Riverhead Saint Mary Burial Register 1864-1908

Riverhead Saint Mary had accommodated Sevenoaks burials in the burial ground as one of the Liberty districts of Sevenoaks. In 1864 it began as a parish to record burials and accommodated many deceased from the Chevening/Riverhead parish boundary who were Chevening parish residents as well as Dunton Green residents who chose burial there rather than Otford and those in North Sevenoaks which were ecclesiastically within the district parish of Saint John the Baptist always referred to in this register as Saint John's district. The original district parish church dates from 1858 but was extended during the 1900's It occupies a corner site of Saint John's Hill and Quaker Hall Lane

Image thanks to Sevenoaks Directory

The early years of this register contain many deaths associated with the railway construction at Tubb's Hill which was to form an extremely long cutting leading to the north portal of the Sevenoaks Railway Tunnel. The cutting was to house the first Sevenoaks station named Tubb's Hill on completion. Huts for workers and dependants resulted in concern about lack of sanitation,smallpox ( the Sevenoaks Pest House was full) and accidents and injuries caused to local workers who were engaged on the unskilled surface labour see  my blog Sevenoaks Railway Tunnel deaths. The South Eastern Railway found it expedient to convey injured tunnel workers to hospital at Guy's and under scrutiny by the local press a number of deaths were not buried locally. The youngest death recorded at the Railway huts Sevenoaks road is two months old and the oldest  male 51. The Riverhead register is therefore a significant record relating to railway work in the Sevenoaks area.

The railway expansion at Dunton Green to provide a branch line terminus for the Westerham branch also involved a large brick passenger tunnel to conect the main line platform to the branch. It is therefore not surprisinf to find deaths at Dunton green associated with the railway.

Dunton Green had prior  to the period of railway construction been long associated with Brick pottery and tile production; this register also refers to huts at the Quarry and accommodation associated with extraction of sand. The register refers to the establishment of a district parish in 1890 and the 1889 construction in local brick of Saint John the Divine church Dunton Green. lacking burial ground Dunton Green parish burials took place at Riverhead. There are two Dunton Green burials entered at Riverhead and then cancelled with entry that they are duplicated in the Dunton Green new parish register but since no burial register was deposited at the County Record Office when the church was deconsecrated the intended 1890 record does not appeat to have survived. I have recorded the two entries in my transcript. The church building is now in private ownership and is a desinated monument Kent Monument listing.

On 16 December 1907 the Riverhead burial of Robert George Savage age 35 from Otford took place "killed on the railway at Riverhead". A report of the inquest into the death appears in the Kent and Sussex Courier of the 20 December 1907. A note had been left for his wife which the jury examined. The body had been mutilated by a train striking a standing Savage and causing a fatal haemmorhage on the surface of the brain;the left arm had also been severed above the elbow, the left leg partially severed at the knee. The railway company could not identify which train had struck the deceased. The jury found that there was no evidence how he came to be in a deep cutting on the railway line at distance from public highway or the state of his mind at the time and recorded a verdict that he had met his death by being struck by an engine, He was employed as butler to Mister Gore Lambarde at Otford. The household had moved from Bradbourne Hall to Otford during his three years service to Gore Lambarde.

The transcript is now available at Kent Online Parish Clerks Riverhead parish page or at Riverhead Burials 1864-1908. 

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020

Sevenoaks Railway Tunnel Deaths 1863-1868

My transcripts of burials in the churchyards of  Sevenoaks have identified a number of burials of workers on the construction of Sevenoaks Railway  Tunnel and deaths at the "Railway Hub" housing workers. The true number of deaths may evade the burial registers due to removal from the district.
Unlike the Polhill Railway tunnel through the chalk of the North Downs throughout it's length the surveyors and engineers who produced the Sevenoaks tunnel very accurately encountered severe obstacles in construction. The tunnel which lies a little south of Tubbs Hill station (nowadays Sevenoaks Station) runs north-south for a distance of 1 mile 1693 yards  and is on the line to Tonbridge. On completion in 1868 it was the fifth longest railway tunnel in Britain and remains today the thirteenth longest.
The geology of porous rock beds of Greensand ridge Kentish ragstone sands and silt known as hassock ( referred to as assig by the miners) blue clay called "bine" locally was unknown before construction commenced and the volume of water to be encountered proved extremely problematic. There was a further delaying factor in the form of a landowner who was a knowledgeable litigant and the conduct of the engineering gave ample scope for legal claims.
It is interesting to compare the civil engineering work in the same area in the 1960's to construct the Sevenoaks bypass which forms the A21 London-Hastings road which was affected by landslides and water flows from the spring line and porous beds.
Rainfall records only commenced in the 1860's and heavy rainfall during construction on ground with artesian water in difficult geology provided treacherous conditions for the immense construction by the South Eastern Railway Company,
In 1862 Parliament approved a bill which specified that work would be complete within 5 years; I will return to the litigation by one of the landowners who gave permission later.
In late May 1863 construction surveying began the first death is recorded in November 1863 and there are six deaths I have located in burials in the town. In the Riverhead Saint Mary Burial register it is clear that in the absence of a hospital in Sevenoaks the injured were evacuated by train to Guy's Hospital in London and this had the effect of  dispersal of fatalities to avoid local newpaper reporting on the progress of construction. Another record worthy of consideration is that the Sevenoaks Pest House was full during construction due to smallpox.Newspaper reports suggest that conditions in the worker huts were spreading contagious diseases although the contractors were anxious to avoid this.
Two strikes hindered work although these appear related to opposition to employment of irish navvies as a local riot against Irish travellers during fruitpicking had taken place. Many of the unskilled workforce employed on the large cutting at the Sevenoaks end of the construction were local agricultural workers unaccustomed to the hard physical labour and dangers of the cutting.
The first death recorded is that of  William Leaver aged 17 a local man cause of death drowning in a sump at the foot of a shaft. The Tubbs Hill cutting and portal resulted in many broken bones when local labourers steering wooden barrows were climbing behind a horse gin hawser.In January 1865 a death caused by "flying timber" to a man called Hoare was reported in the local press. In February 1865 John Stevens aged 17 was killed by a fall down a shaft. On 21 August 1866 local press reported an head injury to a man called Basby when a brick fell down a shaft and six men were required to hold him down on the trip to Guy's Hospital London.  In August 1868 Henry Garton aged 23 was killed in a tunnel. The fate of "Basby" is unknown and unrecorded and illustrates how injured removed from Sevenoaks may hide the true number of deaths.
Two types of worker were recruited by gangers granted approval by the main contractor. Local Labourers worked above ground and were recruited as they were free from fruit picking and agricultural labour;their work was unskilled and they were particularly at risk of broken limbs and falls in wet conditions especially on cutting sides. Thirteen shafts were numbered from the southernmost end of the tunnel north to Tubbs Hill where a large cutting framed the portal. This cutting longer than most and therefore particularly hazardous during construction.
The shafts were dug by hand with either a horse gin or steam engine (or both in combination) hauling a skip for waste material or water. As the shaft deepened the wooden shuttering would be removed and bricklayers would add brick as the shaft descended. Below ground,miners would prop and use black powder to blast rock and install wooden stages for bricklayers to work along tunnels if water pumps could provide sufficent drainage.
Three brickyards using  the "bine" clay from the shafts produced the bricks to be laid.
Water was a constant problem and men would often work waist deep with water entry from above in ten hour shifts night and day to advance the removal of material in their section.
Other skilled workers recruited to work as masons,miners,explosive men,timbermen and outside the tunnels carters,smiths engine drivers  ostlers and experienced horse gin operators.
The resulting tunnel is horseshoe shaped with fine stone portals at either end and is a single tunnel designed for two track operation and has 24 feet 8 inches span. The  The original ballast was formed by shingle from Dungeness. The water problem forced the bricklayers and surveyor to install metal sheeting behind the brickwork which in places is five bricks deep.

Image fair use Network Rail Media Centre
The Lambarde family were one of the most prominent Sevenoaks families and were one of the three Sevenoaks landowners with whom the South Eastern Railway entered into Heads of Management Agreements. William Lambarde was to enter litigation with three grievances which litigation entered Chancery proceedings until a day before the Parliamentry Act clause of five years completion was due; he reached agreement and authorised use of his land. The terms of the financial settlement were not disclosed.
My transcripts of the Parish Registers of  Saint Nicholas Parish Church Sevenoaks and Riverhead Saint Mary which contain burials from the Tunnel Construction are now available at Kent Online Parish Clerks website.

© Henry Mantell Downe and Farnborough Online Parish Clerk 2013-2020