A series of ‘blue plaques’ has been displayed to recognise the wide range of people who have contributed to the development of the Marshlink rail route. Each of the 10 plaques summarises the h...

PIONEERING RAILWAY ENGINEER Born in Ashford in 1889 to Florence and Edmond Holmes who was an Inspector of Schools. In 1891 the family were living at Highworth House in Ashford with five servants. Duri...

IZZARD FAMILY MODEL RAILWAY In the late 1950s and ‘60s John Izzard, an accountant for BP, was working abroad in Aden (now Yemen) with his nurse wife Dorothy. Dorothy was expecting their first child ...

LEVEL CROSSING GATEKEEPER, THE GROVE, RYE Sarah Durrant was born in Cranbrook in 1865. She married Alfred, a railway platelayer, in 1886 and had six children. They lived for a time on Cyprus Place, Ry...

POP STAR SURVIVED RAIL ACCIDENT IN 1967 Robin Gibb, the 17-year-old singer in the pop group ‘The Bee Gees’, and his girlfriend Molly Hullis, had been to visit her parents in Hastings. On t...

TRACER IN RAILWAY DRAWING OFFICE Maud Mary Bassington was born in Kensington in 1895 on what is now Hillgate Place, Notting Hill Gate. Her father William was a basket maker, who sadly died in 1902. Ma...

BOTANICAL ARTIST & EXPLORER Born into a prosperous family in Hastings in 1830, Marianne was the eldest of three children. Her parents were Janet Marjoriebanks and Frederick North, MP for Hastings ...

SHORTHAND TYPISTS Lynda and Elsie were two of the seven children born to Melynda and Charles King, a gas stoker. The family were living in Rye. By 1921, Lynda now 24 and Elsie, 22, were getting the tr...

RAILWAY ENGINEER IN BRAZIL & PERU From the Ashford People’s Library Project: 180 Years of Railway History: John James Impett, son of an Engine Fitter, Newtown school boy and SER apprentice went ...