Plaxtol Local History Group - 2010 Meeting Reports

FEBRUARY 2010 - Kent in the 20^th Century

"We have all heard of the Vikings, the Romans and Queen Victoria but what of the history of Kent in the 20^th century?" said Bob Ogley, who talked for an hour without any visual aids or notes and held us all spellbound with his cavalcade of Kent history. He spoke authoritatively, having himself written four volumes of a history of 20^th century Kent.

He talked of the heroes of Kent in the world of sport, flying and speed. Such heroes as the Wright brothers, Malcolm Campbell and Sydney Wooderson, all of whom lived in Kent.

Kent has a magnificent literary heritage with such famous names as H.G.Wells, Siegfried Sassoon, E. Nesbitt, Enid Blyton and Ian Fleming to name a few. We have engineering successes such as the Queen Elizabeth II bridge and the Channel Tunnel.

There have been tragedies in Kent too and we remembered the Dover-Zeebrugge ferry disaster, the floods in 1953 and the hurricane in 1987. The hurricane changed Bob Ogley's life, for the following day he hired a plane, pilot and photographer and photographed the damage from the air. Having failed to interest any publisher in the resulting book he published it himself, selling 265,000 copies and becoming a national best seller.

The pace of life has changed since we were a front line county in the second World War. We shall not see Kent miners or hop pickers any more but we were reminded that we too are a part of the history of Kent.

David Gurney arranged a display of local photographs and posters of the 1920 Plaxtol Grand Fete and Coronation celebrations in 1953.

V. Dussek

JANUARY 2010 - Maidstone Museum & Its Wider Collections

Our speaker, the Curator & Keeper of Human History at Maidstone Museum, Giles Guthrie, brought some of the museum's treasures to us in Plaxtol, placing the artefacts in our hands to be passed around and admired. The prize piece was the exquisite 2^nd century Roman statuette of Minerva originally found in Plaxtol at Allen's Farm in 1857 but now on show at the museum. This was not passed round for obvious reasons. It was only the second time the statuette has come back to Plaxtol. Maidstone Museum was founded by Thomas Charles in 1858 when he left his house, Chillington Manor, to Maidstone. It now houses 600,000 artefacts in this elegant Elizabethan manor house.

Our speaker first gave us a visual tour of the galleries, where there is to be found the best collection of fossils and Anglo-Saxon jewellery outside London. Other galleries included costume, painting, natural history, archaeology, local history, West Kent Regimental history and Giles Guthrie's favourite - the Carriage Museum.

We handled Samian ware bowls, similar to those used in Plaxtol in the 2nd century and flint tools of the Paleolithic and Mesolithic period. These tools had been made by patiently chipping and rubbing a lump of rough flint for days on end until it was as smooth as satin. Impressively, they fitted comfortably in the hand.

Of the artefacts, one of the most beautiful was half of a Saxon bracelet made of bronze, gold and garnets. Most touching were 18^th century love or farewell tokens with their romantic messages.

The present day museum is run by three curators with the help of many volunteers. Many artefacts are not able to be shown for lack of space and a large extension is planned for 2012. Meanwhile the museum welcomes everyone from families to serious academics. It is open all the year round and entry is free.

David Gurney arranged a display of artefacts from our archives, notably iron gravemarkers, iron curling tongs and a small Victorian statue of a female mill worker, found at St. Hilda's, that has been recently dated by the museum.

V.Dussek

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