Sittingbourne
Coordinates: 51.34° N 0.74° E Map of Earth showing lines of latitude (horizontally) and longitude (vertically), Eckert VI projection; large version (pdf, 1. ...
Population	55,000
OS grid reference	TQ905635
District	Swale
Shire county	Kent
Region	South East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	SITTINGBOURNE
Postcode district	ME9, ME10
Dial code	01795
Police	Kent
Fire	Kent
Ambulance	South East Coast
UK Parliament	Sittingbourne and Sheppey
European Parliament	South East England
List of places: UK • England • Kent

Sittingbourne is an industrial town about eight miles (12.9 km) east of Gillingham, beside the Roman Watling Street off a creek in the Swale, a channel separating the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (600x800, 11 KB) Summary Description: A blank map of the United Kingdom, with country outline and coastline; contact the author for help with modifications or add-ons Source: Reference map provided by Demis Mapper 6 Date: 2006-21-06 Author: User... Image File history File links Red_pog. ... The British national grid reference system is a system of geographic grid references commonly used in Great Britain, different from using latitude or longitude. ... The districts of England are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. ... For other meanings of swale see Swale (disambiguation). ... Metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties are a level of subnational division of England used for the purposes of local government. ... This article is about the county in England. ... The region, also known as Government Office Region, is currently the highest tier of local government subnational entity of England in the United Kingdom. ... South East England is one of the nine official regions of England. ... This is an alphabetical list of countries of the world, including independent states (both those that are internationally recognised and generally unrecognised), inhabited dependent territories and areas of special sovereignty. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... This is an alphabetical list of the sovereign states of the world, including both de jure and de facto independent states. ... A post town is a required part of all UK postal addresses. ... UK postal codes are known as postcodes. ... The ME postcode area, also known as the Rochester postcode area[1], is a group of twenty postal districts around Medway in Kent, England. ... The UK telephone numbering plan, also known as the National Numbering Plan, is regulated by the Office of Communications (Ofcom), which replaced the Office of Telecommunications (Oftel) in 2003. ... Kent Police is the police force covering Kent in England, including the unitary authority of Medway. ... A Fire Appliance belonging to the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service The fire service in the United Kingdom has undergone dramatic changes since the beginning of the 21st century, a process that has been propelled by a devolution of central government powers, new legislation and a change to operational... Kent Fire and Rescue Service is the statutory fire and rescue service for the county of Kent covering a geographical area south of London, to the coast and including major shipping routes via the Thames and Medway rivers. ... Crest of NHS ambulance services in England Crest of the Scottish Ambulance Service In the UK, the majority of ambulance services are provided under the National Health Service through local ambulance trusts. Each trust is specific to a county or area, and so the country is divided across a number... As of 1st July the NHS Ambulance Services Trusts of Kent, Surrey and Sussex are being joined together to form a new South East Coast Ambulance Service . ... The United Kingdom House of Commons is made up of Members of Parliament (MPs). ... Sittingbourne and Sheppey is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. ... This is a list of Members of the European Parliament for the United Kingdom in the 2004 to 2009 session, ordered by name. ... South East England is a constituency of the European Parliament. ... List of cities in the United Kingdom List of towns in England Lists of places within counties List of places in Bedfordshire List of places in Berkshire List of places in Buckinghamshire List of places in Cambridgeshire List of places in Cheshire List of places in Cleveland List of places... This is a list of cities, towns and villages in the ceremonial county of Kent, England. ... Gillingham is a town in Kent, England, forming part of the Medway conurbation; it is a constituent of Medway unitary authority. ... Area under Roman control  Roman Republic  Roman Empire  Western Empire  Eastern Empire Ancient Rome was a civilization that grew from a city-state founded on the Italian Peninsula circa the 9th century BC to a massive empire straddling the Mediterranean Sea. ... The modern Watling Street crossing the Medway at Rochester near the Roman and Celt crossings Watling Street is the name given to a British ancient trackway which was first used by the Celts mainly between the modern cities of Canterbury and St Albans. ... The name The Swale refers to the strip of water separating North Kent from the Isle of Sheppey. ... View towards Minster from Elmley Marshes The Isle of Sheppey is a small (36 square miles, 94 km²) island off the northern coast of Kent, England in the Thames Estuary, some 38 miles (62km) to the east of central London. ... This article is about the county in England. ...

History

In the Middle Ages, Sittingbourne was a popular place for pilgrims to Chatham and offered a thriving market. Today, paper manufacture and fruit preserving and packing are the main industries. A settlement existed in the area as far back as 1086 when Norman records a village pond. Sittingbourne has over its long history developed significant links with the history of the river barge, still in evidence today. At the centre of the town's paved high street is the sculpture of a bronze bargeman.

The Dolphin shipyard was formerly the barge yard of cement works and brickmakers C Burley, and is on a tidal inlet running from Sittingbourne to the Swale.

The current MP was elected to the newly created constituency of Sittingbourne and Sheppey in 1997 and re-elected in 2001 and 2005. A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters to a parliament. ... In the United Kingdom each of the electoral areas or divisions called constituencies elects one or more members to a parliament or assembly. ...

Geography

North Kent is geologically rich in chalk, which is not found in many other places in Europe in such abundance. This naturally led cement manufacturers to settle in the area, and the modern industry still flourishes locally today. Barges were needed to move many other raw materials and finished goods into the Thames and to London and beyond; Sittingbourne was ideally suited for this purpose and a flourishing barge-building industry developed at Milton Creek and elsewhere along the coast. The earliest known barge was built in the area by John Huggens in 1803. Several places exist with the name Thames, and the word is also used as part of several brand and company names Most famous is the River Thames in England, on which the city of London stands Other Thames Rivers There is a Thames River in Canada There is a Thames...

These industries flourished during the 19th century when, as a result of the industrial revolution, Sittingbourne developed into a port from which Kent produce was transported to the London markets. Paper mills and brickfields were fed by barges that brought in sand, mud and household waste such as cinders for brick making, and took away the bricks once made. Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ...

During this era over 500 types of barges are believed to have been built, but after World War II, these activities began to fall into a decline, so that only the Burley yard continued with the repair of barges until about 1965. This lack of activity led the creek to become silted and derelict, but the 200-year-old wooden sail loft and forge was later converted to the Dolphin Sailing Barge Museum by a local enthusiast. It has now closed. Combatants Allied powers: China France Great Britain Soviet Union United States and others Axis powers: Germany Italy Japan and others Commanders Chiang Kai-shek Charles de Gaulle Winston Churchill Joseph Stalin Franklin Roosevelt Adolf Hitler Benito Mussolini Hideki Tōjō Casualties Military dead: 17,000,000 Civilian dead: 33,000...

Shipbuilding

One prominent local shipwright was the son of Alfred White who owned a yard at Sittingbourne, and had a barge yard at Blackwall in London during the 1880s where he built Swimhead barges for Goldsmith of Grays in Essex. Alfred Marconi White took over the Conyer yard from John Bird in 1890 after serving his apprenticeship at the Blackwall yard. Conyer, a hamlet of the village of Teynham, once inhabited by the Romans, is found at the head of a small creek between Sittingbourne and Faversham. Blackwall Frigate Blackwall is an area of the East End of London, situated in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. ... Essex is a county in the East of England. ... Faversham is a town in Kent, England, in the district of Swale, roughly halfway between Sittingbourne and Canterbury. ...

The shipwright John Bird (born 1832) is reputed to be the first of the barge builders to settle at Conyer and records exist for a sailing barge built there in 1866, the year he began his work at the yard. The White family prided themselves in the construction of the fastest barges available locally. Alfred Marconi at his Conyer yard, near brickfields, built many different types of barge. Some continued to exist as house barges well into the 1960s. The last of the many sailing barges was built at the Conyer yard in 1914, but repair works continued well into the 1930s, with several barge yachts built in the 1920s.

Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway

To the west of the Dolphin yard is the Sittingbourne & Kemsley Light Railway, which served as transport for the paper making industry. The Sittingbourne & Kemsley Light Railway operates a 2ft (610mm) gauge railway line from Sittingbourne to the banks of the The Swale. ...

A mill was opened in 1877 by the News Chronicle owner Edward Lloyd, between Sittingbourne and the Milton creek, where the raw materials such as china clay, coal and pulping timber for the paper were easily imported by barges that also took away the finished product. A wharf was built and a narrow gauge horse-drawn tramway added to carry these materials to and from the creek.

In 1906 the first steam locomotive, Premier, came into service, followed by Leader the same year and in 1908 a third loco, Excelsior. All were Brazil-class 0-4-2 tank locomotives.

The waters below the wharves at Sittingbourne were prone to rapid silting, and with the expansion of the paper mill a new dock was developed four miles from Sittingbourne at Ridham, taking advantage of the Swale's deep waters.

Kemsley Mill led to the foundation of a company village which was built about 1924, and by the 1960s 13 locomotives were in regular use on the line, one diesel and one battery electric and 400 wagons, with about 14 miles of track. The railway was after the Second World War used to carry passengers to and from the docks and mill, with carriages provided for the mill workers of Kemsley.

In 1965 it was decided that the railway was uneconomic, with the significant progress made in the use of the car, and so lorries were more commonly used for transporting produce. Consequently by 1969 the Bowater Light Railway, much loved as it was by the firm (and with assistance of Capt Peter Manisty) handed it over to the Locomotive Club of Great Britain to be preserved and operated as the Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway. It has since become a significant feature in the town's tourist industry. Bowater Incorporated (NYSE: BOW) is an American pulp and paper company based in Greenville, South Carolina. ...

Air raids during the Great War

The area around Sittingbourne was subject to constant air raids by Zeppelins and aeroplanes during the Great War. The Germans used the town as a reference point for bearings on the way to London. LZ127 Graf Zeppelin, one of the two zeppelins that carried passengers from Germany to the United States. ...

The first visit by a German aeroplane happened on Christmas Day 1914. Guns at Sheerness fired at the lone invader but still one shell dropped into a field at Iwade. The next event was to occur on 16 January 1915 when another solitary pilot from a German aerodrome in Belgium bombed Sittingbourne. This aircraft, a Taube, was pursued by two local airmen, but managed to escape after dropping a couple of bombs. Map sources for Sheerness at grid reference TQ919749 Sheerness is a town on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, England. ...

About 100 air raid warnings were sounded in Sittingbourne during the Great War and anti-aircraft batteries were strengthened in 1917. The last big raid to pass over the town on Whit Sunday (19 May 1918), carried out by a number of Gothas, eliciting perhaps the most ferocious barrage from the ground defences the town had ever seen.

The local newspaper, the East Kent Gazette, reported:

"The first of these duels occurred about an hour after the raid had been in progress, and probably this machine was caught while on its way to London. It was engaged by a daring aviation officer while at a great height. The British airman attacked his opponent so fiercely that the German was forced down to a lower height, and ultimately, to the joy of the onlookers, the Gotha burst into flames, seemed to break in two and came down piecemeal, all aflame. The wrecked machine and the three occupants fell by a farm. Two of the Germans fell into marshy ground and their bodies were deeply embedded in the mud. The third man's head struck a wall and was shattered like an eggshell. All three bodies were removed to a local aviation establishment. The fall of the burning Gotha was seen for miles around."

The second Gotha was surrounded by British fighters shortly after, returning from a successful raid on London.

Sources

• D. L. Sattin: Barge building and barge builders of the Swale, 1990.
• Alan Major: Hidden Kent, 1994.
• East Kent Gazette

External links

• [http://www.pigstrough.co.uk/ww1/ Sittingbourne Remembers - Soldiers of World War One
• Information on the Paper Mill in Sittingbourne that shut in Jan 2007 after 300 years of paper making history
• Avenue Theatre, Sittingbourne
• local news and information about Sittingbourne
• Dolphin Yard Sailing Barge Museum
• Sittingbourne Football Club
• Sittingbourne Greyhound Racing
• SKLR Website
• 87.9 SFM Website
• Special Creations at St George's Business Park Sittingbourne
• This is Milton Regis - a photographic history
• Sittingbourne Indoor 5 a Side League
• Coomber Surname Family History
• http://www.derekwyatt.co.uk/ Webpage of the Local Member of Parliament
• 1st Sittingbourne (Salvation Army) Scout Group, Cubs and Scouts for young people aged 8-14 at the Salvation Army, Shortlands Road
• Sittingbourne and Sheppey Conservative Association