Upchurch, Kent

Historical Description

Upchurch, a parish, with a village, in Kent, on the creeks of the Medway, 2 miles from Rainham station on the L.C. & D.R., and 5 E of Chatham. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Sittingbourne. Acreage, 3287; population, 1218. There is a parish council consisting of nine members. The parish is among the best of fruit and hop land in Kent. Low islets and peninsulas engirt by creeks form part of the surface, bear the name of salterns or soltings, appear to have been the site of an extensive Roman pottery manufacture, and have yielded many pieces of Roman pottery and many Roman coins. There are also extensive gravel pits abounding with fossils. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury; net value, £265. Patron, All Souls College, Oxford. The church is chiefly Decorated English, and has a spire which serves as a landmark.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Upchurch from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Upchurch (St. Mary))

Maps

Online maps of Upchurch 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

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of Kent, 1619 is available on the Heraldry page, as is also The Visitation of Kent, 1663-68.