Above photo, date unknown.

Above postcard, date unknown.

Above photo, 1971, kindly sent by Rory Kehoe.

Above photo from the book, 1975, Pubs of Meopham by Jim Carley.

Above photo, June 2000, kindly sent by Philip Dymott.

Above photo 2013 by Steven Craven Creative Commons Licence.

Above postcard, date unknown.

Above sign left 1978, sign right, May 1985.

Sign above 2003.

Above aluminium card issued 1950. Sign series 2 number 35.

Above photo showing John and Sarah Manley, licensees 1871-1901. Kindly sent by David Pearce.

From The Sphere, Saturday 07 May, 1960.

Above photo showing what was described as "Pocket Skittles" at the "Vigo" in 1960. I believe this is also known as "Dadlums."

Above photo, April 1952.

Information below taken from their web site, 2014.

Allegedly there has been a pub on this site since 1471, and parts of the existing buildings are said to date from that time. First known as the "Upper Drovers," but given its present name by a sailor returning from the 1702 Battle of Vigo Bay, when England & Holland fought Spain in the War of the Spanish Succession. The sailor used his share of the treasure, captured during the English victory under Admiral George Rooke, to purchase the inn.

THE VIGO INN

In 1930 the pub was taken over by the Ashwell family. During the Second World War Mr & Mrs Ashwell were host to many of the servicemen from both the Wrotham pre officer cadet training camp (on the site of the present Vigo Village), and air force personnel from the Battle of Britain West Malling Air Station (now Kings Hill).

After the death of her husband Vernon in 1970, Mrs Lillian Ashwell ran the pub for many years herself. She was a formidable but very popular local character. She became the first lady president of a rugby club in England, when in 1968 some pub regulars formed Vigo RFC, whose first matches were held in the field at the back of the pub.

Although long since moved to their own ground at Swanswood Field, the memory of Lillian Ashwell is still held in high regard at the club.

Another game played at the pub is that of Dadlums. This is an old English game of table skittles, and the 1966 Watney Book of Pub Games lists the Vigo Inn as one of the few venues where the game was played. The pub still boasts one of the last remaining Dadlums tables in the country, thought to be over 150 years old. It is good to see the game is being revived, with a local team playing fortnightly matches on Sunday evenings.

At the time of her own death in 1982 aged 81, Lillian Ashwell had been working behind the bar for 52 years and was possibly the oldest working landlady in the UK. The Vigo Inn passed to Mrs Ashwell's son & daughter in law, Peter & Peta. A few changes were made including an interior refurbishment, but the essential character of the place was not altered. It even became one of the first No Smoking pubs in Kent, before the Government's UK wide ban was introduced.

Sadly some three years ago the pub closed, and many locals thought time had finally been called for this historic local landmark. But Andy and Val have now taken the place over, and have relaunched the pub with a range of live music from bands, with open mic Wednesdays, acoustic Thursday nights. Room, bar and marquee hire set in five and a half acres.

From http://www.kenthistoryforum.co.uk April 2014.

The Battle of Vigo Bay, after which the pub is reputedly named, was a naval engagement fought on 23 October 1702 during the opening years of the War of the Spanish Succession. The engagement followed an Anglo-Dutch attempt to capture the Spanish port of Cádiz in September in an effort to secure a naval base in the Iberian Peninsula. From this station the Allies had hoped to conduct operations in the western Mediterranean Sea, particularly against the French at Toulon. The amphibious assault, however, had proved a disaster, but as Admiral George Rooke retreated home in early October, he received news that the Spanish treasure fleet from America, laden with silver and merchandise, had entered Vigo Bay in northern Spain. Philips van Almonde convinced Rooke to attack the treasure ships, despite the lateness of the year and the fact that the vessels were protected by French ships-of-the-line.

The engagement was an overwhelming naval success for the Allies: the entire French escort fleet, under the command of Château-Renault, together with the Spanish galleons and transports under Manuel de Velasco, had either been captured or destroyed. Yet because most of the treasure had been off-loaded before the attack, capturing the bulk of the silver cargo had eluded Rooke. Nevertheless, the victory was a welcome boost to Allied morale and had helped persuade the Portuguese King, Peter II, to abandon his earlier treaty with the French, and join the Grand Alliance.

Despite most of the treasure having been unloaded before the battle the British fleet still made a good haul. The Master of the Mint, Isaac Newton, stated in June 1703 that the total metal handed in to him by that date was 4504 lb 2 oz of silver (just over 2,000 kg), and 7 lb 8 oz and 13 dwt of gold (about 3.4 kg), estimated at a value of £14,000.

From http://www.kenthistoryforum.co.uk April 2014.

Taken from Inns of Kent by G M Rainbird 1949.

The Vigo was once called the Drovers Inn and is reputed to have been renamed by a local man who, returning from the wars, settled down to husbandry and a brewhouse. He renamed his house in honour of Admiral Rookes victory at Vigo at which he himself is said to have fought, and so earned the prize money from which he bought his inn. The Vigo was built in 1471 or thereabouts and was fro a century or two a posting house on the road to Gravesend. The back door is as wide as it is to allow wet horse cloths and rugs to be brought into the kitchen and dried round one of the 3 chimney corners. Such an inn as the Vigo and in such a spot, was necessarily subject to all the excursions and alarums that were going, and it is not strange to hear that when the roof was being reconstructed about 10 years ago, a small chamber or hide-out was found between the inner and outer walls of the tap chimney. Whether is was, as the romantics have it, a smugglers cache, or as stated by the realists, a place where a good citizen could hide from the press gangs operating from Chatham and Gravesend, we know not. Certainly in a mere four and a half centuries it may have been used for many purposes legal and illegal.

The old toll gate across the road was pulled down about 40 years ago, but it is commemorated in a footpath which by-passed it, known locally as 'Savepenny Lane' since it is said to have been used by drovers to save toll. The inn itself is just another that the reader will by now have imagined, low tap room and bars, beams and ingles and the cheerful chatter which always prevades a well run bar.

The Vigo is a 'hall'-type inn, as is common in very old houses; the bar is more or less in front of the door, while the tap room and other bars run out from it, thus enabling the landlord to keep a roving eye on the needs of all classes of patron simultaneously. At the Vigo is played in the tap room a game rarely seen, a form of table skittles, known locally as 'Dadlums'. On a low platform about 6 feet long miniature pins are placed and thrown down by miniature 'cheeses' about 3 inches in diameter from about 5 feet away.

The gardens of The Vigo are old and lovely and contain everything the garden of an English inn should contain. Apart from the more usual vegetables and plants there is a cotoneaste, to which hornets come each year.