Beehive

Location:

• Grid reference: TQ75066874
• x=575060
• y=168735
• 51°23'27"N; 0°30'57"E
• Civil Parish: Frindsbury Extra, Kent

Clinker manufacture operational: 1880-11/1907

Approximate total clinker production: 340,000 tonnes

Raw materials:

• Upper Chalk (Seaford Chalk Formation: 85-88 Ma) from Rochester Chalk Co. quarry at 575100,169400
• Medway Alluvial Clay

Ownership:

• 1880-1892 Burge and Co.
• 1892-1895 William Levett and Co. Ltd
• 1895-1900 McLean Levett and Co Ltd
• 1900-1907 APCM (Blue Circle)

See also a general history of the Frindsbury cement plants. Ironically, this plant never had any beehive kilns. George Burge first constructed a 350-yard long wharf, which was subsequently also used by the Beaver plant to the south and the Quarry plant to the south. The Beehive plant was installed with four chamber kilns initially, experimenting with the Batchelor kiln design. Three more sets of four were added, around 1892, 1895 and 1900, giving a final capacity of 474 t/week. The plant was operated in common with Beaver from 1895, and was absorbed into the Crown and Quarry site in 1907, the kilns continuing in intermittent use there until 1925.

Power supply

The plant was entirely direct-driven by a 150 HP steam engine.

Rawmills

There was a washmill followed by four flat stone mills.

No rotary kilns were installed.

Sources::

• Primary Sources:
  • Greenhithe Archive
  • Rochester Bridge Archive
  • Ordnance Survey 1:2500 mapping
  • BGS mapping and monographs
• Confirmatory Sources:
  • Eve, p 23
  • Francis, p 191
  • Preston, pp 83, 172