Prehistory

Back of the Swanscombe-skull (replica)

Box of 8 hand axes from the middle gravels of Barnfield Pit, contained in the British Museum.

Lithics from Swanscombe on display at the Museum of London.

Bear skull from Swanscombe on display at the Museum of London.

Bone fragments and tools, representing the earliest humans known to have lived in England, have been found from 1935 onwards at the Barnfield Pit about 2 km (1 mile) outside the village. This site is now the Swanscombe Heritage Park. Swanscombe Man (now thought to be female) was a late homo erectus or an early Archaic homo sapiens.^[2] According to the Natural History Museum, however, the remains are those of a 400,000-year-old early Neanderthal woman.^[3]

The c. 400,000-year-old skull fragments are kept at the Natural History Museum in London with a replica on display at the Dartford Museum. Lower levels of the Barnfield Pit yielded evidence of an even earlier, more primitive, human, dubbed Clactonian Man.^[4]

Nearby digs on land for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link revealed a c. 400,000-year-old site with human tools and the remains of a Straight-tusked Elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus), and evidence of water vole, pine vole, newts, frogs etc., indicating a site with standing water similar to a swamp.^[5][6]

Viking era

Church of St Peter and St Paul, Swanscombe

During archaeological work undertaken at Ebbsfleet, before construction of High Speed 1, an Anglo-Saxon mill and a Roman villa were found near Swanscombe.

From Crayford to the Isle of Thanet the Danes occupied the land and terrorised the Saxon inhabitants, giving rise to the appearance of Deneholes, of which many have survived to this day. These were wells, cut deep into the chalk landscape, thought to be for concealing people and goods. They have a simple vertical shaft with short tunnels bearing horizontally from the base.

The Vikings settled throughout the winter along the Thames estuary with their ships and established camps in Kent and Essex. In surveying the distribution of the many deneholes along the Thames corridor it would appear that Essex, on the northern shore of the Thames, sustained a greater influx of Vikings than did Kent, there being considerably more recorded deneholes in Essex, particularly around Orsett and Grays – see Hangman's Wood.

Archaeological digs and centuries of tilling have revealed a Danish castle and settlement, with pottery, anchors, weapons and some ships' timbers. The settlement was later variously called Suinescamp (in the Domesday Book of 1086), Sweinscamp and Swanscamp. Legend derives the name from the Viking king Sweyn Forkbeard, who landed in East Anglia and became King of England in 1013. The father of Canute, Sweyn died at Gainsborough, on the Trent, in 1014. Canute (Cnut) died in Shaftesbury in 1035, and his sons were unable to hold on to his empire. But the name of Swanscombe cannot derive from Sweyn Forkbeard, as the place-name is first attested in 695 AD.

Other research suggests that deneholes might have been dug as a method of extracting chalk for use on the fields above, or the mining may have been a by-product of defence. In any case the practice reached a peak around the 13th – 14th centuries, long after the Viking raids had ceased.

Norman Conquest

It is claimed, apparently without evidence, that in 1066 Swanscombe locals massed an army in defiance of William I and so won the right to continue their ancient privileges, including the tradition of passing inheritance by gavelkind. The men of Kent met William near Swanscombe, where the Saxons concealed their number with branches, thus intimidating the Norman army. Again according to legend, they were offered a truce that left Kent as the only region in England that William left unconquered. Hence in this area of England alone, Kent County Council adopted the motto Invicta, meaning unconquered.^[7]

Churches

Richard Norman Shaw designed All Saints' Church in 1894, built out of knapped flint for the workers of the cement industry. It survives as a rare example of his design, covering several Gothic Revival styles throughout its architecture and features, such as Decorated tracery on the windows and Arts and Crafts Perpendicular woodwork in the interior.^[8]

The flint parish church of St Peter and St Paul is mostly of the 13th century. However various sections contain Early Norman material. The tower and chancel contain 11th- and 12th-century work respectively, although the tower was reconstructed in the 13th century and the chancel arch is from the 14th century. The lower section of the tower contains some Saxon material. The tower is topped with a broached shingled spire, and in 1902 the church was struck by lightning causing extensive damage. A large-scale restoration was undertaken by Jabez Bignall in 1872-73 and again by him after the damage from the lightning strike. The parish register dates from 1559. George Cecil Renouard is buried in the Swanscombe churchyard.^[9]

Second World War

Just after 8 o'clock in the evening of Sunday 10 November 1940 a German bomb crashed down direct into The Morning Star Inn, causing in a single explosion Swanscombe's worst wartime disaster. All that was left after the explosion was, where the pub had stood, a "heap of bricks and twisted rafters"¹ surrounding the smouldering pit that had been the cellar, although the staircase leading to the clubroom upstairs extended up out of the wreckage. Distressed families of those known to be in the pub at the time gathered at the street corners awaiting news of the casualties as bodies were gradually recovered from the ruins.

The official casualty lists revealed the death toll to be 27, with six others seriously injured and five people slightly hurt.

"The landlord was amongst the dead, although his wife and son survived. The barmaid who was killed had given notice the week before the raid but had stayed on that evening because of the match. One of the other victims was a merchant seaman on seven days' leave who had spent two days travelling from Scotland to see his wife and children and was having a drink with his father in the pub at the time of the bombing: both were killed."^[10]

On 30 July 1940 another Luftwaffe raid led to the death of more than a dozen civilians, with 22 seriously injured. Its proximity to London and position under the German flight path to the city meant that Swanscombe fell victim to this kind of damage several times during the war.

On 30 July 1944 a V1 rocket landed on Taunton Road. Half of one side of the road was wiped out. 13 were killed and 22 seriously injured.^[11]

Blue Circle

The Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers (APCM), later known as Blue Circle Industries, came to the area in 1900 and by 1920 owned four local factories located at Swanscombe, Northfleet, Greenhithe and Stone.

By 1970 the North Kent cement industry had evolved to become the largest centre for the production of cement in Europe, supporting a long tradition of research and development to perfect the processes used in the manufacture of chalk-based products. Since then the industry has declined considerably due to the potential for more economic manufacture elsewhere, and by 2007 only two operational kilns remained, both at Northfleet. As of 2014 all have been removed.

Developments

One of the large quarries created as a legacy of the cement industry, between Watling Street and the village of Stone, is the site of the Bluewater (shopping centre), one of the largest such centres in Europe.

An adjacent quarry is to be given up for housing – more than 6,000 houses will be built there. The development by Land Securities, known as 'Eastern Quarry', will consist of three primary schools, a secondary school, a health and social care centre and more than 20 acres (8 ha) of new parkland, lakes and woodland.^[17]

Rail

Swanscombe railway station connects the village with National Rail services to Luton via Woolwich Arsenal and London St Pancras and London Charing Cross via Sidcup, Gravesend and Rainham.

Buses

Swanscombe is served by Arriva Kent Thameside routes B, 306, 470, 480, 483, and ArrivaClick, which connect it with Bluewater, Dartford, Ebbsfleet, Gravesend, Greenhithe and Northfleet.