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Tonge, Kent

Borough of SwaleVillages in Kent
Tonge Pond and Mill geograph.org.uk 6557
Tonge Pond and Mill geograph.org.uk 6557

Tonge is a village near Sittingbourne in Kent, England. The hamlet is north of Bapchild (where at the 2011 Census the population was included), close to Murston Marshes beside the Swale. It is mainly farmland with one road (Church Road and Blacketts Road) passing through it towards Blacketts Farm.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Tonge, Kent (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Tonge, Kent
Church Road, Borough of Swale Tonge

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Wikipedia: Tonge, KentContinue reading on Wikipedia

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 51.3385 ° E 0.7758 °
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Address

Church Road

Church Road
ME9 9AW Borough of Swale, Tonge
England, United Kingdom
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Tonge Pond and Mill geograph.org.uk 6557
Tonge Pond and Mill geograph.org.uk 6557
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Nearby Places

Bapchild
Bapchild

Bapchild is a village and civil parish in the Swale district of Kent, England, about two miles inside of Sittingbourne. It lies on the old Roman road (Watling Street) now the A2, and according to the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 1,068, including Tonge, increasing to 1,141 at the 2011 Census.According to the Kentish antiquarian Edward Hasted in 1800, it was anciently written 'Beccanceld', which he claimed was the Old English for 'moist and bleak' as it was mostly marshland. However this is a false etymology. The place-name 'Bapchild' is first attested in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 696 AD, where it appears as Baccancelde. It appears as Bacchechild in the Pipe Rolls in 1197, and as Babchilde in 1572 in a charter in the British Museum. The name means 'Bacca's spring'. The second element celde is derived from the Old English ceald from which the modern word 'cold' derives.According to a late seventh- or early eighth-century charter, the Synod of Baccanceld was held in Bapchild, but historians now believe that the charter is a forgery.The village has its own church, the Grade I listed 'Church of St Lawrence'. in the diocese of Canterbury, in Kent, and in the deanery of Sittingbourne.Other listed buildings in the parish include, the former post office, No 35, The Street (on the A2 road), and No 1, School Lane Bapchild was also on the planned extension of the Swale Way, the Sittingbourne Northern Relief road built in 2010/11, which passes over Milton Creek and heads from the A249 road at Kemsley towards the Eurolink Industrial estate in Murston. Plans were to extend it, over the railway to Bapchild, and onwards to the Kent Science Park near Highsted, before joining the M2 Motorway, but these have been put on hold due to cost and planning issues.

Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway
Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway

The Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway in Kent is a 2 ft 6 in (762 mm) narrow gauge heritage railway that operates from Sittingbourne to the banks of The Swale. The line was developed as an industrial railway by paper maker Frank Lloyd in 1904, to transport pulp materials and finished products between Ridham Dock, on the Swale, and the company's paper mill at Sittingbourne, and from the mid-1920s to a second mill at Kemsley. In the late 1960s, the railway faced closure by its then owners Bowater, but the Locomotive Club of Great Britain accepted an offer to operate the railway from 1970. However, the section of line from Kemsley Down to Ridham Dock was abandoned for redevelopment of the paper mills. In 2008–09, the line survived a threat of closure due to the owners of Sittingbourne Paper Mill closing the mill and selling the land. The lease then held by the railway expired in January 2009, but negotiations resulted in the railway being saved, although no public trains ran in 2009. In September 2010, press reports announced the possibility that the railway would operate an anniversary service - over a short section between Kemsley Down Station and the Milton Regis Halt - to celebrate 40 years of operation. The service carried more than 700 passengers over several days during October.In 2011, the railway reopened in late May and operated until the end of September. During this time, Milton Regis Viaduct's deferred maintenance, from winter 2008, was carried out and Essential Land's contractors completed the removal of pipelines around Sittingbourne Viaduct station. The last train of the season ran over Milton Regis Viaduct to the gate at Sittingbourne Viaduct station - the first public train to cross the Viaduct since 26 December 2008. 2012 saw the railway return to Sittingbourne Viaduct when it reopened on Sunday 27 May. (See "Reopening" section below.)