OPEN DOOR: Moving with the times has kept Passmore's thriving, says MD Stuart Slaughter

A Medway company which successfully traded through both world wars, the Great Depression and a string of recessions celebrates its centenary this year.

And it's still doing well in this downturn.

Passmore's Portable Buildings in Strood has started its hundredth year with a very healthy order book for everything from small garden sheds to cricket pavilions and stable blocks.

It even has export orders lined up which will see two 40ft containers of its products heading for new Zealand.

Part of celebrations will be trying to find the oldest Passmore shed still in use. Sales chief Stuart Slaughter, great grandson of the company’s founder, told KOS Media this week that he’s just seen one from 1967. It was in 1909 that Arthur Harris Passmore arrived in Medway from Yorkshire. He set up home Frindsbury and opened the Tea Table Cafe in Rochester Hight Street.

After the First World War there was a boom in free-range poultry keeping, and he realised there was money to be made in supplying chicken feed as well as meals for the citizens of Rochester.

He set up the Poultry Farmers’ Supply Company on a site adjacent to the High Street, on the Strood side of the bridge, from where the company still operates.

The supply of chicken feed led to the production of poultry houses, which in turn led to the manufacture of garden sheds.

Arthur died in 1942 and his son, Robert Cromwell Passmore, carried on. At this time there was no timber for the sheds and poultry houses, but the firm was helping to design airframes for Short Brothers, the Rochester seaplane company.

After the war business was resumed, and although battery farming sounded the death knell for poultry houses, Passmore diversified into garden buildings, chalets, site huts, clubhouses and stable blocks.

Stuart’s father, Richard, married Robert’s daughter , Barbara, and he took over and is still managing director.

Today conservation and sustainability are the watchwords. The firm uses non-polluting preservatives and even timber off-cuts to heat workshops.

It’s one of the few firms in the UK to have a Forest Stewardship Council certificate of chain of custody. It has sourced timber from a high-quality Swedish sustainable forest for decades and is the sawmill’s oldest customer.

To mark the centenary, the company designed a traditional country-style cart lodge, using oak frames.

In his office, from where he can see Rochester Castle, Mr Slaughter said: "The secret of our success is that we have never just sat back. We have moved with the times and concentrated on personal service and sourcing high-quality material."

The firm reckons it has supplied one in 10 sheds in the area, and every week two lorry loads of sheds are delivered in the region.

Passmore’s is looking forward to its next 100 years.