Dargate Wesleyan Methodist Chapel is
located on the northern side of Dargate Road, about forty metres
east of the Butler's Hill junction. The chapel was opened in 1840,
with Rodney Allen, architect of Faversham, providing the design. As
with a great many of these semi-rural nonconformist chapels,
congregations fell sharply in the years following the conclusion
of the Second World War and the chapel was closed in 1983 to be
converted into a private residence.
All Saints Church is in the village of
Graveney, situated on the edge of the wide and flat marshes which
overlook The Swale estuary around three kilometres to the east of
Faversham. In AD 811 King Coenwulf of Mercia, who had also made a
successful takeover bid for the kingdom of Kent, sold the manor of
Graveney to Wulfred, archbishop of Canterbury, for the use of Christ
Church, Canterbury. Domesday Book records the manor as being
tenanted by the de Gravene family.
The date of construction is not known, but the
style is twelfth century. Box pews were installed in 1823 but they
were bulky and uncomfortable. By 1925 there were moves to replace
them with chairs, but the cost was high so the pews remain. A
hand-coloured photograph of around 1895 shows a tree that has not
survived, but unlike most churches in the area, this one was not
heavily restored by the Victorians, and has changed little inside
or out for around 200 years.
St Bartholomew's Church is in
Goodnestone-next-Faversham, part of the parish of Goodnestone and
Graveney. It is a trim and tiny Norman country church, alone on its
small knoll above Goodnestone Court, whose owning family it served
along with the estate workers. The Normans built its nave and
chancel around 1100 and later builders added more windows. The
porch was rebuilt in 1837 following an earth tremor, and a rustic
tiled and timbered bell cote crowns the nave.
Inside, part of the roof loft staircase, two
piscinae, and a tomb which may have been used as an Easter Sepulchre
all survive from the medieval period. There is a miniature nineteenth
century font, Willement glass in the east window, and two sixteenth
century brass inscriptions to a couple who departed 'in the fayth of
Christe'. Victorian restoration work was restrained, probably in
acceptance of the fact that not much needed doing to the structurally
sound building.
Faversham Cemetery Chapel is framed by
Love Lane and the railway, at the eastern edge of Faversham.
Otherwise known as Love Lane Cemetery, it was opened in 1898
with the chapel being designed by Edwin Pover. Buried here in a mass
grave are seventy-three of the 108 victims of the 'Great Explosion'
of 2 April 1916 which involved fifteen tons of TNT and 150 tons of
ammonium nitrate at the Explosives Loading Company factory at Uplees,
near Faversham.
Two photos on this page by P L Kessler, two by
Arthur Percival, and two kindly contributed by Keith Guyler/British
Methodist Buildings and Abigail Gawith, both via the 'History Files:
Churches of the British Isles' Flickr group.
