History of East Barming

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East Barming origin and meaning are unclear; a later suffix distinguishes it from West Barming. The Domesday Book records East Barming as Bermelinge.

East Barming parish church is a Grade: II listed building, dedicated to Saint Margaret of Antioch. The Normans built it in the 13th century with additions in the following 100 years. They added the tower, with stair turret and needle-like spire, early in the 15th century. Around 1440, William Chamberlain cast and hung a bell; Joseph Hatch added a treble in 1616 and a tenor 13 years later. In 1787, the rector, Mr Noble, funded the entire repair and ornamentation of the chancel; the parishioners followed suit, and changed the church from being one of neglect to equal of its neighbours. In 1798, Edward Hasted described the East Barming church as a ‘small building, consisting of one isle and a chancel, with an elegant spire steeple’. The Victorians made some restorations in 1850, with further works in 1898. In 1883, Mears and Stainbank recast the Hatch bells, cast a fourth and a tenor to complete a ring of five. They also added a treble in 1897 to celebrate Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.

Barming railway station opened on the London Chatham and Dover Railway’s Otford to Maidstone East Line, on 1 June 1874…. more