The Marden Library and Heritage Centre

Welcome to the website and archive of the Marden History Group.

Donations

We need your help. Marden History Group, and the award-winning Heritage Centre at the village Library, are operated only by a band of eager and loyal volunteers. The group does not benefit from public funding and has to raise funds by various means so that it can work for the good of the Marden community – past, present and future.
Our increasing costs such as the increased rent paid to Kent County Council, insurance, printing, computer and internet are all having a significant impact on the limited funds we have to administer the centre and website.

If you, your family or friends would like to contribute toward the valuable work that we do, please consider making a donation which will help to ensure the continuance of the Heritage Centre, based at Marden Library. Donations can either be made by clicking “Send” here or perhaps a legacy could be mentioned in your Will.

We are grateful for whatever you are able to give.

Lesley Mannington
Chair, Marden History Group/Heritage Centre

The village of Marden is situated nine miles south of Maidstone in Kent, England. In the Dark Ages herdsmen visited the uninhabited thick forests and marshes of the Weald of Kent in the autumn to feed their pigs on acorns & beech mast. During these visits they lived in clearings known as “dens”. In time these developed into permanent settlements, and so Marden grew. Over the centuries the woollen cloth trade, hops & fruit orchards brought prosperity to the village.

The Marden History Group has adopted this engraving of a den, by Vic Symonds of Marden, as its logo. Through this website we seek to tell the story of the village from its earliest days to times within living memory, through parish records, oral histories, and photographic and written archives. If you have a connection with Marden and have a contribution to make, please get in touch.

Join the History Group – become a member. We have members throughout the world.

Membership will entitle you access to the complete set of digitised records that the History Group has archived over the last fifteen years. With plenty more to come! Marden Parish has the largest collections of historic documents any parish in Kent.

Heritage Centre:

Visit the Heritage Centre and see our collection for yourself. Our centre is situated in a section of the Marden Library.

We have a wide range of digital records on our computers, physical files, historic artefacts, documents and pictures. We also have a unique collection of self-authored books about Marden for sale.

The centre is open for casual browsing whenever the library is open. Enquiry forms will be available on the desk if you would like to arrange further investigations.

We have volunteers who are present for some of the opening hours of the Library listed below.

If you have a specific research request, please email research@mardenhistory.org.uk and arrange a time for you to come. The volunteers can then do some preparation prior to your visit.

Heritage Centre Opening Hours:

  • Monday
    – Closed
  • Tuesday
    – 10.30 am – 12.30 pm; 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm
  • Wednesday
    – 10.30 am – 12.30 pm;
  • Thursday
    – 10.30 am – 12.30 pm; 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm
  • Friday
    – 10.30 am – 12.30 pm; 2.30 pm – 4.30 pm
  • Saturday
    – 10.00 am to 12.30 pm
  • Sunday
    – Closed

Address:
Marden Library and Heritage Centre, High Street, Marden, Kent, TN12 9DP.

Contacts:
Email: history@mardenhistory.org.uk
Website: http://www.mardenhistory.org.uk

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Exhibition June 2023

Example of a dialect term
 
Have you ever wondered about the native language and dialects of the village and county in which you live?
 
Then come and visit our new exhibition opening on Saturday 17th June 2023 and until the end of August at Heritage Centre Marden Library during normal Library opening hours
 
Monday: closed
Tuesday: 10. 30am – 4.30pm (closed 12.30pm – 2.30pm)
Wednesday: 10.30am – 12.30pm
Thursday: 10. 30am – 4.30pm (closed 12.30pm – 2.30pm)
Friday: 10. 30am – 4.30pm (closed 12.30pm – 2.30pm)
Saturday: 10am – 12. 30pm
Sunday: closed
 
Would you know that ‘sprollucks’ means ‘one who sprawls out on their feet’. Or being a ‘keg-meg’ would be ‘a gossip’?

Marden History Group are delighted to support the Kent Dialect Exhibition which is being held at the Library. Everyone invited.

Kentish was the southern Old English dialect spoken in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom in Kent. It was one of the four dialect groups in Old English, the other three being Mercian, Northumbrian and West Saxon. The dialect was spoken in what is now the modern-day Counties of Kent, Surrey and southern Hampshire, by the Germanic settlers identified by Bede as Jutes.

 

Events in 2022

Remembrance Day 2022

Nigel Jenner of the Marden History Group will be firing the WW2 siren situated outside the library at 11.30 on Sunday 13 November, followed by Mo Gillis-Coates playing The Last Post.

All are welcome.

New Exhibition opening at the library on 12 November at 1.00pm.

                Ida Fermor and other Marden artists

There will be postcards of Ida’s for sale and prints of her pictures available to order on the day.

Looking forward to seeing you all – please come along and support us.

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