History of Halling
Halling, the village name, is variously thought to come from: Halls land (belonging to Hall), Heall land (from Old English, Hall Manor), Heallgemot (the court of the lord of the manor), Heallingas (companions sharing the same hall).
Halling is in north Kent, England, lying in the Medway Gap, where over many thousands of years the River Medway has cut through the North Downs hills. Consisting of Lower Halling, Upper Halling and North Halling, the village is scattered over some three miles (five km) along the River Medway, parallel to the Pilgrims' Way which runs through Kent. Halling sits on the Medway Valley railway line, running from Tonbridge and Maidstone to Strood.
"Halling Man" (see separate page), a Neolithic skeleton discovered in 1912 behind the present railway station, is the earliest indication of activity in Halling. There is evidence of Roman settlement indicated by a number of burials from the period as well as Roman tiles. The first written record dates from the 8th century; in the Charter for Halling (765-785 AD) Ecgberht II of Kent granted to St. Andrew of Rochester, "ten sulings at Halling with rights to pasture swine in five districts".
Halling had a small industrial presence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, with two chalk mining and processing factories (see separate page ‘Cement City’), however these have all now been shut and the last chimney stack was demolished in 2010. Quarries have been dug in Halling since before World War II, at first by hand, for the extraction of chalk for cement manufacture. The chalk was mainly shipped by barge via the River Medway. The chalk quarrying industry in Halling had a great influence, including chalk being used as the building material of the majority of the village houses. The chalk industry was the livelihood of many families. Chalk was also used for the improvement of road and railway connections. The closure of the factories has meant the working population of the village mainly commutes to London and nearby towns.
The village has a church (St John the Baptist), Post Office, two pubs (at one time there were seven), a small convenience store (at one time there were around thirty-seven local businesses), two community centres, a doctors’ surgery and a primary school. In addition to this, Upper Halling has a pumping station (built recently, after a Victorian one was converted into accommodation), filter beds and a small underground reservoir and spring.
Halling is the site of a former Bishop's Palace (see separate page), a luxury provided by the pre-Reformation Catholic Church to its bishops. It is now a ruin and a national monument. There are a number of old World War II defences situated along the riverside and evidence remains of the former ferry crossing behind the church to the other side of the Medway at Wouldham, in use for over 600 years up to 1964.
Back to the Romans, their first landing may have been around 55 BC as a reconnaissance before Caesar invaded Britain. However the main invasion affecting the local area was a hundred years later in AD43 when Emperor Claudius sent an army under Aulus Plautius. This army reached the Medway and the local population thought this would prove impassable. Cunningly Claudius sent his German scouts, who were accustomed to swimming, across the river probably at present day Snodland and and the locals were defeated with a battle raging possibly for two days along the the western bank of the Medway between Snodland, Halling and Cuxton.
Roman villas have been found in Snodland and Cuxton and and vestiges of Roman tiles have been found in Halling, together with Roman urn burials found alongside Pilgrims Road. Coins of the Roman period have been found in the woods and fields around Halling.
The beginnings of the village system with the departure of the Romans around four hundred years later saw Halling become a manor or parish in the Hundred of Sharnal in the Lathe of Aylesford.
After the Battle of Hastings, Halling was given as a parish along with others to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and a half brother to William the Conqueror, then in 1076 the manor was returned to the church of St Andrew, Rochester.
In 1077 Gundulf was consecrated Bishop of Rochester. Gundulf was a great architect responsible for Rochester Cathedral, the White Tower of the Tower of London, and St. Leonard's Tower in West Malling. Gundulf built for himself a palace by the river at Halling and this was to be a residence of the Bishops of Rochester over the next three centuries (see separate page).
Fast forward through the Middle Ages and from hereon local historian Frank Smith takes us from from 1800 to 2000 . . . .
"It is now the year 1800 and the start of another century in the village of Halling and the population is just two hundred and forty nine. The workhouse has just been shut down and the lime works has been built at North Halling at Whornes Place by Boorman and Wild. With an influx of lime workers the population grew to four hundred and forty eight.
William Lee also built a lime works on the southern end of the village and Halling Manor Works at the bottom of Ferry Lane (or Ferry Road as it is now called) was built by Hilton and Anderson. The population has now grown to five hundred and fifty, with one hundred and eleven mainly digging chalk. There had to be more housing so Manor Terrace was built to house them. The Formbys Lime and Cement Works was established on the riverside. The railway line opened through Halling but it was thirty four years later when the Halling Station was built, so prior to that people of Halling had to walk to Snodland or Cuxton to catch a train!
The village was well catered for with public houses namely the Walnut Tree (which actually was an off licence), The Plough, The Five Bells, The Rose and Crown and the Homeward Bound - all in Lower Halling; and the Robin Hood and Black Boy in Upper Halling. Halling School was built and opened up with seventy two scholars and Mr John Scholey the Headmaster, who incidentally had the honour of buying the very first railway ticket when Halling Station opened. Gas street lighting came to Halling around the middle of the century while Hiltons of the Cement Works gave land to the church to be used as a cemetery. The Halling Institute was built as a Working Mans Club, but when you look at the rules which state no members to be in the state of intoxication, no swearing, no gambling, no betting nor unnecessary noise to be made, cards under no circumstance allowed, so when there is about two hundred chalk labourers in the village this didn’t go down too well. In fact the workers who were a bolshie lot got together and with the help of Thomas Chapman who bought the Ebenezer Baptist Chapel in New Town and he rented it out for the workers to form a new club “The Newtown Social Club” or the Bolshie as it was known. Behind the Halling Institute a swimming pool had been made out of a large water supply tank from the cement works, it being 120 feet by 90 feet and 4 feet 9 inches deep. It was very popular but there was no mixed bathing. The Halling Water Works was built around this time with very deep bore holes, one being three hundred and ninety eight feet deep with a large beam engine to pump the water up. The Church of St Laurence was built at Upper Halling, an iron structure and the gift of a Major Roberts. A telegraph office opened up on the railway station for public use and there were only two more public phones in Halling, one in Chapmans the butchers and the other one in the Post Office!! When you think we all have a phone now! How times have changed.
The church clock was installed to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. A few more shops are gradually opening ......... Worsell Butcher of Essex Road. Homewood Greengrocer of Essex Road, Paine also Greengrocer, Mary Cook General Shop High Street, Chapman Butcher High Street, Beadle General Shop and Cycle Repairs, Harris General Shop High Street and Prings the Barbers also the High Street. We are now in the nineteen hundreds and we find the Halling Fire Brigade being formed, also the very first Halling Athletics meeting at the top recreation ground. King George V coronation is celebrated by parades through the village with a big procession of floats and culminating at Upper Halling where all the school children have assembled wearing royal regalia and waving flags.
Workmen digging near the railway station unearthed a human skeleton of a man dated at 2000 BC and he was known as Halling Man and now is in the British Museum. Later a wooden dugout canoe was found near the river which could have been his. The Fauchon family took over Marsh Farm Dairy and milk was delivered by horse and cart, the customers handing their jugs over to be filled from the churns of the cart. The old Five Bells public house which was situated right on the High Street was demolished and built further back in its present position. In 1937 there was another royal celebration for the coronation of King George VI and Halling really put on a show with big parades and fancy dress competitions and a carnival queen. A couple of years later and we all know what happened when the air raids started and the bombs were dropping, one fell on Portland Row along the Pilgrims Road and demolished part of the end house. A Bailly bridge was built over the river Medway at Halling by the army which was I suppose in case Rochester Bridge got hit! Various chalk pits were used for training by the army and the RAF plus one tunnel between two pits under the road at Upper Halling was used as an air raid shelter.
1964 was a memorable year in that the Halling Ferry closed after six hundred years in operation. At Meadow Crescent at Upper Halling half of the road fell into the pit, luckily no one was hurt. The next celebration was the Halling School’s Centenary in 1976 and once again Halling put on a good show with all sorts of events too many to name here. That was followed by the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and another excuse to get all the fancy dresses out, and have another parade. The lovely old building of the Halling Institute was demolished and the new community centre as we know it today was built in its place plus Jubilee Hall at Upper Halling was also built with the help of public funding. The nineteen eighties came and so a big change in Halling with the long awaited bypass being built, this meant the houses in New Town including the Working Mens Club (The Bolshie) being demolished and rebuilt behind Stake Lane. Also new housing estates (Low Meadow) being built on the site of the recreation grounds. A new long awaited school was built at Howlesmere Close. A new doctors’ surgery as well which was needed as a lot of Halling residents went to Snodland surgery. Finally, the Halling Active Retirement Association Club was formed in the Community Centre with over a hundred interested names to start with. The club voted to move to the Jubilee Hall as the large room at the Community Centre could not be darkened enough for any slide shows. The population at the end of the twentieth century was I believe around two and a half thousand".
References:
British History Online (detailed history) https://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp376-389
Gowers’ and Church’s book ‘Across the Low Meadow - a history of Halling in Kent’ (1979), sadly out of print but available from local public libraries.