VCH Kent Publications

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1908.

This volume includes the following entries:

• Natural History
• Early Man
• Anglo-Saxon Remains
• Ancient Earthworks
• Agriculture
• Forestry
• Sport, Ancient and Modern

The full text is available via the Internet Archive.

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1926.

This volume includes the following entries:

• Ecclesiastical History
• Religious Houses
• Maritime History

The entries describing medieval religious houses are on British History Online.

Edited by William Page, this volume was published in 1936.

The volume contains entries on the following subjects:

• Romano-British Remains
• Introduction to the Kent Domesday
• Text of the Kent Domesday
• The Domesday Monachorum
• Political History
• Social and Economic History
• Industries
• Index to [Domesday and Domesday Monachorum]

Part of the text is available via the Kent Archaeological Society.

Edited by Andrew Hann this volume was published in 2009.

In 1750 the lower Medway Valley, the area between the towns of Maidstone and Rochester, was firmly part of Kent's 'Garden of England'. A century later, this tranquil, agrarian landscape had been transformed into a hive of industry and commerce, through the emergence of papermaking, cement manufacture, brickmaking, brewing, ship and barge building, seed crushing and engineering. The lower Medway Valley became synonymous with the production of Portland cement, stock bricks and the steam engines of Aveling and Porter, yet, by the end of the Second World War, much of this industry was gone. "The Medway Valley: A Kent Landscape Transformed," the first Victoria County History publication in Kent for over 75 years, charts this cyclical story of landscape change. It explores how the quiet, rural landscape of a collection of eight riverside parishes around Rochester was dramatically transformed during industrialization, before returning to its formal rural state. This volume traces the impact of industrial development and decline on the valley and its people. It details changing patterns of work and society, the creation of new settlements and the pivotal role of the river in all aspects of village life reflecting two centuries of change and upheaval.

Written by Sandra Dunster, the book was published in 2013.

In 1550 Rochester was the only Medway town. It dominated the river estuary and an agricultural hinterland in which Strood, Chatham and Gillingham were nearby villages, reliant on fishing and farming for their livelihood. By the beginning of the twentieth century these four towns had become an urban conurbation. The key factor in this dramatic change was the growth of the Royal Naval Dockyards at Chatham, home to the English fleet from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century and subsequently the foremost shipbuilding and repair docks in England. The yards at Chatham soon became the largest industrial complex in the south of England. Over the course of the next 350 years, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and Strood grew. They merged physically but developed distinct characteristics. Chatham became the dockyard town whilst Rochester retained a more genteel air. Gillingham gained a military presence and covered agricultural land with terraced housing. Strood, on the opposite bank of the river, abandoned fishing and farming for brick and cement manufacture and engineering. This book explores the impact of these changes on the people who lived and worked in the Medway Towns, the transformation of the political and economic scene and of the built environment.