Crown Wharf is situated on what is known locally as the Frindsbury Peninsula. Until the 1850s this was a finger of chalkland surrounded by saltings and mudflats.

In 1850s, a number of cement works were established on the riverside, quarrying out the chalk behind them. Four factories - Phoenix, Globe, Bridge and Crown – occupied the site now owned by Transit Medway. In fact, we still refer today to the two ends of the site as “Crown” and “Phoenix”.

In 1900, Associated Portland Cement Manufacturers Ltd took over most of the Frindsbury works, although at that time Phoenix, Globe and Bridge Works were derelict. In 1913 Crown Works was extensively modernised and continued in production, as “Crown & Quarry”, until 1963 when it was closed and demolished. (Our Operations Manager was part of the team that demolished it!).

The area was redeveloped as a modern industrial estate. In the late 1960s, William T Eden Ltd, a major panel products importer, purchased the Crown Wharf site. Part of the river frontage was rebuilt and a number of new warehouses put up. The operation of the terminal was sold to its management, Transit Freights Ltd, in the mid 1970s.

In 1988 Ocean Group plc purchased the operation and the site as part of its ‘Transit’ small ports business. Ocean sold Transit Medway to R Swain & Sons Ltd, a local haulage and ports business, in 1999. In the intervening period, land reclamation and road improvements had made the “Medway City Estate”, as the area was now called, one of the most accessible logistics estates in the South East.

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For more on the history of the area www.medway.gov.uk/index/leisure/localhistory

For more on our parent company visit: http://www.rswain.com