Kemsley Paper Mill is a

paper mill A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt ...

located in the village of

Kemsley Kemsley, once a separate village, is now a suburb of Sittingbourne in Kent, England. According to Asserius Menevensis in his contemporary survey, the Danes built a fortress or castle here in 893 at a place called 'Kemsley downe'. This later bec ...

near

Sittingbourne Sittingbourne is an industrial town in the Swale district of Kent, southeast England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons. The town stands next to th ...

in the

English county The counties of England are a type of subdivision of England. Counties have been used as administrative areas in England since Anglo-Saxon times. There are three definitions of county in England: the 48 ceremonial counties used for the purpo ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

Sittingbourne Paper Mill

Paper manufacture started in Sittingbourne in 1708, when Peter Archer was recorded as a paper-maker. Sittingbourne Paper Mill existed from circa 1769, which by 1820 had grown and was owned by Edward Smith. After newspaper editor turned publisher Edward Lloyd bought the factory in 1863, it burnt down that August. Covering paper production from his London sites with longer shift production, Lloyd had the Sittingbourne paper mill rebuilt in 1863, but closer to the new railway to enable easier shipping of product to his newspaper presses in Bow, East London. After purchasing the ''

Daily Chronicle The ''Daily Chronicle'' was a left-wing British newspaper that was published from 1872 to 1930 when it merged with the '' Daily News'' to become the '' News Chronicle''. Foundation The ''Daily Chronicle'' was developed by Edward Lloyd out of a ...

'' in 1876, Lloyd installed new machinery capable of producing of paper per minute, and handed over management of the site to his youngest son, Frederick. By 1882, the transfer of paper-making from London to Sittingbourne was complete, enabled by using

esparto grass Esparto, halfah grass, or esparto grass is a fiber produced from two species of perennial grasses of north Africa, Spain and Portugal. It is used for crafts, such as cords, basketry, and espadrilles. '' Stipa tenacissima'' and '' Lygeum spartu ...

imported from Algeria and Southern Spain via the creek port as a replacement for expensive cotton rag; the output supplied newsprint to his presses in Bow,

East London East London is the part of London, England, east of the ancient City of London and north of the River Thames as it begins to widen. East London developed as London Docklands, London's docklands and the primary industrial centre. The expansion of ...

. The site's production capability was expanded by converting the mill to steam power, and, after the death of his father in 1889, eldest son Frank introduced a horse-drawn tramway to carry materials from a new wharf at Milton Creek to the mill. As the mill expanded and silt built up in Milton Creek, in 1904 the tramway was converted into a

narrow gauge railway A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...

, to allow both ships and barges to offload pulp product at

Ridham Ridham Dock is a dock on The Swale in the English county of Kent. It is located in the parish of Iwade around north of Sittingbourne. History The dock was first planned to service the paper making industry in Sittingbourne. The dock was pla ...

, for onward transport to the mill. On what is now known as the Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway, the first of three steam locomotives came into operation in 1906, all being 0-4-2 ''Brazil'' type tank engines, sourced from

Kerr Stuart Kerr, Stuart and Company Ltd was a locomotive manufacturer in Stoke-on-Trent, England. History It was founded in 1881 by James Kerr as "James Kerr & Company", and became "Kerr, Stuart & Company" from 1883 when John Stuart was taken on as a par ...

. In 1910,

United Newspapers UBM plc was a British business-to-business (B2B) events organiser headquartered in London, England, before its acquisition by Informa in 2018. It had a long history as a multinational media company. Its main focus was on B2B events, but its pr ...

was created to buy out Lloyd's newspapers, separating it from the paper-making side which continued as Edward Lloyd Ltd. By 1912, the resultant investment made the Sittingbourne Paper Mill the largest producer of newsprint in the world, with 1200 employees using 17 machines to make over 2000 tonnes per week and supply the demands of

Fleet Street Fleet Street is a street in Central London, England. It runs west to east from Temple Bar, London, Temple Bar at the boundary of the City of London, Cities of London and City of Westminster, Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the Lo ...

New Kemsley Paper Mill

Following a shortage of pulp in the early 1920s, from 1924 Frank developed a new mill at Kemsley, together with a

model village A model village is a mostly self-contained community, built from the late 18th century onwards by landowners and business magnates to house their workers. "Model" implies an ideal to which other developments could aspire. Although the villages ...

for its employees – this became the present-day Kemsley village. After his death in 1936, the renamed Lloyd Group was taken over by Sir William Berry, who formed the Bowater-Lloyd Group. After both plants were acquired by Finnish-based paper company Metsa Serla in 1998, the decision was made to close the Sittingbourne Mill in October 2006, with the last reel being produced on 23 January 2007.

Present

Today, the Sittingbourne site has been redeveloped, whilst the Kemsley mill is owned by

DS Smith DS Smith plc is a British multinational packaging business, headquartered in London. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by International Paper in February 2025. History The business was founded by two cousins, Da ...

plc. With an annual production capacity of around 800,000 tonnes, it is the second biggest recovered fibre-based paper operation in Europe. Presently the plant produces K-Light testliner in white and brown, dual purpose liner/fluting, standard fluting and

plasterboard Drywall (also called plasterboard, dry lining, wallboard, sheet rock, gib board, gypsum board, buster board, turtles board, slap board, custard board, gypsum panel and gyprock) is a panel made of calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum), with or witho ...

liners.

References

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External links

Kemsley @ DS Smith plc
Pulp and paper mills 1924 establishments in England Buildings and structures in Kent Sittingbourne