Old St Albans Court, Nonington

OLD ST ALBANS COURT, NONINGTON PETER HOBBS It is a joyous thing with us to look forward to Wednesday sennight when we hope to be all once more assembled together in this old mansion.1 Old St Albans Court, formerly St Albans Court and before that the Manor of Eswalt lies about mid-way between Canterbury and Deal. The writer purchased the house and the immediate adjoining land in 1995 and the following account represents the product of seven y ears of research. Investigations by the Dover Archaeological Group were summarised in 2001 and the detail awaits publication. 2 Hasted sets out the story with considerable but not total accuracy:3 St Albans Court, anciently called, at first Eswalt, and afterwards Esole, is a manor situated in the valley,4 north eastward from the [Nonington] church, in the borough of its own name, which with another estate near it, called Bedesham (all that remains of the name of which is a grove behind St Albans House, called Beauchamp wood, in which are many foundations of buildings, being now esteemed as part of the manor of St Albans Court)5 was in the time of the Conqueror, part of the possessions of Odo, bishop of Bayeux, and they are accordingly both thus entered in the record of Domesday: Adelode holds of the bishop Eswalt: It is assessed at 3 Sulungs in demesne there is one carucate, and six villeins, with two bordars having three carucates. There are two servants and a small wood for fencing. In the time of Edward the Confessor it was worth nine pounds, now fifteen. Alnod Cilt held it for King Edward. However, despite Hasted's attribution of Bedesham as Beauchamp, the Victoria County History suggests that Bedesham is Betteshanger6 and this is supported by the latest authority.7 In 1558, the Beauchamps estate was only some fifty acres,8 much less than Hasted's Domesday estate and, earlier, is associated with Esole in some entertaining correspondence between Thomas, brother of the Earl of Warwick,9 and the Prior of Christchurch, Canterbury in 1369. Thomas proposed perpetual masses for his lately deceased elder brother and other relatives who might be in need in return for the gift of Beauchamps. The Prior took care to qualify 273 N -.J .i::,. 100 0 100 ® 0 200 Metres 0 @ 1< siteof 􀁉 .& } Anglo-Saxon • monument St Albans Court cemetery "I' 􀁊 ✓ (now Beech Grove) •.w * 􀀂 O <:t ..,,.o 􀀃􀀄 O: 􀁋 􀁌 c wooded area $ ,:;, \\ '!J􀁍􀁎 .,"'􀀈'® - II/ '*􀀄0 1:;, ,a􀁏 􀀂 N •:-t .g. 1 􀀩hf ® 􀀪 !;'Ii- Easole Fig. 1 Plan of the area of Old St Albans Court, showing the location of places mentioned in the text ( drawn by Barry Corke). i ::i:: 0 to to CZl HISTORY OF OLD ST ALBANS COURT, NONINGTON the warranty on the efficacy of such masses and anyway declined the offer on the basis that the bottom line was not good enough!1° On the bishop of Bayeux's disgrace in the year 1084, it came, with the rest of his estates, into the hands of the crown, when the manor of Esole, alias St Alban, seems to have been granted to William de Albinato or Albini... who had followed the conqueror from Normandy hither, whose son, of the same name, earl of Albermarle, gave it by the name of the manor ofEswelle, to the abbot ofStAlban's, in Hertfordshire; which gift was afterwards confirmed by king Stephen; and from thence it gained the name of St Albans. And anno 7 king Edward I the abbot claimed and was allowed, before the justices itinerant, free warren and other liberties within the manor. After which it continued in the possession of the abbey till the 30th year of king Henry VIII when the abbey and convent with the King's consent, sold it, with its lands, appurtenances, and tithes belonging to it, as well as a corn, grain, hay and otherwise, then in the occupation of John Hammond, to Sir Christopher Hales, master of the rolls; ... his coheirs ... in the 2nd and 3rd of Philip and Mary, sold it11 to Thomas Hammond, gent who at that time resided there, being the direct descendant of John Hamon, or Hammond, who was resident here in king Henry VIII's time as tenant to the abbot and convent of St Albans, who died in 1525, and was buried in the church as were his several descendants afterwards ... 12 Harris claimed: 'At a place called Beacham, near the St Albans, the tradition goes, that there was a nunnery, which perhaps the Name of the Parish, and the Land belonging to the Abbey of St Albans, may have occasioned' .13 Knowles and Hadcock list no such house but the tradition may· not be entirely false.14 The first mention of an estate at Easole found so far is in the late 700s when it was owned by Ealdebeorht, one ofOffa's thegns, and his sister Selethryth, Abbess of Lyminge. It was bequeathed to Christ Church, Canterbury but a relative, Oswulf, stole the deeds and gave them to Cwoenthryth, Abbess of Minster and daughter of Cenwulf, Offa's successor as king of Mercia. She refused to release them or the land to Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury, who had fallen out of favour with her father, until she was forced to do so after the death of her father by an ecclesiastical council in 824. 15 Perhaps these formidable ladies may be the source of the story of the ghostly nun who is said to walk from the old house to the first manor house. 16 We await her lead with interest because no clear evidence of occupation earlier than the fourteenth century has been found on the site. The name Easole in Old English appears to mean a place situated in a hollow between two ridges which jut out as to form a handle, an accurate description to this day, and Eswalt refers to a ridge of earth. 17 AngloSaxon place-names tend to be accurate physical descriptions and it would not be inappropriate for the first Saxon village and manor house to be on the ridge overlooking what would be the site of the later medieval 275 PETER HOBBS 276 E g t:: :::, 8 "' C: "' ..0 􀀆 Fig. 2 Pen-a nd-ink drawing of Old St the north-east (2004). HISTORY OF OLD ST ALBANS COURT, NONINGTON hamlet of Easole. The existence of a late seventh-century Christian Anglo-Saxon burial ground within sight to the north-east adds weight to this speculation. 1 8 The present Beauchamps Wood overlooking Easole contains earthworks yet to be explored. The Ruins Field immediately adjacent to the north-east was wooded until 1940 and contains a building shown on a 1629 Estate map 19 and identified on the nineteenth-century maps as 'St Albans chapel' (see Appendix).20 However, Boteler, the source of a lot of Hasted's information, reports to him that William Hammond had provided him with memoranda suggesting that the 'foundation of an ancient building (in Beauchamp Wood) was formerly a prison or Gatehouse' .2 1 He later writes that 'I had my doubts of it then, and upon further consideration I have since found but little to be depended upon respecting the earlier part of his memoranda'. 22 Field observations in 196523 found only a fragment of collapsed flint walling which was later cleared for farming purposes and used to build a wall around Nonington churchyard,24 and in 1998 preliminary excavations verified the 1629 Estate Map ground plan as being a building of medieval origin. Beauchamps, comprising some 50 acres, was purchased by Thomas Hammond in 1558 and incorporated into the St Albans estate. 25 The manor of Eswalt was given to the Abbey of St Albans in 1097.26 That medieval monks were adept at propaganda to attract new donors is suggested by the illustration in the British Library of Nigel de Albencio and his wife Amica making the donation.27 Within twenty years or so it was rented out for £ 12, 28 the proceeds of which were for the Cellarer at the Abbey.29 The original grant of the estate was confirmed by King Stephen, 30 and that document and seal was in the possession of the Hammond family until 1968. The seal was commented on in detail in 1792,3 1 and by visitors from the Kent Archaeological Society in 1936.32 It is also recorded in The Antiquaries Journal in July 1936, and finally as 'a fragment attached to a late copy of the original' in 196833 but the current whereabouts of the seal is not known. The Origins of Old St Albans Court The archaeological evidence suggests that the foundation of the present building could be fourteenth-century, and this would match the prosperous age of monastic agriculture from the 1300s which generated substantial capital expenditure in other monastic estates. However, St Albans Abbey, whilst territorially rich, paid dearly in cash terms with the misfortune of having to secure royal and papal confirmation for five abbots between 1290 and 1349,34 and the king had to appoint a custodian to oversee finances on three occasions over this period.35 However, Abbot Hugh of Eversden (1309-27) saw considerable outward and inward expenditure. 277 PETER HOBBS The Abbey was notoriously feckless and did seem to alternate between expansion and retrenchment as well as endless litigation. 36 Finances recovered somewhat under Abbot de la Mare despite the onset of the Black Death. The excavated pottery record could suggest greater activity earlier in this period when :financial mismanagement could have permitted the cellarer to enhance his rent by capital expenditure. Or it could have been part of a broader :financial plan, although there is little evidence for this.37 John de Cadyndon of Norrington leased the manor of Esole for six years in 136838 and appears to have gained a four year extension in 1373. The rent was £21 and the indenture details the equipment provided by the Abbey, including for knight service, and the twice yearly visits by the cellarer and his servants to inspect the detailed injunctions in the indenture. The Abbey's manorial policy closely relates to that of Westminster Abbey39 - a lease for a number of years, the lessee receiving some livestock and implements at inception and having to execute a bond to facilitate prompt rent payment and the fulfilment of the covenants in the lease. Of the other tenants, there appears to be some continuity of names between 1349 and 1377/840 and probably to 1425.4 1 The first reference so far found to the present name of the property is in 1509 when the will of Robert Cokesall of Evesoill (Easole) refers to his 'lands, rents, services and tenements being and lying within the tenure of St Albans in the parish of N onington'. 42 The first recorded link with the family in whose ownership it would be for nearly four hundred years is when John Hamon or Hamond is overseer of the will of Robert Baker of Norrington in 1505,43 and in 1519 Thomas Quylter of Norrington willed 'that John Hamond shall have my lease and indenture of the years that I have in St Albans Court with the condition that he shall dwell there ... or else have it not'.44 John Hamond or Hamon had a brother, Thomas, at Goodnestone and although there is not much detailed information, Hamons and Hamonds are recorded in Sandwich in the :fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.45 The Tudor rebuilding The first Hammond (as recorded by his heirs)46 died in 1525, and he bequeathed to his widow Margery: ' ... she have for her chamber nowe byldyd on the Northe syde of the house with a lofft. ... she have her chamber rome yn the Southe syde untyll such tyme the said byldyng be fynysshed' .47 His son Thomas received the tenancy on achieving his majority and he became a person of substance, being knighted in 1548.48 He purchased the estate of which he was then tenant in 155149 and in 1556 was engaged in major rebuilding operations in brick.50 The architectural evidence suggests a three-storied building was intended although not fully 278 HISTORY OF OLD ST ALBANS COURT, NONINGTON implemented. A date stone of 1556, although not in its original position, appears to be accepted for the purpose and may perhaps be confirmed by a 1556 date incised on a large copper sundial on the south-east gable of the Tudor house.51 Originally thought to have been of nineteenth-century origin, evidence of three restorations and changes was discovered, yet its condition testified by local residents52 and photographs argued that no redecoration took place in the twentieth century. The restorers suggested a date not later than the seventeenth century and possibly earlier. 53 The 1556 house fronted south-east and was large. Thomas Hammond's will in 1569 leaves to: Alyse my wyf. .. during suche tymes as she remayneth Wydow the parler in the northe end of my manner house wherin I now dwell, the Chamber over the sayd parler, the Chamber over the Porche, the Chamber over the hall, the lyttle Chamber within the Chamber over the sayd Parler under the Garret there and the Closet, the Chamber under the sayd lyttle Chamber, the Chamber called the stoolehouse, and the Chamber next adioyning to yt parcell of the sayd mannor house, and also the stable called the hackeney stable next to the barne ... 54 The 1616 Probate Inventory for Edward Hammond lists twenty six rooms but none of the later wills go into such details and there are no inventories of contents associated with rooms.55 As a family, in the seventeenth century the Hammonds moved on the fringes of court circles. Chalklin records them as typical of the parochial gentry with an annual income of £254 ( compared with Kent peers at £4,089 p.a., baronets at £1,405, knights at £873 and Esquires at £270).56 However, the Hammonds generally seem to have married in financially and socially advantageous ways57 and there is evidence of assets outside Kent.58 They commissioned a series of family portraits from, amongst others Cornelius Jansen59 from 1636 onwards which formed a collection written up in guide books from the l 790s. 60 Two Hammonds sailed with Raleigh. 61 After service in the Thirty Years War one of them 'retired in his old age to his native spot, and after adding something to the buildings, died there' .62 Numbers of sixteenthcentury artefacts were excavated, including German beer mugs and tokens from Nuremberg, suggesting at least strong local trading contacts with northern mainland Europe. Another brother fought for the Royalist cause, a noted East Kent cavalier who was at the centre of Royalist plotting throughout the Interregnum, 63 and this does not seem to have impaired the family fortunes in Kent since an indenture with James Nash dated 1663 refers to the 'steward to keep court in the common hall .. .' ,64 and reserves for William Hammond 'all the bricke building part of the mannor house aforesaid with the kitchen garden lying behind it and paled in the little closett between the two parlours halfe the new bricke stable 279 PETER HOBBS with the coach house adjoining to it the long brickwalle at the upper end of the Apple Orchard ...' .6 5 This is part of a lease in which the tenant is instructed on the required crop rotation, and is cited as an example of best practice in North Kent agriculture in the seventeenth century.66 The 1664 Hearth Tax shows James Nash having thirteen hearths in Easole borough but there is no record of Hammond in his own right. 67 There is an Estate plan of 1629,68 initially viewed with scepticism by the archaeologists because, although some buildings were familiar, it showed a quadrangle of building facing to the south-east, with a walled courtyard and covered gateway. However this plan, very different from all later maps and plans, has been confirmed in almost every respect by the spade. The positions of Home Farm and stables buildings shown on it are also confirmed by later maps and were incorporated in a remodelling of the stables and part of the farm by George Devey in 1869 (see below).69 The Major Rebuildings of 1665 and 1790 About 1665 there was a major rebuilding, and the house was reoriented to the north-east and a new fac;ade was added on that side.70 There remained a small open courtyard in the centre. A lease of 1716 refers to: all that forepart of the capital! messuage or manor house called the new Buildings, the kitchen and the larder with the rooms over them, and five rooms in the old buildings of the said Manor house up one pair of staires that is to say, the long study and the room going through to it, the housekeeper's Chamber Store Room and Nursery, the Bedchamber with two Closets on the ground floor and half the cellars under the new Buildings, together with free use of the Bakehouse, Brewhouse, Woodhouse and Well... the Courtyard, the two walled gardens adjoining to the front of the said manor house and half the kitchen garden being the lower part thereof towards the woodhouse.71 The next significant restructuring came in 1790, William Hamond recording that 'he laid out in enlarging and ornamenting the House and Place about three thousand pounds'. 72 This appears to have included a reshaping of the north-east front with octagonal wings and was perhaps celebrated in the print of the house in 1792. 73 Heated greenhouses were probably also built in the walled garden at this time. Other than possibly some embellishment to the window above the front entrance, this print appears identical to one of 1838,74 both from the north-east, and also in a larger print of the same period.75 A photograph confirms a building substantially the same.76 The Impact of George Devey The plan of the late eighteenth-century house is confirmed in a surveyor's 280 I IISTORY Or OLD ST ALBANS COURT. NONINGTON 281 00 r') 00 '- 0 C: .... ;:; 0 u hg . J The reshaped north-cast front of St Albans t as depicted i a print PETER HOBBS draft of 179777 (which is the same as the 1801 l in. to the mile OS Map), an 1814 estate map,78 the 1859 Tithe Map79 and the 1872 25in. to the mile OS map. This latter shows the 1869 stable block and associated building commissioned by William Oxenden Hammond from George Devey, and for which there are detailed plans and payments in Devey's accounts books. However, Devey received fees in 1867 for the estate although Hammond inherited only in 1868. 80 Devey may have done work on the house already and he prepared a detailed plan of the post-1665 'new buildings'. These were demolished after 1876.81 William Oxenden Hammond wrote that 'in 1875 ... I decided ... to rebuild a new mansion, the old one ... having naturally fallen into a decayed state' .82 The foundations of the house that Devey drew and then demolished have been confirmed on the ground as well as traces of earlier building including a bread oven and a well. 83 Devey's Elizabethan style replacement mansion - [new] St Albans Court - which was built to the north, now listed Grade I, echoes on a larger scale in many ways aspects of the 1556 and seventeenth-century house. Hammond's use of the word 'rebuild' for a new house may be significant. That the main rooms face south-west and south-east perhaps reflected a frustration that in the final manifestation of the original house, they had faced north-west and northeast. 84 Devey drew detailed plans of 'the new buildings'85 but not of the medieval and Tudor buildings, although his numerous sketches making proposals as to how much of this old house should be retained suggest from the notes on them that they had been relegated to servants' quarters and laundry rooms by this time. 86 The final outcome sensitively retained the oldest part of these buildings, providing a romantic vista from the new house. 87 Indeed, with his 1869 stables and farm buildings beyond, he created a picturesquely spreading group matching his work at Penshurst. 88 This vista Hammond captured in a water colour in 1895.89 The old house remnant was renamed the Gardener's Cottage90 but had become two Tudor Cottages in the 1938 sales brochure for the estate.91 Devey's work makes the house unusual in that all Restoration and Georgian additions have been removed leaving the Tudor and earlier building exposed. After over four hundred years of occupation and ownership by the Hammond family,92 in 1938 St Albans Court and the land immediately surrounding it was purchased by Mrs Gladys Wright on behalf of the English Gymnastic Society, becoming the Nonington College of Physical Education which was conveyed to Kent County Council in 1951.93 The Tudor cottages became the Principal's house.94 The remainder of the estate was widely dispersed including a number of Tudor style cottages designed by Devey for Hammond.95 The old house was used by the YMCA during the war and then lived in by support and teaching staff.96 There was rather heavy-handed work installing extra washing and toilet facilities, a dining room in what had 282 HISTORY OF OLD ST ALBANS COURT, NONINGTON been a pump room drawing water from a large cistern below,97 removing an internal staircase and patching old work in modem materials. The stables were converted to laboratories, art rooms and a boiler room which included the insertion of modem windows and Devey's granary to a caretaker's cottage. Most of the 1790s greenhouses were demolished, large sheds for vehicles and equipment were built at the rear of the house and part of Devey's stable yard wall replaced with modem brick toilets. A large area to the north-east of the house became an asphalted car park and asphalted paths, cycle sheds and wooden garages intruded on former garden areas.98 Kent County Council closed the college and put the whole estate up for sale in 1985. The College buildings and land were on a limited care and maintenance basis until bought by developers in 1991 who later tried to re-sell in at least six parts. The 1876 Devey mansion and most of its grounds became the home of the Beechgrove Bruderhof community; the 1960s student flats have been refurbished and are now privately owned; and the remainder of the ancient site including Old St Albans Court, Beauchamp Wood and Ruins Field have been brought together under private single ownership. Some of the eighteenth-century culverts and all the cisterns so far discovered are now utilised again to collect roof water from all the buildings on site which is now pumped for gardening purposes. The old house and stables buildings have been repaired and restored, exposing and preserving wherever possible ancient timbers and features. The sixteenth-century frontage and yard to the south-east has also been exposed and marked out, as well as part of the seventeenth-century house. Devey's picturesquely spreading group of buildings are intact and the gardens are being renewed. A wider programme of work is now in progress by the Dover Archaeological Group to put the house in context with the adjoining Anglo-Saxon burial ground and the medieval works in Ruins Field. Old St Albans Court is, in many ways, a microcosm of wider events. Initially the building was a product of monastic wealth before becoming the continually changing expression in bricks and mortar of the rise and prosperity of local Kentish gentry. The building celebrated in William Hammond's letter of 1811 has in part gone but what remains gained from the work of George Devey, the friend of the idiosyncratic William Oxenden Hammond, for whom he built an architecturally distinguished new mansion.99 As with many English country houses, the First World War and death led to a period of institutional use, then decay and developers. Now Old St Albans Court is again in private hands with a sense of custodianship for future generations. 283 N 00 􀀃 Archaeological investigations in progress at Old St Albans Court (south-east) PLATE I -0 rn ..., rn ;;o :c 0 to to C/'J HISTORY OF OLD ST ALBANS COURT, NONINGTON APPENDIX 'ST ALBANS CHAPEL' The belief that St Albans chapel was in the Ruins' Field appears only on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century plans and maps, and the excavated site does not obviously support the contention. Arthur Hussey quotes Hasted but interpolates: 'A short distance south of the house are the ruins of the chapel built for those who looked after this property of that Abbey ... ' .1 00 He provides no authority for this statement but might have been influenced by the publication of Galbraith's monograph on the Abbey of St Albans in 1911 which noted that the Abbey frequently founded cells in Norman gifts of manors and cites Tynemouth and Wymondham in Norfolk.1 0 1 However, we know St Albans Manor was tenanted from the early 11 00s, and in the fourteenth century expected only two visits a year from the overseeing authority. In 1776 Seymour refers to a chapel, 1 02 but there is no other mention in any other accounts of the house some of which, by the textual content, implied discussion with the then owners, until lgglesden in 1913 .1 03 Hussey may also have had in mind Archbishop Parker's Visitation of Kent in 1573, a transcription of which preceded his article on Chapels in Kent in Archaeologia Cantiana and includes the entry: 'Estwell: Compertum est that they have had there service sayd but by their Clarke or a Reader. Item they have no parson as yet inducted' .1 04 However, this clearly refers to the parish of Eastwell in Kent rather than the manor of Estwell/Easole/St Albans since there is only one entry in the Visitation under this heading. Furthermore a chapel on private land attached to a Manor house would not have had a parson inducted, and in general those who held the avowsons of parish churches fought strenuously against the introduction of an alternative place of worship nearby with the resultant loss of tithes this would incur.1 05 If there were a chapel to the south of the manor house it would lie under the present stable block, built to George Devey's plans in 1869. This is on the site of earlier buildings shown on the 1629 Estate map although none have an east/west configuration, not in itself necessarily a determining argument. The care in erecting a memorial for human remains found during tree planting in 1876 106 strongly suggests that, had there been a belief that a chapel site existed in 1869, this would have been noted in some way. It was not. lgglesden 's statement in 1913 that 'two monks were always in residence at the Court. There was a small chapel attached ... ' is therefore improbable. 1 07 The conclusion must be, sadly and not at all romantically, that there is no evidence that a chapel ever existed anywhere on the site. 285 PETER HOBBS ENDNOTES Note re MSS - This is a vellum bound notebook, 8¼ x 6½in. The front cover is headed: MSS Family Histories, above which is written: 'This Book contains a good deal of broken family history commenced by my grandfather William Hammond & continued by my father William Osmund Hammond, & further by myself Wm Oxenden Hammond [who died in 1903 ]'. As well as the family history there are newspaper cuttings and items copied from printed sources. In reverse the book was used for accounts, including woodland accounts from 1780-1806. The book is in the possession of Mrs Peta Binney, the oldest granddaughter of Mrs Selina Hammond, wife of Egerton Hammond, who was the last of the direct line of Hammonds. 1 Letter from William Hammond, dated 21 March 1811, in the possession of Rev. K.M. Parry who, as a child, lived in St Albans Court from 1940-1944 about which he has written a small monograph. 2 Kent Archaeological Review (Winter 2001), 132-135. 3 E. Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, 2nd ed., ix ( 1797-1801 ), 251-262. The text relating to St Albans Manor in the first edition (1786), iii, 707-712 is noted where it differs from the second edition. 4 Hasted,op. cit., l st ed., 'about halfa mile'. 5 Hasted, op. cit., 1st ed., adds a note: 'This has lost all reputation of having been a manor, it is only a hamlet, and is esteemed as part of the manor of St Albans Court'. The expanded words in the second edition may refer to the earthworks still in Beauchamps Wood or the remnants in Ruins Field. See CKS, U238 P4, Grist, Ichnography of St Albans Court Estate for W. Hammond, 1814. 6 Kent, Victoria County History, iii (1932), 197. 7 A. Williams and G.H. Martin (eds), Domesday Book (Penguin, 2002). 8 Edward Browne of Warde juxta Sandwich, yeoman, conveys to Thomas Hamon of Nonnyngton, gent., 'All that messuage or tenement called Beacham ... containing 50 acres'. KAS Library, Nonington Folder. 9 Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Vol. 10, Ed III, 628, ' ... Easole held of the Abbot of St Albans'. This parcel of land presumably acquired the local name of Beauchamps from the Warwick connection at this time. The main body of the manor continued locally to be identified with the Abbey of St Albans and was leased separately. See also note 38. 10 J.B. Sheppard, ed., Literae Cantuarienses, ii, Rolls Series 85 (London, 1888), 485-9. 11 Hasted, op. cit., 1 st ed., p. 709, 'sold the manor of Esole and 20 acres of arable, eight acres of meadow, 60 acres of pasture, and six acres of wood ... for 2000 mares'. See also Kent Records - New Series, vol. 4, part 1, Feet of Fines Edward VI (1&2). 12 Hasted, op. cit., 254-5. 13 J. Harris, History of Kent (1719), 221. 14 D. Knowles and R.N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses, England and Wales, 2nd ed. (Harlow, 1 971 ). 15 K. Witney, Kingdom of Kent (Phillimore, 1982), 220, 225; K Witney, 'The Period of Mercian Rule in Kent', Archaeologia Cantiana, crv (1987), 87. 16 Aubrey Sutton, Nonington (roneo ms, privately circulated, 1975, copy in Deal Public Library). Head Caretaker ofNonington College, he was brought up in Nonington. His father reaped the last crop of corn from the site of what became Snowdown Colliery. Aubrey and his wife lived for a time in one of the 'Tudor' Cottages before the Granary was made habitable for them. An avid photographer, he also collected and recorded materials and stories relating to Nonington and in particular to the College. See also Kent Rural District Council, Nonington Village Appraisal (1988). 286 HISTORY OF OLD ST ALBANS COURT, NONINGTON 17 B.O.E. Ekwall, Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place Names (Oxford, 1960). Dr Paul Cullen notes, however, that there are difficulties in both phonology and meaning, and that it is an odd and difficult name (personal communication, July 2000). 18 MSS. A detailed description of the discovery is given by William Oxenden Hammond in 1875, and a brief excavation report is provided by Keith Parfitt, Kent Archaeological Review (Spring 2002), 157-159. 19 CKS, U442 P30. Estate map of St Albans Court, 1629. There is a pencilled 1650 on the map but Dr Jane Andrews, Land, Family and Community in Wingham and its Environs. An Economic and Social History of Rural Society in East Kent from c.1450-1640 (University of Kent thesis, 1991 ), suggests from the evidence of tenant identification that it more probably coincides with the majority of Anthony Hammond in 1629. 2° CKS, U238 P4. Grist, Ichnography of St Albans Court Estate for W. Hammond, 1814. See also OS Map. 21 Canterbury Cathedral Archives, Ul 1/433/289. Boteler to Hasted, 7 Sept 1789. 22 CCA, U l 1/433/291. Boteler to Hasted, 29 Dec 1789. 23 EH National Monuments Record, Monarch Data Base TR 25SE3. 24 WilfBarwick (local farmer), personal communication, 2002. 25 CKS, U47 TI 1. Release to Thomas Hamond. 26 H.T. Riley (ed.), Chronica Monasterii S. Albani - Gesta Abbatum, i, (1876), 67 and Rev. Peter Newcome, History of the Abbey of St Albans (1795), 51. 27 BM, Cotton Nero D vii, folio 92v. 28 Newcome, ibid., 954. 29 Riley, op. cit., 1-74, and Hertfordshire, VCH, iv, 413. 30 Topographical Miscellanies (London, 1792). Vol. l, London [hereafter TM]. There is a section entitled 'Kent, St Albans Court, Nonington in the Hundred of Wingham', but there are no page numbers. A typed, unattributed document in Dr Gordon Ward's papers, dated 24 January 1936, gives a probable date of7 December 1141. 31 Hasted, op. cit., 255; TM. 32 'Excursions', Archaeologia Cantiana, XLIX (1938), xliv. 33 I.A. Cronne and H.W.C. Davis (eds), Reges/a Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 1066- 1154 (Oxford, 1969). 34 V. Galbraith, The Abbey of St Alban (Oxford, 1911 ). 35 Still, The Abbot and the Rule: Religious Life at St Albans, 1290-1349 (Ashgate, 1992). 36 Barrie Morley, St Albans Cathedral Library, personal communication, 2002. 37 A.E. Levitt, Studies in Manorial History (Oxford, 1963). 38 British Museum, Harley 602, fol.4. 39 Barbara Harvey, Westminster Abbey and its estates in the Middle Ages (Oxford, 1977), pp. 152-54. 40 British Museum, Harley 602, fol 24. 41 British Museum, Harley 602, fol 56v. 42 CKS, PRC33/1/138. 43 CKS, PRC33/l/39. 44 CKS, PRC33/1/157v. 45 Dr Sheila Sweetinburgh, personal communication, 12 May 2000. 46 TM. Within the text it is clear that the author had visited St Albans Court and had discussions with William Hammond (tenth generation, 1752-1822), and he gives a very detailed genealogy of the Hammond family very similar to that which Hammond himself wrote in his family history, MSS. 47 CKS, PRC 33/1/53 Will of John Hamon ofNonyngton, 1525. 287 48 TM. Hasted, op. cit., 255. 49 Ibid. 50 There are considerable deposits ofbrickearth around Nonington and an indenture of 1663 (CKS U471 T511) reserves brick kilns for use by the tenant. Aubrey Sutton recalled that remains of brick kilns were found when the College built a block of student flats immediately to the west of the old house in 1951. It seems probable that the bricks were made on site for the 1556 building and possibly also for the 1665 extensions as well. 51 J. Britton and E.W. Brayley, The Beauties of England and Wales, viii (London, 1801), 1086; EHNMR, TR25SE18; John Newman, Buildings of England, North East and East Kent, 3rd ed., (1983), 402. 52 Aubrey Sutton, personal communication, 1998. 53 David Harber Sundials, Henley on Thames, personal communication, 12th March 1999. 54 CKS, PRC 32/31 121. Will ofThomas Hammond ofNonyngton, 1569. 55 CKS, PRC 28/9 238. Inventory, Edward Hammond of Nonington, 1616. The rooms listed are: Chamber over the buttery, little chamber at the stayers hed, Lowe parlour next the hall, stone parlour, chamber over the parlour, mayds chamber, Schole house chamber, chamber over the buttery, porche chamber, garrett, stayerhead chamber, !owe parlour next the hall