Things change but memories remain

Ashford has changed so much over the last 50 years, it’s incredibly difficult to keep up with these alterations and we tend to overlook and forget how once-familiar parts of the town looked.

Like any town, there were parts that needed to be changed and upgraded whereas other areas should have been left well alone.

Over a long period, continued stripping of the town’s heritage has left us somewhat negative towards our planners of the past.

The removal of some buildings for a new development has been an insignificant undertaking, but other sacrifices have been met with much anger and distaste.

I think it’s more the insignificant changes that we are less likely to recall today, and when many of us are shown imagery illustrating such changes, we are genuinely shocked and surprised.

It’s the newcomers to the town that will not have realised just how the town looked in bygone days and even those that were born after these changes.

It’s a different story when you have a connection with a long-lost building or area of the town that has undergone a transformation and many will easily recall a story or two when it comes to this.

Local people have often spoken of their sadness when referring to the site of their former home or workplace that is often buried beneath tonnes of concrete.

I had one lady tell me once that every time she drives around the centre of the town along the infamous ring-road, she drives through her former front room.

The said lady also mentioned that there is a dip in the road at the point of her former house – it’s probably the cellar caving in she said.

This week, Remember When looks back at a trio of images illustrating the former and long-lost parade of businesses and residences at the corner of Beaver Road and Victoria

Road – premises that were knocked down for the road scheme that is in place today.

Do you have any photographs or slides of old Ashford you would be willing to loan me to enable them to be scanned for a possible feature in the Kentish Express?

Please don’t delay, feel free to get in touch.

Write to me: Steve Salter, Kentish Express Remember When, Unit 4, Park Mall Shopping Centre, Ashford, Kent, TN24 8RY.

Email me: rememberwhen_ kmash@hotmail.co.uk

Or you can also leave a telephone message for me by calling 01233 623232.

1992 - The old cinema is still standing at the top of Newtown Road in the months before its demolition, as is the former Victoria Hotel (right)

July 13, 1987 - The Butchers Hotel was rebuilt after a fire in the flats above where the family pet perished. Six years later, the hotel was gone

1992 - The former Butchers Hotel and neighbouring properties in Beaver Road - today the home of the new Hampton by Hilton hotel

In a good week for English football, here are pupils from Highworth School watching England in action in the World Cup from their canteen