The Walnut Tree, Bull Lane, Eccles, Kent

A barn of a building. When Eccles' population largely comprised families whose men were working in the Victorian chalk pits up the road and down at the cement factory past the clay'ole by the creek on the Medway this would have been rammed every pay day. When we moved here in the 80s it was run by a landlord who previously did a bit of stand up and confided “the only joke here now is the price of the beer”. It seemed at its friendliest to me when it had a phase as a family pub with a small children’s farm. Latterly, The Walnut Tree struggled to compete with The Red Bull up the road and is now rumoured to be up for demolition and development. Breezeblocking up the windows of a pub is probably a poor prognostic indicator for its viability as a business...