earlier (838) and therefore it is possible and likely that they settled in Sussex before East Malling.

A search of the Meanings of Domesday Place-names of Sudsexe (Sussex) reveals that (in relation to South Malling) the '-ingas' in 'Meallingas' refers to "tribe, people" and therefore 'Mealla' could have been the leader of the tribe.

The Place Names of Kent also charts the evolution of the name from 'Meallingas' to 'Malling': Meallingas 942 - Meallingan c.1060 - Metlinges, Mellingetes 1086 - Mallinges 1187 - Mauling 1217 - Malling 1610.

If you know the history of any of the street names in East Malling, please let me know.