A HISTORICAL society which investigated Henry VIII’s former home is celebrating its centenary.

Dartford Historical and Antiquarian Society marks its 100th birthday this year, and has published a booklet chronicling its journey from 1910 to the present day.

Dartford Borough Museum manager Chris Baker, a society council member, charts its rise from a dozen members meeting in a small room to more than 100 gathering at an arts centre.

The society started with 12 members and local businessman Sidney Keyes as president, and the inaugural meeting took place on October 3, 1910 at Buck’s Room in Dartford High Street.

Mr Baker said: “The objects of the society were to encourage the study of local antiquities and to examine and record all evidence of historic and prehistoric remains, of antiquarian interest, within the district.”

From this humble beginning, the society went on to be involved in many important historical projects, with their discoveries displayed in the British Museum and Institute of Archaeology.

These projects included an archaeological investigation of Tudor monarch King Henry VIII’s manor house in Priory Road, Dartford, in 1913.

Members also helped excavate an Iron Age site in Crayford and an Anglo-Saxon cemetery in Horton Kirby, and artefacts from both areas are displayed in Dartford Borough Museum.

Such projects have seen the society grow in reputation and numbers, and its more than 100 members now receive an annual newsletter and attend lectures at the Mick Jagger Centre in Dartford.

Dartford Borough Museum in Market Street will hold an exhibition about the society in October. For more details, call Mr Baker on 01322 224739.