Wateringbury

Wateringbury is a village near the town of Maidstone in Kent, England. The Wateringbury Stream flows into the River Medway just above Bow Bridge. It formerly powered three watermills in the village, one of which survives. Wateringbury railway station is on the Medway Valley Line.

History
Wateringbury is an ancient village. The modern name is itself a direct descendant of the Anglo Saxon name. Several Anglo Saxon wills mention the village and it is also mentioned in the survey of 1086 now called the Domesday Book.

Detailed records for the village begin in the 1660's and the village is well served by published histories: The standard history for the early period is Wateringbury People 1650 - 1841 which used the records of every family in the village during that time.

From 1841 the story is taken up by Wateringbury Revisited which is a modern edited version of articles originally written for a newspaper by an old person who revisited the village of his youth. The usefulness of the book is that it can be compared directly with the censuses of 1841 and 1851.

After 1851 no detailed history is yet available but the censuses are online up to 1911.

For recent times there are various short booklets published by the local history society.

Demography
As of the 2001 UK census, the Wateringbury electoral ward had a population of 2,015. The ethnicity was 98.8% white, 0.6% mixed race, 0.5% Asian, 0% black and 0.1% other. The place of birth of residents was 96.3% United Kingdom, 0.5% Republic of Ireland, 1% other Western European countries, and 2.2% elsewhere. Religion was recorded as 77.9% Christian, 0.2% Buddhist, 0.3% Hindu, 0.2% Sikh, 0.2% Jewish, and 0.2% Muslim. 13.6% were recorded as having no religion, 0.2% had an alternative religion and 7.5% did not state their religion.

The economic activity of residents aged 16–74 was 43.9% in full-time employment, 12.1% in part-time employment, 10.3% self-employed, 2% unemployed, 2.5% students with jobs, 3.2% students without jobs, 13.9% retired, 7.1% looking after home or family, 2.8% permanently sick or disabled and 2.2% economically inactive for other reasons. The industry of employment of residents was 15.7% retail, 12.1% manufacturing, 7% construction, 15.6% real estate, 11.5% health and social work, 6.4% education, 6.4% transport and communications, 6.6% public administration, 3% hotels and restaurants, 8.5% finance, 1.7% agriculture and 5.5% other. Compared with national figures, the ward had a relatively high proportion of workers in finance, and a relatively low proportion in hotels and restaurants. Of the ward's residents aged 16–74, 23.1% had a higher education qualification or the equivalent, compared with 19.9% nationwide.

Notable people

 * Jack Hubble (1881-1965), cricketer, was born in Wateringbury.
 * Frederick Leney (1876-1921), cricketer, was born in Wateringbury.