EXTRACTS FROM A TALK BY MR BILL PANKHURST, GIVEN AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY, LONGFIELD, KENT ON 20 JANUARY 1992
submitted
by Roger Cockett
“This
is Longfield Court. That was demolished before anybody got - well I didn’t get
a chance to get round there with a camera and a bloke came along with a steam
engine and a big wire hawser and he pulled it down before I could get round. All
those blocks you see up the corner was great big blocks of chalk. I went in
there one day with my old dad to do some work for Hickmotts and he said “You
want to take notice of this boy”, he said. And about that high off the ground
was a brick wall with a stone slab on it and there was two great big cruck
timbers in the middle of that place, which is unusual for Kent. Needless to say,
it didn’t mean nothing to me then. Just nodded me head and said “Yes dad”
and walked up the stairs.”
“This
is how the church was when we was kids... The lych gate was donated by the
Hickmott family and I think there’s still a trust today that, to maintain it.
Maybe they’ve run out of money, but there was [one]…”
“You
know, my mother lived in the Pond Cottage. My grandmother was a seamstress for
Hickmotts, she used to repair all their clothing and things... So one of my
aunties died of diptheria or something and the old Hickmotts give them 24 hours
to clear out, in case they caught the disease…”
“Now
we’re coming up towards Oliver Cole’s farm. This is where the brick-field
was. And the Hickmotts owned the brick-fields. Up in the fields there, there was
a row of old cottages where the brick-makers used to live. They were thatched
initially and then they took the thatch off and put corrugated irons on them and
my old dad then used to call them Silvertop Villas. And over the back down
there, there was a big old shed, old Oliver burned it down sadly...And it had
got an old steam engine in there and they used to pump - there was a well there
300 foot deep - used to pump water out and supply the village and also for
making the bricks etc. So that was quite an industrial site in Longfield, bricks
and tiles coming out of there.”