Third Kingston scout group was founded on June 13, 1913, by Harry "Spider" Hider and began meeting at the old All Saints' Mission Hall in Wood Street, Kingston. The cub pack was started on May 21, 1919.

After World War I, the scoutmaster decided 3rd Kingston needed its own headquarters, and the group subsequently raised the money to buy land through a succession of fetes advertised as The Erbs Fair.

In 1926, a piece of land was bought at The Bittoms, the site of the current Kingston Crown Court, and a hut was built which opened on March 10, 1928.

However, on November 16, 1957, a fire broke out at the hut, causing between £4,000 and £5,000 damage to the building and contents (around £300,000 in today's money).

Following the devastation, it was decided to rebuild the hut as a permanent rather than temporary structure, using fire-resistant materials. The new hut opened exactly a year later, with many local firms recorded as helping with the rebuild including WH Gaze & Sons from Kingston and CF Abraham from New Malden.

In 1966, 3rd Kingston's headquarters was completely demolished by Surrey County Council to make way for redevelopment.

The new headquarters in South Lane, where the group still meets today, was opened on March 10, 1973, by Rowan Bentall, the then managing director of Bentall's department store.

The new building boasted a chapel, two large halls, committee rooms and offices, a kitchen and a garage.

In 1992, 3rd Kingston took the controversial decision to admit girls into the group and for many years had more girls than boys in the scout group.

Easter 2006 saw the opening of the beaver colony for children aged between five and eight, ensuring a constant flow into the cub pack.

Follow the leaders

Since the formation of 3rd Kingston in 1913, there have been only five group scoutleaders - Harry Hider, Les Woodgate, Jack Bardwell, Paul Gadd and Richard Golding, the current leader.

Les Woodgate was the group's second scoutleader between 1961 and 1982, but joined the group as a Wolf Cub at the age of just eight.

He said: "When I was a wolf cub, my pack was based on Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book.

"We were all wolf cubs obviously, and the leaders had different names based on characters from the book. At the end of every meeting, the leader used to read us a chapter from the book."

Throughout World War II, 3rd Kingston continued to meet, growing in size.

Mr Woodgate said: "There were no other youth clubs open during the war so the boys joined us, and at one point we were up to 50 scouts. It was a difficult time though - we couldn't camp, for example, until near the end of the war in 1943 as it was too dangerous."

Through the founding scoutleader Harry Hider, 3rd Kingston formed close ties with a scout group in Holland.

Mr Woodgate added: "We went over to Holland to camp and after the war they came back over to camp with us. I also remember going to the 1937 scout jamboree in Holland too and all the songs we used to sing around the campfire with scouts from across the world.

  • See next week's Surrey Comet when we will be looking back at the history of 1st Hook.