Westerham and the Olympic and Paralympic 2012 Games
Olympic Games 27th July - 12th August 2012
Paralympic Games 29th August - 9th September 2012
Westerham is the perfect mix of beautiful countryside and picturesque, charming market town, so close to London that you will be at the Games in under an hour. There are high hopes that the Torch will pass through the town and our proximity to events keeps interest very buoyant. Visitors will also be able to enjoy some of the rich culture of Sir Winston Churchill’s chosen home by just walking round town, with our boutique shopping, listed buildings, and array of restaurants, cafes and pubs. Tour Chartwell, Quebec House (birth place of General Wolfe) or Squerryes (recently featured in the 2009 BBC production of Jane Austen’s Emma.) Day trips to cosmopolitan London contrast with wonderful rural Kent on the doorstep, and a rich choice of Castles and Gardens to visit nearby makes Westerham a perfect base for visitors in 2012.
Transport from Kent for Visitors to the Games
Westerham is ideally placed to host visitors wanting to attend the Olympics. Gatwick airport is our major international hub, with hundreds of flights a day, and just 20 minutes by car from Westerham. Trains from Sevenoaks, Bromley and Oxted will deliver you to the heart of London, and to the Games in under an hour. The official Park and Ride for the Olympic Park will be Ebbsfleet, north Kent, near Bluewater, delivering Kent and Continental residents to the heart of the Olympic Park in just 9 ½ minutes.
Westerham and the Cultural Olympiad
At the moment local National Trust plans are centred on the cultural Olympiad that is running across the UK in support of the games. It seems likely that there will be a series of hands on art events at Quebec House on Thursdays and Fridays starting last week in July and running through August – these will be co-ordinated with WPCs summer activities on St George’s playing fields. The National Trust has applied to have Quebec House linked to the Canadian team for the duration of the games but as yet no further news on this.
Close to Westerham
There are several potential pre-games training camps:
Sevenoaks School (Archery,
Athletics, Basketball, Fencing);
Penshurst
Off-Road Circuit (Mountain Bike);
Brands Hatch Road Cycling)
In Tonbridge and District: Tonbridge
School (Archery, Athletics, Fencing, Hockey, Modern Pentathlon);
Across Kent there are an
impressive number of Rising Stars
http://www.kentsport.org/london2012/heroes_future.asp
Events in Kent
Brands Hatch has secured the Paralympic Cycling Event 5th – 8th September 2012 (tickets on sale 11th September 2011)
Olympic Games 1948
The last time London hosted the event was the XIVth Olympiad in 1948, and the Flame of Peace was carried through Westerham en route to Wembley Stadium. This was the first Olympiad to be held since 1936. The 1940 and 1944 Olympics were not possible due to the Second World War.
The Torch had travelled through five Continents since leaving Mount Olympus two weeks previously, then on the overnight ferry from Calais to Dover. On arrival at Dover before dawn, the reception was tumultuous with a crowd of 50,000 people awaiting the Torch's arrival, and without delay was on its way through the County of Kent. Various runners throughout the route had the honour of carrying the Flame at roughly two mile intervals following a route via Maidstone up the A25 to Wrotham and Borough Green. Then on it came through Seal, Sevenoaks, north to Riverhead and on to Sundridge, and Brasted, arriving in Westerham in the first light of dawn. On the Borough Green to Westerham leg, hundreds, if not a thousands, had risen from their beds at dawn to witness the event and to line the route. The Westerham section from Brasted to the County boundary saw people gathered from Beggars Lane all along to Westerham High Street. The Market Square was jam-packed with people. It was just after 6am when the Flame came through, carried by our top Westerham Harrier, Arthur Galloway, who also trained with the South London Harriers, en route to Wembley Stadium. He carried it from Sundridge to Moorhouse. The runners were escorted by a police motor cyclist with a long trail of cars following, but through Westerham it was an A.A. man on his motorcycle combination. To an young observer on the pavement,, it was barely ten seconds of seeing our man pass by but a sight that is still a treasured memory.
It is thought that never before or since July 29th 1948 had so many people assembled in Westerham at 6am. Who knows, maybe 2012 will see a repetition of this amazing event!
Peter Finch, Westerham Resident
More photos from Surrey archives, including Limpsfield Chart shots, can be viewed here http://www.flickr.com/photos/surreycountycouncil/sets/72157625064542411/with/5093228348/
Westerham and the Olympic Torch 2012
Torch Relay: The torch will travel from Maidstone to Guildford on 20th July 2012. Our local school has been working extremely hard to learn about sports and the Oly mpics. Their Houses are all famous sports people, the children entered Scarecrow sports heroes into our Scarecrow Festival last year. Westerham has plans for a Westerham Sports Day for the weekend of the torch passage, the school children have planned an event on The Green to celebrate the passage of the torch, our elderly population have been invited to reminisce to camera, for our virtual museum, about when the torch came through in 1948, and we hope to be holding a Torch Tea for them during the weekend. Hopes have been raised that Westerham will once again see the Olympic Torch.
The route published thus far has the torch coming along the A25 on 20th July. There is a ghastly rumour that it will take to the M25 in between Junctions 5 and 6 as it goes west towards Guildford. If it does this, it will miss out our town, and gain very little time....but disappoint a great many enthusiastic supporters. The Westerham Chronicle has launched its 'Flaming Cheek' campaign to support our lobby to host the Torch, so watch this space....
FAMILY TRADITION: Lorna Baker hopes to follow her grandfather Bert Jones, who carried the Olympic torch in 1948, by doing the same next year The finalised route will not be announced until the end of 2011.
Sports director of Combe Bank School, Sundridge, Lorna Baker has nominated herself as a torch-bearer, after her grandfather Bert Jones carried it in 1948 for the previous London games. Mrs Baker, 39, said: "To both represent PE teachers and Combe Bank would be amazing. "But the thought of carrying on a tradition my grandfather started is very emotional."It would be such a massive honour to hold the torch and take part in the ceremony."
