Hoo Peninsula Heritage Festival - Aveling 200 - 07/09/24

The Hoo Peninsula Heritage Festival was organised by the Thomas Aveling Society to celebrate 200 years since the birth of Thomas Aveling. The event featured a flower procession which was from the event to the St Werburgh Church to lay flowers at Thomas Aveling’s grave. Once the flowers were laid, Jools Holland unveiled the blue plaque in the churchyard of St Werburgh Church.

This video shows the steam engines that attended the event.

Thomas Aveling was the co-founder of the Aveling & Porter company which produced steam engines and they were based in Rochester. He became a major manufacturer of traction engines, specialising in steam road rollers, which were exported all over the world. Aveling and Porter continued to build traction engines until World War Two, and Thomas Aveling died aged 57.