The Story of Jezreel's Tower, Watling Street/Canterbury Street in Gillingham, Kent

Picture postcard view of Jezreel's Tower, Gillingham also known as Jezreel's Folly. The tower was built along Watling Street (A2) at Gillingham and the bus stop there is still named after the tower. You can find out more about the Jezreel's Tower here

 

Interior view of Jezreels Tower

This structure, started in 1886 was the home of the Jezreelite sect (founded in 1875 by James White or Jezreel) remained unfinished and was demolished in 1961. Photo from Medway Council. (Couchman collection DE402, Medway Council)

Photo of Jezreels Tower Gillingham 1905

Photo from Martin Smith.

LCP Autoparts on Canterbury Street

One of the remaining Jezreel's buildings at the top of Canterbury Street, Gillingham was demolished in 2008. LCP Autoparts occupied the building that was previously the Jezreel's Hall on Canterbury Street. The site remains empty as of 2017.

Below you can see the similarity of the brickwork at the top of the roofline compared to the original tower. Photo from Mark at Medway Lines of Jezreels building LCP Autoparts Canterbury Street Gillingham.

Jezreels building LCP Autoparts Canterbury Street Gillingham

This is an article about the Jezreels Tower printed c1920 in the Chatham Rochester and Gillingham News, the local paper of the time. Unfortunately the paper is quite faded so it not possible to easily convert to text using OCR but these are high quality scans on the pages. Click on each section to view a high resolution version.
Article about Jezreel's Tower Gillingham Kent c1920Article about Jezreel's Tower Gillingham Kent c1920

Map to show location of site of Jezreels Tower in Gillingham

Comments   

#3 robert dunford 2019-07-16 14:27
the jezerals what a wonderful place that was my father john dunford 1919 and the naval hospital Gillingham would have there suits made there you had to be there before 9 am pick out your material and your suit would be made ready to wear same day at 8 pm.,you would have your garden dug planted ,dinner hot brought to your house, your house cleaned.thet done everything ,order anything they would get it.my older broth would speak about hot buns really hot brought to your house for breakfast before going to school they were jezrelites from isreal . but very frightend of europe.
#2 John Winlow 2017-10-20 12:16
What a great article. I was born in Gillingham and lived in Cornwallis Avenue until I finally moved away. I remember in the 1950's seeing the old Jezreels Tower from the bus going up Canterbury Street. It is a shame that it was demolished, with a little bit of money spent it could have become a great tourist attraction.
I never knew the history behind it, and in following up the various links I was amazed at how much history there is around Gillingham. Thank you for posting the article.
#1 Freya Long 2014-02-07 21:24
Such a shame they demolished it.

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