Ham - Kelly's Directory 1899

HAM is a parish, three-quarters of a mile from the road from Sandwich to Deal, 2½ miles south from Sandwich station on the Dover and Margate section of the South Eastern railway, 4½ north-west from Deal and 70 from London, in the Eastern division of the county, Eastry hundred and union, lathe of St. Augustine, Wingham petty sessional division, county court district of Sandwich, rural deanery of Sandwich and archdeaconry of  Canterbury.

The church of St. George is of flint, partly in the Perpendicular style, and has a wooden turret  containing one bell; there are two memorial windows; the church was restored in 1879 and affords 80 sittings. The register of baptisms dates from 1552; marriages, 1574; burials, 1562. The living is a rectory, united to that of Betteshanger, joint net yearly value £202, including 10 acres of glebe, with residence, in the gift of Lord Northbourne, and held since 1867 by the rev. John Worthington Bliss B.A. of Trinity College, Cambridge, rural dean of Sandwich and hon. canon of Canterbury, who resides at the Rectory, Betteshanger.

Updown House, the property of Lord Northbourne, who is lord of the manor, stands in grounds of about 25 acres; Lord Northbourne and the Hon. Mrs. A. Massey are the principal landowners. The soil is loam; subsoil, chalk. The chief crops are wheat, barley and oats. The area is 321 acres; rateable value £529; the population in 1891 was 62.

Parish Clerk, Thomas Drake.
Letters arrive from Dover at 8.30 a.m. & are collected by the postman at 7 p.m. Eastry is the nearest money order & telegraph office, 1 mile distant.
The children of this place attend the schools at Northbourne & Eastry.

Anderson Mrs. Ham House
Belsey Franklin, farmer, Updown Farm
Clark Edwin, farm bailiff to James Solley esq.
Solley  James, farmer, hay & corn factor & manure merchant, Ham Farm.