The Village of Snodland
Members of the Stevens family ferried travellers across the river Medway between Snodland and Burham and also between Halling and Wouldham for centuries, keeping up a tradition that went back to the time when pilgrims heading for Canterbury would have had to use the ferry, all of five hundred years ago. Some sort of ferry may have been in use even before that.
The last man to ply the service was ferryman Ron Stevens who surrendered the job willingly enough in 1960 saying he was very happy about not having to man the boat eighteen hours a day, seven days a week, rain or shine. Now, the only was across the river is by the old bridge at Aylesford or the great concrete one that carries the M2 over the river at Rochester.
Anyone who thinks villages are invariably picturesque should see Snodland, which is one of the more utilitarian variety. Until the 19th century the village was wholly agricultural. Then, quite suddenly, the local land became worth more for making things from than for growing things in, and, very soon job-seekers from all over Britain were arriving in the Medway villages to work in the new cement, brick and paper-making industries. Some of them came to Snodland.
Barges, many of them built locally, came from London loaded with rubbish with which to feed the kilns of the new factories. They returned, equally loaded with bricks and cement for the building work that was sending London sprawling out in all directions.
Between 1840 and 1857 Snodland's population doubled. After the Maidstone-Rochester railway arrived in 1859, the village trebled in size between 1861 and 1881.
One of the earliest of the new industries was a silk factory near The Brook, which opened in 1866. That failed, however, and the premises was taken over to become a printing works. The paper mill of Charles Townsend Hook, next to the church, became one of the biggest employers in the whole Lower Medway Valley, though today, no longer in production.
Major William Lee Henry Roberts opened his Holborough Cement works at the edge of the village in 1923. It began with two kilns but a third was added in 1928 and in 1931 the works were acquired by the present owners Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers.
During the 19th century, the Hook family lived in The Veles, the old manor house that perpetuated the name of Richard Vele who farmed at Snodland early in the 13th century, now remembered only by the modern homes in Veles Garden.
More than a century ago, in 1873, Snodland hit the headlines in a big way when the local policeman, PC Israel May, was murdered one summers day, battered to death with his own truncheon. Apparently the constable found a man sleeping off a drinking bout beside the stream and when he tried to waken him the drunk reacted by attacking the constable of killing him, leaving him lying where he fell while he made off to hide in neighbouring woods.
But there was no escape. He left evidence at the scene of the crime that led to his arrest the next day. The man, called Thomas Atkins, was brought to justice and sentenced to fifteen years penal servitude for manslaughter.
The constable was a popular man and Snodland's church was packed with villagers and floral tributes for his funeral on August 28, 1873. A small memorial stone was placed on the spot where he died and the centenary of the tragedy in 1973 was marked by having the stone refaced. A year later, however, it was found to have been broken and was taken to the cemetery to protect it from further damage.
Now the main street through the village, the A228, runs at right angles to the older High Street, which has been severed by the much-needed by-pass. The new road has certainly taken much of the traffic out of the village, but it has also cut a great divide between most of the villagers and their riverside church, which is now reached by a bridge.