Nearly a century ago, when the Kent Coalfield was under development by a number of share-floating private enterprise companies, all kinds of stories were circulated in the Dover, Deal and Folkestone area to get publicity and create interest among speculators so that they would buy shares in new ventures.

There was talk of brickfields in East Kent on the scale of those in the Midlands and elsewhere. People speculated that East Kent could soon blossom – if that is the word -- with other labour-intensive industries too, like potteries. Investors eager to improve themselves swallowed stories that, following the discovery of iron ore deposits in sinking shafts to reach the rich coal seams, there would spring up major industries around Dover, such as steel and cement works. The prospects all helped sell thousands of pounds worth of shares in companies fighting to be the first to raise saleable coal in economic quantities. But this took much longer than speculated as the sinkers met all kinds of problems, such as boring through heavily water-laden strata below ground. Many of the enterprises, like those of Dover, at Shakespeare Halt alongside the railway line to Folkestone now site of Samphire Hoe below which the Channel Tunnel trains speed to and from the Continent and also at Guilford, near Whitfield, foundered because of the heavy costs of pumping out the continuous flow of incoming water. The idea of mining iron ore seems to have sunk without trace altogether, along with cement works and potteries. Yet in the early 1900s East Kent coalfield pioneer Mr Arthur Burr had brought in experts who pronounced that the iron ore was of exceptional quality and free of the sulphur found in other parts of the country. This meant we wouldn’t need to import high grade iron ore for our then extensive steel works. As a result of these findings a French company secured rights to bore for iron and coal on land at Ellinge, on the western side of the Alkham Valley. It was expected the iron would be mined and worked on a large scale and that, because of its quality there would be almost unlimited demand. And, unlike coal, those iron ore deposits would be only about 800 to 900ft underground. There would be sufficient to set up an export trade, it was speculated.

Then, about 25 years later, talk was of a completely different kind of industry, one that really would have had far-reaching effects. This time the talk was of East Kent having the potential to become a rich oil field. An application was actually submitted to the War Office for consent to drill for oil on land adjoining the Hythe military ranges of the one-time Royal School of Musketry. The would-be entrepreneur for this enterprise was Mr Normand Dudgeon, senior partner in a London firm of Brokers. He said he had information that led him to believe there were underground reserves of oil about 1,000 ft below the district.

“There is no question that flowing oil can be trapped if a bore is sunk on this land at Hythe,” he told the Daily Express which published the story under the headline “Oilfield Discovery in Kent – Richer than US.”Mr Dudgeon claimed War Office officials admitted he might be right, but he complained that they were dilatory in coming to a decision on his planning application. He offered to pay the government a 5 per cent royalty on any oil produced.“An expert geologist, who has had experience in all principal oilfields of the world, definitely located the oil for me at Hythe,” he claimed. He “found evidence of greater oil resources at Hythe than ever he had found in the oil lands of Rumania or America,” Mr Dudgeon insisted. In later years there was speculation that oil might also be found under the English Channel. Well, in reality they found and mined the coal although not without some difficulty and even exported some. It was an industry which provided jobs for thousands of men for decades but then they closed down the coalfield because of cheaper, imported coal and falling markets for solid fuel. The iron ore reserves remain untouched underground but at least oil is produced from wells in the North Sea!