Home»All Photographs»Personal Project - Dartford

"Dirty Dartford, peculiar people, bury their dead above the steeple" A rhyme that came about because Holy Trinity church graveyard is situated in St Edmund's Pleasance on the summit of East Hill (the place where Richard Trevithick is buried) way above the town. The church actually has no steeple; it has a tower featuring a ring of eight bells.

Images of Dartford, a marmite town in N.W. Kent. Plagued by almost daily traffic jams, too close to the M25/Dartford Crossing, ruined by the Tesco Fiasco, in need of major regeneration and redevelopment, you either love or loathe it. The views expressed are my own.

Much of Dartford's visible architectural history disappeared in just a few decades. It was ironic that the town centre was declared a conservation area after much of the destruction had already taken place. Imitation Victorian street furniture and bogus historic facades provided a poor substitute for the real thing. Signs heralding Historic Dartford were quickly removed as the local newspapers pointed out that there was very little historic architecture left in Dartford worth seeing. Old Dartford was no more. The old community and its buildings were dead and buried under concrete and asphalt. Dartford strives to discover a new identity for itself since the threshold of the new millennium dawned and passed.

Some further investigation seems to claim that the heath that was Dartford Brent was famously the encampment site of Richard Plantagent (Duke of York)'s army in 1452 whilst waiting to parley with Hentry VI who was encamped at Blackheath. In 1648 the Roundhead army of General Fairfax also camped there. The long gone gravel pit at the entrance to the Brent was the place of public execution in the reigns of Bloody Mary and Elizabeth I. In 1772 eight human skeletons were discovered in the gravel pit, most likely criminals executed for their crimes. There are documented burnings at the stake on the Brent, violent times.

More recent history reveals that having abandoned its long-term plan for a new store in Lowfield Street in 2014, the supermarket chain TESCO has now sold its holding to European real estate investment manager Meyer Bergman in 2015. Three years on, still nothing to be even remotely excited about. Nothing has changed. But as of 16 March 2017, Dartford council's development control board gave developer Meyer Homes the all-clear to start work on a huge residential scheme in Lowfield Street, which will replace its dilapidated store fronts with 548 homes, retail space, a cafe, and a microbrewery, despite protests from local doctors about the lack of healthcare infrastructure, hospital beds, and school places. We are still watching this space as of March 2018. Don't hold you breath if you are expecting great changes to be taking place imminently. Lots of building of flats, squeezed in with limited space for parking. That's about it.

The latest news is that, as of November 2018, Bellway are advertising the development of "Brewery Square" where currently there are bus stands. And opposite "Copperhouse Green", the housing development that encroaches on Central Park. Advertising as "coming 2019", they'd better get their skates on, judging by the complete lack of visible activity.

2020 - the year of Covid-19. Work continues building huge blocks of flats. The ones that overlook the park will get a nice view. Not sure about the rest. The unused electric car charging points have been removed from the Westgate car park. Only cars I ever saw parked in those spaced weren't electric! Obviously making no money from them. Private car parks ramped up their parking charges, 24/7 rather than free after 5.00pm and on Sundays. The long empty space behind the old co-op facade now resembles a second Dartford Tip. A year to remember.