1596
Detail from one of the earliest maps of Kent, thought to have been drawn in 1596 by Philip Symondson. The map-maker was a Surveyor of Bridges, and so our bridge is clearly marked along with numerous waterways. And Symondson was known for drawing the forms of churches as they actually were, so we can see the old spire on top of Shoreham church. The four sides of Otford Palace are shown, although the vast complex was falling into disuse by this stage.
1769
From a large map of Kent made by surveyors John Andrews and Andrew Dury in 1769, and much copied. It was the most detailed map of the county prior to the Ordnance Survey and claimed to show “all the roads, lanes, churches, towns, villages, noblemen and gentlemen’s seats”. It marks New House, the Palladian mansion of landowner Thomas Borrett, close to the river by today’s Shoreham Place. The route of today’s A225 is shown in a slightly curious way, and you can see the two steep bridleways up White Hill. The area of the village between the George Inn and the river was more built-up than today.
1809 - The proposed Turnpike Road
A sketch from 1809 that repays close study. It shows a notorious plan by landowner Sir Walter Stirling to build a turnpike from the bridge up to Shoreham Road. Look at the straight yellow-ish line to the right of the church: this was the route of the new road which would have allowed travellers to head straight ahead immediately across the bridge, passing through a number of people’s back gardens in Church Street and through the middle of today’s churchyard. The plan was stopped just in time after local opposition, but not before the forerunner of today’s Bridge Cottage was knocked down in preparation for it. See Historical Society Publication No 12, Sir Walter Stirling’s Intended Turnpike Road.
1828
This 1828 map covered Sir Walter Stirling’s estate while he was in the process of selling it to Alexander Baring. It’s analysed in detail in Historical Society Publication No 13, Shoreham’s Map of 1828. The names on the fields refer to the estate’s tenant farmers. The “mansion” is the old Borrett house, abandoned by Sir Walter, which was soon to be pulled down to make way for Shoreham Place – built by Baring’s son-in-law Humphrey Mildmay a safer distance from the river. The lane around the left-hand side of the George shows signs of having been sealed off by Sir Walter, who enclosed this area for his own use. The large tithe barn can be seen to the right of the church, and it’s been speculated that the small building in Church Field might have been an alehouse.
1840 - Tithe Map
This detailed map of the parish was drawn up during the transition away from tithes. Traditionally, farmers paid over a tenth of their hay, corn and other produce to the church, often held by the parish priest in a tithe barn. After 1836, these offerings were replaced by money payments assessed according to the sizes of properties – and maps were made to help work this out. A section of the Shoreham map is shown here: occupied houses are in red while barns and unoccupied buildings are shaded grey. The numbers link to a schedule (or “apportionment”) that gives us a detailed picture of who held what in 1840. For instance, Humphrey Mildmay owned at least 275 parcels of land, and you can see his recently built mansion, Shoreham Place, in the top right hand corner. The artist Samuel Palmer, who had left the village a few years earlier, still owned two houses and gardens close to where the school is today. The Mildmays built the school later in the century, along with new housing along the High Street.
1868-71
An expanding Shoreham is shown in a six-inches-to-the-mile Ordnance Survey map that was surveyed in 1868 and published in 1871. The station for the Sevenoaks branch of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway, which came to Shoreham in 1862, can be seen, with the station master’s house yet to be built. The Mildmay family mansion is down as Shoreham Court, although it was named Shoreham Place in Kelly’s Directory of both 1855 and 1882. Today’s Shoreham House is known as Shoreham Cottage, the name given it by former landowner Walter Stirling. The Post Office and the National School had arrived in the 1840s, and the Methodists’ original chapel, built in 1836, is marked near the Bridge; they moved to a bigger place of worship along today’s High Street in 1878. Paper mill owner George Wilmot has built his new house, The Mount. And close to the extensive mill itself, Crown Road – constructed for the mill workers – is still in embryo, with housing plots starting to be laid out.