Chartham
Chartham is a village and civil parish in the Canterbury district of Kent, England. It sits on the Ashford side of Canterbury, in the North Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, about 2.3 miles (4 km) southwest of Canterbury. The Great Stour Way cycle path passes through the village.
A paper mill in Chartham, which produced tracing paper since the late 18th century, closed in 2022. The parish is mainly farmland, with many arable fields and orchards.
Chartham has an unstaffed railway station on the line to Canterbury West. High-speed trains pass through but do not stop. The village is at the western end of the Great Stour Way cycle path to Canterbury City Centre. Chartham Hatch is a nearby hamlet that shares community resources with Chartham.
Amenities include a couple of pubs, village stores, a village hall (Chartham Village Hall on Station Road), and a vineyard. The post office used to be in Shalmsford Street but is now at 14B Godfrey Gardens in Chartham Downs.
The Church of St Mary sits by the village green. Built around 1294, it has a 14th-century tower and brasses including Sir Robert de Setvans (d.1306). Five bells were made by Joseph Hatch in 1605, forming the oldest complete set by one founder in Kent.
Nearby places include the St Augustine’s Estate (the former St Augustine’s Mental Hospital site), now a housing estate known as Chartham Downs, as well as Mystole with its Grade II* listed Mystole House and Horton Manor, a Grade II listed manor house.
Chartham lies along the Great Stour river and on popular walking and cycling routes, the Great Stour Way and the North Downs Way. It is part of the Canterbury parliamentary constituency.
In 2011 the civil parish of Chartham had a population of 4,261; the nearby Chartham and Stone Street ward had 5,878 residents.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 15:58 (CET).