Notes on Hythe Church

264 NOTES ON HYTHE CHURCH. town a lease of the appointment for 99 years, but in 1541 he conveyed the manor of Saltwood with all its appurtenances to Henry YIII. in exchange for other lands. The lease was annulled or surrendered and the bailiffs appointed by the Crown. Pinally in 1575 Queen Ehzabeth granted the town a new charter with the right of electing their own Mayor, as the brass to John Bridgman, ob. 1581, records. Probably on this change the Corporation ceased to use St. Edmund's chapel, and were allowed to meet in the parvise, which they kept m. repair. Their muniments are still preserved there. The size and importance of the chapel of St. Leonard was marked by the fact that the archbishops used to hold ordinations therein,* rather than in the churoh of Saltwood. The extent of Hythe in mediseval times was proved by the existence of several other chapels, the ruins of which with their churchyards remained in Leland's time (1540), viz., St. Nicholas, St. Mary, St. Michael, and Our Lady of Westhithe.f With the exception of the last-named they appear to have been no longer in use in 13664 Nothing is known of St. Mary's, The site of the churchyard of St. Nicholas is marked in two seventeenth-century,maps,§ and is well known, bones having recently been discovered there. A plot called St. Michael Ashe also is marked on the maps, which in a note mention a c urch. of St. Bernard, which however is not marked. We may now turn to the architectural history of the church, and glance at its chief features. j| The church was * In the years 1282,1288,1456. Of. Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. XVIII., p. 419. t See The Itinerary of Leland,, Parts vii. and viii., edited by L. T. Smith, 1909, pp. 64, 65. [The sites of these ohurches are considered in a Paper in this Vol. on West Hythe Church.—ED.] % Alan de Sleddale, appointed Eector of Saltwood 1365 (Reg. Islip, p. 307), on 21 June 1366 procured Royal Letters of Presentation whioh refer to " Ecclesiam de Saltewode cum oapella de Hothe eidem ecclesie annexa." Apparently then only one church, St. Leonard's, was then in use at Hythe. See list of Rectors of Saltwood with Hythe annexed, by T. S. Erampton, E.S.A. § These maps, dated 1684 and 1685 are in the possession of the Trustees of St. Bartholomew, Hythe, and shew where the Hospital estates were situated. They are full of very interesting information. [The 1684 map is reproduced in this Vol.—see the Paper on West Hythe.] [|| Of. St. Leonard's Ohurch, Hythe, by Canon Scott Robertson, in Archceologia Cantiana, Vol. VIII., p. 403. The Canon's Paper contains muoh interesting information, but .his architectural history must be read with some reserve. Old theories die hard, and it cannot be repeated too often, just at present, that