[Transcript of original web page. Last updated Nov 2024]
LATEST NEWS:
War memorial completed
Footpath from Ashford Road to the Pippins now open
Village has three vacant shop units
Proposals for 140 houses on Cotton Hill being reviewed
Introduction to the Village
This Kentish village is affectionately known as ‘the gateway to the marsh’, being located six miles south of Ashford where the ridge of clay hills meets the flat expanses of Romney Marsh, an area once awash with smuggling. The village was bypassed in 1994, but remains an important junction and is twinned with the little town of Therouanne in France. Therouanne was once a city with a cathedral which was sacked by the troops of Henry V. The stone cannonball near the flagpole in Hamstreet was a gift from the mayor of the twin town, presented with the words 'You can have your cannonball back!' More local history can be perused on the Forge Gardens noticeboard and at the station.
Traditional weather-board buildings and a generally unspoilt appearance make the place well worth a detour from the beaten track. Three long distance footpaths pass through the village; the Royal Military Canal Path follows the peaceful banks of a 28-mile waterway - the UK's third longest defensive structure, and the Saxon Shore Way and Greensand Way pass through the expansive deciduous woodland of Hamstreet Woods. In fact, the Greensand Way begins its 110-mile course to Haslemere at the village crossroads. A walk incorporating both the canal and Hamstreet Woods was featured in the 'Top 50 best summer walks in Britain' in the Independent newspaper. A second area of public woodland is located northwest of the village at Orlestone Forest.
To get a reasonably accurate population for the village as a socio-economic entity, add together the populations of Orlestone and Warehorne, for the boundary runs through Hamstreet itself. This amounts to 1,988 people (2021 census). Orlestone is the original location of the village - now just a hamlet, a mile to the north, centred around the eleventh century parish church of St Mary. The Church of the Good Shepherd is a more modern place of worship in the village's High Street and the ancient church of St Augustine's in Snave also comes under Hamstreet and holds one service annually at harvest festival. The church in Warehorne is dedicated to St Matthew. The area is great to explore on foot or by bike.
H E Bates who wrote 'The Darling Buds of May' would have known the village well, and the writer Joseph Conrad resided at Capel House (one mile north of the village) from June 1910 to March 1919. The modern generation will perhaps be most familiar with the film 'Apocalypse Now' which was heavily influenced by his book 'Heart of Darkness.' In the late 1990s, the village pub was briefly managed by Patrick Murray who played Mickey Pearce in TV's 'Only Fools and Horses.' Many celebrities have lived within the wider local area including Vic Reeves, Bob Mortimer, Paul O'Grady, Noel Coward, Julian Clary, Alan Carr, the actress Jan Francis and international golfer, Peter Mitchell. Hamstreet has also been featured in futuristic writings by Sir Peter Hall and David Boyle. But what of the village itself?
Mountain Farm in Hamstreet once featured in BBC TV's 'Blue Peter' as a base camp for an expedition up the 'Marsh Mountain’. Romney Marsh is of course completely flat, so this humorous concept involved presenters turning a map of the area upside down and crawling along the road!
Hamstreet had its real moment of fame in the early 1990's, with maps of the village appearing on postage stamps all over the UK. John Craven even did a 'Countryfile' special on the village. This was to mark 200 years of the Ordnance Survey. Hamstreet was chosen because the area was the first to be mapped as part of a nationwide survey and the changes to the village over the years showed up very well on a series of stamps.
The village was featured on BBC South East Today's 'On The Map' feature in May 2021. Hamstreet was also on the route of the Tour of Britain cycle race which passed through in September 2006, and the Olympic Torch relay passed through the village en route to London for the 2012 Olympic Games. Search for 'Olympic Torch Hamstreet' on YouTube to view the relay and watch TV clips of the village here.
Until 2013 there were five pubs within three miles of the village cross. At present there are three - the Duke's Head in Hamstreet itself, the Woolpack Inn in Warehorne and the White Horse in Bilsington. The Blue Anchor (Ruckinge) and World's Wonder (Warehorne) have sadly been allowed to disappear.
In the High Street there is a post office / general store, fish and chip shop, the Old Schoolhouse Indian restaurant, a curtain / blind shop, the 'Saw Joinery' DIY/joinery centre, Lilly's Ink tattoo studio, the Cosy Kettle cafe, Early Birds renovations, Smart Dogs grooming centre and Star Beauty (now in a private house). The Woodville unit will soon be vacant.
Marsh Road has Annings Motors garage and Hamstreet Garden Centre which also has a cafe. There is currently an empty shop unit near the garage. Hamstreet Primary Academy (the school) is located in Ashford Road.
In Warehorne Road there is a dental clinic and Angela Hirst estate agency. There is currently an empty unit where the hairdresser’s used to be. Travel just out of the village and you'll find a vineyard, the mild climate of this part of Kent being particularly good for wine production.
Meanwhile, Ruckinge Road is the location of Joanne Fuller Beauty and Hamstreet Surgery, as well as the Nexus Programme office. A little further out of the village on Ruckinge Road is Meadow View Industrial Estate which contains several businesses.
Fun and Festivals
The village has a games area/tennis courts and a bowling green, as well as many clubs and associations too numerous to list. These include the Ruckinge and Hamstreet Scouts and Guides (HQ in Ruckinge), the Royal British Legion and the football club. Activities from coffee mornings to Zumba take place around the village at locations such as Victory Hall, Cosy Kettle cafe, primary school and Church of the Good Shepherd (which has its own hall attached).
Transport facts
The Pound Leas pavilion has its own bar area, augmenting the flood-lit 'multi-use games area' and football field, all of which are the result of many years of fundraising. The Festival of Transport which used to take place every June was featured in a Live TV (satellite) documentary programme in 2009. Sadly this event folded in 2016 but the village does have a community day each summer in its place. There are however regular 'bikejumble' events on the fair field for petrol heads.
Also look out for posters for Hamstreet bonfire and fireworks on Pound Leas each November (although this won't take place in 2024) and the music festival in Warehorne village hall which usually takes place in July. For those wishing to stay locally, accommodation is available at the Woolpack Inn, a pleasant stroll across fields on the Saxon Shore Way. The sign outside the Dukes Head also displays accommodation. More info from the pub.
Transport facts
As well as daytime bus services to Ashford, New Romney and Lydd (Mon to Sat), Hamstreet has a railway station on the Ashford to Hastings line - one of only two remaining diesel lines in the provincial Southeast. Trains run direct to Eastbourne as well as Ashford for connections to London.
The village is well signed on the A2070 trunk road between Ashford's Southern Orbital Road and Brenzett, and between Aldington and Woodchurch on the B2067. The village used to be signed comprehensively in Tenterden and also from New Romney, Lympne and Appledore Heath. In spite of past campaigns for a return to better signage on grounds of being a junction point on a trunk road and a hub for local services, the village remains signed at the most basic level. Interestingly, there is a memorial at the southern exit for Hamstreet on the A2070 in honour of Liuetenant Johnson, a USA pilot who lost his life here during World War II after allowing his crew to parachute to safety.
Details of useful cycle routes can be found in the 'Royal Military Canal and Associated Routes' blog, and circular walking routes can be found in the 'Smugglers and Saxon Shore Walks' blog. The A2070 and B2067 also have narrative blogs on this site detailing features along these routes, and the 'Ashford and Shepway Roads Database' blog details routes around the wider area.
Nostalgia
The house on the corner of Ashford Road and Warehorne Road is believed to be the oldest in the village. It was a bakery until the 1980s, and a post office too until 1970, when a new post office was built at Bridgewell (now a private house in the one-way street). In the 80s the post office moved to the Mace store (now an office), finally settling at its current location in the Morrisons store, which itself was previously an independent store, then VG, Costcutter and McColl's. Hamstreet was briefly graced with a baker's shop again when the Chocoloate Box newsagency closed in 2012. There was a second newsagency (Harden's) located at Old Stores House in The Street until the 1990s.
Prior to use for beauty purposes, the shop at Woodville was an antiques shop, and before this a butcher's store. When the butchery closed in the 1980s, a butcher's counter was positioned at the rear of the VG store (now Morrisons) for a number of years. Villagers had a choice of garages, both with filling stations, at the time too. The second of these, Tippen's, was located where the small housing development between the former Chocolate Box and the church now stands.
Until the 1990s Hamstreet had a police house in Warehorne Road. The Indian restaurant was the original site of Hamstreet School until the current school was built in 1882. Prior to its current use the Old Schoolhouse was an antique shop, a photocopier centre, a tea room and the Masters restaurant.
The shopping area in Warehorne Road housed a greengrocer and a wool shop in the 1980s. It is also believed that when Viaduct Terrace was constructed in the 19th century, there were plans for the southernmost end of the terrace to be a pub. The Duke's Head is in fact a rebuild; the original pub opened its front door directly onto The Street and was originally named 'The George', 'The Three Mariners' and then 'The Duke of Cumberland'. The twin pub of the current Duke's Head was the former Stonebridge Inn at Woodchurch. Hamstreet also had a twin station building, at Winchelsea in East Sussex.
Meanwhile, the former World's Wonder in Warehorne was one of five Kentish pubs which were built to the same design. The others were the now-bulldozed Ship at Lade (Romney Marsh), the former Bell Inn at Coxheath, The Redstart Inn at Barming and The Papermaker's Arms at Hawley (Dartford).
Hamstreet exchange phone numbers consisted of four figures prior to standardisation of the 01233 Ashford area code. The telephone exchange is still located next to the railway station. The old exchange is located at the top of a flight of steps to the south of the railway bridge in Ashford Road.
Development names for recent estates were Orchard View (Bankside), Saxon Woods (Lancaster Close), Brook Gate (Orlestone View), The Pippins (Ingoldsby Lane, etc.) and Nightingale View (Brimstone Road, etc.).
Campaigning
There are three vacant shop units in the village centre which the creator of this blog hopes will be filled to keep the village centre buoyant.
Two large new housing developments are being completed, with a third very prominent development being considered. The focus on expensive four and five-bedroom houses within new developments has been an issue, while the further fragmenting of the village across a third parish would see most of the benefits of extra council tax going to neighbouring villages rather than Hamstreet. It would make sense for any new developments to be entirely within the parish of Orlestone to create cohesion.
In 2008 Pumpkin TV produced a DVD for geography students which used Hamstreet as a case study for challenges that affect many English villages. It has sometimes been very frustrating to see a minority fighting plans for new business when so many outlets have been lost over the years. Beginning in the late 1990s the author of this site has attempted to challenge the status quo.
This began by escalating complaints when the village's railway station ticket office was closed for a period of over six months in the late 1990s, and continued with expressing support for the Indian restaurant to be allowed to provide a takeaway service, for the doctor's surgery to expand, for a fish and chip shop to be allowed, for a new cafe to be allowed and for changes to the Woolpack Inn which ultimately enabled this popular pub to reopen in 2015. A plan to upgrade the canal towpath as a proposed cycle link between Hamstreet and Appledore has sadly gone quiet in recent years.
The truth is that one person cannot change a village, and I would personally encourage villagers to use the 'search' and 'comment' facility on Ashford Borough Council's planning website to support new amenities and object to further losses of business space whenever such proposals arise. I hope that the quote from 'Kent Life' magazine which began this post will be as true in years to come as it is at the time of writing.
Credits and links
This page has been put together by Adam Colton, a local author of UK travel, music reviews and psychological fiction. Please visit the author page on the Amazon website, Smashwords, iBooks, etc. for details of available books. Adam is also one half of the musical duo Adam Colton & Teresa Colton. Check out their songs on YouTube, Spotify, iTunes and other music sites. Also, please search for the names of any of the businesses, clubs, amenities or venues mentioned on this page that aren't listed below.
The twin village of Therouanne (link here) in France.
Old Schoolhouse Indian Restaurant (The Street)
Early Birds Renovations (The Street)
Star Beauty School (Private house off The Street)
Morrisons Store (The Street)
Dog grooming centre (The Street)
Annings Race & Restoration (Marsh Road)
Hamstreet Garden Centre (Marsh Road)
Joanne Fuller Beauty (Ruckinge Road)
Nexus Programme Office (Ruckinge Road)
Doctor’s surgery (Ruckinge Road)
Dental Clinic (Warehorne Road)
Angela Hirst Estate Agency (Warehorne Road)
School (Ashford Road)
Scout and Guide Associations (shared with Ruckinge)
The Victory Hall committee
Link to 'bikejumble' events
The parish council's site is here
There is now a sister-page on this blog about the nearest town of Ashford
