Tucked away in a quiet side-road are the unassuming offices of H. Goodsell and Son, Builders.

From the modest exterior, it would be difficult to guess that the firm has played a key part in shaping Maidstone today and indeed in shaping many other Kent towns over its 100 years of existence.

The company was founded in 1924 by Herbert Goodsell, a carpenter, using a workshop in the garden of his parents’ house in Albert Street, Maidstone.

Born in 1895, Mr Goodsell left school at 14, and began an apprenticeship at another Maidstone builders, Charles Walter, in Stone Street.

In 1914 he went off to France with the Royal Engineers to fight in the First World War, but was invalided out before the end through illness.

He returned to Walters, but soon grew restless to start his own firm, which he did with a capital investment of £24 (around £1,200 in today’s money).

His first expenditure wisely was to pay for an advert in the local newspaper, the Kent Messenger, which cost him 19 shillings (95p).

It was a good investment because he soon had his first job, repairing a lantern, for a Mr Richards that brought in £1 2s 6d, followed by another job for Mrs Barnes for 3s and one of the owner of 89 Sandling Road for 2s 3d.

The business was up and running and in 1926, Mr Goodsell was able to leave his parents’ home for a rented tin hut workshop in Perry Street.

Mr Goodsell was a highly religious man - a member of the Salvation Army.

He didn’t drink, smoke or swear - but he did know every pub in Maidstone as he spent his evenings touring the inns to sell copies of War Cry, the Salvation Army’s newsletter.

His sister, Florence Goodsell, also a Salvationist, did his paperwork.

After a few years, he was able to take on men and expand his business into building.

His first major task in the 1920s was to build 100 homes for Maidstone Council on the new Combe Farm Estate in Tovil.

Then he privately built houses on the Monckton Avenue estate, where his three-bedroom semi-detached homes sold for £499 and could be bought for £24 down and payment of 14s 9d (around 74p) a week.

Then, jointly with other contractors, Goodsells built the council estates at Mangravat, Ringlestone and Shepway.

In 1933, he bought the old Duke of Cambridge pub at 32 Sandling Road and converted it to offices and two years later, at the cost of £850, he bought the now redundant St Paul’s School in Fisher Street, Maidstone, - where incidentally he had been educated as a child - to use as an expanded workshop.

He added the neighbouring patch of land a year later, for a further £700 and that is where the firm can still be found today.

It took another step forward in the 1930s when it began to obtain “term contracts” from the government to build or repair public buildings.

As war loomed, this included building pillboxes and fortifications.

During the Second World War, Goodsells had a hard time keeping up with the work that flowed its way as a result of German bombing.

It became necessary to open an office in Chatham, at Brompton Barracks, at Manston Airport and another at Dover Castle, all frequently in need of repair.

Offices in Guildford and Tunbridge Wells followed.

The firm’s assistant MD, William Britten, later recalled: “No sooner did we repair a building, than another wave of bombers would come over and we would have to start all over again.”

Searchlights and gun emplacements became the order of the day, rather than housing, but that all changed post-war.

Goodsells became a key part of the rebuilding programme as the country attempted to replace its bombed-out housing stock.

Goodsells erected hundreds of prefabs - ready-made ‘temporary’ homes that were often still being used 40 years later. At this time, the workforce was supplemented by Italian Prisoners of War, who chose to stay on in England.

At the same time, the need for new schools became apparent, and Goodsells stepped into the breach, building Oldborough Manor School in Maidstone, St Anselm’s in Canterbury and Walderslade School in Chatham, along with the Medway College of Technology.

But the firm did not restrict itself to schools and housing. It also repaired churches - notably St Faith’s in Maidstone - and built new churches including Shepway Free Church in Maidstone, the Mission Church of Bertha The Queen in Canterbury, and the Mangarvet Free Church in Maidstsone.

It also constructed offices, factories and telephone exchanges.

It also built a new print room for the Kent Messenger Group in Week Street (where The Society Rooms now stand) and built the Kentish Gazette offices in Canterbury.

The NatWest bank in Sutton Road, Maidstone, was another Goodsells project and the company was the first to construct a building with a barrel-rolled concrete roof - for Drake and Fletcher in Rocky Road. It still stands today.

Along the way, Mr Goodsell married Doris Upton and the couple moved into one of Goodsell’s own houses, built in Chatham Road, Maidstone, where their son John was born in 1940.

John Goodsell is now the keeper of the firm’s archives, which include his father’s original income and expenditure books.

The hand-written records throw an interesting light on the firm’s history in the 1920s and 1930s.

For example, there are the paysheets from 1925, which show that one worker, George Ring, received £3-8- 7 for a 46½ hour week - that equates to around 18d (or 8p) an hour.

At that stage, Goodsells had 20 workmen on its books.

Things were hard for workers in those days. John Goddsell recalls a story of how one worker broke his wrist and tried to claim sickness pay from his father, who refused to pay.

The case ended up in court, where Mr Goodsell senior won after calling on other builders in the town to give evidence to support him - all swore that they would never pay sick pay in such a case.

By 1935, the firm had grown to 350 workmen and 28 clerical staff.

John Goodsell received his primary age education at - unusually - the Maidstone Technical High School for Girls (the forerunner of Invicta Grammar School), then based behind St Michael’s Church.

He spent his senior schooling as a boarder at Sutton Valence School, leaving in 1958.

For a while, he toyed with the idea of a different career, perhaps in the law. He was also offered a place at the Canterbury School of Art to train as an architect, but perhaps inevitably, he followed his father into the building trade.

After a short period at Brixton School of Building, he returned to Maidstone for some on-the-job training in East Malling where Goodsells were building East Malling School- and some education it proved to be.

He said: “It was quite a revelation. The scaffolders - or ironfighters - as we called them especially were really crude.

“They would play darts by throwing their knives into the door, and on more than one occasion when I sat down at lunch to read the newspaper, some joker would set fire to it.”

In 1957, his father had registered the business as a limited company, H Goodsell and Son, and set about grooming his son to take over, but he seemed reluctant to let go.

It wasn’tuntil 1970 that Herbert made John joint managing director with him, though John said that even then, if they disagreed, it was his father’s will that prevailed.

In 1974, Herbert Goodsell died at the age of 79, and John finally took over, though he modestly said: “I did very little, but I had good team of guys around me.”

In 1971, the company bought up the engineering company Avery Co, then based in Penenden Street, quickly followed in 1973 by the purchase of EP Siggers Ltd in Tunbridge Wells.

On August 18 this year, the business will celebrate its 100th anniversary.

But although John Goodsell remains a director of Goodsell Kent, which owns the freehold of the firm’s base in Fisher Street and other properties, he resigned as a director of Goodsell and Son in 2021.

He said: “I’m getting on a bit.

“A few years ago I let it be known that I would be interested in selling up, and Paul Goddard, who had his own plumbing business, and had indeed done plumbing work for Goodsells over the years, showed an interest in taking it on.”

Mr Goddard picked up the story. He said: “I have known John Goodsell for approximately 40 years - initially through his training involvement when I was completing a plumbing apprenticeship, and then as a highly respected businessman as my plumbing company completed many sizeable projects for H Goodsell and Son from the early 1990s.

“I had always respected the way that H Goodsell and Son was operated and I enjoyed the mutual benefits of working with a highly professional business with exacting standards of quality.

“We were fortunate to be able to navigate the purchase of the business through lockdown and although negotiations slowed somewhat, we were able to finalise a deal and the reins were handed over to me at the end of August 2021.”

“Since then, thanks to the efforts of the existing, loyal staff the business has continued to serve all of its existing clients.

“Thanks to the efforts of some new staff, the company has been able to take on further clients and continue to grow.

“I am often asked why I chose to buy a building company, the answer has always been: I knew a lot about H Goodsell and Son and could see that many existing clients worked of my other group companies would benefit from the services of a solid, reliable, high quality local builder.

“Quality delivered on time and on budget - all words and strong ethics linked my group companies and likewise easily linked to H Goodsell and Son .

“I plan to continue to invest in the firm and to expand the team in order to lead the business forward for the next 100 years.”