Hello, I think that your website is great. I now live in Germany after moving from Sittingbourne in 1977.My Mum and brothers and sister still live there. I wonder if anybody can give any information or photos about the "puggy" we used to play there as kids. What was made there I remember some kind of machine or big wheel ...

Loved the site – used to live in Sittingbourne 1953-75 and used to play in the puggy as did my older brothers before me.

The puggy was originally some kind of clay quarry and mill which must have closed in the 50’s as my eldest brother recalled paying in the wagons used to take the clay to the mill building. He and friends remembered being thrown our or being tipped out on a bend!

By the time I played there in the early sixties with many other children from the Rectory Road area the wagons had gone but it was a great adventure playground – lots of mounds and pits – with long grass and shrubs in which to hide, and we built camps in the main quarry (always water logged) from all of the wood, corrugated sheets left lying around. And when older it was a great bicycle obstacle course – and somewhat dangerous with tracks on top of mounds from which to fall but going up and down the dips was great fun.

The mill building ruin was still there and there was a huge mill race (?) concrete “stone” used for some part of the process – being horizontal in a brick/concrete pit of water we were told it was turned by ponies – which presumably also pulled the wagons.

The puggy was accessed from the top of Gaze Hill Avenue and the top of Glebe Lane – by the corner of the recreation ground / Glebe ?? House.

Reading another enquiry 62 about the old Rectory within what was referred to as Murston Park which must have become the recreation ground off Rectory Road when the council estate was built in the 50’s brought back other memories – the house was used in the 60’s for I think builders from the M2 construction. I recall workers walking along the path from Rectory road which went across the middle of the rec to the house. Nutfields further down Rectory road went up a hill with the rectory on the left had no houses except on the corner near the shop it but it had lots of prefabs to the right which seemed to be built with no proper roads – I can only recall the muddy lane up to and between the prefab bungalows! They later built houses up the lane and on the prefab site – i.e. the back of the houses on rectory road backing onto the rec.

The old rectory became derelict and a place for older children to play – very dangerous – I can recall it was a huge 3-4 or more story building and was then pulled down. Another estate was built on its site in the late 60’s / early 70’s – Glebe Gardens I think.

On a return to Sittingboune some 7 years ago I was surprised to see the puggy had been built on – but I was relieved to find the remains of the mill retained in a fenced off area the rear of the old persons flats accessed from the older estate (1970’s off the top of South Avenue – Perigrin Drive.

Kind Regards, David J Stanley