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Engine sheds back on track
HAROLD GOODWIN
The Community Land Trust is working to restore and reuse the engine sheds. Picture by Nina Carrington
This year is the 200th anniversary of the coming of the passenger railway to Britain, and we are marking the anniversary in Open Faversham, which runs from Saturday 24 May.
The arrival of the railway in Faversham led to a rapid expansion of the town. The Faversham Community Land Trust is working to restore and reuse the engine sheds to the east of the station. Come along to see what remains and talk about how they might be used in the future. There are two talks, an exhibition of photographs projected onto a large screen and some railway model layouts.
The other main theme this year is Memories of War and there are exhibitions of schoolchildren’s work on Faversham at war and the bunting will be displayed in St Mary of Charity Parish Church.
Many of you will remember the impact of the musical Oh! What a Lovely War with its star-studded cast and there is an opportunity to see it again. This epic, comedic musical is today as relevant, perhaps more relevant, as it was in 1969.
Other attractions include the map room exhibition in the town hall at 11pm on 24 May, and the pudding club at St Mary of Charity. Many of you will remember how popular that was in the food festival days.
This year, we are experimenting with some events, looking to Faversham’s future, seeking to engage people in discussing our town’s future. We are discussing the past, present and future of Faversham Cottage Hospital, built by public subscription; we have many times had to fight to save it. With NHS reorganisation, we may have to fight again.
Local government reorganisation is in the offing and we have organised a non-party political discussion about the options being discussed. This is your chance to hear what is being discussed and to have your say. When Faversham was placed in Swale, we lost our borough status and a great deal of our autonomy. What might the future hold?
Looking ahead, we have organised an event to discuss what alternative intelligence means for education and employment in Faversham. What about the jobs of the future?
We have invited Martin Thomas from Craig Research and Dave Frawley from BMM Weston, both high-tech firms based in Faversham, to tell us about the opportunities they see for business and employment. What are the skills needed for a future with AI?
Creekside Boxing is a Faversham gem. Coaches Ian Fleckney and professional boxer Alex Branson-Cole are volunteers passionate about training and development for young people, male and female, in Faversham. Come along to hear about what the club offers, what its members and former members have achieved in life and plans for its future.
How important is the gunpowder industry in Faversham’s history? Find out on a guided walk, including a visit to Chart Mills, the oldest of their kind in the world, on Monday 26 May at 10.30am. Tickets are £5 for adults, £3 for children. Free for society members.
Faversham’s local history matters. Or does it? Join in with our lively discussion with our panel of experts: archivist Dr Jane Secker, journalist Christine Rayner, Tad Piotrowski from Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School’s history team, and Professor Frank Furedi.
This is a free event for all and will be held at Faversham Assembly Rooms, Preston Street, on Tuesday 27 May, starting at 7pm. There’s no need to book.
This is but a fraction of the events on that week. Full details in the brochures around town and on the website, below.
From the chair
ANN FUREDI
I hope you already have the evening of Thursday 12 June marked in your diary with a note to attend our AGM. The agenda is on pages 8 and 9 and the meeting is important for several reasons.
1 The chair and vice-chair must be elected or re-elected each year, as must those trustees who have completed a term in office: Members who wish to join the Faversham Society board, and take on the responsibilities that come with it, can put themselves forward for election;
2 This is an opportunity to ask questions and comment on the work the has been done (or not done) in the last year. It is a way of calling the board to account and to challenge decisions and actions;
3 It’s a chance to meet and mingle with other members; and
4 This year there’s a chance to hear Matthew Hatchwell talk about the importance of our local natural environment and what we can do as the Faversham Society (and as individuals) to maintain and improve our environmental heritage.
Having just completed a year in the chair, I am particularly anxious to see as many members as possible in the room and to hear from you – especially about what we have done that has raised eyebrows, and possibly even blood pressure.
I know that our support for the Old Grammar School trustees’ objections to the renaming of the path, on which their Elizabethan building sits, has been controversial. Some of you saw the petition, which made the national press, as core to our mission to protect our heritage. Others believe it was an unnecessary criticism, and provocation, of our elected councillors.
Similarly, regarding our position on new housing developments, some members think we are naive to continue to oppose all developments on greenfield land, others think we have done too little to object.
The AGM is a place to say what you think about what we are doing whatever it is. It is a place to learn where you can lend support and to tell the incoming board what you would like to see reflected in the society’s work.
For me, a highlight of the last year was the members’ meeting to discuss the impact of the developments. It underlined how it is possible to disagree on some things while agreeing on others.
Are you brave enough for a night at the fleur?
Here’s a rather fanciful depiction of what you might see at the Fleur on 24 June.
Editor’s note: this was created with artificial intelligence and, no, the town’s Magna Carta will not be on display at the museum
Join us for an exclusive Night at the Museum in the Fleur de Lis Museum from 7pm on Tuesday, 24 June.
Who knows – you may see ghosts of Faversham’s past – perhaps the murdered Thomas Arden, the thwarted King Stephen (who lost his queen, his heir, and then 384 years later was disinterred from the abbey he founded and thrown into the creek).
Or maybe you will encounter the shades of Victorian schoolchildren, shipbuilders or gunpowder workers?
What is certain, however, is that you will be plied with complimentary wine and nibbles, and meet a series of entertaining pop-up speakers throughout the museum as you explore in small groups.
If you’ve never been inside before, now is your chance! The museum is so much larger than you would imagine from the outside and jam-packed with everything Faversham. Short talks will be given on King Stephen’s abbey, the towns explosives industry, Faversham during the Second World War and, of course, a few ghosts.
Tickets are £5 for Faversham Society members and £10 for non-members. Refreshments are included.
Space is strictly limited so booking is essential. You can either do that at the Visitor Information Centre at 12 Market Place or through our website.
favershamsociety.org/live-events
Stride out – it’s Active Travel Month
CATHERINE LEE
This year, once again, the Faversham Society’s Walking with History guided tours are partnering with Faversham Town Council to promote the health benefits – both mental and physical – of active travel.
Starting with an Active Travel Festival on Faversham Rec on Sunday 1 June, the whole month will feature a wide variety of enjoyable events to encourage people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities to get out and about in the town and its surrounding area.
We are providing a programme of walks for the occasion – so if you’ve previously joined us on one of our regular Walking with History tours, you can come along to one or more of our Active Travel events in the knowledge that we’ll be offering something different! All walks are free for Faversham Society members.
For full details, including meeting points and walk durations, see the society website, go to the Visitor Information Centre at 12 Market Place – or speak to us at the Active Travel Festival on 1 June.
Here are the walks we have arranged:
- Wednesday 4 June, 5pm: A dog-friendly walk on the marshes
- Thursday 12 June 10.30am: Cross-town walking route, with a look at the trees along the way
- Friday 13 June, 5pm: Town and creekside
- Friday 20 June, 6pm: Late Victorian Faversham
- Tuesday 24 June, 5pm: Cross-town walking route through time, east to west
- Wednesday 25 June, 3pm: Faversham town trail, east to west
Our youngest curator takes us through the terrific toys of the past
Who better to curate Terrific Toys – an exhibition at the Fleur gallery space running until 30 August – than our youngest curator, Kit. Here he tells our museum curator, Heather Wootton, all about it.
How did you think of this exhibition?
I wanted to put some of my favourite things in the museum’s collection on display and some of those things are the toys. Toys don’t usually go on display. I also wanted an exhibition that had things that were the height that children could look at. I wanted it to be an exhibition for everyone.
How long did it take to assemble?
It has taken about three months to plan and put up the exhibition with help from everyone at the museum.
How did you prepare for this exhibition?
First, we got a list of all the toys we had in the collection and then we went and looked at them, and decided what ones to have. I went to a lot of other museums to have a little look around them and to get some inspiration.
Which was the first thing you chose to be on display?
The toy truck and the Lego models.
I particularly like the records on the shelf as I had one of them when I was little, but today most people don’t have record players. Is there a modern equivalent?
You could listen to them on the internet or on CD.
Are toys just for fun or do they form part of a child’s learning?
They form part of a child’s learning as well as being fun. You can learn a lot from building with bricks!
What is your favourite item on display?
I really like the toy pick-up truck with its magnet and metal boxes, because it looks fun to play with.
What are your favourite toys – ones that are maybe not available for display?
The Menuette card game [in which players collect sets of food on a menu] because I like all the pictures. I also like the train that makes a sound when you move it. I couldn’t have it in the exhibition because it is on display upstairs.
Floral Faversham on show
POSY GENTLES
Faversham Open Gardens returns next month, with a host of private and community green spaces on public show.
Twenty-seven gardens in and around the town centre are featured, including seven new to the scheme, from 10am till 5pm on Sunday 29 June. Among them is a Georgian-style garden behind the Fleur de Lis heritage centre, which has been planted to reflect the preferences of the era, taking inspiration from historian Edward Jacob’s 1777 book Plantae Favershamienses: A Catalogue of the More Perfect Plants Growing Spontaneously about Faversham.
A gardeners’ market will be set up around the guildhall, with plants for sale and horticultural society members on hand to answer questions.
Faversham Open Gardens is being run for the first time in association with the National Garden Scheme and is sponsored by brewers Shepherd Neame. It will be opened at 10am by chief executive Jonathan Neame.
Entry to all sites is by a handbook costing £7 for one person, £12 for two. Children under 12 are free. Handbooks will be on sale in the Visitor Information Centre from late May.
Relics of abbey excavation on display for 60th anniversary
LEIGH ALLISON
Artefacts from the 1965 excavation of the St Saviour’s Abbey and the Roman villa will go on display at the Fleur de Lis Museum,
including these newly unearthed photographs
Artefacts from the archaeological excavation of St Saviour’s Abbey, an enormous building that cast its shadow over Faversham for nearly 400 years, are going on show at the Fleur de Lis museum from 19 May.
We believe this is the first time they have been in an exhibition and the display will include recently unearthed colour photographs of the dig 60 years ago.
The abbey of St Saviour was founded in 1147 by King Stephen and Queen Matilda. Building work began in 1148 and when it was endowed, the king gave it a holy relic, a piece of the so-called True Cross. It was intended to be a royal sepulchre for his family. Stephen was buried there in 1154, with his queen, who had died in 1152 and son Eustace in 1153.
This perhaps explains the sheer size of the abbey, far in excess of the needs of the first abbot, Clarembold, and 12 monks who lived there.
The abbey dominated the town and the townspeople until Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries in 1538. Abbot John Caslocke and eight monks surrendered the abbey on 8 July and were pensioned off. On 10 May 1539 the king ordered the church and cloister to be demolished, and the stone removed. By 1541, these materials were being shipped across the channel to fortify Calais. The site was bought by Sir Thomas Cheney, some of the other buildings were re-purposed but one by one they were mostly pulled down. All that remains above ground is one gatehouse (Arden’s house) and barns.
This year is the 60th anniversary of the archaeological dig that took place at the site of Faversham Abbey. It was carried out by a team led by Dr Brian Philp in January and February 1965. The dig revealed extensive chalk foundations of a large abbey and other attached buildings. It produced many finds of glazed tiles, carved stonework, window glass with lead and coins. The tiles range in date from the 12th to the 15th century. The glass, painted and coloured, is some of the earliest of its type found. Some of these can be seen in our Fleur de Lis museum. A number of burials were also found, but the two royal tombs by the high altar were found to be empty.
The church itself was revealed to be 381ft (116m) long and nearly 80ft (24m) wide, with a correspondingly large cloister to the north. Attached buildings included a chapter house to the south, with a refectory, dormitory, cellar and a range of other buildings.
The dig also revealed changes made in the 13th century when drastic modifications were made to the original plan, due to financial constraints.
Additionally, an Iron Age site and Roman villa were also revealed. See Nigel’s story below.
Most of the site now lies under the playing fields of Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School and is a scheduled monument.
A schoolboy archaeologist recalls his time digging villa site
NIGEL MANNOUCH
The excavation of St Saviour’s Abbey was completed on 23 February, 1965, and the contractors continued converting Sextry Orchard into playing-fields. On 30 June, foundations of a building were exposed which were identified as a Roman villa.
On 5 July the Reculver Excavation Group, directed by Brian Philp, started an emergency excavation planned to last three days. However, the extent of the site meant the excavations continued until 23 July, 19 days from 9am to 10pm or later – often in mixed weather.
I was one of 20 sixth-formers from Queen Elizabeth’s boys’ grammar and William Gibbs girls’ schools who experienced archaeology for the first time. We had to report to school on Monday mornings and at the end of Friday. I was interested in history, and so I was in my element.
The villa’s walls and floors had been destroyed and only the flint foundations survived. The first villa was partially constructed, in 70-100AD, over a Belgic ditch system – a type of drainage associated with the Iron Age Belgic people – comprising four rooms with a passage from back to front with a veranda on the east side. During 100-150 the villa was considerably enlarged by the addition of new rooms at each end and wide corridors on each side. From 150-200 a substantial south wing was added increasing the number of rooms to at least 10.
This wing contained a large dining room with a mosaic floor (very little of which survived) and a hypocaust – an underfloor heating system. Final reconstruction took place in the third century, when a massive wall was built on the south side, probably as earlier walls were in danger of collapsing.
A deep cellar was discovered in the southwest corner. Evidence suggests the villa was abandoned and fell into ruins in the fourth century. This villa was similar in plan and size to Lullingstone Roman Villa. The unexcavated north wing lay in the orchard containing the Abbey barns.
The finds included quantities of wall-plaster painted in a wide range of colours, pottery produced at centres in Britain and imported from the Continent, several bronze coins and the antler of a large red deer. The villa was probably the centre of a large farm estate.
Forty years after the villa excavation, I became involved again when Dr Patricia Reid established the Faversham Society Archaeological Research Group.