Robert Cromwell Passmore, who took over the company during Second World War

It was, quite literally, chicken feed that set Arthur Harris Passmore on the road to establishing his portable timber-building company in Strood.

And this year, Passmores Ltd celebrates its centenary.

Based close to the River Medway on the Strood side of Rochester Bridge, the company has seen the big engineering companies of Aveling and Porter and Winget come and go from the site oppoiste, along with Medway Council. Short Brothers across the river has also disappeared.

When the company’s founder travelled south from his native Yorkshire in 1909, it was to set up business as a cafe proprietor. He took over the Tea Table Cafe in Rochester High Street.

But after the First World War there was a boom in free-range poultry keeping. Arthur Passmore formed the Poultry Farmers Supply Company from railway arches off Strood High Street, premises the company still occupies to this day.

Poultry feed led to chicken houses, and there was an obvious progression towards garden sheds.

An early Passmore's lorry, probably in the Twenties

And the massive post Second World War suburban housing boom fuelled the demand.

However, arthur Harris Passmore did not live to enjoy the boom.

He died in December 1942, when wartime restrictions had temporarily killed off the shed and poultry house business.

Meanwhile, he had reverted to life as a cafe proprietor, running establishments at both the Strood site and Maidstone Market.

Arthur Passmore had three sons, two of whom were in the RAF. Squadron Leader Keith Passmore was among a group of airmen who escaped from Java when the Japanese invaded, and made a perilous 1,500-mile journey in an open sailing boat to Austrailia. Her was later killed when the plane he was travelling in crashed into the Irish Sea.

It was left to the eldest son, Robert Cromwell Passmore, to carry on the business. He had carried out design work for Short Brothers, the seaplane manufacturers on the Rochester Esplanade, during the war.

Many of his post-war chicken house and shed designs were based on airframes he had worked on.

Today, the company still manufactures garden sheds. It is no rare occurrence for a customer to be replacing a shed he bought shortly after the war. But now the company has expanded into garages, builders’ site huts, sports club houses, stable blocks and rural barn style outbuildings.

A sailing vessel delivers a consignment of wood for Passmore's at Gun Wharf, Strood