Rainham History - History of Rainham Kent, Old Photos and Life in Bygone Times
The Rose Public House Rainham
Rainham Football Club 1920s
I was wondering whether the attached photograph of a football team might be of interest to you. My grandfather William (Bill) Weekes is the third from the right in the back row. I know he played for Rainham in the New Brompton League at one time. I assume this is a photograph of the Rainham team, although it is possible he may have also played for another team at one stage. I don't know the date of the photograph, but judging by how old my grandfather looks I would guess that it would be around 1920.
Rainham History Facebook Page
Rainham History - Old Photos of Rainham is now on Facebook, hopefully another, better way to be able to share memories from the past in Rainham and post and answer questions. The forum that was previously used is likely to be switched off soon as it is more difficult to manage and gets regularly spammed.
You can access the Facebook page here http://www.facebook.com/RainhamHistory and share any questions or information on the wall
Music in the 1980s - Home taping is killing music?
In today's connected world when even your mobile phone can play music and videos and store your entire music library in a device smaller than a pack of cards it's hard to Imagine a time when the only way to play and listen to music was on a radio, vinyl LP or cassette.
No CDs, no mp3, no YouTube, no Internet and portable cassette players bigger than a current mobile phone. For a teenager with limited funds unable to buy the latest albums the only way to listen to their choice of music was to record from the radio onto cassette and the ideal time for that was Sunday between 5 and 7pm during the Radio 1 Top 40 show.
Listening intently to the chart positions to work out where your favourite song would be and consequently what time it would be played . Preparing the cassette so that all was ready to press record as soon as the DJ announced the artist and song title but after they had finished speaking became a finely honed art so that you avoided the cut off words and tried to catch as much of the intro as you could.
Unlike today's iPod's or MP3 players there was no direct access to listen to each song so you had to fast forward or rewind and guess the number of seconds to reach your desired track. The introduction of music search that detected the gaps between songs was a revelation quickly overtaken by CDs where you could program tracks and jump to them in any order.
High Speed 1 - HS1 Railway Line Construction
With all the current news about HS2 being planned and the route from London to Manchester via Birmingham I thought it might be useful to collect some of the photos together for the HS1 High Speed One Channel Tunnel rail link construction project.
HS1 High Speed One Channel Tunnel rail link, also known as Channel Tunnel Rail Link CTRL runs from the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone to St Pancras station in London running through some of the most picturesque parts of Kent with many new tunnels, bridges and viaducts constructed for the opening in 2003. The route is 67 miles from London to Folkestone.
Siloam Farm Rainham
Siloam Farm is situated on Mierscourt Road Rainham and has long historical connections with mentions in many documents about the history of Rainham.
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/927708
Rainham Cricket club used to play at Siloam Farm
Old Petrol Filling Stations in Rainham
There has been a lot of change with petrol stations in Rainham over the last few years with many closing and others changing hands between different brands. When I was growing up there were three more petrol stations in Rainham that no longer exist.
Parkwood Green - where St Pauls church is now located was a petrol filling station until the early 1980s when the site was abandoned and remained derelict until the church was built.
Rainham Mark (Texaco, previously Shell garage and now Enterprise Car Rental)
Photo below taken in 2002 - was unleaded really only 76.9p per litre then!
Station Road, Rainham (now closed and car dealership)
Greens of Rainham on A2 between Rainham and Newington - Vauxhall car dealer now Hyundai
Maidstone Road, Rainham opposite Manor Farm pub (closed, now Hidsons/Olympic motors Car dealership)
Other sites have changed hands over the last few years:
Wigmore, Maidstone Road, was Total Petrol station, now operated by Shell.
Wigmore, Hoath Way next to Sherlodge garage was Shell, then operated by Harvest Energy. Now closed and being used for housing
Moor Street A2 Rainham Kent
The main A2 between London, Canterbury and Dover runs through Rainham. Interestingly the road has a number of different names as it passes through from Gillingham to Rainham and then on to Sittingbourne.
One of the names for the A2 as it approaches Rainham from the Sittingbourne direction is Moor Street. Was this because at some point Moors lived here? Other names for the A2 as it runs through Rainham are:
Watling Street
Sovereign Boulevard
High Street
Moor Street (see photo below)
Top Road
Do you know any others? If so please post any comments below:
Subcategories
Historical tales Article Count: 3
Historical tales
Rainham Life Article Count: 10
Rainham Life
Local Events Article Count: 48
Local Events
Photos Article Count: 143
Photos
Action Forum Article Count: 234
Action Forum is a free monthly magazine that is distributed to the Rainham area covering Wigmore, Parkwood and Hempstead as well. This archive covers old copies of the magazine dating back to its initial publication in 1969 and give a fascinating glimpse into life in Rainham over the last 50 years.
Link to Article Index - Action Forum Index - Photos and Articles from 1969 onwards