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Chatham Memorial Synagogue

Chatham Memorial Synagogue is a Grade II* listed building in Chatham, Kent. The Memorial Synagogue is on the site of an earlier synagogue.

Earlier synagogues
It is possible that the site originated as a Jewish burial ground c. 1700 before the first synagogue was built. The earliest readable gravestone dates from around 1790 but some of the graves are clearly older than that. A half stone dated 1747 is stored in the Rochester Guildhall Museum having been recovered from the foundations of an old theatre. Little is known about the first synagogue on the site. The site of the synagogue along with an earlier building was purchased in 1750 "for the purpose of making a synagogue of the Jews". Some time between 1770 and 1780 this old building was demolished and a purpose-built synagogue erected. A lease of 1780 records "lately rebuilt and is now a Jew Synagogue". This synagogue was of Polish timber and brick. In 1847 the building was described as being "a small building ... about one hundred years old, with a clock, visible from the High Street, noteworthy for having a face with Hebrew characters". The 1866 Ordnance Survey 1:500 map shows this synagogue occupying the northern half of the present burial ground.

Memorial Synagogue
Built in memory of Lazarus Simon Magnus.