Birchington Heritage Trust

Archival information

The past runs parallel with the present and is always intruding on it. But we feel we must be wary not to remain stuck in the past for its own sake. The past has something to teach us - but so has the present. We honour and learn from them both.
We hold written information on almost every topic connected with Birchington, all of which is held in alphabetical order - from Acol to York Terrace.
There are separate files on All Saints Church, the history of the village of Birchington, Dante Gabriel Rossetti (who died here), Windmills (we had three), Charles Spurgeon and his Homes (the last of which was in Birchington), the First and Second World Wars and Gladys Cooper (who visited Birchington in the 1920s) to name a few.

We also have access to the archives from All Saints Church mainly in transcript form, as all the earliest material is now held in Canterbury Cathedral Archives. The catalogue for this material runs to 117 pages. The Church's archives date from about 1350 to the present day and cover the daily life of the Church as well as the village as a whole. The Registers start in 1538 and the Churchwardens' accounts begin in 1531 and apart from two brief breaks are continuous to the present day. There are the account books of the Overseers of the Poor as well as the Way Wardens' accounts, covering the maintenance of the local roads.
All the material is constantly being augmented and updated where new evidence is uncovered.