Launched 09/04/2011
Latest update
Elham beat off stiff competition for the title of Kent Village of the year 2011 organised by Action with Communities in Rural Kent.
Censuses for outlying communities in the parish will be rolled out gradually. Check out the stats page for interesting facts and
trivia about the village. We still need your help so please send us any information relating to Elham that may be of interest.
Elham resident Les Ames in action for England against the West Indies in 1939. He was one of the finer wicketkeeper - batsmen and played for Kent CCC.
The Abbot's Fireside is one of the older buildings in the village and probably dates back to the mid fifteenth century.
Audrey Hepburn (neé Rushton) lived in Orchard Cottage (Five Bells) for five years in her childhood (1935-1940) and attended the local village schools. She took ballet lessons and dreamed of becoming a prima ballerina. I wonder what became of her?
Dave Lee opens Elham's brand new playground with a sensory garden and a pretty flower meadow created by the Play for Elham charity. 21st November 2010
The machine breaking that led to the riots of August 1830 onwards started in the Elham Parish, writes our historian Derek Boughton, who has made a lifetime's study of the subject.
Elham residents were prominent in the gangs that sought out the new fangled threshing machines and destroyed them. Some of them cost the not inconsiderable sum for the day of £100. Full Story
Executors to sell messuage or tenement called or known by the name or sign of the Chequer, stable garden and appurtenances late in the tenure of Thomas Ladd the younger … and Malthouse with buildings and ground with joint use of well and way in Elham. To pay debts, etc., and towards educating bringing up and putting out of four children, Edward, John, Daniel, and Elizabeth. Mess or t. where now dwells with garden backside etc. … Hop ground of one acre at or near Bladbean and now occ. – Birch widow and self, to said four children equally. James Spillett and Stephen Pierce executors and guardians. Proved 1st December 1740. CKS: PRC 16/91 f.21] Will of Edward Maytham of Elham, yeoman, 2nd October
He applied from America to the S.P.G. to be appointed by them the (apparently first) missionary to Africa. " Somebody must be the first one," he said, and " God only knows how long it may be before any other person will take the same resolution." He was appointed 15th Feb Internet archive
A man in Kent helped save the crew of a yacht as it sank thousand of miles away in Central America. Paul Wilkin, who lives near Folkestone, received an alert call from his friend Jack Crofton, who was sailing off Panama about 5,000 miles away. Mr Crofton had picked up a mayday call from another vessel but couldn't reach local coastguards.So he rang Mr Wilkin, of Ottinge, near Elham, who in turn contacted Dover Coastguard. That led to their Panama counterparts being scrambled.Mr Wilkin, an ex-Royal Navy diver, said: "I was obviously very surprised to get the call." But Jack gave me the longitude and latitude of the yacht in trouble so I was able to relay the message to our coastguards."The yacht got into distress off the Panama Canal on Saturday. The three-man crew clambered onto a reef but their vessel sank. Kent Online