Folkestone Then & Now Guestbook

Just wanted to say -

Really enjoyed looking at your site.

I spent a week in Kent in the late 1960s/early 1970s when I was at primary school. In fact,we stayed at Moyle Tower in Hythe. My memory is that it was an amazing place. We stayed in little wooden
chalets in the garden. I recall the common room that was in your photos - with its large window overlooking the sea. I seem to remember a grand staircase too.

We went for days out - the Dymchurch steam railway, some lovely castles, Dungeness beach. Ah lovely memories.

Love your web site, just to put the record straight John and David Brickell together with their sister Janet Ewins (nee Brickell) and her husband John Ewins owned The business of Rowlands Rock shop from 1966 , in 1976 they all fell out, as families do and John and David carried on the business without them until 1996 when David left the business and John continued until just before his death in 2007. John worked in the business all his life making seaside rock starting in the 1950's working for Jimmy Rowland.It was extremely hard work but a lot of fun as well as it catered for the "bucket and spade" holiday makers of Folkestone when the town was "buzzing"

Just been looking at your pics, loads of memories. I grew up in Cheriton, I remember I went to All Souls school in 1950, then to Harcourt School for Girls, and then to Bobby's. I worked in the suitcase dept., that was a good job, loads of commission.

I remember summer time at lunch break, a few of us ran to the lifts to get to the beach for a quick swim, then a quick change into work clothes and back to work. No worries about wet hair, we all had swimming hats on. Bobby's was one of the best jobs in Folkestone then. I have so many happy memories of those years.

What a wonderful website! Beautiful pictures of a beautiful town. The council are doing a grand job looking after the Leas area which with cut backs in local authority spending can't be easy.
I read during a recent visit to Folkstone that the town use to have more Rolls Royce cars per population than anywhere else in the world! It was the playground of the rich...much like today! I will be visiting Folkstone again in early February and a friend and I have booked 2 premier rooms, with seaviews, at the Burlington Hotel. Can't wait!

Hello, some really great memories here for me, I am just about to retire tomorrow and have been reflecting on my happy childhood, I went to St Eanswythes and then Hillside secondary modern from 1955 through 1967. we lived in Wear Bay Crescent and then Calgary crescent. The Marina rock pool and the open air swimming pool were always in use, i have returned several times to my homes and even taken my children to see them

I love this site I lived at no 63 Seabrook Road 1979 till 1983 when I married Deborah Elizabeth Morris of 26 Blackhouse hill Hythe and moved to 32 Queen Street Folkestone My Father was the caretaker at seabrook lodge school and no 63 Seabrook Road was the caretakers house. My Father Derek Squire Parker was caretaker until the school closed. My Father sadly passed away 27-12-2011 in Bolton Lancashire.

On this document i have got pictures of cheriton high street. On the picture with the mound of dirt you were unsure of where this was, it looked very familar to me and i found it on google maps it is by the main traffic lights in Cheriton, where you have the Coral betting shop and newsagents further down. Also where the old post office was is now a computer shop next to Deep south tattoo shop where May#@*%! used to be. Hope this helps :)

I worked and lived at The Princes Hotel , Bouverie Road West Folkstone in 1955/6 and have a few memories
I can share

Hello Christine,
Sorry to say that I haven't looked at the site for a while. There is so much of interest.
I'm particularly interested in the Hawkinge page as I spent a very happy childhood there and still live close by.
My Mum, Gladys Howland (nee Brisley) is in the front row, left in the 1st Hawkinge guides. She was organist and occasional choir mistress at St Lukes and St Michaels until a few months before her death in 1969. I can confirm that the faded photo is St Michaels and is the familiar view from the path to the church.
The attached photo had me puzzled for a while. Taken from the Aerodrome, it shows the old Post office and the back of the 4 semi-detached houses in Mill Lane. There are no shops opposite the Post office (My grandfather Brisley helped build some of them) and it's hard to tell if the school is just out of shot.
Please feel free to use any other photos or information from my website.
Best Regards,
Mike

Cannot find mention anywhere of the terrible accident which ocurred at 69 Ashley Avenue when a hand grenade was thrown against a wall in the garden killing one little 5 year old girl by the name of Kathleen Patricia Donogue and maiming several older children. It´s almost as if it never happened. The little girl was my half-sister known as Patsy

A great set of pictures, so nice to see how it all used to be.

What a wonderful page, thank you so much for sharing these photos
We live on the canterbury road and really interested to see the photos you have, do you know roughly what year they were taken?
I am interested to know when the school on Canterbury road and the houses along that section of the road were built? Also whether the airfield ran along the back of those houses opposite the school?
Thanks again for taking the time to creat this page

(Continued)
Our neighbours included the mayor, Alderman george Gurr and his wife. (He is on record having advised townsfolk that they were "safer in their own beds."

Our house was repaired at the end of the War and we reoccupied it for a time from early 1946, hence my attending Harcourt Primary School, newly occupied though built in 1939. We then moved to take over 'The Valiant Sailor', then without its farm. (See my earlier submissions re Pubs).

Referring again to your 'War' section, there is a photo, very meaningful for me, of aerial mine damage to part of Morehall Avenue which took place at around 2am on the morning of 29 May 1941 when I came within a whisker of death. My parents and I lived at No. 12, the end wall of which can just be discerned extreme bottom right of the photo. The picture appears to have been taken from the upper level of the sweets & tobacco shop in Cheriton Road owned by the Wright sisters, Elsie and Gladys, the former my Godmother. (I checked the angles only the other week.)

My bedroom faced the road. The mine landed in the centre of the Avenue, between numbers 28 and 29, killing 13 (including an infant) and injuring 43. I recall my bedroom window blowing in on me, covering me in glass and plaster. Somehow, my parents and I escaped serious injury, though our home was falling about our ears. We managed to make our way to the air raid shelter situated beneath the pavement in front of 'The Morehall' pub. (continued)

Lee Podgson's photo of the WW2 bunker is, in fact, and Observation Post (OP) and is, indeed one of two. They are not on East Cliff, as such, but they lie just behind The Valiant Sailor, pub. I used to play on and inside them when first I came to live at the pub at the end of hostilities. The military were still 'in residence' at the time. There was also a battery of two (perhaps three) 9.2 inch ex-naval guns (probably removed from de-commissioned WW1 warships). The Capel Battery, as it was known stretched right along the clifftops to Capel village.

Close by, there was a Zig Zag path extending to The Warren. I used this to reach 'my garden' i.e.. The Warren which I had virtually to myself in those days. Barbed wire and mined areas were everywhere. Just behind the pub, we had a tea garden which had a lovely summerhouse which looked out over The Channel.

It might be of interest to learn that this summerhouse was used by Marconi in his experiments to send and receive cross-Channel 'wireless' messages. The pub then was part of an extensive farm with herds of cattle which used to graze the fields and hills around the area extending as far as the Folkestone/Canterbury Road. The farmer, Bill Aird, was suspicious of these new-fangled "radio waves". He believed they would be detrimental to his cows' milk yield and sent Marconi packing (and out of the history books!)

Re. your "Pubs" database, I walked past The 'Morehall' only the other day. The site is being converted into flats, a local told me.

You may not be aware that immediately in front of the pub, beneath the pavement, there is/was an air raid shelter which, slightly injured, I entered around 2.30 am. on the night of 29 May 1941 following the devastation of one end of Morehall Avenue by a wayward parachute mine. (A photo appears elsewhere on your website which just shows the end wall of my home!)

I mentioned the shelter to one of the builders working on the redevelopment who confirmed that the pub's cellar is still present. "I'll have to cut through, he said, to verify if the shelter still exists or has been filled in." (Personally, I think it is still there!)

After the War, our house was repaired and we reoccupied it until moving to The Valiant Sailor. You have some good photos of those premises on your 'Pubs' section, I notice.

The second picture captioned 'Uphill Mill' (i.e. one of two on the RH side) is actually the windmill at Hawkinge Hall. It outlasted Uphill Mill but got very derelict and collapsed on a calm day in 1961.

I went to morehall primary school in the seventies.
The infants was just behind the main building
And had a separate playground to the juniors. the concrete wall was still at the front.i remember being scared of the slipper if you did wrong.i don't know if there was slipper or not. my father went to this school when it was an all boys secondary. I went on to pent valley. The round room was an art room. If you was told to stand in a corner you would run round saying I can't find the corner. I later moved and went to wyndgate school but got the floor and egg treatment before I left

Great website, in fact probably the best there is on folkestone history!!

Great work christine, much appreciated!!

My mum went to harcourt in the mid to late 40's..her best friend from that time lives in middlesex. Mum lived in folkestone with her mum down by the harbour, later married and moved to deal where she and my dad lived until she died in 2009. My grandmother lived there until she died about 43 years ago. They originally came from smarden.
I went to folkestone tech from 1966 until 1972. My granddaughter went to the same school, now folkestone grammer, until about 4 years ago....we have always loved folkestone and will always have deep connections to the town. I remember going to the swimming pool during the summer down by the rotunda...