A MAN who researched and recorded every town and village, castle and parish church in Kent has died.

Local historian, author, lecturer and former school teacher Ivan Green died in the William Harvey Hospital at Ashford on Tuesday. He was 91.

Mr Green’s funeral will be held on Thursday, February 19, at 11.30am at St Mary’s Church, Dover, followed by cremation at Barham at 12.30pm.

Although Mr Green lived in Dover and wrote several books about the history of the town, he was well-known throughout the county.

Among his publications were pictorial histories of Dover, Maidstone and Canterbury. His talks on local history were well received throughout Kent.

Born In Devon, he worked through college away from home to gain an engineering degree. He was homeless and penniless when he met and married his wife Margaret in 1935.

Mr Green's first job was an assistant lecturer but they both volunteered for service when the Second World War arrived.

He spent much of the war in the desert servicing armoured vehicles, but after being badly injured he became a political officer in the Jordan desert.

After the war, Mr Green's working life was spent in education, retiring as Deputy head of Archers Court School in Dover in 1977.

During his career he served for eight years on a committee of the Government's School Council and was elected national president of his professional organisation.

He was a member of several professional bodies and was an associate member of the Institute of British Engineers. For his Open University BA he read medieval history, the history of art and architecture and the English industrial revolution.

It was after the war that Mr and Mrs Green began collecting photographs and data which now includes some 45,000 colour slides, more than 50,000 black and white negatives and many volumes of information.

They recorded on film and typescript every town and village, every castle and parish church, most of the great buildings, rivers and natural phenomena in Kent.

This collection provided the material for 10 of their 20 books on the history of Dover and Kent. The Book of the Cinque Ports has become a standard work.

Mr Green's 23rd book, Dover and the Monarchy from Conquest to Revolution 1066-1688 was published by the Dover Society in 2001.

Over the years, Mr Green gave more than 300 lectures and published some 700 articles.