Introducing the St Margaret's History Society website

St Margaret's History Society volunteers with 'Best New UK Community Archive' award 2013

This website has been created to celebrate the history of a fascinating small Kent village. We have our own 12,000 item archive which has largely been put together by Ruth and Keith Nicol over the last 30 years. Their generosity and knowledge has made this project possible.

Terms of Use

You are very welcome to use this site for personal and educational use but if you wish to use anything on this site for commercial purposes you must contact us for permission and a fee may be charged. (Please see Terms of use’ for further detail)

About us

St Margaret’s History Society was founded in 1971 by a band of enthusiastic volunteers who started to collect material about the history of the village for exhibitions and organised talks and outings for members. Many local people gave old photos and documents to the Society which now form the basis of our collection. We are always keen to see new items!

Today our archive is kept in the village hall by kind consent of the St Margaret’s Hall Management Committee. In 2011  it was decided to create a website for the collection so that everyone could view it. Grants and donations helped us to purchase software and equipment which have made this a reality.  In 2013 we were recognised as the  ‘Best new Community Archive in the UK’ by the Community Archive and Heritage Group for the UK and Ireland. Other projects have included collecting oral history memories from current and former residents, erecting an interpretative panel and publishing a book about the activities of Rolls- Royce in the village in WW1 and raising funds to preserve a WW1 grave marker. We also continue to organise a regular programme of talks and events.

This is our second website, launched in  2020, using a Word Press platform which enables us to add more detailed content and an events section, but we also continue to add new  archive material on a weekly basis. The website been funded by grants from Kent County Council, the Cook Family and the St Margaret’s at Cliffe Parish Council as well as many individual donations. 

The website has been created by a group of volunteers, who meet several times every week to carry out scanning  and research for the website and archive. We’re always interested in new recruits, so if you’re interested please contact us.

Contributing to the site

You can add a comment about anything on the website by clicking on the ‘Add a comment’ link at the bottom of each page. You can also submit your own photos, stories or information to the site by using our contribution form.

We look forward to hearing from you or seeing you at one of our monthly talks!

Comments about this page

  • Hi Paul The National Library of Scotland website has early OS maps of the village which you can look at for free. The 1840 tithe map is on the Genealogist site but you will need a subscription to view it.We cant show them as they are their copyright
    Hope you can find what you are looking for
    best wishes
    St Margaret’s History Society

    By Christine Waterman (09/11/2021)
  • Great news available for the family historian, well done. If you had an old map from the mid 1800’s of the local area that would be great.

    By Paul Clayson (19/09/2021)

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