THE BLACK BOY
In 1788 John Thorpe wrote ‘In this parish, and distant about a mile from the church and street..is Upper Halling a small hamlet so denominated from its situation by the side of a narrow stony road which runs beneath the range of hills and leads from Whornes Place in Cuxtone towards Paddlesworth Birling etc, it now consists only of two tenements, one of which was a chapel and the other opposite an ale house (Black Boy). (ALM p.20)
Peter Silver whose family came from Halling tells a story related by his mother about a young girl from the Black Boy Pub with whom she used to play during the First World War, this girl later committed suicide. A young girl’s ghost was subsequently seen in the cellar of the Pub.
As shown in the title deeds of 1840 the then owner of the pub. a Robert Hearden also farmed much of the land below the pub. This land was subsequently subsumed by the pit.
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The pub closed in 1998, (Dover Kent Archives)
