Queenborough, Kent, England

Queenborough, Kent, England

Friday, July 1, 2016 - When I'd read some of the family history that my cousin, Larry Henson and his daughter, posted on the Henson Lifeline FaceBook page, I immediately became determined to see the place where my grandmother had lived before leaving England for Canada. 

We left Frankfurt yesterday morning by car, headed for London. After crossing between France and England, on the Euro Tunnel, we arrived in Folkstone, only 40 kilometers away from Queenborough.

I looked up the postal code for Queenborough so we could put it into the GPS, and it took us right there to High Street.

We had no problem locating the house. 

When Grandma wrote her personal history, fortunately she recalled the address, 34 High Street, where they last lived before leaving England in 1923.  The house numbers are definitely newer than 1773.

My mother's cousin, Melba McNeil visited here in 1995 and took pictures of this house. She stated that she understood that it had been rebuilt. However, from the inscription on the bricks, 1773, it seems highly unlikely that it had been rebuilt, but was the original. The bricks definitely look that old. 

From what we saw when we lived in Hawaii for 4 months in 2007, everything anywhere near salt water deteriorates much more rapidly than it would if it were inland. I was amazed that these buildings were still standing firm!

In fact, except for the cars, the whole town seemed untouched by anything modern. It had to have looked exactly like this when Grandma lived there over one hundred years ago! It was as we had stepped back in time!

We first inquired at the Chamber of Commerce down the street a few doors. Lisa said we should talk to her mother who lived next door in number 36 because she had lived there her whole life. Rita wasn't home. 

We walked a little further down High Street and saw a church. It is located so close, that it seems likely that the Savage family would have attended meetings there as members of the Church of England. (They didn't become members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints until after they had moved to Cardston, Alberta, Canada.)

The church was full of activity this day, many people were preparing for the flower show to take place the following day.

We met Mark who offered to show us the bell tower. Since Ken was better able to climb up the narrow, spiral staircase than I was, I talked to the women and watched them prepare their floral arrangements. 

The view from the top of the bell tower showed how close these houses are to the sea. Like other port towns, life here has been centered around the sea for hundreds of years. The cranes seen in the distance are used to load and unload the ships.

Mark said he had worked on the ports most of his life but now he works for a company that imports cars from Germany. 

Typical back yards are long and narrow.

I would have liked to find the graves of my grandmother's grandparents, Robert & ____Holmes, who died a few months before the family left. The cemetery is so old that I couldn't read most of the headstones. 

It was interesting to see that some of the "newer" headstones (1890s) said,  so and so "fell asleep" on such and such a date. 

One of the ladies went to check the church records and said all of those before 1960 had been sent to another location. Most records indicated that someone had died but didn't specify the burial location. We were told that there are many Holmes families in Queenborough.  

The tide was very low today. 

Leaving Queenborough, we drove over this road connecting the Isle of Sheerness to the mainland. We have to keep reminding ourselves that we are really in England, so that we'll remember to drive on the "wrong"side of the road. 

The road sign says, "Slow lorries for 3/4 mile." Lorries: trucks. Since they use kilometers here, I don't understand why the sign says "mile."

  

Our hearts are full having met some wonderful people and feeling a connection to dear ancestors!!!

Next post: More details about the people of Queenborough.