Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Samuel Shepherd established a Roman cement works in Faversham before 1813. This was sold around 1848 to Charles Jones Hilton who started producing Portland cement in 1849. By 1862 the works was employing 130 people. By 1868 the works consisted of a large block of buildings on the quayside at Faversham Creek, including eight bottle kilns in three separate groups. A tramway ran from the northern end of the site to join up with the mainline railway. By 1900 the main main block of buildings had been extended and a further kiln added. The works closed down in 1917 and were demolished, after which a jam factory was built on the site.

Monument Types

• CEMENT WORKS (Post Medieval to Modern - 1813 AD? to 1917 AD (post))

Full description

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Samual Shepherd had established a Roman Cement works at Faversham by 1813. The business was sold by his sons to Charles Jones Hilton c 1848 who started producing Portland cement the following year. By 1862 the works employed 130. In 1864 Hilton, Anderson & Son were running the site. (1) By 1868 the works consisted of a large block of buildings on the quay side at Faversham Creek with eight bottle kilns associated, three across the road behind the works, two on its south side and three to the north. Washbacks were built behind the kilns on the eastern side of the site with more to the north (with a rectangular kiln bank set back from the quay). On the north side of the works a single range of buildings projected from the main block. At this end of the site a tramway ran parallel with the quay and curved around the town to connect with the main line railway. By 1900 the main block of buildings had been extended to the north on the site of three kilns and a fourth kiln added to the eastern group.

In 1994 an engineering survey of ground conditions, and a separate borehole survey, both in an area which included the cement works site, recorded no further archaeological evidence. Additional references (2-3) and site photographs (4). Works closed down in 1917, and buildings demolished. A jam factory then built on the site. (5)

<1> Not applicable, SMR Kent uncatalogued index entry, DAVIS, AC. 1924. A HUNDRED YEARS OF PORTLAND CEMENT, P.66 (Miscellaneous Material). SKE6440.

<2> Holt and Wotton, 1997, Belvedere Road: Swale/Faversham (Unpublished document). SWX6830.

<3> Grimsey Gee Partnership Ltd, 1994, Site investigation (borehole logs), Belvedere Road & Smack Alley & Wharf (MG/995) Faversham, Kent (Unpublished document). SWX6812.

<4> 1946, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9547.

<5> Taylor, Frank, 2002, A History of Faversham & Oare Creeks and the Faversham Navigation (Monograph). SKE13194.

Sources and further reading

Related thematic articles

• Industrial Kent (Thematic Essay)