Guess the Place

[MartinR]

Quick guess, the dockyard?

[stuartwaters]

Okay, does anyone know where this old fuel pump is? ME postcode area to get you going..

[stuartwaters]

I have a photo on my phone but it's far too big to add. I need to upload it to my pc and "shrink" it. Please bear with me till this evening.

[John Walker]

If the metal disk was vertical, then it was probably a Polyphon player.  Unlike the pianola where the holes produce the notes, the holes in a polyphon are where metal has been bent back to form a pin-like structure.  There's a link below to a short video showing how the system worked.  The one in the video is horizontal, but Polyphon produced much larger vertical ones sometimes with multiple tracks, accessed by moving the disks slightly sideways.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Polyphon_Stille_Nacht_Heilige_Nacht.webm

That's it MartinR.  The one I remember at the Ringlestone was upright with the disc facing the front at around chest level.  Might have been a glass front but I'm not sure.  I don't recall hearing it play.


EDIT:  Just found this image.  Very close but I don't recall the case being so ornate.

[MartinR]

If the metal disk was vertical, then it was probably a Polyphon player.  Unlike the pianola where the holes produce the notes, the holes in a polyphon are where metal has been bent back to form a pin-like structure.  There's a link below to a short video showing how the system worked.  The one in the video is horizontal, but Polyphon produced much larger vertical ones sometimes with multiple tracks, accessed by moving the disks slightly sideways.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Polyphon_Stille_Nacht_Heilige_Nacht.webm

[John Walker]

I agree with your comment about narrow lanes.  We used to drive along the single-track lane from Doddington in the dark.  Made it seem like such an adventure.  I hadn't realised it would have been an easier drive from the A20 at Harrietsham.  No Sat-Nav and no maps to hand.  I'd just been given directions to take a right fork after Doddington and keep driving through dark wooded areas until I got there.


Photo shows how narrow the lane is and it seemed to go on for miles.

[johnfilmer]

My sister and I took a Canadian cousin and his wife there in probably 1969. It would have been around June as Charlie tried to go to the D-Day celebrations most years.


I think that candles and a low power generator were used later in the evening.


Memory (which can be a fickle thing...) has it that the Gents was still an external affair. Although there was always the “pick a tree” option.


Charlie’s wife Margaret had not been into the darkest depths of Kent before, so we went to the pub via every little lane that I could find, including one that is now impassable, or was last time I went that way, or tried to!

[John Walker]

Well done StuartWaters.  It is indeed the Ringlestone.


I used to drive out there from Canterbury in the 60s.  Amazing atmosphere.  The place was black with smoke.  Stone floors and a music 'jukebox thing' with a very large metal disc with holes like a pianola has.
I'm not sure if there was an electricity supply - very dark in there so possibly candles.  There might have been a generator out the back though.


Over to you

[MartinR]

Location:

• Nat'l Grid:              TQ 87912 55764
• Post Code:            ME17 1NX
• Coords (WGS84): 51°16'12"N, 000°41'33"E or  51.27004,0.69238

A bit outside Ringlestone itself, and well away from Harrietsham or Maidstone.

[grandarog]

A mother and daughter ran it for years. Very strict in their ways. If you were lucky, they let you in and served you. Any problems out came the Shotgun. Nobody argued with them.
Very nice now more upmarket than when the old dears ran it.
HOME | Theringlestone

[stuartwaters]

That's the Ringlestone Inn near Harrietsham. Last time I went there, it was a Shep's House but was a freehouse for years.

[grandarog]

Thats out in wild and wooly land. I will pass for a while.

[John Walker]

Thanks MartinR.


Many years ago I visited the Rhondda Heritage Museum in Trehafod, South Wales.  I am sure a lamp like that was discussed in the guided tour of the pit head.  The name stuck in my head but I wasn't certain.  Perhaps South Wales and North East mines used the same lamp?    I visited the Betteshanger Museum this Summer.  Small but very interesting.  Contains a lot of the social history of the Kent mining area.


Next one


Where is this pub and what is the name?

[MartinR]

Well done John, I was expecting to last much longer than that.  The Kent Mining Museum at Betteshanger was the easy part, but to correctly identify an early "Geordie" is impressive.  They were used extensively in the North-East in particular and were regarded as far safer than the rival "Davy".  On 16 February 1882 The Trimdon Grange colliery disaster occurred (69 men died) and the subsequent coroner's report to the House of Commons noted that: "the result of this inquiry is a further proof, if further proof were needed, that the Davy lamp affords no security whatever ... and that its employment ... ought to be absolutely prohibited".  When the benefits of the two lamps were incorporated in the Clany (and particularly its development the Mueseler) the basis of the modern safety flame lamp was developed.
Over to you.

[John Walker]

Possibly a Stephenson lamp.  Used in the Welsh Coalfields?
Kent Mining Museum, Betteshanger?