Swanscombe

Swanscombe, England is situated near Dartford, on the north Kent coast, east along the Thames at OS Map Reference: TQ5974.

The town's name is said to be derived from 'the camp of Sweyne', a Viking warrior king who settled in the area.

The population in 1841 was recorded on the Census as 1703.

Swanscombe man

Swanscombe is said to be second only to Canterbury in its contribution to the history of Kent, if not of all England. For example, bone fragments and tools, representing the earliest humans known to have lived in England, were found beginning in 1935 at Barnfield Pit about 2km outside of Swanscombe. Swanscombe Man (now thought to be female), was a late Homo erectus/early Archaic Homo-sapien. The 200,000 to 300,000 year old skull fragments are kept at the Natural History Museum, London with a replica on display at the Dartford Museum.

Lower levels of the Barnfield Pit, yielded evidence of an even earlier, more primitive human, dubbed Clactonian Man. [1]

Swanscombe Invicta.

In the year 1066 Swanscombe locals massed an army in defiance of William I (William the Conqueror), and so won the right to continue their ancient privileges, including the tradition of passing inheritance by 'gavelkind'. The men of Kent met William near Swanscombe, where the Saxons concealed their number with branches, thus intimidating the Norman army. They were offered a truce that left Kent as the only region in England which William did not conquer and thus Kent County Council earned the motto "Invicta", meaning unconquered.

Swanscombe Churches

Norman Shaw built a church at Swanscombe, for the workers of the cement industry, it survives as a rare example of his design.

St Peter & St Paul, the flint-built parish Church of England, partially Saxon, had a spire on its tower until in 1902, the church was struck by lightning causing extensive damage. The parish register dates from 1559.

Swanscombe at war

On November 10, 1940 the Star Inn at Swanscombe was destroyed by German bombing, with the loss of 27 lives during a crowded darts match.

The first Kent miners

The south east of England has abundant resources of clay and chalk. The first mining activity known in the south east was to gather flint, a common substance found across the North and South Downs and in the Weald.

Flint was used in the construction of the early tools of prehistoric man. Being easily chipped it can be shaped to provide items such as axes, knives, needles, arrows and spearheads. Around 100,000 axes have been found in the river gravel at Swanscombe.

Palaeoloxodon Antiquus

The skeleton of an ancient species of elephant has been preserved in the sediment near what was once the edge of a small lake. The skeleton was surrounded by flint tools. Only a few elephant skeletons have been found in Britain. The Swanscombe example was discovered by geological specialist Dr. Peter Allen and has since been identified by the Natural History Museum as the straight-tusked 'Palaeoloxodon antiquus', which became extinct over 100,000 years ago.

Viking history

During archaeological work undertaken at Ebbsfleet, prior to the Channel Tunnel rail link construction, an Anglo-Saxon mill and a Roman Villa were found near Swanscombe.

From Crayford east beyond Swanscombe to the Isle of Thanet, the Danes occupied the land and terrorized the Saxon inhabitants, giving rise to the appearance of ‘Dene holes’, of which many have survived to this day. These were wells, cut deep into the chalk landscape, thought to be for the purpose of concealing people and goods. They are a built with a simple vertical shaft with short tunnels bearing horizontally from the base.

Vikings would habitually settle throughout the winter along the Thames estuary with their ships, and establish camps in Essex. One such navigable inlet offering shelter for raiding parties, off the Thames near Greenhithe in the Hundred of Axstane, prefered by these Danes was the Northfleet Creek, where they dragged their galleys along narrow paths to repair the ships.

Archaeological digs and centuries of tilling have also revealed a Danish castle and settlement, with pottery, anchors, weapons and some ships timbers. The settlement was later variously called Suinescamp in the Domesday Book, Sweinscamp and Swanscamp and deriving from a Viking leader named King Sweyn Forkbeard, who landed in East Anglia, and became a King of England in 1013. (father of Canute, he died at Gainsborough on the Trent in 1014). Sweyn settled at what later became Swanscombe.

In surveying the distribution of the many deen-hole's along the Thames corridor it would appear that Essex, on the northern shore of the Thames sustained a greater influx of these Vikings than did Kent, their being considerably more recorded deen-hole's in Essex, particularly around Orsett and Greys.

Other research suggests that Dene holes may have been dug a method of extracting chalk for use on the fields above. deen-hole mining for this purpose may have been a by product of the defensive purpose said to be the reason these pits were dug, with the practice reached a peak around the 13th-14th centuries, long after the Viking raids had ceased.

From these early excavations the use of Chalk has been long recognized as a valued resource abundant to the region, with which the manufacture of cement and the development of Portland cement in the mid-nineteenth century changing the face of post industrial development forever.

"Today, 2 million tons of chalk are mined annually from the North and South Downs, primarily from Lewes and Portslade in Sussex, Sittingbourne, Rochester and Dartford in Kent with the most effective method available, open cast mining. the cement used by today's construction industry in vast quantities. Chalk is also used as a filler for paper, paint rubber and plastics". It is also widely used in the pharmaceutical industry.

'the pre-eminent material of the modern age' was thus bound to the prosperity of North Kent, and from these origins the age of 'Blue Circle' 'Cement' manufacture began at Swanscombe in 1825.

The North Kent Cement industry.

the first patented Roman Cement was produced in 1796 by James Parker.

Close to London on the Thames their once existed thick and ancient cliffs climbing from Whitstable, and the isle of Sheppey, now all but exhausted by mining and dredging, changing the face of local cartographic topology, with the systematic removal of the raw material from its source. The chalk and clay was transported to Northfleet for production, it was for this reason North Kent became known as the 'cradle' of the Portland Cement industry. The open cast mining of chalk has created numerous great quarries, those once abandoned have become an asset to local ecology, and add dramatically to the beauty of the area.

The first 'Cement' manufacturing works near Swanscombe were at Northfleet, around 1792, at least a decade after James Parker begun his search for the correct minerals for his 'Cement' on the north Kent marshes, from where it was later dredged to such an extent that it created an entirely new landscape for the thousands of migratory birds that have used the Thames estuary from times even before the days of the Swanscombe man. These birds arrive in the hundreds of thousands, and so the area must be equal to that of the isle of Foula in Scotland's more traditionally called bird island, Shetlands, and is recognized as a site of special scientific interest, and is protected by numerous international laws, that have been challenged several times by governments seeking to exploit the area for commercial gain, so far unsuccessfully.

Nevertheless the local industrial contribution to the British economy has been astounding. In 1798 Charles Wyatt had raised the development of cement to a new industrial level which in turn led to a greater demand and increasing need for the product. From these origins 'Parker & Wyatt', moved in time to the production of the compound known as 'Portland Cement.'

It was James Frost who first set up production of 'Cement' at Swanscombe, having patented a new cement mix during 1822/3. This he called British Cement. The interest of Francis, White and Francis is interesting, as Francis developed a works at Cliffe on the Hoo Peninsular.

By 1882 several competing cement manufacturers were operating across in the north Kent reigon, extensive problems caused by excessive dust pollution drove the towns folk of Swanscombe to take proceedings against the local cement works. New innovations gradually developed, but the problem persisted into the 1950's, with telegraph lines over an inch thick in white dust, locals would refuse to open their doors for fear of the dust pollution, but with the use of 300 foot tall chimneys, to keep the town and neighboring river Thames clear of pollution from the various kilns used along the river in the process of cement manufacture, improvements developed to the point where modern cement kilns in Kent are now said be the cleanest in the world, with dust emissions down to 1%, with dispersion by chimneys 550ft in height.

Nevertheless in places like Sweden their is good cause to worry about the final landing of these particles that are incorporated in 'acid-rain.' It is for similar reasons that the neighboring conurbation of the Medway towns is reported to be the most polluted inhabited area in the UK, resultant from emissions drifting relentlessly into the Medway valley from London.

Blue Circle

The APCM, or Blue Circle came to the area in 1900 and by the 1920 owned four factories respectively located at Swanscombe, Northfleet, Greenhythe and Stone. With the development of the Swanscombe and Northfleet sites firmly established the smaller works at Cliffe and Greenhythe were shut down. By 1970 the North Kent cement industry had evolved to become the largest center for the production of cement in Europe, supporting a long tradition of research and development to perfect the processes used in the manufacture of chalk based products.

Blue-Circle Barge, Thames Barge Race at Gravesend.

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Other notable industries:

Empire Paper Mills.

F.T. Everard & Sons.

Bluewater shopping complex

Between the 'Watling Street' at the A296, and the village of Stone, in one of the large quarries created as a legacy of the cement industry, the Blue Water shopping complex has been built, one of the largest such projects in Europe.

Gads hill cement monument

See: Higham.