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
Letter from NZ. 17 May 1874, Hodges Swain, 37, farm labourer, with a wife and five children, wrote home from Invercargill to his parents and friends to give his impressions of the new country. The evening before he had brought home three pounds to give to his wife. He had never lived so well in England, and he too was rejoicing in the eight hour day. As he contrasted the new life with the old, he seems to have felt some bitterness about the past: "I very often think of the slaves in England and the empty bellies A man is drove to be dishonest in England, but here there is no call for him to be if he will work…. Tell several of the farmers round about Elham that I thank them for turning their backs upon me or else I should not have come" New Zealnd Electronic Text Centre
The first electricity comes through the village. All the wires were on long poles along the street but it was some time before most people were connected up. "It was a very welcome service. All you needed to do was put a switch down and you had heat or light; no more candles or oil lamps to read or sew by. It's wonderful how people managed with such poor light." Memoires of Bill Watson
The first electricity comes through the village. All the wires were on long poles along the street but it was some time before most people were connected up.
"It was a very welcome service. All you needed to do was put a switch down and you had heat or light; no more candles or oil lamps to read or sew by. It's wonderful how people managed with such poor light."
This house was built in 1620 - possibly with an earlier core - partially rebuilt around 1700 following damage. Has mid-to-late C18 facade. Front elevation red brick in Flemish bond. Right gable end older brick in Flemish type bond. Plain tile roof. 2 storeys. High painted moulded brick plinth - returned along right gable end. Plat band to right gable end only. Plain brick eaves band. Roof continuous with The Old Bakery left - hipped to right. Multiple brick ridge stack towards left end. Irregular fenestration of three twenty-pane sashes in open boxes - with splayed rubbed brick voussoirs; one left of stack - and two broadly-spaced to right - all set well below eaves. Similar windows to ground floor. Door of six sunk panels under stack. Doric porch with moulded triangular pediment and slate roof. Two-storey tile-hung rear-wing to left - with lower ridge than main range - plan tile roof hipped to rear - and stack to long left side. Rear lean-to to right - brickwork integral with that of gable end. When the school moved away, the house was sold, and in recent years it has been admirably restored, and inside it one can still see the large school room with its timbered walls and wide fireplace. Behind the fireplace is a smaller room which was once the Master's sitting room.The roof is of oak, and is original and in excellent condition. One extraordinary feature is that the wall-plates which support the base of the rafters both at the front and at the back of the house are in one piece, each over fifty feet long, and may be more, as they project into the adjoining house. The Georgian style porch has been added in modern times. 1725 date stone to right gable end is wrong as Sir John Williams' will, made April 1723, says "my house which I bought and rebuilt". The house was left to the parish in the will - to provide for the education of six local poor boys with land to provide income. C.P.R.K. Elham - A Village Study 1968
This house was built in 1620 - possibly with an earlier core - partially rebuilt around 1700 following damage. Has mid-to-late C18 facade. Front elevation red brick in Flemish bond. Right gable end older brick in Flemish type bond. Plain tile roof. 2 storeys. High painted moulded brick plinth - returned along right gable end. Plat band to right gable end only. Plain brick eaves band. Roof continuous with The Old Bakery left - hipped to right. Multiple brick ridge stack towards left end. Irregular fenestration of three twenty-pane sashes in open boxes - with splayed rubbed brick voussoirs; one left of stack - and two broadly-spaced to right - all set well below eaves. Similar windows to ground floor. Door of six sunk panels under stack. Doric porch with moulded triangular pediment and slate roof. Two-storey tile-hung rear-wing to left - with lower ridge than main range - plan tile roof hipped to rear - and stack to long left side. Rear lean-to to right - brickwork integral with that of gable end.
When the school moved away, the house was sold, and in recent years it has been admirably restored, and inside it one can still see the large school room with its timbered walls and wide fireplace. Behind the fireplace is a smaller room which was once the Master's sitting room.The roof is of oak, and is original and in excellent condition. One extraordinary feature is that the wall-plates which support the base of the rafters both at the front and at the back of the house are in one piece, each over fifty feet long, and may be more, as they project into the adjoining house. The Georgian style porch has been added in modern times.
1725 date stone to right gable end is wrong as Sir John Williams' will, made April 1723, says "my house which I bought and rebuilt". The house was left to the parish in the will - to provide for the education of six local poor boys with land to provide income.