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Launched 09/04/2011

Latest update

21/02/2025 03:58

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Graveyard Memorial Inscriptions
Welcome to the Elham Historical Society database website. Feel free to browse and uncover the history of Elham. Our dedicated team of historians has recently finished recording the details on all the memorials in the graveyard. Our chairman Derek Boughton has overseen the operation, correlating the data and checking for errors. The results of their labours can be seen on the burials page.

Elham beat off stiff competition for the title of Kent Village of the year 2011 organised by Action with Communities in Rural Kent.

Censuses for outlying communities in the parish will be rolled out gradually. Check out the stats page for interesting facts and

trivia about the village. We still need your help so please send us any information relating to Elham that may be of interest.

Les Ames hits out
Les Ames in action

Elham resident Les Ames in action for England against the West Indies in 1939. He was one of the finer wicketkeeper - batsmen and played for Kent CCC.

Abbot's Fireside c 1450
Abbot's Fireside

The Abbot's Fireside is one of the older buildings in the village and probably dates back to the mid fifteenth century.

Audrey attends school
Audrey Hepburn

Audrey Hepburn (neé Rushton) lived in Orchard Cottage (Five Bells) for five years in her childhood (1935-1940) and attended the local village schools. She took ballet lessons and dreamed of becoming a prima ballerina. I wonder what became of her?

George V Playing Field
George V Playing Field

Dave Lee opens Elham's brand new playground with a sensory garden and a pretty flower meadow created by the Play for Elham charity. 21st November 2010

Swing Riots of 1830
Swing Riots

The machine breaking that led to the riots of August 1830 onwards started in the Elham Parish, writes our historian Derek Boughton, who has made a lifetime's study of the subject.

Elham residents were prominent in the gangs that sought out the new fangled threshing machines and destroyed them. Some of them cost the not inconsiderable sum for the day of £100. Full Story

A FATAL FALL 1869

On. Tuesday last, an inquest was held at the "Rose and Crown," before T. T. Delasaux, Esq., Coroner, touching the death of John Knowler, farm labourer, aged 79 years, who, on the previous day, fell from a strew-stack, and died from the injuries sustained. Thomas Couchman said that he was at work with the deceased at the farm of Mr. Woollett, loading a waggon with straw. Deceased was on the stack throwing the bundles to witness, when he fell, striking his head upon the wheel of the waggon. He died almost immediately afterwards. Mr. Herbert Beadles, surgeon, proved that the result of a post mortem examination made by him was the discovery of the fracture of a vertibrae in the head, the pressure from which produced death. A verdict of accidental death was returned. Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald - Saturday 06 February 1869

Lewis Hubble 1919

We regret to announce the death on Tuesday last, of Mr. Lewis Hubble, the proprietor of the well-known grocery stores. He was a popular figure in the village. Sincere sympathy is felt with the relatives of the deceased, who was in the prime of his life. Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate & Cheriton Herald 10 May 1919

The School House 1620

  This house was built in 1620 - possibly with an earlier core - partially rebuilt around 1700 following damage.  Has mid-to-late C18 facade. Front elevation red brick in Flemish bond.  Right gable end older brick in Flemish type bond.  Plain tile roof. 2 storeys. High painted moulded brick plinth - returned along right gable end.  Plat band to right gable end only.  Plain brick eaves band.  Roof continuous with The Old Bakery left - hipped to right.  Multiple brick ridge stack towards left end.  Irregular fenestration of three twenty-pane sashes in open boxes - with splayed rubbed brick voussoirs; one left of stack - and two broadly-spaced to right - all set well below eaves.  Similar windows to ground floor.  Door of six sunk panels under stack.  Doric porch with moulded triangular pediment and slate roof.  Two-storey tile-hung rear-wing to left - with lower ridge than main range - plan tile roof hipped to rear - and stack to long left side.  Rear lean-to to right - brickwork integral with that of gable end.

  When the school moved away, the house was sold, and in recent years it has been admirably restored, and inside it one can still see the large school room with its timbered walls and wide fireplace. Behind the fireplace is a smaller room which was once the Master's sitting room.The roof is of oak, and is original and in excellent condition. One extraordinary feature is that the wall-plates which support the base of the rafters both at the front and at the back of the house are in one piece, each over fifty feet long, and may be more, as they project into the adjoining house. The Georgian style porch has been added in modern times.

  1725 date stone to right gable end is wrong as Sir John Williams' will, made April 1723, says "my house which I bought and rebuilt".  The house was left to the parish in the will - to provide for the education of six local poor boys with land to provide income.

C.P.R.K. Elham - A Village Study 1968


What's in the database
11820 People
6789 Demography entries
2422 Events
1299 Marriages
415 Properties
427 Photographs
Completed projects ...
  • Properties 1841-1911
  • Demography records 1841-1911 (village only)
  • Cemetery & Graveyard burials
  • Memorial and graveyard inscriptions
Work in progress ...
  • Demography records 1841-1911 (parish)
  • Marriages within the Elham parish
  • Audio/verbal accounts by Elham residents
Coming soon ...
  • Mapping of all properties within the Elham parish
  • List of artefacts
Future projects ...
  • Audio village tour
  • Complete list of shops - past and present
What's new!
Michael Hayes
Doctor Who Producer
Arthur Frederick Broadbridge
Elham resident and diplomat
Charles Alfred Fortin
Elham assistant surgeon
William Lewis Cowley
Elham resident and author
George W Palmer
Graveyard burials
John Midgeley
Henry Clayson
STATS - Facts & Trivia
Windlass Cottage Title Deeds
Church Cottage history back to 1720
Anthony Eden
Prime Minister and Elham resident

EHS
Swing Riots
Les Ames in action
Audrey Hepburn
Letters

EHS Database

Swing Riots of 1830 recounted by Derek Boughton our local expert historian.

Les Ames for England v West Indies at Kingston, Jamaica 1930 or 1935. WK Ivan Barrow watches on.

Audrey Hepburn attended private schools in the village and dreamed of being a ballerina. I wonder what became of her?

What's in the database? Find the latest additions here.

1875 CAUTION TO SERVANTS