DESTRUCTION OF THE WHITE HORSE INN
On May 14th 1892 one of the biggest blazes seen in Rainham took place when a fire broke out in the "White Horse Inn" on the corner of Station Road and the High Street.
The Inn closed as usual on the night of Friday May 13th and the customers left while publican Charles Adie, his wife, their two children and four lodgers including two Royal Engineers stayed in the building. When everyone went to bed everything seemed normal according to Mrs Adie but at 4.20am she awoke to see smoke coming from the bedroom fireplace and heard knocking but at first she decided not to do anything. Unable to sleep she got up and went to the landing where she saw thick smoke coming from below. She realized that a fire had started so she woke her husband then the two Royal Engineers sleeping in the adjoining room. She went to the children’s bedroom, woke them up, wrapped a blanket around each and then took them out of the building by the back staircase. Mr Adie and the lodgers also managed to vacate the premises.
Photo of the White Horse Inn after it was rebuilt
While Mrs Adie and her children were taken into the "Cricketer’s Inn" opposite by the landlord Mr Jarrett, Mr Adie, assisted by police constables Packman and Bridgeland who had arrived on the scene, managed to take the horses and traps from the coach-house next to the inn to safety before the fire engulfed it.
By this time a large crowd of Rainham residents had converged on the scene after the alarm had been sounded. A mounted messenger was immediately sent to Chatham to rouse the fire brigade. Richard Wakeley junior from Moor Street Farm cycled to the waterworks at Keycol Hill to request that the water be turned on as it had been turned off during the night. Meanwhile, people present at the fire could only watch as large orange flames and thick smoke shot up into the sky and completely engulfed the building. According to the East Kent Gazette a large amount of spirits stored in the cellar contributed to the speed of the fire expanding. Just before this Mr Adie managed to get into the bar where he recovered the safe containing a large amount of cash before the roof caved in at about 6am. The two Royal Engineers managed to prevent the fire from spreading to ‘Church House’ next to the inn by cutting down a wooden shed between the two buildings with axes.
When the fire brigade arrived from Chatham the inn with all its contents had been completely destroyed and only the charred walls and the inn sign remained. The Chatham firemen could only push down the walls of the building with poles to make it safe leaving a heap of ruins apart from the coach-house which survived.
The "White Horse" building belonged to E Winch & Sons from Chatham. Fortunately, they had insured it so although the estimated damage totalled £2,000 the inn was rebuilt immediately and still exists today.
An investigation later attributed the cause of the fire to a beam that ran into the chimney at the back of the bar. The end had ignited then burst into flames. However, the biggest concern regarded the water being turned off and fire hydrants not being available. Mr Adie later commented that if the water had been turned on buckets of it could have been used to extinguish the fire before it took hold. This led to the establishment of Rainham Fire Brigade and hydrants being placed in different parts of the village during the following decade.
William Keutenius - Fire Officer Rainham Kent
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BALLOON OVER RAINHAM
On June 12th 1889 the Chatham & Rochester News reported that "the inhabitants of the little town of Rainham were aroused from their usual quietude by the appearance of a monster balloon to the delight of numerous onlookers a descent was made, both old and young seemed quite amazed at the novel sight". As early as 1880 a successful balloon flight had carried three passengers all the way from Ashford to Crediton in Devon.
Balloons, however, were not altogether unknown in this area, for one of the pioneers of military ballooning, Major James Templer, had bought Abbey Court Farm (then apparently known as Lidsey Farm) at Lidsing in 1883. Templer, together with Captain C.M.Watson, had started an army ballooning school at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich in I878, using his own balloon ‘Crusader’ and a grant of £150 from the military authorities. The whole operation was transferred to Chatham a year later, and it was from the RE Barracks that cylinders of hydrogen were carried by wagon to Lidsing, where in accordance with Templer’s orders a deep pit had been excavated near The Harrow, from which a balloon could be inflated and launched. A separate wagon carried the balloon itself, together with a drum on which was coiled the wire rope (incorporating a telephone wire) which would anchor the inflated balloon to the wagon.
The use of balloons for military reconnaissance was already well-established - the French employed them during the Napoleonic Wars, and they had also proved useful during the American Civil War. When British Forces were fighting in the eastern Sudan in i885 a detachment of balloonists from the Royal Engineers under Major Templer took part. A contemporary report related that on the 25th March ‘a balloon accompanied the convoy to the zeriba [a fortified camp], and probably frightened the natives, as no attack was made’. Unfortunately high winds generally made it impossible to employ the balloon, The Chatham & Rochester News had carried an item about Major Templer in April 1888, when the soldier had been court-martialled at Brompton Barracks charged with ‘disclosing secrets of military ballooning to persons unknown’ (believed to be connected with the ltalian Government). But he was honourably acquitted, and obviously no stigma was attached to his name, for he married the following year. Templer’s men were unkindly referred to as ‘Balloonatics’, and certainly flights were not without risk.
ln December 1881 Templer and two others (Mr.A.Gardner and Mr Walter Powell) were carrying out meteorological observations: air temperature at different heights and amount of snow in the air. They set out from Bath and travelled over Somerset and Dorset, but as their vessel approached Bridport the wind threatened to carry it out to sea. They attempted to land and Templer jumped out, holding the valve line, and tried to release the valve. The reduction in weight lifted the balloon several feet off the ground so that when Gardner jumped, he broke his leg and the balloon rose still higher, Templer, desperately trying to maintain hold of the line, urged Powell to climb down, but the rope was torn from his hands, and Powell, himself a keen balloonist with his own balloon and a private gasworks to inflate it, was carried away, never to be seen again.
Despite such incidents many flights were very successful. as the Rainham occurrence demonstrates, and the British Army continued to experiment with both balloons and giant kites. An article in Bygone Kent (Vol.l6 No.8) has several excellent photographs showing army wagons and balloons, and remarks that it was not unusual to see these over Lydd, ‘with one, two, or even three men suspended from them in light baskets’. Ballooning at Lidsing, though, had ended by the close of the nineteenth century.
RAD
More information about James Templer here
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MEMORIES OF RAINHAM
l have lived in Rainham most of my life give or take a few years when I lived on the Isle of Sheppey. When I was growing up in the 60s Rainham like most places did not offer much in the way of entertainment. Of course there were the pubs: the Cricketers, the White Horse and the Green Lion and the local cinema. People called the cinema, the Bug Hutch, it was in the building now occupied by Gerald Luckhurst shop on the High Street. I remember going there with my Nan when I was about 8 years old it was 9d a ticket. When the cinema was first converted to a shop Liptons went in - our first big grocery store.
As a child in the 60s there wasn’t a lot of money about, not like today, so to get some pocket money I took a dog out for a lady who lived along Tufton Road. He was a scruffy dog named ‘Boy’. We had a lot of fun especially when I used to take him along Berengrave path to scrump blackberries and damsons. I got into a lot of trouble especially if the farmer happened to see us. I came home with bramble cuts when we had made a quick escape. I took all the fruit to my mum who made jam and fruit chutney.
My mum was an excellent cook her pastry actually melted in your mouth especially when she made her famous blackberry and apple pie. My dad loved walnuts so I used to check the weather forecast and if it said rainy and windy conditions I knew that was the correct time that the walnuts would drop. There is a big house in Webster Road that had two walnut trees near the road (now long been cut down). When I was about l0 years old I often went on my way home from school just to see if any nuts had fallen l could take a short cut through an unmade road called the pokey, into Tufton Road. My dad was very pleased if I came home with walnuts.
One particular day I set off to Webster Road I had a jumper on which was too big for me but it was brilliant for storing nuts in. I waited and looked up at the walnut trees, the wind was blowing, the rain came down with such a force I had to hide behind a car, I waited and waited until finally the nuts fell. I collected them all up and put them in my jumper and was just about to tum and go home when I heard a shout - Mr Mountain who lived in the big house came out with his black Labrador and called - where are you going with my nuts? He frightened the living daylights out of me so much I immediately dropped all the nuts and ran home. I ran as fast as my legs would carry me and told my dad what had happened. In between deep breaths I remember my dad saying that if the nuts were dropping over the Wall on to the road I could pick them up and have them.
I took this in and thought right I’ll go and get them. Can you picture the scene a ten year old with attitude! I ran round the pokey and not looking where I was going bumped into Mr Mountain taking his dog for a walk, I told him what my dad had said. At first he didn’t say anything just looked at me then he smiled saying your dad is quite correct you may go and pick up the nuts. And I did and every day after that till all the nuts had gone. I remember this incident as if it was yesterday especially as I now work as a gardener in this big house and I don’t need to scrump walnuts anymore because the lady who lives there gives me some every year for Christmas from the other trees in her garden. But this year there are no walnuts as the squirrels have had them all - greedy little monkeys. But funnily enough there seem to be a lot of young walnut seedlings popping up all over the garden so perhaps the squirrels hid them last year and forgot Where they had put them.
Denise Hazelden
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A common sight on old photos of Medway and Maidstone that show pubs are the words "Style & Winch Ltd - Maidstone Fine Ales". The brewery was formed by the merger of Style brewery and Winch brewery but they then acquired many other brewers and shut their brewing operations to centralise at their Maidstone brewery. Style & Winch finally closed in 1965 but the name lives on as the name of a pub in Union Street, Maidstone and is also still displayed prominently on the fascia of the Man of Kent pub in Rochester.
Bredhurst Bell customers in early 1900s. The pub sold Style and Winch Maidstone fine ales
Mulberry Tree pub, lower Rainham Road c1900
The Green Lion Rainham
Temperance Hotel Station Road Rainham (Railway Pub)
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Subcategories
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Historical tales
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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