Crayford, Kent
Historical Description
Crayford, a village and a parish in Kent. The village stands on the rivulet Cray, with a station on the S.E.R., 14 miles from London, and 1¼ mile W by N of Dartford, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office (S.O.) Acreage of the civil parish, 2457 of land, and 173 of tidal water and foreshore; population, 5268; of the ecclesiastical, 4266. It was once a market-town, and it still has a fair on 24 August. It is the Creccanford of the Saxon Chronicle, and was the scene of the battle in 457 between Hengist and Vortigern. The parish includes also the hamlets of North-end and Slade-Green. The manor belonged at Domesday to the see of Canterbury. May Place, which is a building partly of the time of James I., was the seat of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel. Numerous caverns of great depth, with narrow mouths but ample vaulted interior, exist in chalk rocks in Bexley parish and the neighbouring heaths, and are thought by many persons to have been formed by the ancient Britons for retreat in the time of war. Some large establishments for silk manufacture and tanning are on the rivulet near the village. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Canterbury; value, £510. The church, dedicated to St Paulinus, is ancient, but has been restored. There are Baptist and Roman Catholic chapels, some almshouses, and a village hall.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
| Ancient County | Kent | |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Crayford St. Paulinus | |
| Hundred | Lessness | |
| Lathe | Sutton-at-Hone | |
| Poor Law union | Dartford |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1558.
Findmypast have the following online for Crayford, St Paulinus: baptisms 1706-1851, marriages 1559-1851, burials 1813-1851
Churches
Church of England
St. Paulinus (parish church)
The church of St. Paulinus, which stands, on the site of a Saxon church, is an ancient structure of flint and rag stone in the Perpendicular style, with some Norman remains, and has a tower containing a clock and 8 bells: there is a tomb with life-size figures in marble of Sir William Draper, of Crayford, 1650, and Mary, his wife, 1652; the east window and 10 others are stained: the fabric was restored in 1861 at a cost of about £1,100: the church possesses an engraved brass processional cross, brought from Magdala, in Abyssinia, on its capture by the late Lord Napier, 13 April, 1868, and presented to the church by a former curate: there are 550 sittings.
Baptist
Crayford Baptist Chapel
The Baptist chapel, erected in 1810, has 400 sittings.
Methodist
Crayford Methodist Chapel
Roman Catholic
St. Marys Catholic Church
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Crayford from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Crayford (St. Paulinus))
Maps
Online maps of Crayford are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Kent newspapers online:
- Kent & Sussex Courier
- Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald
- Dover Express
- Kentish Gazette
- Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate & Cheriton Herald
- Kentish Chronicle
- Maidstone Telegraph
Villages, Hamlets, &c
Slade GreenVisitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Kent, 1619 is available on the Heraldry page, as is also The Visitation of Kent, 1663-68.