A printable PDF version of this newsletter can be downloaded from HERE

HAROLD GOODWIN

The Faversham Future Forum, concerned about the future of our town, asked the town council to develop a Neighbourhood Plan to conserve our built and natural heritage and to enable it to develop to meet our needs and those of future generations.

The work began in 2020 and has finally resulted in the Neighbourhood Plan that goes to a referendum on 21 November. A yes vote will mean that Swale planners, in deciding planning applications, must follow the Faversham Plan, which will run to 2038. An exhibition is now running at the town hall in Market Place and you can get a copy of the plan online from the town council website.

All developments within the parish boundary will need to comply with the policies in the Neighbourhood Plan.

The Faversham Plan has already resulted in the refusal of the planning application for 250 houses at Ham Road. The plan also precludes development on Abbeyfields.

Swale required that we find sites for new housing within the parish boundary, and we have identified brownfield sites to meet the 291 allocated by Swale to the parish; the sites are listed in the plan. There are policies on housing development, design, renewable energy and residential mix to meet local needs.

The policies cover the town centre, mobility and sustainable transport, community facilities, and our natural environment and the plan designates some additional green spaces.

The plan protects our built heritage and supports the regeneration of the creek with Town Quay and the Town Warehouse (also known as TS Hazard) as the anchor attraction of a Maritime Gateway Heritage Regeneration Area.

The Neighbourhood Plan is required by law to comply with national planning policy and Swale’s Local Plan. It is impossible through a Neighbourhood Plan to increase the number of doctors or health service providers, school places, water quality or road and transport issues. Through Faversham’s Future, we shall continue to work on these issues.

There has been extensive consultation with residents on this plan, and it has been much strengthened and improved by the comments we have received. Within the constraints of what is possible, we have produced a plan that deserves your support for the referendum. Without it, we will see more applications for development on greenfield sites within the town, and we shall have no way to prevent them.

Vote YES on 21 November to protect Faversham.

Harold Goodwin, vice-chairman, Faversham Society and www.FavershamsFuture.info

Editor’s note: polling stations will be open 7am to 10pm on 21 November at Faversham Library; West Faversham Community Centre; Preston School Room; and St Jude’s Welcome Centre.

ANN FUREDI

In last month’s newsletter I flagged up that on Monday, 28 October, we have a members’ meeting to consider the impact of plans for local housing developments, and how to protect the unique heritage and environment of Faversham.

And now, at the risk of sounding like a stuck record (remember when a record was something that you played for music?), I’m reminding you about it. If you haven’t yet registered and you wish to come please do so NOW. We are close to our capacity of 120, and we need to decide whether to seek a larger venue!

It’s a unique opportunity to hear the views of Cllr Josh Rowlands (Mayor of Faversham), Harold Goodwin (Faversham Community Land Trust), Cllr Julian Speed (Swale Council), and Carol Goatham (Farms, Fields & Fresh Air campaign).

Then you can make your own views clear to fellow members and to inform the board of trustees, which meets the following day to discuss what the society should say formally.

Meetings like this, with a platform of differing views, are quite rare these days. Politics, even politics with a small p seem a lot more fractious and tribal, and sometimes people seem nervous about spaces where people can openly disagree. When I pitched up at the hustings for our local MP, I was surprised to find I couldn’t just ask the candidates a question: questions had been submitted in advance. Somebody told me this was to make sure the meeting it was a “safe space”.

Our meeting on 28 October will most definitely be safe, but it also be a venue for a good, old-fashioned, open discussion. After the formal speakers, you will have the chance to ask questions and make comments. If you’re shy about speaking in public, or we run out of time, you’ll be able to make a written note to hand to me at the end.

And, if you can’t make the meeting, but you want to make a comment on the issues, please email or write to me at the Faversham Society, 10-13 Preston Street, Faversham.

At the heart of the matter is this: the board of the Faversham Society genuinely needs to know, and wants to know, what you think. We are a members’ organisation but policies are decided by the board of trustees in line with our charitable remit. (Please see www.gov.uk/government/organisations/charity-commission.)

Board members of the Faversham Society have different views on matters, just as members do, but with this difference: the board must come to a collective decision as to the society “party line”. We have a legal responsibility to comply with our charitable remit, and a moral responsibility to represent the membership.

The first is straightforward because it’s written down, but to represent our membership we have to know what you want, “You”, in this case, means “y’all”, not just “my personal friends”, or “those of you who I personally agree with” or those people who shout the loudest and run the most vigorous campaigns.

As you know, the society has a formal position of opposing ALL large developments on greenfield sites around Faversham. But … this view was taken before it was clear what development plans would be, before the government undermined the right to object to planning proposals and when we had more hope of pushing developers away.

Can we, should we, adapt what we say to these new circumstances? Might we, perhaps, say: “In PRINCIPLE, we are opposed to all large developments on greenfield sites, BUT…”? And, IF so, what should that BUT be?

To be a broad-based organisation we need to represent our broad-based members.

So please come to the meeting, bring your friends along if they are members (if not encourage them to join) and be part of this conversation. You can book at the Visitor Information Centre at 12 Market Place or at the address below

PS On the front page, Harold Goodwin makes what I think is a good case for a Yes vote to the Faversham Neighbourhood Plan. The board has yet to consider it since it’s only just out. Look out for more on this.

www.favershamsociety.org/live-events

CONTACT ANN

Shakespeare unearthed

LEIGH ALLISON

Heather Knight, who lives in Faversham, is a senior archaeologist with Museum of London Archaeology and led the excavation on the sites of two Shakespearean theatres in east London: the Boar’s Head playhouse in Whitechapel, and the sites of the Theatre and the Curtain playhouse in Shoreditch.

She will be giving a talk about her work at the Assembly Rooms in Preston Street on Wednesday, 20 November, at 7.30pm. It is free for Faversham Society members and £5 for non-members.

www.favershamsociety.org/live-events

Heather (pictured) led the team that uncovered the stage of the Curtain theatre and is involved in the foundation of a Shakespeare museum, which will open next year, on the site.

The Theatre and the Curtain are two of London’s earliest playhouses where Shakespeare performed in the 1590s.

William Shakespeare, as regular newsletters readers will know, also performed in Faversham and Heather is involved with others in a project to discover more about that.

History gift idea

CATHERINE LEE

Most Christmas shopping lists call out for something different but inexpensive. Whether you need a seasonal thank you for a child’s teacher or scout leader, a stocking-filler for the friend who has everything, or a token of appreciation for the neighbour who feeds the cat and waters the plants while you’re away … the gift of a guided walk of Faversham is perfect!

Our walks have been recommended for visitors and locals alike and as a way of helping even long-term townspeople to see their town through fresh eyes. What a great way to share your love of Faversham with friends.

Vouchers cost £5 and can be exchanged for a place on any of the walks taking place in the 2025 season. Vouchers will be available in the Visitor Information Centre at 12 Market Place from 1 November and next year’s schedule will be on our website in the New Year.

Jane Austen in Ospringe

PAUL MOORBATH

Jane Austen visited her brother at Godmersham Park, halfway between Canterbury and Ashford, several times in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. She came by stagecoach accompanied by her mother, Cassandra. Jane (right) wrote an extensive correspondence but only 160 of her letters survive; others were destroyed by her sister, also called Cassandra. Three of her surviving letters mention Ospringe. Terry Townsend in Jane Austen’s Kent (2005) has a description of Ospringe in Jane’s time and he mentions her letters.

Her letters can be seen online at austen@gutenberg.org/files/42078

The best surviving reference to Ospringe is in a letter to her sister Cassandra from the Bull and George in Dartford on 24 October, 1798. “It was scarcely past four when we stopped at the inn,” she wrote. “My mother took some of her bitters at Ospringe, and some more at Rochester, and she ate bread several times.”

Jane’s mother was in poor health and suffered from travel sickness. The bitters she took would have been a concoction of gentian root, cinchona bark containing quinine and orange peel all dissolved in alcohol … an ancestor of gin and tonic!

On 21 January, 1799 in another letter to Cassandra from Steventon, Hampshire (Jane’s family home until 1801), she says: “I should like to go as far as Ospringe very much indeed, that I might surprise you at Godmersham.”

When Jane came through Ospringe, the coach would have gone through the stream that flowed from Water Lane over the main road at the Maison Dieu. The coaching inn at Ospringe was the Red Lion which is now a private house, No 34. In the mid-18th century, the Red Lion was extended and had new stables added so it was complex of buildings and a thriving establishment as noted by Elizabeth Melling in Some Kentish houses (Kentish sources V), published in 1965.

Faces peer at us from history

THE EDITOR

Look carefully at this gent’s head. Mutton-chop side whiskers, a quizzical smile, hair plastered down with macassar oil, or maybe tap water. Look at the fine detail about his eyes. You can instantly tell this is no modern image. But how old?

This is William Goodhugh, who owned what is now the China Village resturant in Market Place, Faversham; the property where the shopfront went to America early last century, came back, and is now in the Fleur Heritage Centre garden.

Goodhugh was born 1792. That’s 232 years ago, yet here is a clean, sharp, photograph of him. He died in 1858, and so the photograph is a least 166 years old.

It is one of a number of donations made to the Faversham Society by the family of his descendant, William Goodhugh Dawson, who died this year. The bequest includes four daguerreotype images mounted in a wooden frame adorned with plaster work.

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The daguerreotype was invented by Louis Daguerre and introduced in 1839. To make the image, a sheet of silver-plated copper was polished to a mirror finish. It was then treated to make it light-sensitive, exposed in a camera and the image made visible by a further chemical processes. It was then rinsed, dried and mounted behind glass in a protective enclosure.

The daguerreotype system was almost completely superseded by 1856 by less expensive processes that yielded more readily viewable images.

The bequest also included notebooks, letters, books, jewellery, a family history and many family portraits.

These images have been dismantled, scanned and put together again by the Fleur Museum’s photographic team, Chris Wootton and Ian Montague.

Art goes underground

JANE SECKER

Those who regularly walk through the Mall underpass, which allows those of us on the southern side of the town a quick route into town under the railway, may have noticed it has had an upgrade over the past few months. Murals now adorn both sides, and Swale Council and Network Rail are making more of an effort to keep the tunnel cleaner.

When it rains, it’s fair to say, it’s still not the most salubrious place in town to hang out, but the murals have really brightened up this subterranean entrance to the town centre.

The project was funded by Network Rail’s green fund and was a collaborative project involving the Faversham Society, the town council, West Faversham Community Association and the MP for Faversham Helen Whateley. Planning for the project started in April with a meeting at Faversham Guildhall where I met Graham Upton, the street artist commissioned to decorate the subway.

Graham got his design ideas for the first mural from a workshop he ran with pupils at the Queen Elizabeth’s Grammar School who were asked to think of defining images of Faversham and what matters to them. What we got was a beautiful mural entitled Fabulous Faversham with images of the guildhall, King Stephen, the Royal Cinema, the swimming pool and Ossie’s fish and chip shop. The first mural was completed in June and protected against graffiti.

Graham then spoke to Abbey School pupils and interested townspeople collecting ideas for the second mural. I also worked with society trustees to collect ideas of what we’d like to see. This was completed in September and in my view really captures the history and beauty of Faversham, including the Shepherd Neame brewery, hop gardens and orchards surrounding the town, the view of St Mary’s Church, with its superb crown spire, and the beautiful creek.

This second mural was again protected against graffiti and Graham completed some minor repairs to the first mural, largely caused by water ingress. I must note that the mural has NOT been defaced by graffiti.

You can see samples of the work that Graham has produced on his Instagram account (@shade2_uk). He has produced some fantastic artwork to decorate other stations, including Swale Halt on the Sheerness line. Graham has also been invited to give a Faversham Society talk at the guildhall on 21 January. He will speak about his work on this and other street art projects, engaging young people and their communities through art.

Yes – we know there are still issues with the subway related to drainage, litter and antisocial behaviour, but this project has certainly brightened up my walk into town.

Frontline Faversham

Mike Cosgrove will be speaking on Faversham on The Front Line – billed as a fascinating illustrated exploration of the town’s role in the First World War – at the Alexander centre in Preston Street at 7.30pm on 4 November. Tickets are £6 from the address below.

Mike was a contributor to Faversham in the Great War, published by the town council in conjunction with Bygone Kent magazine in 2018 and copies are on sale at 12 Market Place.

thealex.org.uk/event/faversham-on-the-front-line

How town was dragged into Puritan witch mania

PAT REID

John Wayne Perkins’s lecture at the Assembly Rooms – attended by a large attentive audience – was about a Faversham event that is now looked upon with shame. This was the execution by hanging in Faversham of three women as witches on 29 September, 1645.

A stone has been laid near Faversham Guildhall commemorating their awful fate 379 years ago.

A fourth woman was also found guilty but not executed at that time.

In 17th-century Europe, belief in witchcraft was a fact of everyday life. The Witchcraft Act was passed In England and Wales in 1563, which meant that accused witches could be tried in the assize courts.

It was difficult, however, to prove that a woman had actually caused a disaster through black magic. Torture to obtain confessions was not officially allowed in court procedures. Instead, prosecutors were looking for was evidence of “familiars” (often dogs) in which the Devil visited the accused and fed on her body, making tell-tale marks. These marks were often found.

The tragedy of 1645, then, was not just a freaky Faversham incident. Much of western Europe at that time was undergoing a tidal wave of witchcraft accusations. In England by far the worst phase was in the mid-17th century, when from 1645 to 1648 Matthew Hopkins, a self-appointed “witchfinder general” was responsible for the accusation, trial and execution of about 300 women in East Anglia.

The short but deadly time for Hopkins was during the English Civil Wars of 1642-51 when Parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell were battling the King’s Royalists who were seen as hanging on to decadent Roman Catholicism. The Puritans won and ruled England from 1649 to 1660 and under them witchcraft trials flourished.

The Faversham incident that triggered the accusations that brought these four women to trial started with an accident in 1645. Thomas Gardener, a Faversham man, fell out of a tree, hurt his rear end and blamed Joan Wallingford for causing this accident through witchcraft. The fury of the townspeople was aroused and became focussed on her and her three friends Joan Cariden, Joane Williford, Jane Hott and Elizabeth Harris. The town mayor, Robert Greenstreet, supported the Faversham people in their fury.

The four women went through the does-she-float-or-sink ritual, which, given that their arms were tied, led to the guilty outcome: sinking. In this case they were hauled out before drowning and put to further brutal questioning. Three of them were eventually hanged from a tree near the town pump in Faversham. Perhaps in this case in 1645, the gallows were in the Market Place. What happened to the fourth woman, Elizabeth Harris, is not known, and what happened to the bodies of the hanged women is also a mystery. They were probably buried in a shallow grave away from the town.

The last officially recorded execution of witches in England was in 1682 at Exeter, Devon where Alice Holland was hanged. Belief in witches continued, though andt here are rumours of an execution as late as 1716 in Huntingdon of Mary Hicks and her nine-year-old daughter Elizabeth: their story is recorded in an eight-page pamphlet published in the same year. The Faversham executions happened at the peak of the public fear and hatred of women of a certain type – single, clever, independent. Let us hope that we are past that now.

John Wayne Perkins’s presentation has stimulated a lot of interest and discussion in Faversham. He described the archaeological witchcraft indicators such as signs engraved on wooden post-medieval doors and also German-made pottery from that period known as Bellarmine or Witches Ware.

This sheds a new light on our archaeological finds in Faversham and gives us a very interesting trail to follow.

Our ‘witches’ researched

TINA HAGGER

I became interested in apotropaic marks – made to avert evil influences or bad luck – some time ago, but had no real knowledge of the Faversham’s so-called witches until last year when the stone was laid.

I’m a linocut printmaker and decided to try to make a linocut based on their ordeal in the style of an old woodcut (pictured). With this in mind, I have just read the original confession and investigation document of the women who were executed for supposed witchcraft.

For another project I have been using Ancestry.com, and as the women were on my mind and I wanted to get a better idea of their ages and marital status etc, I decided to research them there.

As with all genealogical research from this period it is hard to be absolutely certain you have found the correct people, but I would say the chances are very high that the first two are the Faversham “witches”.

Joane Williford married John Johnson, of Faversham, in 1618. Joane was born in 1576 in Westham, near Pevensey, in Sussex. She would have been 69 at the time of her death. Johnson was born in 1586 in Canterbury and died in 1659. He seems to have been part of a family where many members went to Massachusetts in America as Puritans.

Jane Hott, born in Faversham in 1604, married an Edward Drinkwater in Sittingbourne in 1629. She would have been 41 at the time of her death. She had the following children with her husband: Judith (1630); Gabriel (1631); and Henry (1633).

An Elizabeth Harris was born in Selling in 1588, which may be the same one. She would have been 57 in 1645. However, the name is rather a common one and I am not certain this is the correct Elizabeth.

As for Joan Cariden (also known as Argoll) I was unable to find any records. Both are quite distinctive surnames and this is a little bit odd.

PETER QUINCE

An elderly lady entered the bookshop. Something told me she was coming. She comes every week at 11am on the dot. Like me, a creature of strict habits.

It’s rather strange, surreal one might say, when she approaches the desk with a slightly anxious smile and I say: “Good morning, how may I help you?” knowing perfectly well what will happen next.

Her voice is rather cultured and her manner deferential. ‘I wonder if you have any books on banjos,’ she says. “My daughter’s learning to play one.”

“I’ll have a look,” I reply, and take her to the music section. I’ve done this before. She browses and returns to the desk without a book.

“I wonder if you have any books on H. E. Bates. you know, The Darling Buds of May?”

“We certainly have had some. I’ll take you round the other side to the fiction section.”

“You know,” she says, “some of it was filmed right here in Faversham a few years ago.”

“Yes, I remember. Created a great deal of interest.” I take her round to the fiction section and peruse the shelves for H. E. Bates novels.

“No, sorry, they’re all gone,” I tell her.

“Maybe next week.” She looks thoughtful and ponders. “I wonder if you have any books on buses?”

“Buses?” “Yes, for my son. He loves buses and collects books, magazines, postcards and even models of them.”

We trundle back to non-fiction and I search for buses. Trains, lorries, boats, aircraft, tanks, even submarines, but no buses. “Sorry, ma’am, but we’re right out of buses. We did have one or two, but they must have been snapped up.”

Every week it’s the same: 11am on the dot. Banjos, Bates, buses. Sometimes she strikes lucky. The lady is invariably very pleasant, but we go through precisely the same routine every time. I’m determined, the next time I spy a book on banjos, Bates or buses, to put it aside and delight that very persistent and charming customer.

A gent came into the bookshop a few weeks ago, an unusual character, a scholar I would guess, who has a foreign accent and tells me he lives in Canterbury. I’d seen him once before in the Fleur. He’s talkative, engaging and almost overwhelms me with his enthusiasm.

“Do you remember that picture I bought from the shop, the one that was standing over there in the window display?” he asked. “Well, I’ve got it up on the wall in my lounge and it looks truly wonderful.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” I said. The gentleman looked at me and frowned slightly.

“You know,” he said, “I collect languages.” Out of the blue he said this. “Yes, I speak Greek, Spanish, Russian, French, Italian, Japanese…”

“OK, I get the message. You’re a multilinguist.”

“Exactly.” This learned gent bought a book on Danish – to add to his collection – and promptly left the shop. I was dazed. But once again, it is inspiring to come across customers who are so full of enthusiasm, not only for books but also for languages. And, let’s face it, books are no good without the language that fills them!

Griselda Mussett, writer, campaigner and fighter … … conservationist, tree-planter, and historian

THIS TRIBUTE IS BASED ON THE EUOLOGY GIVEN AT HER FUNERAL

Griselda Mussett, who has died at the age of 75, was a woman of many parts: journalist, writer, artist, environmentalist, creek-lover, feminist and campaigner among them.

Her many triumphs included being at the forefront of the campaign to stop a series of developments that would have allowed the building of hundreds of houses on the flood plain to the north of Abbey Fields.

She and her husband Andrew moved to Abbey Street in 1987 with their children, David and Lucie.

Griselda was the eldest daughter of Marcus and Diana Cann, who had met in the army in 1946 in Stars in Battle Dress while touring Germany. Her father had trained at Rada, and subsequently worked for BOAC. Diana had previously played netball for Scotland when stationed there, and as an army driver, once got mistaken for a diamond smuggler when bringing back highly-prized boxes of matches from Germany.

Griselda was born in Hampstead in 1948, and won a scholarship to South Hampstead High School for Girls. Aged 16, she later won another scholarship, to spend a year studying in Minnesota, where she made instant enemies because her superior British education knocked their star students into middling territory. However, she won them round again when she obliged their request to make them a “traditional English triff-lee”. She went on to do a degree in American studies at Manchester University.

After university, Griselda worked in a variety of temp jobs: she was quickly promoted from the typing pool to the pictures department at the Daily Mirror… and in the head office of Woolworths, where she was quickly demoted for correcting the managing director’s spelling. From there she became a trainee studio manager at BBC Radio in London, and then worked at Bush House for BBC World Service, which is where she first met Andrew, who was on a training course.

After that she took a journalist training course and worked as a news reporter and producer for local stations including Bristol, London, Belfast and Merseyside. After attachments to Radio 4 and in children’s TV, she left the BBC to join Anglia Television for three years as a reporter.

In 1981, Griselda and Andrew were married in King’s Lynn where she was working. The next year she joined him in London where she worked as a freelance presenter for video and TV production companies.

Griselda and Andrew lived in south London, and she became a founding member of the Friends of Brockwell Park, putting her on the path of environmental campaigning.

After the move to Faversham, her inquiring mind soon involved her in local issues, including campaigning for restoration of our tidal creek, to ensure it did not just become a development of waterside properties, but could continue to be used as moorings and workshops for traditional craft.

Her interest in history, led her to produce lectures on several subjects that she gave around Kent to groups such as the women’s institute and townswomen’s guild. She was reworking her talks on “the Invisible Women of Faversham” into a book in the last days before her death, and a Faversham Society team is preparing it for publication now.

Griselda was interested in a diverse array of subjects, and could often be heard talking rapturously about her latest intrigue: brickwork, etymology, the role of fig trees in rainforest ecology, the life and works of Dorothy Wordsworth, internet conspiracy theories (falling for more than you’d think she would permit), place names, goddesses, antiques, architecture (especially doors, finials and Dutch gables); energy, wellness, and whether children and animals could communicate together psychically.

Griselda was a connector of people, never not networking everyone to make sure ideas and information and friendship flowed for maximum benefit, and so that local artists, businesses and creators could be supported and encouraged.

She was a true lover of nature. She rejoiced in and was knowledgeable about her garden, and carefully cultivated it into the casual jungle and haven for birds she and Andrew would watch every day from the kitchen table, and latterly where she could hear the blackbirds singing from her bed in the morning. She knew wildlife and plants, and loved their names: pellitory of the wall, viper’s bugloss, Ampelopsis brevipedunculata. Ever since those early days in south London, she campaigned for the protection of green spaces, working tirelessly to guard and restore Faversham Creek, planting the seed for the Abbey Physic Garden, and working with fellow dendrophiles to champion, protect and include trees in public life.

She had wanted to rewild land and plant a woodland, perhaps in England or Ireland, but sadly her time ran short before she could make that happen. She has various trees dedicated to her around the world, as gifts, part of environmental projects, and in Faversham Rec to honour her work on Faversham Tree Week, and is likely to have more yet to come as part of her lasting legacy.

She was very visually aware, and loved art of all genres. Galleries, museums and exhibitions fascinated her, but her own creativity was one of her greatest pleasures. She had always drawn and painted, but the past 30 years saw a burst of activity including printmaking, linocuts, pottery, sculpture, and photography. She also turned her harrowing journey through chemotherapy into an art exhibition, mounted at the town hall.

Griselda had a keen sense of social justice, and hated liars, bullies and greed. Hers was a politics of love, equality, peace and opportunity. She was fiercely pro-Europe, and participated with Andrew and other friends in many anti-Brexit marches; her blue beret with gold stars was a familiar sight. Griselda was a lifelong, staunch, and vocal feminist. Throughout her life she championed and defended women’s rights, representation and inclusion.

In 2015, Griselda became a grandmother, and gleefully adopted her new name: Ziggy. First Alex, and then Finley, who arrived in 2018, were the lights of her life, and seeing them grow enraptured her.

During the lockdowns of 2020-21, Griselda felt her notorious energy was becoming depleted, and was eventually diagnosed with metastases of a breast cancer that had been removed 10 years previously. For the next three years, she underwent a variety of treatments of varying ferocity, but in the knowledge that the goal was management and not cure.

In the end, the cancer evaded the treatment, and sapped her strength, though it left her enough time to make some final goodbyes to her beloved grandsons and let us know she was ready to leave us. Some of her last words were “I did not know it could be so smooth”. She died early in the morning of 16 August, peacefully, and with her family at her side.

She managed to retain her humour, her philosophical outlook, and her enthusiasm for the world until the end.

A tribute from Sue Akhurst

Griselda’s passion for Faversham and its history as a limb of the Cinque Ports made her an enthusiastic campaigner for the regeneration of the creek and basin as a working maritime asset. Faversham was founded on bricks, beer and barges, and Griselda was one of many who want barges to sail into the basin again.

In 2011, after the failure of the Faversham Creek Consortium, Griselda joined a group of like-minded people to set up Faversham Creek Trust. She was a board member/trustee for the rest of her life, and chaired the board for several years.

Griselda made so many significant contributions to the work of the trust, including major fundraising to restore the Purifier Building to the impressive condition it is in today, and being a member of the team that raised £125,000 towards an opening bridge in 2015.

Her background enabled her to build and maintain awareness of the work of the trust and to make our campaigns heard locally and nationally. She helped to organise many community events to raise funds and raise awareness of the trust’s aims. She was always brimming with ideas about things we could do to engage people and help them understand the importance of the creek and basin to the community.

Griselda’s tireless dedication, enthusiasm, ideas and passion helped lay the foundations of the Creek Trust and then build it up into the established local charity it is today.

A tribute from Noaj Laurance

Griselda leaves a legacy of that bravery, and all she achieved with it: the world is a better place for the work she did, and we have seen a true example of facing mortality with fortitude, acceptance and humour.

Most importantly, she believed we are all artists, and only need to admit it. In the last weeks of her life she wrote “Wouldn’t it be great to be able to teach every person in this land that to follow a creative path is the very best way to live your life?”