
The Owners of Allington Castle, Maidstone (1086-1279)
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Front matter, Volume 29
A Series of Kentish Heraldic Fire-Backs and the identification of the Arms
^tittefllfljjm Cantiana.
4.
THE OWNERS OE ALLINGTON CASTLE,
MAIDSTONE (1086—1279).
BY AGNES E. CONWAY.
THE desire to recover from the past some trace of the
persons who lived and moved and had their being amidst
the same surroundings as oneself, gazing on the same hills,
protected by the same moat, sheltered within the same
walls, is natural enough. To print the result for others
who do not chance to possess the same personal interest may
need some warrant. But these ghostly owners of Allington,
800 years ago, shared in a society so unlike our own, that
any authentic, although most literal record of their daily
lives, in some degree revives a vanished world.
Eor the owners of Allington after 1280, the year that
Stephen of Penchester began to build the Castle as it exists
in its essentials to-day, I would refer the reader to the Paper
by Mr. Bellewes in the present volume, and to Sir Martin
Conway's article in Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. XXVIII.,
p. 337.
Kilburne in his Topographical Survey of Kent, published
in 1659, undertakes to give an account of the successive
owners of Allington who preceded Stephen of Penchester.
Although at every line he is contradicted by contemporary
documents, successive Kentish historians have repeated his
errors, not without embellishments of their own. Kilburne,
Philipot, Hasted, reiterate the same sequence of the family
of de Columbariis, Earl Warren, Lord Fitzhngh and Sir Giles
Allington. After 1279 the Kentish historians are on firm
ground, but for the earlier centuries, Kilburne, Philipot and
Hasted must be disregarded,- else no progress can be made.
VOL. XXIX. B
2 THE OWNERS OE
I t is however quite possible to account for the origin of
their errors. The noted family of de Columbariis, who are
said by Kilburne to have built the earliest Castle, had no
connection with Allington till Avice, the daughter of Stephen
of Penchester, born in 1269, married one of them. But
Burke in his Dormant and Extinct Peerage, page 4, quoting
an old pedigree in the possession of a Mr.. Allington of
Swinhope, says that Medwaycester Castle (Allington) belonged
at the Conquest to Sir John de Columbariis, whose
daughter Emlyn married Sir Hildebrand de Alyngton,
undermarshall of William I. at the Battle of Hastings, and
conveyed the Castle to him. He goes on to say that the
grandson of this Sir Hildebrand, a certain Solomon, living
in the reign of Henry I., built the Castle and Solomon's
Tower. Since the tower was built by Stephen of Penchester
about 1290 this story may have been invented to account for
the name, the origin of which is unknown. The pedigree in
Burke is continued to a certain Sir Giles Allington who
died in 1522, from whom the Lords Alington descend ; but
the attempt to connect the family of Alington with Allington
Castle is only an interesting specimen of seventeenth century
pedigree-forging, which on the face of it can be discredited,
even were it not contradicted by surviving contemporary
statements.1 Earl Warren, whose daughter is said by Kilburne
to have transferred it to Lord Mtzhugh, owned
Allington near Lewes in Sussex,2 which doubtless was confounded
with the Kentish Allington; and this, combined
with Lord Alington's pedigree, suffices to account for the
errors of Kilburne, Philipot and Hasted.
The present Paper is concerned with the building up
de novo of the history of Allington Castle from Domesday
Book to 1280, the year when Stephen of Penchester obtained
a licence to fortify the Castle. Search has so far yielded
no mention of Allington earlier than Domesday Book. It
suffices here to quote a translation of that entry. Eor a
1 Bound, J. H., Peerage and Family History, p. 62, says: " Lord Alington
no longer seeks his progenitor in Sir Hildehrand de Alington, a name that
would have gladdened Sir Walter Scott." ' ;
' Memorials of the Earls of Warren and Surrey, vol, i., p. 97,
ALLINGTON CASTLE, MAIDSTONE. 3
commentary on the agrarian facts see Sir Martin Conway's
article (Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. XXVIII., p. 339):—
"Anschitel holds of the Bp. [Odo of Bayeux] Elentun. It
answers for one solin. There is the. arable land of 3 teams. In
demesne there are two teams. And 15 villains with two bordars;
they have one team and a half. A church there. And two slaves.
And half a mill. And one dene of 15 shillings. Wood of 8 hogs.
And one acre of meadow. - In the time of King Edward it was
worth 100 shillings. When he received it 60 shillings. Now 100
shillings. Dluric held it of Alnod Cilt."
This Alnod Cilt,1 a great Kentish thane who may have
been a son of King Harold by his Canterbury consort, was
still living in 1086, the year of the Domesday Survey, but
with greatly diminished lands. After the Conquest, 184
manors in Kent were granted to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux,
William I.'s half-brother, twenty of which had previously
been held by Alnod Cilt; among these were Allington and
Boxley. Anschitel, who is mentioned as holding Allington
of the Bishop, was probably Anschitel de Ros, an ancestor
of the family of de Ros who were overlords of Allington to
the time of Queen Mary. This Anschitel de Ros is mentioned
in Domesday Book as the holder of many Kentish manors,
including that of Hortune in the hundred of Axstane, the
same Horton which in 1254 was held with the barony of Ros
by Gilbert Kirkeby2 and afterwards called Horton Kirby.
In 1346, when a feudal aid was paid at the knighting of the
Black Prince, Allington is referred to as having been held of
John de Ros by Margaret of Penchester as of his manor
of Horton Kirby.3 As there is no doubt that the De Ros's'
were overlords of Allington for centuries, that Anschitel de
Ros held Horton Kirby, which was always associated with
Allington, and that an