Jezreel's Tower, ruins in Medway

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What is recorded here

Jezreel's Tower was the unfinished headquarters of the New and Latter House of Israel, a religious community founded by former soldier James Jershom Jezreel and his wife Clarissa in Gillingham. Begun in the 1880s as a vast printing, meeting and residential building, it outlived both founders without being completed. Later factory use and demolition left only fragments, but the site preserves a striking local story of belief, publishing and communal ambition.

Why it was built

James and Clarissa Jezreel planned the tower to gather followers, house offices and print the movement's message. The design resembled a massive stepped cube, intended to embody confidence that their community represented the gathered tribes of Israel and was preparing for divine change.

People and work

Followers raised money, printed books and pamphlets, worked in community businesses and attended meetings. James died in 1885 and Clarissa in 1888, leaving trustees and members to continue a costly project whose scale exceeded the movement's resources.

How it changed

Construction stopped before the upper stages were complete. The lower building later served industrial uses, including a factory, while public fascination shifted from active religious centre to local landmark; demolition in the 1960s removed the main mass.

What survives

The tower itself has gone and the mapped ruins or buried foundations are limited. Photographs, plans, movement publications and local records establish its form; stories of tunnels and hidden treasure belong to local belief unless supported by excavation.

Why it mattered

Jezreel's Tower mattered because a small religious movement tried to make belief permanent through a building and its own printing network. Its failure and demolition did not erase the community's effect on Gillingham's streets, work and remembered identity.