Swanscombe
Swanscombe is a town in the District of Dartford in Kent, England. It is located east of Dartford and also north-west of Gravesend, in the civil parish of Swanscombe and Greenhithe. At the 2001 UK census, the Swanscombe electoral ward had a population of 6,418. Swanscombe was essential in the early history of cement. The very first cement manufacturing works near Swanscombe were opened at Northfleet by James Parker, around 1792, making "Roman cement" from concrete stone brought from the Isle of Sheppey. James Frost opened a works at Swanscombe in 1825, utilizing chalk from Galley Hill, having patented a new concrete called British Cement. The Swanscombe plant was ultimately acquired by John Bazley White & Co, which came to be the biggest element of Blue Circle Industries when it created in 1900. It finally shut down in 1990. In between 1840 and also 1930 it was the largest cement plant in Britain. By 1882 numerous cement producers were operating across the north Kent area, but the resulting dust contamination drove the people of Swanscombe to take legal action versus the neighborhood concrete jobs. Despite different technical technologies, the trouble continued right into the 1950s, with telegraph lines over an inch thick in white dust. Modern cement kilns in Kent using smokeshafts 170 m (550 feet) in height are now claimed to be the cleanest in the world. Nonetheless, the adjoining Medway towns are reported to be the most polluted lived in area in the UK, and the cement market contributes to acid rain in Scandinavia.
