Inland Border Facility

The small village of Guston is the location for an new Inland Border Facility. It will be a customs clearance facility for 1,200 lorries.

Work has already started so it is unclear as to the purpose of the ‘community consultation’. Local people have stated they received little notice of these plans and that the project is surrounded in secrecy and lacks transparency. Natalie Elphicke, the local Conservative MP, supports the development.

It is unclear what will happen to existing public rights of way. Parts of the existing tracks were established by the Romans (and possibly earlier communities).

The parish church of St Martin dates from about 1097. It is a building of the Norman conquest. There may have been an earlier Saxon church and given the proximity of Roman roads and neolithic barrows, perhaps an even earlier site of religious worship.

Some of the surrounding lands once belonged to St Martin’s Priory. The land was ‘surrendered’ to the Crown during the Reformation in 1535. Five years later the land passed to Thomas Cramer, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was burned at the stake in 1556.