From out of town 'Aladdin's caves' to sprawling town centre department stores, Maidstone's streets once had it all.

Aside from London, few other places in the South East offered the range that could be found in the County Town, and for generations it was a place to enjoy spending time and cash.

For many it is still, but few could argue the town's shopping streets have the same buzz they once did.

We asked the good folk which shops of times past – including Past Times gift shop – they miss the most.

Chiesmans, junction of High Street and Pudding Lane

If you shopped in the County Town before the mid-80s, you might remember Maidstone's biggest department store, Chiesmans.

First opened in 1933, the store is remembered by generations as a family-run chain that offered something for all the family.

Lorraine Sales remembers the shop for its "magical sleigh ride at Christmas which made you feel like you’d travelled to the North Pole," a memory also shared by Teresa Burden.

"Really thought we were on a real sleigh ride," she added. "Gosh that’s going back. Happy days."

It wasn't just children who enjoyed a trip to Chiesmans. The sprawling shop dominated the junction of the High Street and Pudding Lane, and offered a restaurant, function room, as well as furniture and fashion departments.

Founded in 1884 by two brothers – Frank and Harry – in Lewisham, by 1933 the successful business had expanded as much as was possible in Lewisham, with properties on both sides of the high street linked by a tunnel, prompting them to open a second store in Maidstone.

It became known for its artistic window displays – although one found fame for being a bit too eye-catching. Based on the 1960 movie The Millionairess, it featured a mannequin dressed as Sophia Loren in her underwear, and had to be covered over when it was found to be stopping traffic.

The Maidstone store eventually closed in 1983, and in 2008 the building was converted to flats, with pub and restaurant The Herbalist on the ground floor and cocktail bar Junipers below.

Hubble and Freeman, Gabriels Hill

When sports shop Hubble and Freeman closed in 2012, the Kent Messenger mourned the passing of a true "sporting legend".

"The chances are if you have hit a glorious six – or edged a woeful attempted slog – on the cricket pitches of Maidstone, Malling and the Weald at any point during the last century, you did so with a bat bought from Hubble and Freeman sports shop in Gabriels Hill," we reported.

And it was true – to an arguable extent – as the shop surely played its part in thousands of moments of sporting drama since being founded in 1910 by cricketer Jack Hubble.

Jack started the business in a shed at the Trebor Sharps sports ground in London Road, and after a successful decade upped sticks in 1923, moving first to Market Buildings and then to Gabriels Hill.

Later merging with cricket ball manufacturers Readers, Hubble and Freeman expanded under the guidance of Jack Hubble’s grandson, Peter Ludgate, who took over in 1972.

When the shop finally closed its doors, Peter recalled the time the Beach Boys came in looking for, of all things, croquet sets.

"They each bought one and I had to carry them out to the car,” he said. “They said ‘we haven’t got any money,’ but Al Jardine said ‘if you’re ever in Big Sur, phone us up.’"

Peter has carried on the Hubble name with his snooker, pool and bar billiard business Hubble Sports, based in Coxheath, even supplying Richard Branson with several snooker and pool tables, and restoring one of them when it was destroyed by fire.

Woolworths, Week Street

Although far from unique to Maidstone, the name Woolworths crops up time and again in discussions of the town's most missed shops.

Lisa Masters summed up the appeal of the shop succinctly, recalling, "Woolworths for the pick 'n' mix and was a one-stop shop for most things."

Many others agree, but sadly not enough people were using the chain to keep it in business before it entered administration in 2008.

The Maidstone store was among the first to close at the end of that December, but the rest were soon to follow suit – and by January 5 all 807 Woolworths outlets across the country had shut for the last time.

It was the end of an era for a company that had become part of the fabric of high streets across the land, since the first Woolworths opened in Liverpool 1909. Stores quickly spread across the county and Maidstone's branch opened in 1924.

"It will re-shape Maidstone and it will leave a massive hole in Week Street," said Paul Alcock, then chairman of Maidstone Town Centre Management, adding: "but that could also be a massive opportunity for someone.

"In Maidstone it could be that Marks & Spencer tries to create one large store rather than the two smaller ones they have at the moment."

In the end though it wasn't M&S that seized the opportunity, but Poundland and budget shoe shop Deichmann, which both still occupy the building.

The Long Player, Maidstone High Street, near junction with Gabriels Hill

Opened in Maidstone 1978, this record shop was a firm favourite with record collectors into the 1990s, when it was taken over and became Richards Records.

"Best record shop ever," recalled one former fan. "I used to buy albums from bands I'd never heard of. They used to let me swap the ones I didn't like. Spent loads in there over the years."

Others recalled the "Ian Gillan look-alike" who used to work there, back when people knew who Ian Gillan from Deep Purple was.

Maidstone author Ian Snowball, recalled the shop as some of his favourite former Maidstone spots, after publishing his book Thick As Thieves, Personal Situation with the Jam in 2012.

"One level sold classical music, and the other anything from Abba to Zappa," he wrote. "They also stocked Motown, Stax and an assortment of re-issued rare northern soul records."

With several record shops around the town, he said Our Price's red and white bags were "the best to sport around town, while Long Player's orange bags were "not as classy!"

Commenting on Facebook, Kevin Taylor agreed about the shop but not about the bags.

"The orange record bags were the thing to be seen with in my teenage years!" he said.

ESE Music, Upper Fant Road, Maidstone

The name Snowball might trigger memories of another lost musical gem of Maidstone.

While Maidstone was once home to several music shops, a real treasure-trove for musicians was ESE Music, out of the town centre in Upper Fant Road, owned by the aforementioned Ian Snowball's uncle, Eric Snowball.

When The Kent Messenger went there in 2009, we discovered the shop was as much a treasure trove of musical stories as musical equipment

Eric helped organise AC/DC's first-ever tour of Britain back in 1974, and mixed with a multitude of famous acts, supplying PAs to the Bay City Rollers, echo-effect machines to Pink Floyd, steel guitars to Led Zeppelin, and repairing amps for Brian May and Paul McCartney.

And he even recalled a night out with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton in Brighton.

"We had gone to see a band down there," he said. "Clapton had had a few drinks and was trying to walk through a revolving door with his guitar strapped round him. After the show, we had gone to find something to eat. As we were walking back, Jeff and Eric accidentally fell into a dustbin and I ran away. I thought 'I'm getting out of here'.

"I got a phone call at 4am from Jeff saying 'what happened to you?'"

Among Eric's favourite achievements was becoming a world-renowned expert in the now defunct Binson range of effect machines; and inventing his own echo effect machine, the ESE Echomatic.

Gamleys, Chequers Centre

While the children of well-off families had Hamleys in London, for most in Maidstone a trip to Gamleys was the only option – but equally as exciting.

For 30 years, generations of children had known Gamleys in The Mall, and its previous guises as the Chequers and Stoneborough Centre, before it announced it was facing closure in 2008.

Thankfully for the next generation of children it was bought out by the Entertainer, before sad news came again at the end of last year that the shop was to close permanently.

Nevertheless the shop will be fondly remembered as the place to find the best toys of the day.

The wider Gamleys chain was founded in 1919, with a head office in Brighton and a range of small shops in high streets and shopping centres across the south of England.

Snob, High Street

Born in the swinging sixties, fashion chain Snob was the brainchild of Leonard Soames and Phillip Hillman, who set out on a mission to bring Soho chic and catwalk glamour to the UK's high streets.

It did it successfully enough until the early 80s to stick in the memory of many fashion fans – including TV presenter Carol McGiffin, who got a job at the shop in the High Street aged 15, and included a picture of her in the store in her autobiography "Oh Carol!"

Recalling her favourite shops on Facebook, Sophia Norley said: "Snob…because of its crazy staff!", and Marie Beard agreed adding: "ditto Snob was the best shop for ‘out there’ fashion! I bought a transparent pink raincoat from there."
Originally in the High Street, just up from the junction with Pudding Lane, Snob later opened a branch in the Stoneborough Centre, now the Mall, although some also recall an incarnation of the store in Week Street.

Snob closed its doors in 1983 but founders Leonard and Phillip continued their retail adventures separately for decades.

C&H Fabrics, Week Street

When C&H Fabrics announced early in 2011 that it was to close its Maidstone store, it sparked something close to grief amongst long-standing customers, and a book of condolence was set up.

"Please, please do not close this lovely shop," wrote one shopper. "So many of my friends are absolutely devastated. We cannot manage without you. Can you reconsider? We would be so grateful."

"Why close the best and most versatile shop in Maidstone?" added another. "C&H is needed by this town to give it some class – a town of £1 shops is not needed."

Its pages were full of other messages, most of which were slightly more sympathetic than the Kent Messenger's later headline ­– "Curtains for shop that's been in town for 40 years" – when the store shut in March.

But you can't blame an editor for grasping that opportunity, and to be fair the overall tone reflected the loss of a much-loved shopping spot.

Bryan Hamblin, chairman of the chain, said the decision to shut was down to failed negotiations with the landlord and high business rates.

"Maidstone has changed a lot in the last 15 years and our end of Week Street has never recovered from the loss of the old Army and Navy store," he added. "Bluewater opened and Maidstone took a big hit.

"The new Fremlin Walk development has further damaged other areas of the central shopping zone in Maidstone."

Other lost gems

The words of C&H's chairman Bryan perhaps serve to summarise much of what's changed in the shopping landscape of Maidstone.

Only time will tell how the town centre will evolve and whether it can find a way to flourish once more, but it seems unlikely its shops will ever offer the quality and variety they once did.

In a pre-internet age, Maidstone's shopping streets also offered a vibrant social and cultural environment that many miss to this day.

For music fans, places like the old Plastic Surgery record shop in Union Street offered somewhere to meet like-minded people and make friends; while a trip into a department store like Army & Navy, or the Dunnings store that occupied the same site previously from 1931 to 1980, offered a portal into a completely different world – a place where young fashionistas could step off the streets of Maidstone and into a world of sophistication.

Christina Kinsey can still picture being inside Henry Paynes in Bank Street... "Royal blue Italian flannel for a winter dress, and my grandma's old sewing machine getting a workout.

"I was terrified of it, don't know why. Miss the shop, miss the fabrics, wish l hadn't been so scared of colour back then, or of sewing machines for that matter."

Filmmaker Derek Boyes recalled The Old Toy Soldier shop on Rocky Hill, and Pettitts joke shop in Market Buildings. "They had real Mexican jumping beans you could buy, loads of pen knives too and a ‘Rambo’ knife, with a compass and compartment in the handle."

"Don’t forget the stink bombs and fart cushions," added Paul Savage, while Linda Green added: "That was my grandad's shop until 1972, R .G Pettitt. I miss those days and was allowed to play with the jumping beans when I was little. I loved that shop."

It would be impossible to do justice to each store remembered by Maidstone shoppers, but those memories offer a snapshot glimpse into another time.

As Julie Flisher puts it: "When you read the names of all these shops and the fond memories stir, you realise what a tragedy it is that the town has become so devoid of character."