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