Ashford and Maidstone

Monday 28 Apr

Toddled off to the parish church, shown round by Christine, who was nice & helpful but not hugely knowledgeable. She suggested I return tomorrow when Margaret would be on, who is the one who knows it all. 

I then asked for directions to the Library, and found that in a big new building.  The 1^st floor heritage section is nicely set out and has a huge amount of books and manuscripts. The local history shelves are alphabetical by place, and there is all sorts on Kingsnorth, so I looked through the Industrial School papers, nothing much there, then the Park Farm Accounts Book, lots of fascinating stuff, including some mentions of Venner, which I got copies of.

Then the Kingsnorth transcript of the parish registers for the 1700s, picking out all Venner, Francis, Bourner and Barton surnames & listed them, ready to get originals from Salt Lake City (SLC). 

Tues 29 Apr

Back to St Mary's, and Margaret is indeed very helpful, she knew lots, gave me copies of many notes & will send the updated book on the church history when it is published. I took photos of the  misericords, along with lots of other old parts of the building. The Organist was practising softly, which was also very nice.

 

 Then to the museum, where they were also very helpful.One of the volunteer's name is Fenner, which I can't quite figure if it is a variant of Venner or not. Good displays, some books on old Ashford for sale - they wanted to give them to me, so I insisted on at least giving them a donation. From some photos on display, it appears that Kingsnorth had a USA airbase there in WW2. 

                                                Misericords (out of order, I know)

Then back to the Library, going through more of the  PR's  & sorting bus times for tonight. 

After the library closed I just had time to freshen up and drop my research off before heading to the bus-stop and out to Willesborough for the evening meeting of the Ashford Genealogy Group at the Windmill there. Celia Heritage (whom we last met at the SOG giving a talk on death records) spoke on Land Records, and again did a very good job. Afterwards I got offered a lift back with Jenny.

Wed 30 Apr

Bus to Maidstone. Lots of woodland with bluebells everywhere. Saw a squirrel up a tree by one stop. Found the Grangemoor Hotel down St Michaels Rd, beside a church. 

Left case then walked to Library. Very helpful staff. Looked at their indexes for non-conformist records & listed those that are not at TNA, then put Venner into the search screen as a keyword, and came up with 10 records. Three were to do with a house sale in the 1930’s, so made a note of the person to follow up on, then focused on the rest. Two settlement certificates (no examination, darn it), one maintenance for a bastard child begotten on the widow Dinah Venner, & a couple of other bits.