Faversham () is a market town in Kent, England. It is located from Sittingbourne, from London and from Canterbury; it lies next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. The town is close to the A2, used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons, which follows an ancient British trackway now known as Watling Street.
There has been a settlement at Faversham since pre-Roman times, as indicated by a Belgic Late Iron Age farmstead discovered under the playing fields of Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School. The farmstead was located in the broader region later associated by Ptolemy with the Cantii. The site later became a Roman villa. There is also evidence of Mesolithic and Neolithic human activity in and around the town. The Roman name was Durolevum.Excavation of an octagonal Roman bath-house at Bax Farm, Teyrnham. JRA reprint 2012. An octagonal bath-house at Bax Farm, Teyrnham. Paul Wilkinson. Kent Archaeological Field School page 410 https://www.kafs.co.uk/pdf/OctagonalBathHouse.pdf The modern name is of Old English origin, probably meaning "the metal-worker's village". It is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Favreshant. The Barons of Faversham were using three lions passant guardant – the royal arms of England - as the arms for the town during the reign of the Plantagenet king Edward I. The town's medieval corporate seal bore the legend: 'Since I bear arms for the King without charge, I am a free port' (Regis ut arma rego libera portus ego). The town was favoured by King Stephen, who established Faversham Abbey, which survived until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. Subsequently, the town became an important seaport and established itself as a centre for brewing, and the Shepherd Neame Brewery, founded in 1698, remains a significant major employer.
The town was also the centre of the explosives industry between the 17th and early 20th century, declining after an accident in 1916 which killed over 100 workers. This coincided with a revival of the shipping industry in the town. Faversham has a number of landmarks, with several historic churches including St Mary of Charity, Faversham Parish Church, the Maison Dieu and Faversham Recreation Ground. Faversham Market has been established for over 900 years and is still based in the town centre. There are good road and rail links, including a route to the High Speed 1 line at Ebbsfleet for fast services to London.
Toponymy The name Faversham, first attested in 811 as Fefresham, derives from Old English. The second element is the Old English word hām ('settlement'), which is common in place-names. The first element, however, is unique; it has been inferred to derive from an otherwise lost Old English word fæfere ('smith'), which in turn derived from the Latin faber ('craftsman, smith'). Thus the name once meant 'smith's homestead'. Given its Latin derivation, however, the name may have referred specifically to Roman smiths.Gelling, Margaret; Signposts to the Past: Place-Names and the History of England (London: Dent, 1978), p. 80.
History
Early history
Faversham was established as a settlement before the Roman conquest of Britain. The Romans established several towns in Kent including Faversham, with traffic through the Saxon Shore ports of Reculver, Richborough, Dover and Lympne converging on Canterbury before heading up Watling Street to London. The town was less than from Canterbury, and consequently Faversham had become established on this road network by 50 AD following the initial conquest by Claudius in 43 AD. Numerous remains of Roman buildings have been discovered in and around Faversham, including under St Mary of Charity Church where coins and urns were discovered during reconstruction of the western tower in 1794. In 2013, the remains of a 2,000-year-old Roman theatre, able to accommodate some 12,000 people, were discovered at a hillside near the town. The cockpit-style outdoor auditorium, the first of its kind found in Britain, was a style the Romans used elsewhere in their empire on the Continent.
There is archaeological evidence to suggest that Faversham was a summer capital for the kings of Kent. The King's Field Treasure indicates that a significant burial site was located in the south-west of the town during the late sixth and early seventh centuries. The cemetery was located roughly between Stone Street to the north, London Road to the south, the Mall to the east and St Ann's Road and Upper St Ann's Road to the west. The site was uncovered during the construction of the Chatham–Dover railway line in 1858. Artefacts from King's Field are now dispersed among several collections, notably the British Museum in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford alongside other British collections. Excavations beneath the Market Inn in 2018–19 unearthed a probable sunken-featured building (SFB), which provides evidence for contemporaneous settlement to the east of the King's Field burial site. This is the first secure archaeological evidence of early medieval settlement in Faversham.
The presence of Frankish pottery at the Market Inn settlement, together with Frankish-style grave goods at King's Field, suggests close connections between early medieval Faversham and the broader Merovingian world. The marriage of Æthelberht of Kent to the Frankish princess Bertha of Kent (great-granddaughter of Clovis I) provides a broader historical context for the close ties between the early medieval Kingdom of Kent and Francia, though the exact nature of this relationship is debated. Faversham was held in royal demesne in 811, and is further cited in a charter granted by Coenwulf, the King of Mercia. Coenwulf described the town as 'the King's little town of Fefresham', while it was recorded in the Domesday Book as Favreshant. The town had established itself as a seaport by the Middle Ages, and became part of the Confederation of the Cinque Ports in the 13th century, providing a vessel to Dover. The Gough Map of Britain, printed in 1360, shows the Swale as an important shipping channel for trade.
Middle Ages, Tudors and Stuarts
The manor was recorded as Terra Regis, meaning it was part of the ancient royal estates. King Stephen gave it to his chief lieutenant, William of Ypres, but soon made him swap it with Lillechurch (now Higham) so that the manor of Faversham could form part of the endowment of Faversham Abbey. Stephen established the abbey in 1148, and is buried there with his consort Matilda of Boulogne, and his son, Eustace, the Count of Boulogne. Stephen favoured the town because of the abbey, and so it was historically important during his reign. King John tried to give the church to Simon of Wells in 1201, but it was owned by the monks of St Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury, who appealed to Rome and the request was denied. Abbey Street was constructed about this time in order to provide an appropriate approach to the abbey from the town. It still houses timber-framed buildings and has been described as "the finest medieval street in south-east England".
Thomas Culpeper was granted Faversham Abbey by Henry VIII during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538. Most of the abbey was demolished, and the remains of Stephen were rumoured to have been thrown into Faversham Creek. An excavation of the abbey in 1964 uncovered the empty graves. The entrance gates survived the demolition and lasted until the mid-18th century, but otherwise only a small section of outer wall survived. The abbey's masonry was taken to Calais to reinforce defence of the town, then in British possession, against the French army. In 1539, the ground upon which the abbey had stood, along with nearby land, passed to Sir Thomas Cheney, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.
Among the few surviving buildings of Faversham Abbey are the two barns at Abbey Farm. Minor Barn was built about 1425; Major Barn, the larger of the two, dates from 1476. Next to the barns is the Abbey Farmhouse, part of which dates from the 14th century. The Abbey Guest house, on the east side of the Abbey's Outer Gateway, has survived as Arden's House. This house, now a private residence in Abbey Street, was the location of the murder of Thomas Arden in 1551. The Faversham Almshouses were founded and endowed by Thomas Manfield in 1614, with additional houses built by Henry Wright in 1823.
The poor quality of roads in the Middle Ages meant travel by sea was an important transport corridor. Richard Tylman (or Tillman), mayor in 1581, expanded the port at Faversham, building two wharfs. He became a key figure in exporting corn, wheat and malt to London from the town.
Several notable people in the Middle Ages had origins in Faversham. Haymo of Faversham was born in Faversham and later moved to Paris to join the Franciscans, becoming the "Aristotelian of Aristotelians". Simon of Faversham was born in the town in the middle of the 13th century and later became Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1304. The notorious pirate Jack Ward is believed to have been born in Faversham about 1553. John Wilson, lutenist and teacher was born in Faversham in 1595 who was the principal composer for the King's Men and a professor of music at Oxford. There is now a plaque at the site of the house in Abbey Street where he was born.
Faversham also had notable visitors during this period. Queen Mary and King Philip visited the town in July 1557 en route to Dover. Queen Elizabeth I visited Faversham in September 1573 during a summer tour of Kent, accompanied by Lord Burghley, the Lord Treasurer. Charles II passed the town on his way from Dover to London, on his way to be crowned.
Faversham's role against the Spanish Armada As a member of the Cinque Ports, Faversham sent a 38–ton vessel, the Hazarde, with a crew of 30 men to engage the Armada in 1588. Faversham collectively paid £221 for fitting the ship and £110 for gunpowder and shot. The Hazarde was returned after service to its owners Abrahame Snoode and Edward Buddle and docked at the quay on Faversham Creek. The old town warehouse, used by the Sea Cadets since 1940, is named Training Ship Hazard (T.S. Hazard) after the Hazarde.
Explosives industry
A gunpowder plant had been established around 1573 in Faversham. The town had a stream which could be dammed at intervals to provide power for watermills. It became known as the Home Works in the 18th century and was nationalised in 1759. By the 19th century, the site stretched for around a mile along the waterfront. A second explosive works was established at Oare to the north-west of town in the late 17th century, with the Marsh Works following in 1786. Towards the end of the 19th century, two new factories were built alongside the Swale to manage production of TNT and cordite. Faversham developed six explosive factories, and from 1874 to 1919, the town was the centre of the explosives industry in the UK.
The first production of guncotton took place in the Marsh Works in 1847. Due to a lack of experience with production methods, an explosion took place soon after work started, with several fatalities. On 2 April 1916, an explosion occurred at one of the Swale factories in Uplees after sparks from a chimney ignited the works containing around 150 tonnes of high explosives. The incident killed over 100 people, which led to decline of the explosives industry in the town. Later accounts suggested that had the incident not happened on a Sunday, there would have been many more casualties.
All three gunpowder factories shut in 1934 due to the impending threat of World War II. Production was moved to Ardeer in Ayrshire, Scotland, and the munition industry around Faversham is now extinct. The town is now a harbour and market community; old sail-powered Thames barges are repaired, rebuilt and moored along the creekside.
Industrial Revolution and beyond