The History of Shalmsford, nr Chartham, Kent

If you wake up with the sunrise, the sound of the dawn chorus echoing in your ears and look out of an upstairs window in Mersham Villas (91-93 Shalmsford Street), the view will be almost the same as that seen by the people living in Shalmsford during the reign of Queen Victoria. With the notable exception of the railway line, the countryside around the hamlet has changed remarkably little over the past 180 years.

There are more houses, and the occasional car, but in the very early morning, it is easy to feel the ghosts of those who lived, worked and died in the village still reluctant to leave. The field boundaries remain much the same, stretching out on either side of you towards the comforting bulk of the hills which surround the floodplain of the River Stour, and the village retains its separate identity as a rural hamlet, cut off from other villages, including Chartham, by field and river.

Shalmsford would have been a sleepy village, were it not for the fact that it lies on the main toll road from Ashford to Canterbury. The River Stour was a huge impediment to horse-drawn carts, wagons and carriages, with its wide margin of water meadows, so the main road from Ashford to Canterbury crossed the river at Shalmsford, travelled uphill away from the mud and then turned down Cockering Road, before winding through Larkey Valley down into Wincheap, missing the nearby village of Chartham altogether. All the traffic between Ashford and Canterbury therefore passed through Shalmsford, bringing goods, mail and a regular supply of gossip. The mail coach passed through at least once each day, manned by an armed guard carrying a custlass, a brace of pistols and a blunderbuss. Tolls were collected at Shalmsford Bridge Cottage, the last house in the parish of Chilham.

When the railway was built in the late 1840s, the A28 Ashford to Canterbury Road was built and Shalmsford lost a part of itself. Travel became easier, jobs were to be found in the city instead of locally, and the tight-knit community spirit of the village loosened.

However, Shalmsford still retains its own identity, distinct from Chartham, and villagers are proud to call it their home. The road sign on the A28 shows ‘Shalmsford Street’ as a separate destination from Chartham, the area had its own pub until very recently, and although the chapel and the Salvation Army Hall have now closed, leaving St Mary’s in Chartham as the main centre of religion, Shalmsford has kept the area Post Office. Both the school and the two doctor’s surgeries also fall outside Chartham village, but within that of Shalmsford. Even the Parish Design Statement recognises that Shalmsford Street is a distinct settlement, along with Mystole, Chartham Hatch and St Augustine’s.

The rapid growth of rural communities during the Victorian period was staggering, and the tiny hamlet of Shalmsford is a perfect example of how working class villages in Kent responded to this growth.

When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, Shalmsford was still very much a separate settlement from Chartham Village, but by the end of her reign in 1901, is had, administratively at least,  become part of Chartham Village as a it is today.

For the purposes of this study, I shall be looking at the district of Shalmsford, which falls into the second census enumeration category. This area varied slightly during the seven censuses that were taken by the Victorians (1841-1901), but it generally encompassed Bolts Hill, Shalmsford Street, Pickleden, Mystole, Upperdown and Thruxted.

In the early Victorian period, the housing on Shalmsford Street petered out at Bolts Hill, where the homes followed the road down the hill towards Chartham Green.  The upper end of the street wasn’t developed until the late Victorian period, following the building of the Asylum in 1875. At the bottom of the hill a large area of water meadow skirts a tributary of The Stour, passing The Deanery and its associated outbuildings. This is the end of the hamlet of Shalmsford.

The Ashford to Canterbury Railway, built through Chilham and Chartham to avoid the North Downs, passes through the very centre of the village and was opened in 1846, although the people of Chartham voted not to have a railway station at this time. Their link to the railway was been limited to complaining about the noise and the soot while the children waved at the passing trains and played too near the lines. There would also have been complaints about the behaviour of the ‘navvies’ while the railroad was being built. Multiple accounts record their poor behaviour and the way they were often found drunk and fighting after work. However, landlords Thomas Newington at ‘The Cross Keys’ and Jesse Hukins at ‘The George’ may have been glad of the business.

The railway company extracted gravel from the Gravel Pit opposite numbers 65-81 Shalmsford Street, and it is still a low-lying are, prone to flooding but home to some threatened wildlife such as the cuckoo and certain toads.

Information about the daily lives of these families has been lost in time, but I found ‘How to be a Victorian’ by Ruth Goodman to be an excellent indicator of the lives of ordinary people.

Shalmsford is still the home of ordinary people, and as you read this study, I think you will find that our lives are not that different from those of the people who came before us.

I hope you enjoy getting to know the people who went before as much as I did.

Susan

The History of Shalmsford is available online from www.amazon.co.uk or through bricks and mortar bookshops, priced £8.99, and is an excellent family history resource, detailing the people who lived in Shalmsford 1841-1891 and showing who they were related to and giving you a flavour of their daily lived - how they dressed, what work they did and how they might have been affected by the events of the day.