Location:
- Grid reference: TQ92616786
- x=592610
- y=167860
- 51°22'38"N; 0°46'4"E
- Civil Parish: Elmley, Kent
Clinker manufacture operational: 1854-1901
Approximate total clinker production: 300,000 tonnes
Raw materials:
- Upper Chalk (Seaford Chalk Formation: 85-88 Ma) by water perhaps from Sittingbourne, Gillingham or Frindsbury
- Alluvial Clay from the Swale and/or London Clay from the plant's Roman Cement workings.
Ownership:
- 1854-1895 William Levett and Co.
- 1895-1900 McLean Levett and Co. Ltd
- 1900-1901 APCM (Blue Circle)
Also sometimes called the Turkey Cement Works. The location in the Elmley Hills area of the Isle of Sheppey was a source of septaria, and there was no nearby source of chalk, so the original product was probably Roman Cement, made at the "Old Cement Works" to the south, and it is not altogether clear when Portland cement manufacture began, and it may have been as late as February 1866, when Henry Reid was briefly involved. The plant started with a single bottle kiln to the south at 592530,167570. There were four wet process bottle kilns in 1869 at the final site. It expanded by 1890 to twelve kilns of which perhaps ten (output 220 t/week) were used for Portland cement. When the Beehive plant was acquired in 1892, relatively efficient Portland cement manufacture was available. There was no rationale for keeping the plant after the APCM takeover, and the 33% drop in the population of the parish between 1891 and 1901 indicates that it was being wound down well before then. The site was allowed to fall into ruin, and the foundations are still clear.
Power supply
No information
Rawmills
No information
No rotary kilns were installed.
Sources:
- Primary Sources:
- Greenhithe Archive
- Ordnance Survey 1:2500 mapping
- BGS mapping and monographs
- Confirmatory Sources: