Middleton Manor Lodge No 6337 was consecrated on the 5th December 1946.
The War Years having ended, a dozen or so eminent business men, shop keepers and tradesmen, who were already members of lodges in the Medway area, decided to create a new lodge in Milton Regis, to cater for the growing number of men, who desired to be members of an organisation that rekindled a level of camaraderie and fellowship that they had experienced in darker times.
Originally the lodge was to be named the Milton Regis Lodge, but it was then changed to ‘Middletune’ Manor, and then finally to Middleton Manor. The reasons for the changes have been lost in the mist of time, but as the historical name of Milton was Middleton, this was probably the reason why it became Middleton Manor Lodge.
Research reveals that Middleton (Milton), takes its name from the Saxon - Midletun, i.e. the middle part of the County, and Villa Regina de Middleton, the King’s Town of Middleton. The only reference that could be found to Middletune, was in the time of William the Norman (William the Conqueror), who took possession of the Middletune Hundred, one of the thirteen kingdoms of Kent. However, that was some 800 years before the foundation of the lodge, so Middleton Manor, it is.
Originally the lodge was to meet at the Upper School room of the Milton Regis Congregational Church, but as the room was only available on a Tuesday evening, Tuesday became the agreed meeting night for the lodge.
The lodge was duly consecrated on the 5th December 1946, at the Masonic Hall, Franklin Road, Gillingham, and the first regular meeting at the schoolroom was on the 14th January 1947, when Henry Wheatley, a watchmaker and jeweller became the first new initiate.
Middleton Manor Lodge relocated from the old schoolroom, to the St Michaels’ Masonic Hall in Sittingbourne on the 13th March 1956.
