A Hoo Peninsula occurs as peninsula in England separating the estuaries of the lakes Thames and Medway. These are dominated by the line of s& and clay hills surrounded by an extensive region of marshland composed of alluvial silt. A title Hoo is the Old English word for high.

History

A Romans have been credited with the number 1 2 tries at building a sea wall. a subsequent draining of the lakes got a 2-two times profit therein lea was created which supported sheep; & the local malaria-bearing mosquitoes were deprived of their breeding grounds.

A vicinity is rich inside archeology. Bronze Age implements and Jutish cemeteries have been incurred on the peninsula, & Roman pottery at Cooling. It was when a point of departure through a ancient Saxon ford point across a River Thames to Essex.

Great deal of a peninsula lies inside one of the Saxon divisions of England called 'hundreds': here it is the 'Hundred of Hoo'. Properly speaking, a Hundred comprised a parishes & churches of Hoo St Werburgh, High Halstow, St Mary's Hoo, Allhallows & a share of Stoke. A Isle of Grain, then a complete island, was in the Hundred of Gillingham; the remainder of the parish of Stoke was in the Hundred of Shamel. (Notes from either A Hundred of Hoo (Ralph Arnold, Constable 1947))

William the Conqueror granted his half-brother, Odo, the big estate of Hoo.

Geography

The marshlands
A marshlands come at present section of 2 secure areas of l&: a Thames Estuary & Marshlands & a Medway Estuary and Lakes. A Thames Estuary region covers a Fifteen miles (Twenty-four kilometre) from either Gravesend to the Isle of Grain; the Medway front yard Fifteen miles (Twenty-four klick) from either Rochester to the Isle of Grain: a aggregate of 38 square miles (98 kilometre²) of marshlands.Each come considered when Web sites of Favorite Scientific Interest (SSSI) and Favorite Protected Areas (SPA). It include coastal grazing marsh, intertidal mudflats, saltmarsh & laguna. On a line of hills lies the [Northwood Hill] National Nature and severity Reserve.

The Thames and Medway Canal

A Lakes Thames & Medway were joined per eight-mile yearn Thames & Medway Canal, the construction of which started in 1805. Using basins providing ports & access to the deuce streams, lakes, & wells throughout at Gravesend and Strood, the canal passed across the ii-mile Higham tunnel, broken in the centre by the shaft to allow boats to pass. Construction was hard & expensive & it was non completed until 1824. A route became a portion of the railway linking Higham sustaining Strood. a line of this old okay, silted canal may be considered a handy boundary marking the landwards edge of the peninsula.

A part of the canal from either Gravesend to Higham burrow is nowadays in the paws of the Thames & Medway Canal Association, whose website contains a more complete history, including a map. View http://homepage.ntlworld.com/john.epton/tmca/

Tunnel closure
Engineers & surveyors each governmental & personal undertook a consultation & subsequent construction of the recently introduced Medway Towns bypass, which drove the hyperlink route directly all over the old burrow, consequently inducing geologic instability. Newly housing built along a line of that route has farther wedged in its stability. Following, a burrow was just about trains for the duration of 2004.

Roads
A just highway is the A228, which crosses the old Roman 'London Road' (Watling Street) (A2) at Strood and then follows a high land eastward to Grain. In a Peninsula this road when known as a "Ratcliffe Highway". Allowing a Medway Towns Northern Bypass at a bottom of 4 Elms hill, it climbs to Chattenden, bypassing Hoo St Werburgh and High Halstow, before crossing to the Isle of Grain. The secondary touring (B2000) goes in the north to Cliffe-at-Hoo, on the edge of the northern marshes.

This secondary road is great deal utilized by heavily conveyance serving a farms & a manufactory at Cliffe-at-Hoo. It lives across Cliffe Wilderness, to Cliffe-at-Hoo, where it becomes number 1 Station Road, from either a location of the okay, vanished station of the Hundred of Hoo Railway, and yet enters Church Street, which eventually leads onto a lakes themselves.

A highway is extensively rural around nature and severity sustaining many interesting old buildings along its route. There remain the Grade II-utilized red brick farmhouse dating from either the 17th century & its barn, Xxv yards (Twenty-five m) south of the farmhouse, & a Grade II building however timber-framed & weatherboarded. A second Grade II-used farmhouse is Fenn Street Farmhouse, timber-framed & mediaeval within origin, by having area dated to the 15th century. Its age can be estimated per fact that within 1760 a building was refaced.

A more principal route on a peninsula, the B2000, heads n by way of Cliffe-at-Hoo. This occurs as winding united states road, great deal utilized by industrial transportation serving a big farms including Mockbeggar Domestic. A B2003 lives across Cliffe Forest, to Cliffe, in which it becomes number one Station Road, from either a location of a at present vanished station of the Hundred of Hoo railway, & eventually enters Church Street, which leads onto the lakes themselves.

There are many more minor roads, altogether on the higher land. A select few trackways finally email a sea bulwarks.

The Hundred of Hoo Railway
Around 1878, Henry Pye by having a deputation of more local farmers met the South Eastern Railway Company with the asking for the fresh railway to become built in the area. From either this meeting a freshly company was established, the Hundred of Hoo Railway Company. A SER saw it when a share of a development of continental traffic, & the ferry terminal at what wwhen known as Port Victoria was built as terminus of the line. A traffic did non materialise & that division of a line & the line beyond Graaround closed in 1951.

A foremost section of the line to become opened was inside March 1882, from either Cliffe to Sharnal Street. This was late extended east to the Isle of Grain. Sharnal Street was a larger of a ii original stations & was provided sustaining serious sidings, in which the local farmers were breathe to batch their green groceries to exist as transported directly to the London markets. It was besides at Sharnal Street that wire & mail collections were effected.

In 14 May 1932 a branch railway was opened to the Thames estuary beyond the ancient village of Allhallows. It was designed to be the riverside resort of occasionally size, & grandiose plans were formed. A newly metropolitan area was given a title of Allhallows-in-Sea. Little come of the scheme, & nowadays everthing signs of that branch stand disappeared, save for the water supply tower which supplied locomotive engine at the terminus -these are now a enrolled building. There is a holiday village on a places in which the resort was designed to become.

Villages on the Hundred of Hoo

Hoo St Werburgh
Known as when the Saxon princess born between 640 and 650, the niece of Ethelrede, who succeeded her father when king of Mercia.

A foremost church built at Hoo go back astir 741, built by Ethlbald, a first cousin of Werburgh, although a nunnery existed nearby at an earliest period. The feature detected in the church considered to exist as unique is detected in the being of ii coats of royal arms belonging to James I (1603) and a arms of Elizabeth I, both recently restored & located in learn from in the church. A parish records of 1851 give a people when 1,065.

a workhoapply was within use on this text until a Thirties, & a gymnasium bears the title Hundred of Hoo School.

Broad Street appeared when Brodestrete inside 1478 (Toponym of Kent: J Glover) simply indicating the wide street so existed on text. Likewise Jacobs Lane, known as when a personal of Stephen Jacobe of Hoo (1480).

High Halstow

High Halstow, L metres above sea level, is one of a greatest points on the Hoo peninsula. It formed in the area of junctions in the ancient roads from either Hoo & Cliffe to the Isle of Grain.

In the north of the village lies Northwood Hill, protected per RSPB, an internationally significant nature and severity reserve by using Britain's big heronry (160 pairs), too supporting little egrets, avocets & marsh harriers. Northwood hill, or even Northbound ward, wwhen another time known locally as 'a Norrards'. Beyond on the marsh occurs as obsolete experimental radiolocation station, currently section of the RSPB reserve.

The heronry has been inside the outdoors from either at least 1947, once it was mentioned in the book on the Hundred of Hoo by Mr Ralph Arnold. This page was scheduled for demolition under government proposals for an international London airdrome. (Understand Thames Gateway).

High Halstow has get usually a farml&, however a few of its residents gained employment outside a village, at a Royal Navy Armament Depot at Lodge Hill, Chattenden, & the Medway Oil and Storage Co at Grain. Chatham Dockyard and the Short Brothers seaplane works at Rochester were traditional employers for the whole vicinity until it shut several years ago.

Buck Hole Farmhouse is next to North Hill RSPB reserve, & a second Grade II-used farmhouse dates from either a early 18th century.

Cliffe
A 'residing' at Cliffe in the 17th century wwhen described as 'one of a prizes of the church'.

Alfred Francis (2nd boy of Charles), by having his boy established a house of Francis & Co. Establishing a Nine Elms professional at Vauxhall, London a house built a cement works at Cliffe from either astir 1868. Alfred Francis died inside 1871, however around partnership his boy continued to create 'Portl&, Roman, Medina, & Parian cement, Portland stucco and Plaster of Paris', likewise transport chalk, flints & fire bricks, from either a places.

A Grade II-used barn at Rye Domestic, around Most common Lane, Cliffe dates from either a 1570s. These are described as a 16th-century Grade II barn "with archaic details." Below its present asbestos roof occurs as timber framed terzetto too much barn by having weatherboarded bulwarks & the traditional hipped roof. It includes an ancient wagon porch.

Cliffe Woods
Cliffe Forest was it used to be that good the little hamlet & is geographically placed next to Higham. A old outdoors rise to meet Chattenden & a Ratcliffe main road, good prior to Hoo, & however retains lot of its rural character, however has late been built upon. the modern estate at present placed good back from either the B2000 was rest in a clay undersoil, & several of the houses got to become underpinned fallowing with been sold, because it were found to stand moved slightly, built on a hillside.

a gasoline gwhen station wwhen one of the pack village shops on text as early as 1925, & was rebuilt in the Sixties. Possibly so a bit of of a properties in the outdoors did non use at times their have a body of water system, & got to visit the his pickup to collect their water.

Cooling
Cooling, a share of the parish of Stoke, both in a Hundred of Sharnel, is the location of an ancient castle built to defend the port of Cliffe. A village church of St James has yearn been classified 'redundant', & is so there are no yearn utilized for worship, however is maintained per Church Commission. In a god's acre come the class action of tikes's tombstone which prompted Charles Dickens to write the opening of the novel Great Expectations.

A remote & isolated hamlet hwhen been described as 'a capital of English Lollardry' because of its association by having Sir John Oldcastle. Sir John de Cobham died at Cooling within 1408.

Sir John de Cobham, third Baron Cobham inherited an 700 acre (2.Octonary klick²) estate at Cobham from his father Henry in 1335, originally acquired by the first state Cobhams around 1241. John Lord Cobham late built a castle inside 1381, as he was within charge of a defence of Kent however a successful raid per Spanish & French as much as Gravesend spurred the king to understand the defence was required. For inside 1379 French vessels appeared in the Thames, with the body of French & Spanish soldiers world health organization 'ravaged entirely this a portion of Kent', & then that each town and village touching a flow of any stream fell to the babies.

A castle described when 'startling white-stone, drum-towered gatehouse & moated ruins of Cooling Castle' (Arnold), is okay, does'nt lot to the higher degree a ruin however has as swell fantabulous & well proportioned towers & entrance built by Thomas Crump of Maidstone.

Constructed per mason Henry Yeverle, world health organization besides worked extensively on a Palace of Westminster & the Tower of London. Within 1381, the castle began to form, obtaining licence from either King Richard to 'crenellate & fortify it'.

A title of Brooke was from either Sir Thomas Brooke, world health organization was wed to the girl & lone surviving little one of the Lady Joan de Cobham, by Sir Reginald Braybrooke. It wwhen Braybrooke world health organization bequeathed Cooling Castle into a diamond state Cobham estate, although that personal maintained Cobham Hall possibly so as its independent home.

Withal, Cooling castle was stormed by Sir Thomas Wyatt in 1554 during the Kentish rising against Queen Mary and after the failure of Lord John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland to install Lady Jane Grey on the throne.

That Sir Thomas Wyatt stormed Cooling Castle then well can be explained per interesting detail that the equivalent was a nephew of Lord Cobham. Sir Thomas Wyatt was a boy of Elizabeth Brooke, Cobham's sister, thus his complicity using Dudley & Grey was 'the natural expression of his intimate love of England'. Wyatt held big estates in the Hundred of Hoo apart from either people of his uncle, Lord Brooke of Cobham. His personal was at Allington Castle on the Flow of any stream Medway. It was George, Lord Cobham, in a month as a result his release from either the Tower of London, who was instructed to email Cardinal Pole when you took a apostolical official emissary's visit to England in the period of the formal reconciliation by using Rome. This amusement is recorded when getting taken place at Cooling Castle, around astir 1555, and is the previous known information to the Cobham personal using the castle as a house. It experienced formally been somewhat damaged per Duke of Norfolk's cannon in the attempt to inflict Wyatt's surrender in the period of that revolt against Mary We.

When you took the Nineties a property was owned per Rochester bridge warder, however is at present a personal retreat of Jools Holland.

St Mary Hoo

A 1st appearance of the title is within 1240.

St Mary's Church at St Mary Hoo was a parish church & gave its title to the village, & although it remains a grade II building, dating from either the 14th century, it has been reconstructed as a personal home. Formally rebuilt within astir 1881 of local ragstone, it has an unrestored 15th century south west window that is noteworthy.

Newlands Farmhouse nearby along a ridge track to North Hill occurs as Grade II farmhouse which was built within 1746.

A Old Rectory at St Mary Hoo occurs as grade II home built in the late 1700s. It has a favorite place inside scandals involving the royalty. the minister of religion from either 1788 to 1875 were a father & boy, two known as R. Burt. A senior of a 2, the Rpm. Robert Burt, performed a illegal marriage between George IV & Mrs Fitzherbert inside 1785. The plaque commemorating this event remains hidden in the old church of St Mary.

St Mary's Hall, likewise at St Mary Hoo, occurs as home built inside the 1600s, however which was added to in 1830. It was a personal of the Victorian domestic trailblazer, Henry Pye, between 1845 & 1909.

Stoke
Stoke is divided into Upper Stoke & Lower Stoke. A Rose & Crown pothouse inside Stoke Road is a second Grade II building. It began life as a Georgian home in the late 18th century however has 20th century additions & alterations.

In a late 20th century a Ramsgate Flat Globe Society held council at Stoke & formed the N Kent Parochial Anarchists. This was announced on a parish & village bulletinside board, opposite what today is the village centre, & by public proclamation on the village green in 1984.

There was a big dirigible base nearby at KingsNorthward from either whence patrols went out covering the North Sea in the period of Globe War We. It okay, lies below Kingsnorth Power Station.

Hoo All Hallows
Inside 1285 the village was known as Ho 100% Hallows, a ‘Ho’ indicating a spur of l& and in that experience okay, ordinarily called the Hoo Peninsula, at the confluence of the Thames and River Medway estuaries ().

A parish is bounded on the northerly side per River Thames, the northmost the portion of mainl& Kent, & in the east per today tremendously reduced Yantlet creek, when section of a navigable and fortified trade route utilized from either Roman days.

A parish church of A lot Saints' dates from either a 12th century. These are a simply grade I personally employed building on the Hoo peninsula & has recently been at chance of destruction, as a notice posted in the church proclaimed: PREVIOUSLY SCHEDULED FOR DEMOLITION UNDER PROPOSALS FOR The LONDON ORBITAL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.

the church is built of flint & stone, & has a lead roof, west tower, nave using northward & to the south porch, & sanctuary. A oldest section is the west prevent of the nave & arcade. A to a north arcade dates from either a early 13th century, when the sanctuary arch is 14th century, parts of a nave dating from either the Wars of the Roses. Parish registers go back 1629.

A Saxon shore way lives close by these old boundaries indicating silting above several centuries.

Avery Domestic was around Saxon days on the tip of the foreland which was an island inside it have perfect belonging to the Saxon Heahburh. These are thought she will use been an Mother superior, given that a farmlands that were so her property were section of the lands granted to the monastery at Peterborough by Caedwalla in the 7th century (Place Names of Kent: J Glover). The branch of the Pympe personal lived in an estate by using the mansion called Allhallows Home.

A 1841 people of Allhallows wwhen recorded as 268 souls.

A modern holiday village of Allhallows-on-Sea lies to the north of the ancient village.

Grain
Grain village, placed on the eastern extremity of the Hoo peninsula, on the Isle of Grain which, when the Yantlet Creek cut it hit, was a little island (understand as well Isle of Sheppey and Isle of Thanet).

From either astir 1912 the hydroplane station was placed at Grain per Admiralty. From either a beginning of World War I regular patrols were made along a Thames estuary from either this station, when a portion of English channel defences. Port Victoria was established inside 1914 as an Royal Navy air plane repair depot, adjacent to the station. Activities at these bases declined fallowing 1918, until inside 1924 defence cuts saw their closure. View as well under Stoke: large dirigible base.

A front yard is at present largely occupied per Isle of Grain coal and oil reserve power station, a construction of which was begun witharound 1948 sustaining a completion & begin higher date scheduled for 1952, however the places was flooded in its foremost week while the sea wall was breached. a state-of-the-art flatulence import depot has late secured a station at the places.

Burrow segments for the Channel Tunnel were constructed at Grain.