‘Out on a Limb': Insights into Grange, A Small Member of the Cinque Ports Confederation

‘OUT ON A LIMB’: INSIGHTS INTO GRANGE, A SMALL MEMBER OF THE CINQUE PORTS CONFEDERATION

frank meddens and gillian draper

The four Cinque Ports in Kent were located on its eastern and south-eastern coast, with their small members or limbs nearby, New Romney and Lydd, for example, and Dover and Folkestone. Exceptionally, the one Cinque Port in Sussex, Hastings, had a limb at Grange on the Medway estuary on the eastern side of Gillingham, as well as one at Bekesbourne, south of Canterbury.¹ The importance of the Head Ports and their nearby limbs was greatest after the Conquest as they developed their role in ship-service, transporting the monarch and his household across the short Channel route, and in the Hundred Years’ War as they transported soldiers, supplies and war horses. However this is not an obvious role for Grange in its north Kent location (Fig. 1).

This interdisciplinary paper investigates the nature and significance of Grange from the results of a recent archaeological excavation which include a large ditch (probably a moat), pottery and a modest group of interesting small finds, as well as the evidence of several earlier published and unpublished excavations.² This material, combined with that of documents, maps and three standing buildings, gives insights into Grange’s local and more distant connections and the status of the site, which hitherto have been relatively unexplored.³

the historical evidence

The first link between Hastings and Grange is provided in the late eleventh century by Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent. Although he was a major landholder in Kent, Hastings was crucial to his identity and his involvement in the Conquest as told in the Bayeux tapestry where he is shown ordering a motte and bailey castle to be thrown up to supplement the defences already at the burh Hestenga ceastra.⁴ In encouraging his men before the final battle, Odo is also shown holding a staff (baculum) or ‘mace-like instrument’.⁵

In Domesday Book Grange was, like Bekesbourne, held by Odo.⁶ Gillingham was recorded in two entries of which one can be taken to record the area which became known as Grange.⁷ The major Domesday Book entry for Gillingham represents the archbishop of Canterbury’s manor which lay on a low hill, and the small medieval town with its market, fair and parish church developed there.⁸ Twenty minutes’ downhill walk to the east was Odo’s holding, which became known as the manor of Grange. The holdings at Grange comprised ploughland, meadow as well as pasture land, a mill (probably a tidal one) and six unfree peasants (servi).⁹

Grange consisted of a long slice of land sloping downwards to the shore of the Medway estuary. The boundaries of the Liberty and manor of Grange as mapped by Hasted were already in place by 1285 (Fig. 2).¹⁰ Since Grange was a limb of Hastings, the manor was surrounded by an area known as its Liberty which also stretched out into the Medway estuary in the form of the ‘Cinque Ports Marshes’, and is still shown as such on the AZ Street Atlas of Kent. Grange extended from Watling Street down to the Medway, with Featherby Road (formerly Grange Lane), forming its eastern boundary as far as the Lower Rainham Road (B2004). The western boundary, as recorded by Hasted, ran from Watling Street to the riverfront alongside Grange manor, on a line east of, and roughly parallel, to Woodlands Road (Fig. 2).¹¹ To the eastern side of the manor and Liberty of Grange are East Court Lane and Farm, and Twydall Lane and Manor Close, the remnants of the manors of laymen sub-infeudated from the archbishop’s manor of Gillingham.¹² Part of the Liberty’s jurisdiction survived into the nineteenth century in relation to the Poor Law, and until 1949 in its licensing of public houses which were allowed to remain open thirty minutes later at Grange than at Gillingham, since the opening hours were set by the Hastings’ magistrates.¹³ A pub, the Hastings Arms, remains an important feature of Grange today.

Grange manor was also known as Grench manor, one of the variations of its names which include Grenic (below), Grenech (1198), Grenge (fourteenth century), Graunge (1378) and Le Graunge (1535).¹⁴ The nursing home (‘Grace Manor’), which now stands on the site of Grange manor, probably replaced or incorporates the medieval manorial building (below). In 1291 the chamberlain of the then duke of Brittany was one Stephen de la Granche, whose name indicates that he originated or, more probably lived, at Grange. By the late thirteenth century the dukes of Brittany were lords also of the rape of Hastings, that is the subdivision of Sussex where Hastings town lay and of which Grange was a limb. Stephen is a notable indication that men like the dukes with political and landed interests on both sides of the English Channel may have found Grange to be a useful base on the north Kent coast.¹⁵

Along the river frontage of Gillingham and Grange was a series of small embay-ments, the major one forming the landing area for Grange with a quay or hythe probably throughout the historical period.¹⁶ Notably, access to Grange was not impeded by saltings and mudflats as it was in many places nearby. Grange may thus have provided a convenient landing place in a sheltered estuary on Odo’s lands for long-distance travellers by boat to and from London; that is, the embayment at the northern end of the land called Grange formed what might rather grandly be called its haven.¹⁷ Odo also held Hoo, a valuable demesne manor on the Isle of Grain immediately across the Medway from Grange, which probably formed an important means of access to Hoo, used for the distribution of its produce. London’s population increased six-fold between 1086 and 1300 to perhaps 60-80,000 inhabitants and thus its demand for foodstuffs also grew greatly and manors along the north Kent coast became important suppliers and transfer points.¹⁸

After Odo’s exile in 1088 both Grange and Bekesbourne were held by one Godwin freni or Frenesena, apparently a Frenchman, and then, by 1120, by his son Robert de Hastings.¹⁹ Members of this wealthy family continued to hold Grange, and also lands in Gillingham and Benfleet, Essex, including at the end of the twelfth century Manasser de Hastings and subsequently Sir William de Hastings.²⁰ They held directly from the king by the personal service of serjeanty which, for Grange, consisted of providing an oarsman, really a steersman, in one ship when the monarch sailed towards Hastings. Several lists of the ship service of the Head Ports and limbs survive from 1229 onwards. They give the number of ships required per Port and the number of crew members to be supplied in each ship; some lists were repeatedly copied. The service was usually specified as a certain number of ships per Port, each ship crewed by 21 men plus an extra one described as garcione qui dicitur grometi.²¹ The service of Grange was, however, described in a different way. Sir William de Hastings was said in 1284 to hold Grange by providing one averim and one man in one boat if the king should cross the sea.²² At the end of the thirteenth century the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports described Grange’s service as ‘two men with two avirons in company with the men of ships of Hastings’.²³ The meaning of averim or avirons is obscure and indeed it seems to have been so even in the later fourteenth century; Daniel Rough, town clerk of Romney, replaced it in the copy he made with amronz, perhaps because it made more sense to him as meaning something like admiral or commander.²⁴ Because of the distinctive nature of Grange’s service, and the unusual term used, averim or avirons, Grange can be interpreted as having the specialised service of providing a pilot or steersman (or two) on the route down the Thames, which Grange’s location and the river conditions demanded.²⁵ In the Middle Ages the route taken down the Thames from London was often not to the north of Sheppey but down the Yantlet Creek across Hoo, and along the Medway estuary and the River Swale, which was wider and deeper than it later became.²⁶ The point of Grange and its service to the king was to provide a pilot on this difficult route through tidal marshes, mudflats and islands. In 1284 William de Hastings was said to hold the manor of Grange by serjeanty in the rape of Hastings, a clear indication of how the personal service had become part of Hastings’ ship service. The Grange pilot continued to be useful during the centuries when the Hastings Cinque Portsmen had to make occasional ceremonial visits to Westminster as part of their ship service, such as following minor victories over France in the thirteenth century.²⁷

The Hastings family which held Grange traced its origins from Robert de Hastings who, in Domesday Book, held 2.5 hides, or 300 fiscal acres, in Rameslie manor, Sussex, from Fécamp Abbey. Rameslie manor included the new town of Rye, founded after the Conquest, and Domesday records part of the entry for Hastings too, as well as the rural area which formed part of Rameslie.²⁸ This Robert, or perhaps an immediate descendant with the same name, was liable to render account for the lestage of both the towns of Hastings and Rye in 1129-30, that is, for the towns’ privilege of not paying a toll or tax for loading ships.²⁹ He was therefore a burgess of one or both towns, and so a Cinque Ports baron, as well as holding Grange, which was thus connected with Hastings not only through tenure, but also through the shipping and trading of its lords. Members of the Beaufitz family who held a manor next to Grange were similarly barons of Rye at an early period, suggesting how a base on the north Kent coast between Sussex and London was found useful by other maritime traders.³⁰

The Hastings family continued to hold Grange for 250 years, and although little is known about their activities during this period it is likely that exporting grain and animal products to London continued to be one of Grange’s functions since it lay in a highly productive area of demesne husbandry. In 1275 there is a glimpse of merchant activity, and indeed smuggling, from the Hundred Rolls which resulted from the Quo Warranto enquiries.³¹ In that year two small boat-loads of wool were exported by two named merchants described as ‘known in Gillingham’ from outside the port of Medway.³² Grange is very likely the place from where they exported these small boat-loads as it certainly was for wool exports just over a century later, in 1386. The two merchants known in Gillingham, and others, also bought and exported wool described not as small boat-loads but as sacks, a taxable measure, from Hythe, Dover and especially Sandwich. This and the professed ignorance of the 1275 informants about the transactions suggests that export by boats from just outside Gillingham was at that time unofficial and intended to avoid the restrictions, subsidies, customs and tolls exacted in places such as Sandwich and Dover even before the establishment of the Great or Ancient Custom on wool in 1275.³³ In 1386 the use of Grange as a port for wool exports was explicit. An order was made ‘to the bailiffs of Grange and the collectors of customs in that port in the parish of Gillingham to allow John Steyndrop to load at Grange without payment of custom or subsidy and to bring to London two sarplers of wool by the sea coast and to unload it there’.³⁴ Letters of the mayor of London were required to certify Steyndrop’s action if he did so, and two London men, Robert Upgate and John Cornwaille, were to act as mainpernors or sureties. The point was that John Steyndrop was permitted to bring Kent wool to London and sell it there without paying the dues but not export it. While wool production in Kent in the fourteenth century was not on the scale of that of the South or South-West, men like Sir William Moraunt of Chevening, sheriff of Kent, and several of his associates obtained certificates to export wool in the 1340s and it is likely that one in particular, John Philipot (below), exported from Grange in the 1370s.³⁵

In September 1348, at the onset of the Black Death, the manor of Grange and its chapel were acquired for £200 from Thomas de Hastings, son of Sir William de Hastings of Surrey, by a London fishmonger, Richard Smelt.³⁶ This was presumably to provide Smelt and his family with a refuge from the plague-ridden City.³⁷ Smelt was sheriff of London in 1354-5.³⁸ As a riverside manor with useful Cinque Port privileges, Grange may have had a role in Smelt’s trade of fishmonger as a centre of (re) distribution where deep-sea or coastal fish catches could be unloaded onto small vessels which could use the private wharves in London rather than the two public wharves where the citizens charged tolls.³⁹ If Smelt was anything like Daniel Rough, town clerk and fishmonger of New Romney at this period, he would have supplied a great variety of fish to many towns in the south and east including London, Uxbridge and Wallingford on the Thames. Riverine and estuarine north Kent was well known for its fishing industry, including the collection of shellfish such as cockles and oysters, much of which would also have supplied London.⁴⁰ Grange manor with its chapel and chantry subsequently passed to Richard de Croydon in 1365, another wealthy London fishmonger, and then in 1374 to John Philipot (or Philpot), a Kentish man who became an immensely rich London merchant.⁴¹

The Career of John Philipot

John Philipot was the son of Adam Philipot and his wife Maud of Halstow, that is, Lower Halstow to the east of Gillingham (next to Iwade), or Upper (High) Halstow on the Isle of Grain.⁴² Although born in a parish near Grange manor, John Philipot made his fortune in the service of the earls of Arundel as an exporter of wool, mainly from south-western England.⁴³ In the 1350s he benefited from being a provincial merchant who could bring wool to London to export without becoming a citizen, and indeed he did not become one until 1367. As a London merchant, Philipot exploited the economic, military and political circumstances of the post-Black Death period, and benefited from marriage alliances with three women, of whom the second two were wealthy heiresses. He was a Calais stapler, and an alderman, sheriff, MP and mayor of London. Philipot owned a wharf in the parish of St Michael Queenhithe with his first wife Joan Sauneford and their daughter Joan, recorded in 1363.⁴⁴ He made loans to Edward III to help finance the recommencement of the French war from 1369. In 1370 he was one of 83 Londoners who lent Edward III the vast total sum of £4,621 13s. 4d. Individual sums lent ranged from £15 to £333 6s. 0d. Philipot was towards the top of the range at £163 6s. 8d., and was made a collector of customs on exports of wool, leather, etc., from the port of London, in order to be repaid his loans (Fig. 3).⁴⁵

Philipot was admitted to the freedom of the city of London in 1367 and the chronicle Polychronicon stated that he was a fishmonger.⁴⁶ His donation to St Alban’s Abbey of dates and almonds, recorded in its Book of Benefactors, however suggests a wide interest in trade, although wool exporting remained a primary interest.⁴⁷ Philipot’s second wife was Margery, the daughter of the fishmonger Richard de Croydon. Philipot acquired Grange manor, one of his ‘most important acquisitions’, in 1374 through this marriage, possibly marrying Margery specifically to do so.⁴⁸ He continued to acquire land around Grange until his death.⁴⁹ Grange would have continued to provide a useful base between the coast and the City for either Philipot or his second father-in-law in the fish trade and indeed for some Kentish wool exports free of dues, as a member of the Cinque Ports. Margery died after a few months and Philipot then married Margaret, the sister-in-law of Nicholas Brembre, with whom Philipot and William Walworth put down the Peasants’ Uprising of 1381; all three men were knighted at Smithfield where Wat Tyler was killed. Philipot was Margaret’s second husband, the first being John Berlingham. Margaret was the daughter of the prosperous John Stodeye and, when Berlingham died after a few years, she received the customary third of his estate and various sums of money in trust for their children. She was thus an exceptionally desirable wife for a London merchant capitalist. Three years after Philipot’s death, she married John Fitznichol, in 1387. He died in 1391 and she then married Adam Bamme (see below).⁵⁰

Under conditions of serious war with France in the later fourteenth century, the lordship of the manor of Grange provided Philipot with a base to guard both the Thames and Medway estuaries and to attack pirates. The record of him doing so comes from the chronicler Thomas Walsingham who recorded ‘his patriotic conduct when Mayor in fitting out a fleet at his own expense, with which he sailed to attack a pirate who had long infested the English coast. His expedition proved completely successful, and he returned in triumph to the City, not without exciting, however, considerable jealousy’.⁵¹ The pirate undone by Philipot was a Scotsman, a John Mercer, who had captured ‘fifteen sail of Spanish ships richly freighted with merchandize’, which Philipot then put to the king’s use. As Hasted noted, Philipot also positioned himself in a venture which allowed him to claim a significant share of any ‘pirates’ vessels engaged and prizes taken in the process. In equipping a fleet in 1378 to capture pirates, Philipot undoubtedly utilised his Cinque Ports connections via the manor of Grange which he had recently acquired, including knowledge of the availability of ships, the activities of their masters and crews, and allegiances in ports on both sides of the channel; knowing about such allegiances and deciding on their implications and potential repercussions was an important activity among the town governments of the Cinque Ports.⁵² The wool fleet of London had been left unprotected since the naval disaster off La Rochelle in 1372. The jealousy Philipot aroused was partly because few other London merchants would have been able to draw on the resources of the Cinque Ports to assemble a fleet against pirates and then profit from the actions of this task force: maintaining the Cinque Ports’ vessels in a state to fight was a ‘great expense’ and Richard II issued a writ re-iterating the exemptions from tallages and other burdens which Edward I had granted the Portsmen for providing this service.⁵³

Philipot’s wealth also allowed him to provide ships in 1380 for the earl of Buck-ingham’s expedition to Brittany and to rescue it financially when it ran short of money. In 1380, too, Philipot proposed a stone towers-and-chain defence across the Thames to protect the whole English fleet and the City (it was in fact never built).⁵⁴ In that same year a combined French and Spanish fleet raided Gravesend and Tilbury, Cooling Castle on the Hoo peninsula was rebuilt with key-hole gun ports, ‘a novel feature for a castle’, and the rest of the Medway estuary defences were reviewed.⁵⁵ This was a key defensive locality: a similar chain defence was built across the Medway estuary between Chatham and Gillingham in 1585 and later another one from Grange to Hoo.⁵⁶ The master mason of Philipot’s proposed towers-and-chain-defence in London was to be Henry Yevele, the King’s Master Mason, most noted for his work at Canterbury cathedral, Queenborough castle and Rochester bridge. Philipot was truly a man who brought together his own Kentish and London concerns and the national interest.

It was necessary for Philipot’s main home to be in London but, as with later mayors of London who had summer residences on the Lower Medway, Grange manor may have served as a summer dwelling where he and his household could escape the heat and disease of the city in the plague years. Under his lordship Grange was provided with a re-built chantry chapel, an absolutely typical late fourteenth-century priority with sudden and early death being commonplace.⁵⁷ The chapel is likely to have been built soon after Philipot acquired the manor in 1374 and he had the stonework around its great window prominently decorated with his arms.⁵⁸ Philipot held Grange for a decade and at his death in the summer of 1384 gave his wife Margaret responsibility for making annual payments to two chantries: a typically elite bequest of ten marks to the Cluniac Priory of Lewes, Sussex, for his soul and those of his first wife and Richard late Earl of Arundel; and five marks (66s. 8d.) to the vicar of Gillingham in aid of a chantry in the chapel of the manor of Grange. Philipot was buried in the London Friars Minor (Greyfriars) where he had a monument, the first of the aldermanic class to be buried there.⁵⁹

Later owners of Grange

After Philipot’s death his widow married Adam Bamme, a goldsmith and future mayor of London and, to cut a long story short, Grange was inherited by their son Richard Bamme, esquire, goldsmith and mayor.⁶⁰ Nearly £500 were confiscated from Adam Bamme’s estate for an alleged debt when he was collector of the wool customs in the Port of London, but Richard did well by his inheritance from both his father and mother and by his first marriage to Joan, daughter of John Martin.⁶¹ Richard Bamme held numerous parcels of land in the archbishop’s manor of Gillingham too, on either side of Grange, and notably along the Medway waterfront. He actively consolidated many of his plots by making exchanges with one Simon Wyze.⁶² Richard Bamme died in 1452 and was buried, like his parents, in St George’s, Botolph Lane, London, where his monument described him as living in Gillingham, that is, at Grange.⁶³ Richard’s will recorded that besides Grange, he had manors, mills, pasture, tenements and rents in both the City and Kent. He had five named manors in Kent and also other lands which lay in six parishes in the Darent valley near Dartford, and also at Crayford on the River Cray. Bamme provided for his son and daughter out of these properties in Kent and those he held in the City. The manor of Grange, however, was intended for Richard’s second wife to whom it was confirmed in a charter which pre-dated the will. Eade his wife was to ‘have his whole stock being upon the same manor of Grenge in horses, goods, cows and so forth and utensils, ornaments and so forth in the manor aforesaid, that is to say, the hall, chambers, pantry, storeroom, cellar, kitchen, larder, brew house and so forth, all cups, bowls, charcoal burners, mazers, salt-cellar, basin shaped lamp, ewers, posnets, powder boxes, spice plates and cruets of gold and silver gilt and so forth’.⁶⁴ The will thus contained a notable indication of the nature and number of the main and service rooms of the house at Grange where Eade was to live. In life her husband Richard had been both a citizen of London and an esquire of Gillingham, as his will described him. His burial and monument in a City church reflect the former status, as does his action when he lived at Grange with his first wife Joan, the daughter of John Martin, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas.⁶⁵ Richard and Joan Bamme had no use for the chantry in the chapel at Grange manor which Philipot had built and endowed. The stonework around the great window of this chapel, decorated with the Philipot arms, made it unsuitable as a Bamme chantry. Instead they established their own long-lived chantry in the south chancel of Gillingham parish church, known as the ‘Chapel belonging to the Grange’ and shown by John Nichols on a plan.⁶⁶ When Joan Bamme died in 1431 she was buried with a grave-stone and brass in the Grange chapel at Gillingham parish church, and the Philipot chantry chapel at Grange, part-surviving, appears to have become redundant (Fig. 4).⁶⁷

One member of the de Beaufitz family, William de Beaufitz, was described as of The Grange, Gillingham, in the mid-fifteenth century; he was ‘probably’ also a citizen and fishmonger of London.⁶⁸ It is likely he held Grange by marriage to a woman of the Bamme family, since the Beaufitz were long-term landholders at Gillingham mainly in the area to the east of Grange at Twydall where their notable manor house stood.⁶⁹ William’s daughter, Agnes de Beaufitz, married Sir John Scott, the prominent Yorkist who held the Lieutenancy of Dover Castle (under Warwick) and thus was Lord Warden of Cinque Ports, and also Sheriff of Kent. The Scott residence was at Brabourne in east Kent and Sir John and Agnes were buried there in the 1480s, ending the brief connection of the Beaufitz family with Grange. The chantry of the Beaufitz family of Twydall was the north chancel aisle of Gillingham parish church, and several members were laid there between 1395 and 1433. Its existence suggests that the reason for the building of the Bamme chantry in the south chancel aisle was to emulate or rival that of the Beaufitz family which was ‘most beautifully ornamented’ with brasses and painted glass containing portraits as well as the arms and names of family members.⁷⁰

The manor of Grange remained in the hands of the Bamme family until the reign of Elizabeth, and was sometimes associated with female members of the family such as Mrs Katherine Bamme (d.1572) who provided for a yearly gift of £2 for the poor of Gillingham. Katherine Bamme alienated (whether by marriage or sale) the manor to William Haward, gentleman, who resided at Grange with his wife Alice. Alice died in 1610 and her husband in 1612, and a joint altar monument was erected in the Grange chapel in Gillingham church. They had two sons of whom it was the second, Thomas Haward, who received the manor of Grange, perhaps suggesting Grange was considered a lesser family inheritance. Thomas died in 1637 and was buried near his father and mother. Described as an esquire, Thomas gave £50 to be laid out on a purchase for the use of the poor of Gillingham.⁷¹ Thomas’s wife Anne was also buried in the Grange chapel in the parish church. These generations of the Haward family were thus closely connected to Grange and Gillingham through residence, commitment to the local community and provision for its poor members. Subsequently Grange manor descended in the female line through six generations, none of the female holders apparently being resident. The heirs of Grange were women who married well and moved away, and presumably the manor was let to tenants who farmed the lands. The manor came into the hands of two male heirs in 1791 and was sold in 1796 to John Taylor, gentleman of Wrotham in west Kent.⁷²

The surviving buildings

The medieval buildings at Grange consist of two separate stone structures which survive in ruins, a chapel and a so-called ‘refectory’, and a manor house now underneath or incorporated within a much later building (Grace Manor, the nursing home). The surviving chapel and so-called ‘refectory’ date from the mid- to later fourteenth century when major developments had taken place at Grange, as described. Their quality suggests the manor itself would have been both large and of considerable excellence, as does their location within a large moated site (see below).

The earliest record of a chapel at Grange is in the later eleventh century when it was documented in the Textus Roffensis and so it was probably associated with Bishop Odo or perhaps the de Hastings family.⁷³ The Textus Roffensis records that the chapel of Grenic (identifiable as Grange) was among a number in the Rochester diocese paying 6d. for holy chrism (oil). The main body of the Textus Roffensis was written down in 1122-23 but the folio containing this list of chapels is in a different hand and certainly records post-Conquest, and possibly pre-Conquest, churches and chapels.⁷⁴ The part of the list containing Grange is headed De capellis, concerning chapels, and is a record of chapels which had an existence independent of a parish church, hence their need for a supply of chrism.⁷⁵ These chapels are likely to have been places of status held by an important lord. The Hastings family would have used Grenic as their private chapel and may seldom, if ever, have attended the parish church of Gillingham, not least because it was within the other manor at Gillingham, that belonging to the archbishop, and next to his palace there. The route of about a mile between Grange and the parish church lay to the south of the palace along a road bordering marsh, as John Nichols sketched it, and so would have been deeply unattractive to the Hastings family.⁷⁶ After the Black Death and the acquisition of Grange manor by Londoners, the chapel at Grange is described as a chantry and John Philipot specified in his will that it was to be used as such. However there is no information about the nature of the chapel building before the rebuilding in the 1370s.

The ruinous remains of the chapel lie to the north of the nursing home currently occupying the suggested location of the former manor house (Fig. 5). The rectangular structure measuring 13.0 x 6.5m, was built with its long axis on a nw-se orientation. The west wall is gabled and has the remains of a Decorated style window comprising a simple primitive two-stone abutment with the moulded surround tracery of the window framing having a mullion and a trefoil arch made of Kentish ragstone. The north wall has a centrally-placed pointed arch doorway of Kentish ragstone and two windows, the larger one, east of the door, with a three-centred arch of Kentish ragstone. The smaller one, west of the door, also framed in Kentish ragstone has a simple trefoil arch. The south side has a central doorway with a four-centred arch in a chamfered lintel, with small windows to each side, mirroring those in the north wall. Its roof and east gabled end are missing. The walls are constructed of limestone rubble and flint, with limestone dressings. This structure like the ‘refectory’ building described below has been patched up with post-medieval post-fire yellow and red brick and peg tile of c. eighteenth-century date, consolidating the interior framing of the doors and windows. It has been suggested that both these buildings include Tudor or medieval brick in their fabrics.⁷⁷ If this was the case before it certainly is no longer so, and at present all associated brickwork is post-medieval in date. A drawing of the chapel made in 1776 by Catherine Thorpe, viewed from the north-east, suggests that at that time it had not yet fallen into disrepair, and that its roof was thatched (Fig. 6). Hasted noted in 1798 that the part-surviving chapel was built of stone and very fair. Most of it stood but the east end had become ruinous and this part had been taken down. The chapel had long since been desecrated and was in Hasted’s time used as a barn. At the Dissolution it had been valued at £6.⁷⁸ A pension of 66s. 8d., as originally provided for masses in Philipot’s will, was allowed to the vicar of Gillingham in respect of the chapel ‘at Grawnge’ in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535.⁷⁹

The second ruined rectangular building, the so-called ‘refectory’, better described as a rectangular hall, is located fronting Grange Road, on the east side of one of the two main entrance points to the manor. Its long axis is also on a nw-se orientation, but on a somewhat different alignment than the chapel (Fig. 7). It is of similar construction and style to the chapel. It southern side and eastern end survive and measure 18.0 x 6.5m. The side wall contains two pointed-arch doorways and three simple rectangular windows with wrought iron dividers, all framed in Kentish ragstone. The end wall is only fragmentary. The small and simple windows suggest a possibly slightly earlier date for this building than the chapel.⁸⁰ Traces of an upper storey may suggest that this was ‘a secular building’.⁸¹ Nichols referred to a pound besides the roadside near the yard gate of the manor, possibly meaning the surviving ruins of this rectangular hall as they appeared and were used in the 1770s.⁸²

The construction of both the chapel and the rectangular hall would have been substantial investments at the time. If these were auxiliary structures then their quality suggests the manor itself would have been both large and of considerable excellence. Nichols, publishing between 1780 and 1790, described the ‘eminent’ manor of Grange as still standing, being a large old brick building, which he presumed to have previously have been large and built of stone.⁸³ Brick uncovered in excavations by Pre-Construct Archaeology (PCA) was all post-medieval in date, no earlier than late sixteenth century and could be as late as late seventeenth- or even early eighteenth-century. The main range of the standing building, Grace Manor, dates from perhaps 1633, or the mid- to late seventeenth century, with a large nineteenth-century eastern wing.⁸⁴

results of archaeological investigations at grange manor

The pre-Medieval developments

Open-area excavations by Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd [at KKGF03, NGR TQ 7930 6850] in 2005 and 2006 were spread over four separate areas around the core of Grange Manor, which, although being outside the area of excavations, lay at the heart of the site (Fig. 8).

The largest plot was situated to the north of the former manor house on low-lying land, which gradually descended northwards towards the river and down to the ancient waterfront facility of the Cinque Port limb, covering approximately 15,200m². Area B was directly west of the manor house, gently sloping downwards to the north and west, covering approximately 7,800m². Area C was on the south side, on high land, sloping down to the north and west covering approximately 973m², and Area D was south-east on comparatively flat land upon the crest of the hill, covering approximately 1,360m². In addition two small exploratory trenches, Areas E and F, were excavated on the high ground to the east of the former manor house (Fig. 8).

Although there was some limited evidence for prehistoric (Mesolithic/early Neolithic, Bronze Age and Middle Iron Age) activity across the site the earliest significant human impact across this landscape was of Roman date. In the early Roman period (ad 43-120), a road was constructed across the area on a north-south alignment, which probably linked up Watling Street to the south with the Medway River waterfront. There were contemporary quarry pits, and a series of rectilinear enclosures. Between 120-250 a large wooden structure, probably a raised granary, was constructed in Area A. The enclosure ditches were backfilled and replaced with masonry walls and numerous pits backfilled with domestic rubbish were also found. It may be that this activity was associated with a villa located outside the areas excavated. Between 250-300 an aisled barn with masonry-built dwarf walls and stone post pads replaced the raised granary, numerous additional rubbish pits appeared and the roadway was diverted. To its west a mausoleum of at least two storeys height was constructed. Under the remains of a tessellated floor here a middle to old aged female in a lead coffin was found, as well as two other re-deposited burials which came from the fills of the robbed-out walls.

During the fourth century significant metalworking appears to have taken place across the site and for the late fourth to fifth century a large amount of lead slag, with impurities of copper and silver has tentatively been identified as a waste prod-uct created from the melting of coins to extract the pure metal (cupellation).

Evidence for Saxon activity was limited to small numbers of pot sherds and occasional cut features mostly confined to the northern part of area A, nearest the river, and in the vicinity of the Roman mausoleum. A particularly important find was a high quality late fifth-century gilt silver bow brooch decorated in Nydam Style or early Style I, probably re-deposited from a funerary context. This represents one of the earliest Scandinavian-style brooches known from Saxon England,⁸⁵ and suggests that the area was far from a remote backwater at this time.

Grange during Medieval times

The buildings at Grange

As noted above the documentary source material indicates that the manor of Grange was held by individuals of high status intimately associated with the king. This of itself means that the archaeological remains on the site in this context could be expected to illuminate such high-status links.

Excavations by KARU, the Kent Archaeological Rescue Unit, in 1992 on the South side of the nursing home uncovered a series of pits and ditches, two masonry foundation footings, and 13 stone wall elements, including three sides of a no less than 2m deep stone built cellar, measuring at least 4.80 by 4.25m. This was built of sandstone blocks with some peg tile courses set in cream brown sandy mortar. Remains of a vaulted structure were located, being 2.45m wide and measuring at least 5m in length. This abutted the stone built cellar on its south side and was built of chalk and sandstone walls. Further structural elements comprised a sizeable sandstone foundation which measured 3.35m square and was 0.6m thick capable of supporting a substantial masonry superstructure. The finds assemblages were unremarkable, comprising 187 pot sherds, mostly of local sand and shell-tempered wares of mid twelfth- to thirteenth-century date, 68 fragments of tile, 50 fragments of animal bone, lumps of corroded iron, some oyster shell, flint and brick as well as some fragments of glazed medieval floor tile with a green or yellow slip, of no great merit.⁸⁶

Archaeology South-East carried out excavations in 1995 also immediately to the south of the nursing home, in an area adjoining the earlier KARU work, and uncovered the remains of a large 0.8m wide flint and ragstone foundation as well as a much smaller (0.30m wide) wall.⁸⁷ Further excavations by AS-E in 1996, again situated south of the nursing home identified further extensive wall elements of medieval date with evidence for at least three successive construction phases.⁸⁸ The earliest structure was c.6.5m wide and more than 9m in length, with its long axis on a nw-se orientation and dated to between the middle of the thirteenth century to the end of the fourteenth. These walls were built of ragstone and flint nodules and were approximately 0.30m wide, with the southern one having a drain on its south side running parallel, supporting the view that this was an external wall. The second phase, which has been tentatively dated to the fifteenth century, appears to have involved a major rebuild with a complete reorientation of the long axis and the remains appear to have been part of a significantly larger complex, possibly related to the foundations and walls observed in the earlier excavations of KARU, located a little to the east.⁸⁹ The excavated remains included a pitch tiled hearth in the north-east corner of the excavations and a corridor running in a north-east direction on the east side of the principal building exposed. Modifications of the building during this phase resulted in a partitioning up of the principal room exposed. The subsequent phases dated to the sixteenth century and appear to have resulted in a return to the principal alignment observed in phase 1 and further extension and partitioning of the extant structure. The widths and construction of the foundation and wall remains uncovered here, all suggests these to have been sill walls for the support of timber framed buildings (Fig. 9).

A 2005 evaluation by the Oxford Unit exposed walls immediately west of the AS-E excavations. These were interpreted as pertaining to the phase 3 / 4 build identified in the earlier work and were explained as delimiting the western extent of the later medieval (sixteenth-century) manor complex (Fig. 9). A find worth noting identified in these investigations comprised a small crucible with probable copper smelting residue derived from a possible medieval plough-soil.⁹⁰

None of the wall alignments described above coincide with those of the surviving remains of the medieval chapel, nor the ‘refectory’ building fronting onto Grange Road (both assigned a fourteenth-century date) or indeed Grange Road itself (Fig. 1).

The excavations by Pre-Construct Archaeology in 2005 and 2006 uncovered a large ditch, on a north-south alignment, on the eastern edge of Area B located west of the Nursery home. It was also seen on the northern margin of Area C, on an east-west alignment and on a north-south alignment within trenches E and F. It was at least 4.6m wide and 2.4m deep and was traced over a length of 69m with sections of to the west, south and east of the projected manor house being identified. This feature is interpreted as relating to the medieval manor house and representing a moat (Fig. 8).

Elements of the earlier Roman period activity appear to have remained standing and visible into Medieval times and were dismantled and reused in the buildings constructed at the time that the Grange was part of the Cinque Port confederation, as demonstrated by the robbing of the stone walls associated with the Roman mausoleum at the site during the twelfth or thirteenth centuries.

The manor house and its amenities considering the area outlined by the early moat is projected to have measured approximately 115m n-s by 108m e-w, enclosing and area totalling 12,134m2 (Fig. 8). This would be among the larger moated sites with many of the 6,000 or so known across England being only about half that size.

The facilities excavated on the south-east of the nursing home appear to be associated with construction in stone, whereas those to the south-west seem to relate to the foundations of timber-framed structures. The lack of window glass or lead window came from the linked deposits, somewhat surprisingly perhaps considering the status of the manor, suggest a lack of glazing of these buildings. The tiled hearth identified is likely to have been positioned away from any entrance and considering its dating may have been open, with smoke escaping through louvers (likely to have been located nearer the entrance), or associated with a smoke bay, but is highly unlikely to have been connected to a chimney.⁹¹ Enclosed chimneys were introduced in Kent in the later fourteenth or first decades of the fifteenth century.⁹² The reference by Nichols to the manor house being an old brick built building in the late eighteenth century suggests that if he was indeed correct, that if the Manor House was of early brick construction then either on demolition of this house the brick was removed for re-use elsewhere, or the earlier structure remains incorporated within the fabric of the current nursing home. Considering the location of the site the earliest possible construction in brick would have been onwards from c.1450, with any such building having been built in Tudor brick (Pers. comm. Kevin Hayward 2012). Excavations by the KARU uncovered no brick at all.⁹³ The work by AS-E flagged up a small number of bricks (27) among the identifiable fabrics of which a few examples were of the local North Kent industry and there were also examples of an early Flemish import.⁹⁴ The former fabric could potentially represent a local Tudor variant. The ceramic building material recovered from the site in the excavations by the Oxford Unit included small quantities of brick dated to the thirteenth-fifteenth centuries.⁹⁵ As noted above the very small quantities of early brick from the site could be explained by this material having been re-used following demolition of the Tudor manor house, or alternatively the Tudor shell survives in the fabric of the current standing building. There is obviously a further alternative that the brick manor house was of late sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century date with Nichols’ use of the term ‘old’ being in the eye of the beholder.

The development of the manor house and its auxiliary structures based on the documentary and archaeological evidence appears to have comprised earlier stone built and clay and timber built buildings followed by a possible brick-built successor again associated with clay and timber built support structures. The archaeological evidence suggests frequent modifications and rebuilding phases likely, least in part, to have been linked with changes in ownership.

The finds assemblages

Other than the small crucible found in the Oxford Unit excavations, the associated finds materials of these excavations were, as a group, relatively unremarkable. The pottery of the AS-E work (135 sherds) comprised largely local medieval Kentish wares with only a single fragment of imported French Saintonge ware.⁹⁶ The ceramic building material comprised 210 pieces of tile covering roofing material dating between 1225 and 1475 and a small group (27 pieces) of (Post-Medieval) brick.⁹⁷ There was a small assemblage of iron, mostly nails and nail fragments and a solitary hinge pivot probably from a wooden doorframe.⁹⁸ A bone comb and toggle were identified and the animal bone assemblage comprising a total of 154 fragments encompassed cattle, sheep, pig, small mammal, fish and bird and was dominated by cattle, sheep and pig with very minor proportions of fish, bird and small mammal bone. Marine molluscs identified were common oyster, whelk and mussels.⁹⁹

The limited range of variation and local origin of most of the finds assemblages and the ordinary nature of the animal bone and marine molluscs suggest this sector of the building complex south of the nursing home, is likely to have been part of the domestic or service element of the medieval building complex, perhaps reflective of interaction with the immediate hinterland of the site.¹⁰⁰ Certainly the artefact material is in no way suggestive of the international contact framework represented in contemporary deposits from excavations in the main Cinque Ports sites such as Dover and New Romney.¹⁰¹

The excavations by PCA Ltd largely situated further away from the core of the site than these completed by AS-E, KARU and Oxford Archaeology uncovered a well at the north-western end of Area A, containing large quantities of medieval pottery of late thirteenth- to early fourteenth-century date. A robber trench associated with the removal of masonry from the Roman mausoleum, produced a single pottery sherd of EM36, dating this activity to between 1100-1250.

A large number of regularly spaced, shallow, circular features with irregular bases were revealed in Area B. These have tentatively been interpreted as representing tree bowls. Medieval horse pendants were recovered from two of these. Two large medieval rubbish pits, full of domestic waste, were also recognized here.

The medieval pottery assemblage in the PCA excavations from cut features around and outside of the perimeter of the medieval moated manor produced 920 sherds represent-ing 270 Minimum Number of Vessels (MNVs) of which 52 sherds were unstratified. The material demonstrated a fair degree of residuality. The bulk dates to between c.1050-1350 (with a small quantity pertaining to the fifteenth/sixteenth centuries). Medieval wares account for 825 sherds of the total, representing some 185 MNVs. The great majority of the assemblage comprises medieval sandy and shelly wares of Kentish origin.

Imported pottery identified is all from France specifically from the Saintonge area with 51 sherds representing six jugs. The Cinque Ports were the main controllers of wine from certain regions of France, e.g. Winchelsea was the main handler of wine from Bordeaux for redistribution to London during the fourteenth century. French jugs have been discussed as being traded on the back of the wine trade and it has been suggested that these forms were an ‘integral part of a wine drinking cultural package’, particularly in the polychrome Saintonge ware.¹⁰² This may be the reason why there were several Saintonge jugs recovered from the well discussed above.

The medieval pottery-types from the PCA excavation can on the whole be correlated with those recovered in the investigations south of the manor house by AS-E.¹⁰³ There cooking pots were noted in Fabrics 1, 2 and 4, the latter also producing pitchers (equating to EM2, EM36 and M38B respectively). Sherds of Fabric 3 (M38A) could not be assigned to forms. Jugs were identified in oxidised sandy wares and Fabric 5 may relate to London-type or Tyler Hill wares. A small quantity of fine sandy ware (Fabric 6) may correspond with Mill Green ware, while a sherd of a sand- and grog-tempered ware was also noted. Two sherds of Saintonge ware were also identified here. The work by KARU similarly found mid-twelfth- to thirteenth-century dated sand- and shell- tempered wares which were recorded as cooking pots with flat-topped rims and applied thumbed strip decoration (probably equating to the M38 fabrics) and later medieval wares were noted on the excavations by both organisations.

The range of imported pottery from the site is extremely limited when it is compared to excavated assemblages from other Cinque Ports, even where these were on a larger scale, such as Townwall Street in Dover. There a humble fishing community had access to pottery from a number of production centres in France, Belgium and the Low Countries, while at New Romney a good range of imported pottery was excavated, although less varied than Dover, both excavations produced pottery from Yorkshire, France and the Low Countries.¹⁰⁴ It appears therefore that with respect to pottery at least the major Cinque Ports had much wider contacts and networks than is indicated on the present evidence for Grange manor.

The group of medieval small finds from the PCA excavations tells a more varied story. This may in part be due to the fact that a systematic metal detecting exercise of the excavated spoil was part of the PCA field investigation, whereas this method was not deployed at either the KARU, AS-E or the Oxford Unit’s interventions at the site. The Medieval-dated part of the assemblage comprised 30 finds most of which were unstratified or from the topsoil. They are dominated by a range of late medieval buckles, strap-ends and other belt fittings and include three remarkably complete buckles with buckle plates (sf 54; sf 443; sf 642). Horse-harness pendants are also represented, with one complete and gilded example and a pendant mount decorated with an enamelled cross. While the harness pendants are also likely to be of a later medieval date (e.g. sf 321). Remarkable objects comprise an openwork copper-alloy mount (sf 51), from the early post-Conquest period. This belongs to a small group of similar mounts identified as probable cross-staff heads, dating from the eleventh to twelfth centuries (more fully discussed below).¹⁰⁵ The other consists of an unusual lead cross pendant (sf 335).

One of the finds relates to a building, namely an iron pintle. There are two copper-alloy casket keys and two probable fishing weights of rolled lead sheet. An iron knife (sf 904) is unusual as it has a short, almost triangular blade with a curved back and straight edge. There are three coins, two long-cross pennies (sf 1; sf 618), a copper-alloy French jetton (sf 322) and a lead token featuring a heart (sf 146).

The fifteenth- to the seventeenth-century material includes five copper-alloy buckles (sf 277; sf 659; sf 709; sf 772; sf 876), a book mount (sf 723) (Fig. 11), a pair of decorated copper-alloy scissors (sf 707) and a lead bird-feeder (sf 267). There is also a copper-alloy belt and strap hooked fitting (sf 115), with two iron rivets and inward-turning hook, which may have been part of a sword belt dating to the late sixteenth or early seventeenth centuries.¹⁰⁶ An incomplete iron rowel spur (sf 403), could be as early as the sixteenth century.¹⁰⁷ Finally there is a substantial cast and decorated copper-alloy? strap end (sf 269).¹⁰⁸

The animal bone from Medieval deposits recovered in the PCA excavation, both by hand collection and from sieved samples comprise a small group of material totalling 225 bones and bone fragments. Of these 225 bones, 137 (60.9%) are identified to species and 88 (39.1%) remain indeterminate. Apart from some of the bone recovered from two robber cuts its overall condition is good. The assemblage comprised horse, cattle, sheep, pig, dog, red deer, rabbit and domestic fowl with cattle constituting the largest component of the assemblage representing just shy of 60% of the material, followed by sheep (20.4%) and pig (12.4%). The cattle component includes an articulated / associated bone group (ABG) representing a part-complete hind leg from [1172] fill of pit [1173]. The red deer fragment is an antler tine with evidence for working.¹⁰⁹

Field walking along the foreshore in 2011 by the authors in the projected location of the medieval haven produced a small number of fragments of LM34B / MEDWHSCH or Medway hard silty-sandy ware with chalk, dated to 1450 - 1525/50.¹¹⁰

The disk-shaped openwork copper-alloy cross-staff head

The small finds from the PCA excavations are the single, albeit small, artefactual component from the archaeological excavation at and around Grench Manor which hints at greater significance to the site and begins to lift it above its apparent domestic mediocrity as indicated in the pottery, ceramic building material, and animal bone assemblages across the site. In particular the disk-shaped openwork copper-alloy cross-staff head requires further discussion (Fig. 10). This was an unstratified topsoil find. The cross-staff head forms part of small group of such finds comprising spherically-shaped and disk-shaped variants which are commonly ascribed a late eleventh- or twelfth-century date.

Parallels are known from St George St, Canterbury, where a disk-shaped type example came from a late eleventh-century context found in close proximity to a medieval church building and was initially interpreted as a mace-head.¹¹¹ Another disk-shaped example was found adjacent to Wixford church in Warwickshire.¹¹² A well-dated one was recovered at Fishamble Street in Dublin (mid eleventh century – 1020-1030).¹¹³ An example found re-deposited among Roman material came from the site of St Thomas’ Hospital in Southwark in London¹¹⁴ and two others were flagged up in the on-line database of the Portable Antiquities Scheme, one from Billington in Bedfordshire (BUC-69D596) and the other from Ridge in Hertfordshire (BH-F48C72).¹¹⁵ A further seventeen spherical forms are known from sites in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Hampshire, London, North Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Surrey, Warwickshire and Worcestershire.

The objects have collars suitable for mounting on a slender staff. Bailey suggests the items would have been attached to the base of a rod, and that medieval illustrated examples of sceptres with basal terminals constitute convincing parallels. These comprise a sculpted carving of Herod¹¹⁶ and a panel on the rood screen of Nayland Church in Suffolk which similarly depicts a sceptre held by Edward the Confessor again with a similar terminal at the base.¹¹⁷ Both of these are most similar to the spherical type rather than the disk-shaped variant of cross-staff head. A possible third early illustrated example of a comparable terminal is on an alabaster panel in the collections of the V&A depicting the beheading of St John the Baptist. English, dated to 1480-1490 where it is fixed to the handle of a staff to which a bunch of keys are attached.¹¹⁸ These terminals therefore seem best interpreted as forming part of an artefact associated with a badge of office or identifier of status possibly linked with religious institutions, or indeed the household of a man such as Odo.

conclusions

Three of the Head Ports of the confederation, Sandwich, Dover and New Romney, have recently been the subject of much research and publication, and Hythe is currently under investigation. The same applies to some of the larger limbs such as Faversham and Folkestone¹¹⁹ and the Ancient Towns of New Winchelsea and Rye. Grange offered the unusual opportunity to investigate and present the results of combined archaeological and historical research into one of the small and little-known limbs. The site and locality are of particular interest because of their location on the north Kent coast, and because the work threw up its connections not only with its Head Port, Hastings, but also with Londoners. There are recent important studies of London and its economic hinterland, and also of the tidal Thames in the Middle Ages, which give detailed overviews into which a study of one small place can perhaps fit.¹²⁰

The secondary Roman Road running through the excavation site may have facilitated a link between Watling Street and the Medway river frontage. The documentary evidence shows that Grange was a significant location by the later eleventh century; indeed its location on the Medway and very close to the Swale meant it lay near a ‘critical part’ of what had been a major trans-Continental trading route along the northern Kent coast since at least the mid-third to second centuries bc.¹²¹ By the time the Roman shorefort of Reculver (Regulbium) was built, the Swale was an eastern arm of the Medway, and Allen suggested its building was thus intended to protect ‘the wealthy villas of the Medway Valley’.¹²² Occupation at the Lower Medway flats at Lower Halstow to the west of the Swale appears to have continued well into the Roman period, and this excavation demonstrates that this was the case at Grange too.

The Roman road may have continued in use into the medieval period. Several factors were involved in this location developing into a moated site favoured by the contemporary medieval elite: the presence of significant quantities of re-useable building material, a riverfront likely to have been used for landing river- and sea-going vessels, easy access to the agricultural hinterland enabling the transport of its produce, and from a security perspective a prime location affording open views across the river channel from the elevated valley side.

The twenty-year connection of Odo with Grange in the eleventh century and the find of the cross-staff head (Fig. 10), point to the status of the site and the utility of its landing area, which local people, or those in the know, later used for exporting wool and even evading customs. Grange’s role as a limb of Hastings developed both from its holding by the Hastings family and the continued usefulness of a pilot or two from Grange in guiding Hastings’ Portsmen around the tricky waters of the Swale and Medway estuary as they sailed to and from London.

The small finds from the site as a group represent largely personal items e.g. buckles, a spur, dress accessories, sword and horse fittings, and the staff head which were carried around on a person (or horse) and therefore were likely to be subject to casual losses and breakage. A high concentration of these therefore suggests a relatively large amount of traffic passing through, including in this case individuals of moderate to higher status. The book mount (Fig. 11) should be noted as it reflects an element of literacy which would be considered normal in a Cinque Port context.¹²³ However, the very limited evidence for contact with the sea and river traffic is surprising. The small finds assemblage includes just two possible fish weights and the animal bone recovered includes only very small amounts of fish bone and marine molluscs. The surviving building remains, aspects of the small finds assemblage and perhaps the presence of some quantity of Saintonge ware are all indicative of the high status of the site. Nevertheless, considering the nature of the comparable archaeological assemblages identified at some of the Head Ports, the archaeological materials and features perhaps do not suggest the wealth and economic activities that might have been expected.

Grange comes into prominence in the documentary record with the demise of the Hastings’ family who had held the manor until the Black Death, and its subsequent acquisition by London citizens. Sir John Philipot is the most striking of these residents because he was a Kent man in origins and seems to have exploited his knowledge of the locality and of the Cinque Ports confederation in the way in which he used Grange. Studies of Philipot have mostly concentrated on his civic and national role. The manor of Grange, however, important as a limb of the Cinque Ports, was a key feature of his life after the French wars recommenced in 1369. The renewal of war demonstrated the importance of London merchants in Parliament and as advisors and servants to the king. London’s mayor ‘could play a prominent part in national politics and normally dominated England’s trade with the Low Countries and northern Europe’.¹²⁴ Those involved in supplying fish as Philipot’s fathers-in-law were, and maybe Philipot himself, were crucial in supplying London with food; even after the onset of endemic plague the city had a population of 30,000 to 40,000 at this period.

The surviving buildings, particularly the chapel, illuminate Grange’s importance to Philipot, in the same way as establishment of the South or Grench Chancel in Gillingham Church was significant for the Bamme family. Female members of the Bamme family were notable holders of Grange, perhaps because it was regarded as a pleasant and safe dwelling away from London. It is remarkable that women continued to hold Grange by inheritance right until the end of the eighteenth century, although the later female holders did not live there. Excavations suggest that the manor house itself was frequently rebuilt, probably as the holders changed. The building of the main range of what is now the nursing home, Grace Manor, may perhaps be attributed to the Haward family between the late sixteenth and mid seventeenth century since they certainly lived there then. The other two buildings, the chapel and the rectangular hall, seem to have survived because they continued to have some practical use as a pound and a barn, and by the end of the eighteenth century came to be regarded as picturesque and interesting relics by Kentish antiquaries.

acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to Josephine Brown for the site maps and plan illustrations. Pre-Construct Archaeology Limited would like to thank Duncan Hawkins of CgMs Consulting Ltd for commissioning the archaeological work on behalf of Taylor Woodrow and Persimmon Homes who funded the archaeological investigations. Thanks also to Simon Mason and David Britchfield, Kent County Council’s Officers. They thank Mrs Margaret Du Boulay (Darby) for allowing the use of her copy of Philipot’s likeness, and Christian Steer for the reference to Weever’s work and discussing the status of John Philipot, the Bamme family and their monuments. They are very grateful to Professor Caroline Barron and Terry Lawson for their helpful comments.

endnotes

¹ D. Gilmour, ‘Bekesbourne and the King’s esneccca 1110-1445’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 132 (2012), 315-21.

² P. Keller and M. Chenery, Gillingham Grench Manor, Summary Report of an Archaeological Excavation, Kent Minor Sites Series, KARU (1992); L. Kirk, ‘Project Design and Costing for Post-Excavation Work for Grench Manor Gillingham, Kent’, South Eastern Archaeological Services, unpubl. report 1996/246; L. Kirk, ‘An Archaeological Excavation at Grench Manor, Gillingham, Kent’, unpubl. report 1998/246; M. Sims, ‘Grace Manor Nursing Home, Grange Road, Gillingham, Kent, Archaeological Evaluation Report’, Oxford Unit unpubl. report, Job No 2574 (2005).

³ Exceptionally for a Cinque Port, Hastings’ civic records survive only from 1594 and so could not be used for this study mainly covering the medieval period.

⁴ M. Gardiner, ‘Late Saxon Sussex’, in K. Leslie and B. Short, eds, An Historical Atlas of Sussex (Phillimore, 1999), p. 31; R. Jones, ‘Castless and other Defensive Sites’, ibid., p. 50. Interpretations of the tapestry and of Hestenga ceastra, of course, vary. Bibliotheca Augustana gives images of the tapestry, http://www.hs-augsburg.de/~harsch/Chronologia/Lspost11/Bayeux/bay_tama.html [3.5.2013].

⁵ D. Bates, ‘Odo, earl of Kent (d. 1097)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2008, http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20543 [24.6.2013].

⁶ Gilmour, ‘Bekesbourne’, 317.

⁷ J. Morris, ed., Domesday Book Kent, 2, 12; 5, 88 (Phillimore, 1983). C. Flight, The Survey of Kent: Documents relating to the survey of the county conducted in 1086, British Archaeological Report, British Series 506 (2010), p. 175. The second entry records Bishop Odo’s holding, sub-infeudated to a tenant incidentally, or by a slip of the quill, called Odo.

⁸ Or attempted urban foundation by the archbishop, who had a market and May fair charter for Gillingham by 1336, B. McLain, ‘Factors in Market Establishment in Kent 1086-1350’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 117 (1997), 92, 102. The nearest alternative market was Rochester, an uphill walk of 5 or 6 miles by the medieval routes. The market had ceased to operate by the sixteenth century and until the nineteenth century Gillingham was just a village with a few shops, S. Dunster, The Medway Towns: River, Docks and Urban Life (Andover and London, 2013), p. 61.

⁹ R. Eales, ‘An Introduction to the Kent Domesday’, in The Kent Domesday (Alecto Historical Editions, London, 1992), p. 22.

¹⁰ A. Baker, ‘Open Fields and Partible Inheritance on a Kent Manor’, The Economic History Review, n.s., vol.17, no. 1 (1964), p. 11, figs 2, 3, p. 16. E. Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, vol. 4 (1798).

¹¹ The boundary is shown slightly further east on the mid-nineteenth century OS map. In the 1821 census there were 112 people in Grange and its size is given as 234 acres.

¹² F. Du Boulay, The Lordship of Canterbury: an essay on Medieval Society (London, Nelson, 1966), pp. 43-44.

¹³ Medway Archives and Local Studies Centre [MALSC], DE 1049, copies of correspondence of the Hamlet, Vill or Limb of Grange in the Cinque Port of Hastings, kept at Hastings Museum and Art Gallery, concerning the appointment of the deputy mayor (Hastings) dated 1733, also correspondence discussing the Hastings Arms, formerly the Duke’s Head, and county rate and overseers of the poor, 1826-1858; http://www.medwaymemories.co.uk/grange.htm [2.2.2011].

¹⁴ E.g., J. Wallenberg, The Place-Names of Kent (Uppsala, 1934), p. 130; MALSC, Gillingham deeds, U398/T1-3.

¹⁵ East Sussex Record Office [ESRO], AMS5847/1. The dukes of Brittany remained lords of the rape of Hastings until the death of Duke John IV of Brittany in 1399, M. Jones, ‘Montfort, John de, duke of Brittany and earl of Richmond (d.1399)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2008) http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/53088 [7.6.2011].

¹⁶ A print by Tombleson, the frontispiece in Archaeologia Cantiana, 132 (2012), gives a good impression of the nature of these embayments in relation to Gillingham, and their use for loading goods such as barrels from small boats onto barges.

¹⁷ A parallel at this period is provided at Greenwich where St Peter’s Abbey, Ghent, had a base and quay in the marshy area where the River Ravensbourne joined the Thames at Deptford Creek, M. Egan, ‘The Church in Medieval Greenwich’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 123 (2003), 233-37; G. Draper, ‘Timber and Iron: natural resources for the late medieval shipbuilding industry’, in S. Sweetinburgh, ed., Later Medieval Kent, 1220-1540 (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 63-4.

¹⁸ B. Campbell, English Seigniorial Agriculture, 1250-1450 (Cambridge Studies in Historical Geography 31, 2000), pp. 21, 55-8, 63-4, 260-1. The bulk of the data comes from demesne accounts and Inquisitions Post Mortems of the late thirteenth century onwards, especially from large manors near Grange, such as Barksore on the Medway estuary, Cliffe on the Isle of Grain, and Leysdown on Sheppey; B. Campbell, ‘Agriculture in the High Middle Ages’, in Sweetinburgh, ed., Later Medieval Kent, p. 26, fig. 2, pp. 40-4.

¹⁹ Robert de Hastings was recorded as being the son of Godwin frenesna, perhaps Godwin of Frenes, Normandy, in the early twelfth century. Robert appears in a list of major landholders in Kent of c.1120 immediately following his father Godwin who held Bekesbourne, C. Flight, ‘A list of holders of land in Kent c.1120’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 125 (2005), 364, 371-72, 379, n. 36; Gilmour, ‘Bekesbourne’, 317-8.

²⁰ Grange was valued at 5s., H.C. Maxwell Lyte (ed.), Liber Feodorum commonly called Testa de Nevill (HMSO, 1920), vol. 1, pp. xvi, 13. In 1198 serjeanties were assessed for a carucage (land tax), usually at 2s. per carucate, taken to be equivalent to a hide, suggesting Grange was assessed at 2.5 hides, Calendar of Kent Feet of Fines to the end of Henry III’s reign (I. Churchill et al. 15), Kent Records 15 (1956), pp. lxxiv, cxix, 398. Osbert Gifford paid 200 marks for the wardship of the son of Sir William de Hastings in 1223-4, Fine Roll C 60/25, 11 Henry III (1226-1227), http://finerollshenry3.org.uk/content/calendar/roll_025.html [17.2.2011]. Other members of the Hastings family were listed by William Smith Ellis in ‘Early Sussex Armory’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 30 (1880), pp. 139-41. This family, and its Yorkshire branch alone, is covered by the ODNB only from c.1300, S. Walker, ‘Hastings family’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2008) http://www.oxforddnb.com/chain/view/article/54526 [8.9.2013].

²¹ I.e., an unpaid assistant in training called a (young) groom, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, Parker Library ms. 189, f. 35v; cf. online Middle English Dictionary, University of Michigan and L. Wheatley, ‘The Building of the Merchant Adventurers’ Hall, 1357-62’, Medieval Life vol. 8 (1997/8), p. 32; K. Murray, The Constitutional History of the Cinque Ports (Manchester, 1935), pp. 238-44.

²² Willelmus de Hastings tenet manerium de Grenge in Gillingham per serjeantiam de rape de Hastinges per servicium de inveniendi unum averim et unum hominem in uno navi, si dominus rex deberet transire ultra mare, A. Story Maskelyne et al., Inquisitions and assessments relating to Feudal Aids and analogous documents, etc, vol. 3 (London, 1904), p. 6.

²³ Pencestre’s basic list of ship service was entered in the Red Book of the Exchequer, and a more detailed copy specifying the service was also made. The second was exemplified at the request of the mayor of Sandwich in 1359, which gave Grenethe en Kent ii hommes ove ii avirons ove les niefs de Hastinge, Murray, Constitutional History, p. 242. The meaning of avirons is not certain to later writers either – not Hasted, History 4, p. 236, who misinterpreted the entry in the Red Book, making Grange’s service look like that of the other Ports and limbs, nor Murray herself, nor Flight who gave ‘oar’ but also averim indicating his uncertainty on the translation, http://www.kentarchaeology.ac/digiarchive/ColinFlight/fees-1284-text.pdf [26.6.2013]. Aviron does not appear in the new online Anglo-Norman dictionary. Gilmour, ‘Bekesbourne’, 315, 326, n.10, cited only the English Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem vol. 2, p. 134, for ‘oar’ as a translation.

²⁴ K. Murray, Register of Daniel Rough, Common Clerk of Romney, 1353-1380, Kent Records 16 (1945), pp. xxix-xxx, 242; http://www.anglo-norman.net/gate/?session=S3104541309438279 [26.6.2011]. There is no obvious reason for the apparent increase in Grange’s service between the twelfth and thirteenth century, but requirements did change for most members of the confederation over time.

²⁵ One of the earliest representations of a Cinque Ports ship (on a seal), that of Rye in c.1190, emphasises the importance of the stern post and steering oar, G. Draper, Rye: a History of a Sussex Cinque Port to 1660 (Chichester, 2009), p. 19, fig. 1.7, p. 26, fig. 2.1. The same is true of those of Dover and Faversham in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, P. Tann, The Royal Charters of Faversham including Magna Carta (The Faversham Society, 2013), p. 80.

²⁶ F. Jessup, Kent History Illustrated (Kent County Council, 1973), p. 9.

²⁷ G. Draper and F. Meddens, The Sea and the Marsh: the Medieval Cinque Port of New Romney revealed through archaeological excavations and historical research (Pre-Construct Archaeology Monograph 10, 2009), pp. 37-8.

²⁸ Domesday Book: Sussex, John Morris ed. (Phillimore, 1976) 5, 1 where technical terms defines hides as 120 fiscal acres so 300 fiscal acres at Hastings; Draper, Rye, pp. 6-9.

²⁹ Robert de Hastings was also liable for the lestage of Rye, TNA E 372/1, printed by J. Hunter, ed., Magnum rotulum scaccarii, vel magnum rotulum pipae, anno tricesimo-primo regni Henrici primi (Record Commission, 1833; reprinted with corrections by PRS, 1929), p. 68.

³⁰ By 1235, VCH Sussex 9, p. 50; ESRO RYE/136/2. John Beaufitz, junior, held land in Chatham and Gillingham Hundreds in 1333-34 as a man of the Liberty of the Cinque Ports, presumably a parcel at Grange. The other man to do so was Thomas de Grean, probably either Grain or Grenech (abbreviated), H. Hanley and C. Chalklin, eds, ‘The Kent Lay Subsidy of 1334/5’, in Documents Illustrative of Medieval Kentish Society, F. Du Boulay, ed. (Kent Records 18) , p. 128. The Hastings family was probably not liable, nor even listed for the subsidy, because of their status and tenure by serjeanty.

³¹ J. Ward, ‘The Kent Hundred Rolls: local government and corruption in the thirteenth century’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 127 (2007), p. 57.

³² The jury said ‘that certain merchants, that is Walter and William de Vaus who were known in Chatham hundred in Gillingham township [villa] brought and caused to be brought two small boat-loads of wool from the port of Medway to places overseas, they do not know how many sacks, nor for what price nor to what place nor by whose order, arrangement or contract nor what was received for them’, http://www.kentarchaeology.ac/khrp/hrproject.pdf [9.5 2011].

³³ H. Clarke, S. Pearson, M. Mate, and K. Parfitt, Sandwich, the completest medieval town in England: a study of the town and port from its origins to the 1600 (Oxbow, 2010), pp. 62-5.

³⁴ Cal. Close Rolls 1385-9, pp.173-4. A sarpler was the equivalent of 2 sacks of wool equalling 728 pounds or about 330 kilograms, and a unit used for shipping rather than for sale between merchants, http://www.sizes.com/units/sarpler.htm [13.6.2011].

³⁵ P. Nightingale, ‘Knights and merchants: trade, politics and the gentry in late medieval England’, Past and Present (2000), 169 (1), p. 49; K. Draper, A History of the Parish of Chevening (Chipstead, 1999), p. 99; Campbell, ‘Agriculture’, p. 44, noted that Kentish wool was not highly valued.

³⁶ Will dated 1359, R. Sharpe, ed., Calendar of wills proved and enrolled in the Court of Husting, London: Part 2: 1358-1688 (1890), p. 74.

³⁷ The deed was enrolled and the money paid in December 1349, but Smelt already held the manor of Grenech in September 1348 when, at the time of an aid to knight the Black Prince, he disputed that he held it by the service of half a knight’s fee but rather by the service of finding two men with two oars with the ships of Hastings, Cal. Close Rolls 1346-9, p. 585, vol. 9, pp. 148-151. The Black Death arrived in London in autumn 1348. Thomas de Hastings was apparently the last of the Sussex line of this family, Ellis Smith, ‘Armory’, p. 139.

³⁸ Cal. Patent Rolls 1354-8, p. 500, Cal. Close Rolls 1354-60, pp. 63, 110; purchases by Londoners were often located at Greenwich or inland near river courses such as those of the Cray or Darent, A. Brown, ‘London and North-West Kent in the later Middle Ages: the development of a land market’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 92 (1976), 150-53.

³⁹ Cf. C. Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages: Government and People 1200-1500 (Oxford, 2005), ch. 3.

⁴⁰ Murray, Daniel Rough, p. x.

⁴¹ Philipot’s career has been noted widely in relation to London, finance and politics, and some studies are given in the notes which follow. Croydon may have sold fish both wholesale and retail, M. Darby, ‘John Philipot a 14th century London Merchant’, unpubl. m.sc dissertation (1972), London School of Economics, pp. 1, 8, 13-15. Croydon’s will was drawn up January 1375 [1374, N.S], with his non-London property bequeathed to John Philipot and his wife Margaret (Margery, below), who was Croydon’s daughter, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=66916&strquery=croy [28.8.2013].

⁴² ODNB identifies it as the Halstow on Grain although it is not clear why, P. Nightingale, Sir John Philipot (d.1384), Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (2008), http://www.oxforddnb.com/chain/view/article/22107 [9.8.2013].

⁴³ Nightingale,‘Knights and Merchants’, p. 41.

⁴⁴ Nightingale, ‘Philipot’ (ODNB).

⁴⁵ R. Sharpe, ed., Calendar of letter-books of the city of London: G: 1352-1374 (1905), pp. 272-282 http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=33517&strquery=phil [1.2.2011]. On the loans, see J. Stratford, Richard II and the English Royal Treasure (Boydell Press, 2012), pp. 45-7. She describes Philipot as ‘the great capitalist’, p. 262.

⁴⁶ Sharpe, Husting Wills 2, p. 275, n.1, citing Higden, Polychronicon, ix. 30; Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages, pp. 333-34. Nightingale, ‘Philipot’ (ODNB) on the other hand says there is no evidence he was a fishmonger; also that the tradition that he was a grocer appears to have been invented by a clerk of the Grocers’ Company in the fifteenth century.

⁴⁷ Johannes Philippot civis Londoniarum contulit ad idem opus £20. Dedit et duas sumas dactilorum et amigdalorum, British Library, Cotton MS Nero D.VII, f.105v.

⁴⁸ Darby, ‘John Philipot’, pp. 8-9, 13-15 and Appendix II, discussed the process of acquisition, and provided details of the deeds and quitclaims carried out via feoffees which effected these transactions and were enrolled in the Close Rolls (quotation p. 8).

⁴⁹ E.g. 6 acres of marsh in Gillingham with Cowmarsh on the west from John Snell in 1383, MALSC, U398/T1/1-29.

⁵⁰ C. Rawcliffe, ‘Margaret Stodeye, Lady Philipot (d.1431)’, in C. Barron and A. Sutton, eds, Medieval London Widows, 1300-1500 (Hambledon, 1994), pp. 85-96.

⁵¹ Walsingham, Hist. Angl., i. 370, as summarised by Sharpe, Husting Wills 2, p. 275, n. 3. Hasted, History 4, p. 237, described ‘the services he [Philipot] had before performed to the king and that city’, and was perhaps not fully aware that Philipot was a major source of information for Walsingham, The St Albans chronicle: the Chronica Maiora of Thomas Walsingham 1, 1376-1394, J. Taylor, W. Childs and L. Watkiss, eds (Oxford, 2002), pp. c, 225-27.

⁵² Draper and Meddens, New Romney, pp. 39-40. Philipot accounted for conveying provisions from Cinque Ports to the North, Darby, ‘John Philipot’, p. 15 citing TNA E101 bundle 40, no.7.

⁵³ Canterbury Cathedral Archives DCc-ChAnt/C/1245 (c.1384). These exemptions were ancient but Richard referred to those made by his grandfather Edward III in the first year of his reign, at the start of the 100 Years’ War, and in his fifteenth year, 1341-2. A similar royal writ of 1424 specified freedom from customs, CA C/1250.

⁵⁴ ‘Memorials: 1380’, Memorials of London and London Life: in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries (1868), pp. 444-45, http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=57720&strquery=chain [10.6 2011].

⁵⁵ G. Milne, The Port of Medieval London (Stroud, 2003), p. 119.

⁵⁶ When Dutch attacks threatened in 1667, P. Rogers, The Dutch in the Medway (Oxford, 1970), pp. 32-3, 58-9.

⁵⁷ Hasted, History 4, p. 237, based his statement on the stonework of the chapel (below). In Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, 1 (The Antiquities of Kent and Sussex) (1780-90), [Klaus Reprint Co., AMS Press, New York, 1968], pp. 25-26, J. Nichols also stated that it was John Philipot who built the chapel, citing Villare Cantianum by Thomas Philipot (2nd ed., King’s Lynn, 1776), p. 167, which says the statement was made at the Dissolution and Thomas had found nothing to the contrary, http://www.kentarchaeology.ac/TopographicalTradition/1776-philipott.pdf [6.8.2013].

⁵⁸ Hasted, History 4, p. 237.

⁵⁹ Sharpe, Husting Wills 2, p. 275; Christian Steer, pers. comm.

⁶⁰ Hasted, History 4, p. 238. Margaret Philipot was briefly married first to John Fitznichol (above). Adam Bamme was one of three ‘experts in jewels’ who valued a crown, part of Richard II’s treasure which was pledged as security for a loan, J. Stratford, ‘Richard II’s treasure and London’, in M. Davies and A. Preston, eds., London and the Kingdom: essays in honour of Caroline M. Barron (Harlaxton Medieval Studies 16, 2008), p. 219.

⁶¹ John Strype, Survey of London, II, x.172 http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/strype/search.jsp?keyword=bamme&sin=content%2C+glosses&section=&allany=all [2.8.2013].

⁶² Baker, ‘Open Fields’, pp. 7-8, 20.

⁶³ Strype, Survey of London, II, x.172.

⁶⁴ Translation by Duncan Harrington, http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk/Research/Libr/Wills/Sdw/Bk01/page%20005.htm [6.8.2013]; TNA PROB 11/1, f.132.

⁶⁵ http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/bamme-adam-1397 [13.7.2013].

⁶⁶ The latter is item F on Nichols’ fig. 1 on Plate V (Plan of the archbishop’s palace of Gillingham), and his text identifies it as this chapel in Gillingham parish church, Nichols, Britannica, p. 25. The original chancel was apparently extended with north and south aisles c.1200 but they were also later lengthened, helping to give the church its Perpendicular appearance. Each aisle has its own gabled roof, J. Newman, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald (London, 2nd. ed. 1976), p. 291.

⁶⁷ J. Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments of Great Britain, Ireland, and the Islands Adjacent (London, 1631), p. 316. The planning and erection of Joan’s tomb there seems to have been under-taken by John, son of Richard and Joan Bamme. Thomas Fisher drew the brasses of three residents of Grange: Joan Bamme, her son John Bamme (d.1488) and his wife Elizabeth, which were in the Grange (south) chapel in Gillingham church; also of John Beaufitz (d.1433) and wife Alice, in the north chancel, and the font and some painted glass, a mitred figure, Society of Antiquaries of London, Fisher (Kent), II/8-14.

⁶⁸ Sir John Scott died in 1485, Agnes in 1486/7, P. Fleming, ‘Scott (Scot) family’, ODNB (2008) http://www.oxforddnb.com.chain/view/article/54537 [8.8.2013]. William’s brief lordship of Grange presumably accounts for Weever’s doubtful remark (‘as I was enformed’) that the Beaufitz chief seat was at Grange, Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments, p. 316.

⁶⁹ Hasted, History 4, pp. 235-6; Baker, ‘Open Fields’, p. 8., fig.1, p. 11, fig. 2.

⁷⁰ Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments, p. 316; Hasted History 4, p. 246.

⁷¹ Thomas Haward’s will, TNA, PROB 11/176.

⁷² Hasted, History 4, pp. 238-9, 233-4, 245, 596.

⁷³ MALSC, Textus Roffensis, DRc/R1, f. 221v.

⁷⁴ It certainly is a ‘Domesday period source’, Eales, ‘An Introduction to the Kent Domesday’, pp. 36, 38.

⁷⁵ Flight, Survey of Kent, pp. 240, 242.

⁷⁶ Nichols, Britannica, p. 25 and Plate V, fig. 1.

⁷⁷ T.P. Smith, ‘The Roper Gateway, St Dunstan’s Street, Canterbury’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 108 (1990), p. 171.

⁷⁸ Hasted, History 4, pp. 237, 239.

⁷⁹ ‘Capello de le Grawnge’, Valor Ecclesiasticus, J. Caley, ed. (London, 1810), vol. 1, p. 155. By then, the vicar must have performed the memorial masses, if at all, in the Grange chapel in Gillingham parish church, not at the chapel building near the manor (below). Gillingham church itself was valued at £15 13s. 11d. and the yearly tenths at £1 11s. 4d.

⁸⁰ http://www.kent.gov.uk/ExploringKentsPast/SingleResult.aspx?uid=MKE19954 [29.8.2013].

⁸¹ Newman, West Kent and the Weald, p. 293.

⁸² Nichols, Britannica, p. 25.

⁸³ Ibid.

⁸⁴ The Kent Historic Environment Record has these dates and also the description from the build-ing’s original listing, http://www.kent.gov.uk/ExploringKentsPast/SingleResult.aspx?uid=MKE30205 [29.7.2013].

⁸⁵ A. Richardson, ‘Grange Brooch’, Kent Archaeological Society Newsletter, 69 (summer 2006), p. 13.

⁸⁶ Keller and Chenery, Gillingham Grench Manor. (Full references for most works in this section are in n. 2).

⁸⁷ C. Greatorex, ‘An Archaeological Evaluation at Grench Manor, 349 Grange Road Gillingham’, Southeastern Archaeological Services, unpubl. report 1994/224 (1995).

⁸⁸ Kirk, ‘Project Design’; Kirk, ‘An Archaeological Excavation’.

⁸⁹ Keller and Chenery, ‘Gillingham Grench Manor’.

⁹⁰ Sims, ‘Grace Manor’.

⁹¹ S. Pearson, The Medieval houses of Kent: an historical analysis (London, 1994).

⁹² Ibid., p. 108.

⁹³ Keller and Chenery, ‘Gillingham Grench Manor’.

⁹⁴ R. James, ‘Ceramic Building Material’, in Kirk, ‘An Archaeological Excavation’, pp. 14-17.

⁹⁵ Sims, ‘Grace Manor’, pp. 9-10.

⁹⁶ L. Barber, ‘The Pottery’, in Kirk, ‘An Archaeological Excavation’, pp. 12-14.

⁹⁷ R. James, ‘Ceramic Building Material’, in Kirk, ‘An Archaeological Excavation’, pp. 14-17.

⁹⁸ Barber in Kirk, ‘An Archaeological Excavation’, p. 14.

⁹⁹ D. Dunkin, ‘Marine Molluscs’, in Kirk, ‘An Archaeological Excavation’, pp. 20-22.

¹⁰⁰ Kirk, ‘An Archaeological Excavation’.

¹⁰¹ Draper and Meddens, New Romney; K. Parfitt, B. Corke and J. Cotter, Townwall Street Dover, Excavations 1996, The Archaeology of Canterbury New Series, vol. 3 (Canterbury, 2006).

¹⁰² P. Courtney, ‘Ceramics and the history of consumption: pitfalls and prospects’, Medieval Ceramics 21 (1997), p. 102.

¹⁰³ Barber, ‘The Pottery’, in Kirk, ‘An Archaeological Excavation’, pp. 12-14.

¹⁰⁴ Parfitt, Corke and Cotter, Townwall Excavations, pp. 236-41, 40; Jarrett in Draper and Meddens, New Romney, pp. 71-83.

¹⁰⁵ S. Bailey, ‘Two copper alloy cross-staff heads from Warwickshire’, Medieval Archaeology 38, pp. 171-75.

¹⁰⁶ S. Margeson, The Medieval and Post-Medieval Finds from Norwich Survey Excavations, East Anglian Archaeology 58 (1993), fig. 22, pp. 257-58.

¹⁰⁷ cf. C. Cunningham, and P. Drury, Post-medieval sites and their pottery: Moulsham Street, Chelmsford, Chelmsford Archaeological Trust Report 5 (1985), fig. 35, no. 94.

¹⁰⁸ M. Gaimster and G. Seddon, ‘An assessment of an archaeological excavation on land at Grange Farm, Gillingham, Kent’, unpubl. report for Pre-Construct Archaeology (2008).

¹⁰⁹ P. Armitage, ‘Animal Bone Assessment, in Seddon, ‘An assessment of an archaeological excavation at Grange Farm’.

¹¹⁰ C. Edwards, ‘Excavations at Fremlin Walk, Maidstone’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 127 (2007), 73-108.

¹¹¹ P. Blockley, ‘Excavations at No. 41 St. George’s Street, Canterbury, 1985’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 105 (1988), 115, fig. 15, plate VIII.

¹¹² Bailey, ‘Two copper alloy cross-staff heads from Warwickshire’, p. 171.

¹¹³ A. Halpin, A ‘Winchester-s’ bronze mount, National Museum of Ireland, 7-12.

¹¹⁴ Pers. comm. Joanna Taylor and Marit Gaimster 2012.

¹¹⁵ http://finds.org.uk/database/artefacts/.

¹¹⁶ W. Hildburgh, ‘English Alabaster Carvings as records of Medieval religious drama’, Archaeologia 93 (1949), pp. 51-102, plate xvi.

¹¹⁷ H. Smith, ‘Fifteenth-century painted panels from the rood screen of Nayland Church, Suffolk, Antiquaries Journal 3 (1923), pp. 345-46.

¹¹⁸ Museum number: A.70-1946.

¹¹⁹ http://www.atownunearthed.co.uk/ [10.8.2013].

¹²⁰ B. Campbell, J. Galloway, D. Keene, M. Murphy, A Medieval Capital and its Grain Supply: Agrarian Production and its Distribution in the London Region c.1300 (Historical Geography Research Series 30), 1993; J. Galloway (ed.), Tides and Floods: new research on London and the Tidal Thames from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century, Centre for Metropolitan History, Working Papers Series, 4 (2010).

¹²¹ T. Allen, ‘Bronze, Boats and the Kentish Seaboard in prehistory: the role of coastal Kent in a major trans-continental trade route’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 132 (2012), 1, 4, 15, 16.

¹²² T. Allen, ‘The Origins of the Swale: an archaeological interpretation’, Archaeologia Cantiana, 120 (2000), 183-4.

¹²³ G. Draper, ‘Writing English, French and Latin in the fifteenth century: a regional perspective’, The Fifteenth Century (ed. L. Clark), VII (Boydell Press, 2007), pp. 213-235.

¹²⁴ J. Thomson, The Transformation of Medieval England 1370-1529 (Harlow, 1983), p. 4.

Fig. 1 Site location map.

Fig. 2 Extract from Hasted’s Map of the Two Hundreds showing the Liberty of Grange.

Fig. 3 Likeness of John Philipot from St Alban’s Abbey Book of Benefactors compiled by Thomas Walsingham for Abbot Thomas de la Mare (1349-96), British Library, Cotton MS Nero D.VII, f.105v. Copyright British Library.

Fig. 4 Brass of Joan Bamme, d.1431, ‘on a grave-stone in the South or Grench Chancel in Gillingham Church’, drawing and note by Thomas Fisher, Society of Antiquaries of London.

Fig. 5 Modern photograph of the chapel at Grange.

Fig. 6 An engraving by Catherine Thorp of the chapel at Grange manor as it appeared on 7 September 1776, J. Nichols, Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, 1 (The Antiquities of Kent and Sussex) (1780-90), Plate V, fig. 2.

Fig. 7 Modern photo of the so-called refectory.

Fig. 8 Layout of the site with archaeological features e.g. building remains, moat, well and excavation areas A, B, C, etc., mentioned in text.

Fig. 9 Building detail uncovered in the central sector of the site and excavated by Archaeology South-East, KARU and Oxford Archaeology.

Fig. 10 The cross-staff head.

Fig. 11 The book mount.