Hildenborough, Kent - Old Barn from garden - art postcard c.1970s

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  The Old Barn from the Garden, Hildenborough, Kent
• Publisher:  The Old Barn
• Postally used:  yes
• Stamp:  2&half p. magenta Machin defin.
• Postmark(s):  Camberwell 2 July 1973
• Sent to:  Peacock Lane, Thakenham, near Storrington, Sussex
• Notes / condition:  light wear consistant with normal postal use, tiny 1cm nick on top edge

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Image may be low res for illustrative purposes - if you need a higher definition image then please contact me and I may be able to send one.

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Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

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Hildenborough is a village and rural parish in the District of Tonbridge and Malling, Kent. It is two miles (three kilometres) north-west of Tonbridge and five miles (eight kilometres) south-east of Sevenoaks. The village lies in the River Medway valley, near the North Downs in an area known as The Weald.

Hildenborough was originally just Hilden – or, in its 13th-century form, Hyldenn. The elements here are Old English hyll ‘hill’ and denn ‘woodland pasture’, so the sense is of a ‘pasture on or by a hill’. By 1349 the name had become Hildenborough, having acquired the affix from burh ‘manor, borough’.

At the outbreak of World War 2 in September 1939 Hildenborough was considered a quiet safe location and children from London schools were evacuated to the Village School. In October 1939 there were 250 evacuees on the school roll.^[1] In the absence of air raids on London during this period of the “phoney war” many of these children returned home. The quiet was not to last. In July 1940 the Battle of Britain got underway in the skies above Kent and the village became anything but quiet. Hildenborough is only ten miles from Biggin Hill an important airfield and a Sector headquarters coordinating airfields in Kent. Other airfields under Biggin Hill were at Gravesend some fifteen miles away and night fighters were at West Malling ten miles away. There were emergency landing strips in Stocks Green Road, Hildenborough less than a mile from the village centre and at Penshurst Airfield, Charcotte only 3 miles away. Most of the evacuees had left the village before the bombs started to fall. On 6 September a Hurricane piloted by Flying Officer Bowring attacked a Junkers 88 Bomber and the pilot of the crippled plane ordered his radio operator to bail out. This was Corporal Heinrich Agel and he landed on the roof of the “Boilin Kettle” tea rooms. He was taken in by the owners and given tea and cakes while they waited for the Police to arrive. The plane went on to crash land at Tanyard Farm in Hadlow Road, Tonbridge. The crew of five were reunited at Tonbridge Police station before being taken to a POW camp for the duration of the war.^[2] On September 11 a twin engine Heinkel 111 bomber was shot down by two Hurricanes and crash landed on the airstrip behind the Old Barn in Stocks Green Road. The Hurricanes circled to watch as the crew of five walked away from the wreckage and were captured by a group of soldiers. October 27 , a Sunday, started with a Mk11 Spitfire (P7539) diving to earth behind the Half Moon Pub killing the Pilot John R.Mather. (Investigations of the crash site in the 1972 did not reveal any battle damage. The cause of the crash was probably mechanical failure).^[3] Later that same day a Messerschmitt 109 was shot and forced to land on Penshurst airfield, a temporary air strip near Penshurst. The pilot of the Spitfire was flying officer Peter Chesters.^[4] After this busy spell the village did not suffer from the war until one day in 1942 bombs fell on the “Grenadier Pub” in Riding Lane. There were no injuries; the landlord was safe in his cellar tapping a new barrel.^[5] The village and surrounding area played host to American troops who all left the area in the follow up from D.Day. The war returned in June with the first of the flying bombs. On 29 June a flying bomb damaged School House and there are numerous records of the disturbance caused by the flying bombs.(^[1]) The window in the north transept of St Johns Church was blown out at this time. It became so dangerous in the village that in July children were evacuated in what was now called “Buzz Bomb Alley”.^[1] There were other V1 and V2 events in the village but these are not well documented as many of these fell in fields. Ref.1 Hildenborough School Log book. Ref.2 Blazing Bomber to Boiling Kettle by Gordon Church. Bygone Kent Vol.ll No. 5. Ref.3 Courier Newspaper 1972 Ref.4 ""The Airmen's Stories – P/O P Chesters"". Battle of Britain Museum. Retrieved 14 January 2010. Ref. 5 Courier Newspaper

Hildenborough stood on the first road in Kent to be turnpiked in 1710: the highway from Sevenoaks through Tonbridge to Tunbridge Wells; carrying much traffic en route to “the Wells”. A number of inns sprang up to service this traffic, including the Hilden Manor and the Half Moon.

Today the village, along with Tonbridge and Sevenoaks, is by-passed by the modern A21 road.

The railway was late coming to Hildenborough: the South Eastern Railway did not open its direct line from London until 1 May 1868. The six-mile (ten-kilometre) gradient up to Sevenoaks takes its name from the village. The railway station was situated close to the existing houses at the time, which is now about one mile (one and a half kilometres) from the village centre.

By the 1840s, the Parish of Tonbridge was approximately 10 miles (16 km) long and 2 ¹/₂ miles (4.0 km) wide. A circular letter dated 26 September 1842 explained that, ""as the Parish was so large, a great many people were unable to attend the church [in nearby Tonbridge]."" It was proposed that, ""a new church should be built for the people living in the Hildenborough district."" Dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, the church was consecrated on 9 July 1844.^[6]

In 1992 a ""church plant"" was established by St John's at Stocks Green School, to serve the southern part of the village, initially meeting monthly until 1994 when weekly services started. The congregation moved back to the Church Centre (hall) at St John's in 2008 http://www.stjohnshildenboro.co.uk

Hildenborough Gospel Hall, located in Mount Pleasant, was established some time around 1850. http://www.hildenboroughgospelhall.co.uk

Sackville School, a private educational establishment, now occupies Foxbush House, built in 1866 for Charles Fitch Kemp, a London chartered accountant, who had an “ambition to be a country landowner”. The house was subsequently sold twice before the second World War, when it was occupied by the military. It was used by various educational establishments from 1949; Sackville School was established in 1987 and its grounds are a Registered Historic Park.

Apart from one large financial institution Fidelity Investments having set up its UK Headquarters in Hildenborough and a GlaxoSmithKline factory at nearby Powder Mills, commerce in the village is primarily based on small businesses. It is very much a commuter village with its good transport links with London.

One of the village's oldest buildings, the Hilden Manor restaurant owned by Beefeater, was burnt down by a fire caused by an electrical fault, and has now been restored and rebuilt by Oaklands. It was officially re-opened on 6 October 2006, along with a Premier Travel Inn newly built next to it.

The village's GP practice can be traced back to 1879. The Hildenborough and Tonbridge Medical Group now has a large, purpose-built medical centre in Westwood which also houses a dispensary. The practice has over 16000 patients, with branch surgeries in the villages of Leigh and Weald, as well as the Trenchwood Medical Centre in north Tonbridge.

The Raphael Medical Centre in Coldharbour Lane offers Speech Therapy, Art & Music Therapy to help patients regain mental and physical abilities lost through serious illness or accidents.

type=printed postcards

theme=topographical: british

sub-theme=england

county/ country=kent

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=posted