23/09/2026
Vine Cottage West Wickham
For our picture of the month, we are looking at Vine Cottage in West Wickham, now 18 High Street, so named as it once had a vine growing on one wall. It is now one of the boroughs listed buildings. The building currently houses a funeral director, but the cottage is in fact made up of two builds with the bricks not bonded together. It was constructed as two back-to-back cottages, the front now being clad in brick, while the back building has wooden weatherboarding.
The building was originally named “Little Room” and dates from c.1762. The old, tiled roof was badly damaged in the Second World War. The doorway is Queen Anne, and Ida Watson in her book ‘The history of West Wickham’ (1959) reported that there was an Adam fireplace within and a fire plaque above the doorway.
The fire insurance mark or plaque was a relic of the days when insurance companies used to run their own fire brigades for the protection of their customers. Unless a building displayed one of these plaques, the brigades would not attempt to extinguish the fire, perhaps leaving the unfortunate building to burn to the ground!
The 1881 census names the occupier of 1 Vine Cottage as a porter, Mr John Thompson with his wife Julia who was a laundress and their niece Alice, while 2 Vine Cottage was occupied by Thomas Berridge, a railway labourer and his wife Sarah, daughters Kate and Mary and son Charley. In the 1921 census a widow named Mary Ann Yates was living at Vine Cottage. Her occupation was listed as ‘confectioners' shop’ and she is recorded as working ‘at home’.
In the photograph attached to this post (dated 1966) you can see that Vine Cottage was still a confectioners shop with jars of sweets in the window and an ice cream and soft drinks sign outside. You can also glimpse the ‘back to back’ nature of the two cottages, joined together.
Over the years, Vine Cottage has had many incarnations, and it remains to this day a central and historic part of West Wickham High Street.
Sources:
‘History of West Wickham’ by Ida Watson (942.178 WIC)
‘West Wickham. Past into Present’ by Patricia Knowlden and Joyce Walker (948.178 WIC)
Photograph:
F8.310. Vine Cottage, High Street, West Wickham, 1966
