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Launched 09/04/2011

Latest update

11/12/2025 09:57

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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

Folkestone to Canterbury 1922

The first bus service started to run from Folkestone Harbour to Canterbury. The service was started by Sergeant Brothers with open-top charabancs with solid rubber tyres. They ran for a few years, then the East Kent Road Car Company took over and bought them out.

"They never minded how many stood in the gangway as long as you could get on. Sometimes, when it was fully loaded, they had a job getting up Grace Hill in Folkestone. When it rained the driver had to stop and pull a canvas hood over. I think when the buses started, the railways began losing passengers, because going by bus you could go right into the towns, whereas you had quite a walk from Canterbury South or Folkestone Central Stations."

Memoires of Bill Watson

Sarah Court 100th birthday 1909

Sarah Court of The Street Elham - was born on a farm at Acrise on 24 Feb 1809 - celebrated her 100th birthday.  Her farmer parents both attained the age of nearly 90.  She was a farmer’s maid for the PAPILLON family and still doing nursing at the age of 80 but had never been on a train.  An uncle - a wine merchant who lived in Dover - also lived to a good age.   A son and a daughter were alive when she was 100. Sarah Court

Parkinson's Law 1955

Elham resident Cyril Northcote Parkinson published his most famous work Parkinson's Law, a book that expanded upon a humorous article that he had first published in the Economist magazine in November 1955, satirizing government bureaucracies. The 100-page book, first published in the United States and then in Britain, was illustrated by Osbert Lancaster and became an instant best seller. This collection of short studies explained the inevitability of bureaucratic expansion, arguing that 'work expands to fill the time available for its completion'. Typical of his satire and cynical humour, the book included a discourse on Parkinson's Law of Triviality (debates about expenses for a nuclear plant, a bicycle shed, and refreshments), a note on why driving on the left side of the road (see road transport) is natural, and suggested that the Royal Navy would eventually have more admirals than ships. After serving as visiting professor at Harvard University in 1958, and the University of Illinois and the University of California, Berkeley in 1959–60, he resigned his post in Singapore at the University of Malaya to become an independent writer and celebrity. To avoid high taxation in Britain, he moved to the Channel Islands and settled at St Martin's, Guernsey, where he purchased Les Caches Hall and later restored Annesville Manor. His writings from this period included a series of historical novels, featuring a fictional naval officer from Guernsey, Richard Delancey, during the Napoleonic era


What's in the database
11822 People
6789 Demography entries
2422 Events
1301 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.

1874 Hodges Swain