Letters to the Editor, Spring 2004
Dear Editor
A FAMILY HOME?
I would be really pleased if any member of the KAS can recognise this house and especially as to where it is. The photo was in a chest of drawers which I inherited from my great-uncle, Montie Maylam, who was born in the 1870's at New Shelve Farm, Lenham. He had relations around Throwley and the edge of Romney Marsh. He moved to the Tonbridge area in 1897.
Richard Maylam
Yalding
Please contact the editor at the usual addresses if you have any information for Mr Maylam.
Dear Editor
KENT COUNTY CHURCHES
For many months, I have been searching on the internet and in bookshops, for the first volume of J.A. Syms three books on Kent churches. Its title is Kent Country Churches, published by Meresborough Books.
I have had no luck at all. If a member of the KAS has a copy that he/she is willing to sell to me, I shall be very pleased to hear.
John Physick
Please contact Mr Physick direct at:
49 New Road, Meopham, Nr Gravesend, DA13 0LS
Tel: 01474 812301
Dear Editor
WESLEY & METHODISM
Joy Saynor's article on Wesley and Methodism (winter 2003/4 Newsletter) makes a point of its appeal in the Wealden area of Kent, which she rightly describes as having "remained a centre of dissent" from earlier times.
However, surely it is inaccurate to trace this simply, as she does, to its responsiveness to earlier Protestant teaching brought across the Channel. The radical reformers of the Kentish Weald in the 16th century, who paid so dearly for their beliefs during the Marian persecutions, were surely the inheritors of a local tradition of Lollardy, which had been strong in this part of Kent before Protestantism arrived from the Continent.
This tradition of radical non-conformism appears to have still been a factor in the early 20th century, contributing to the remarkable victory of the Wesleyan Minister, Reverend R M Kedward in Ashford as a Liberal at the 1929 general election. The Ashford constituency was then more rural, extending further into the Weald, than the present parliamentary division.
I wonder whether the connection of this dissenting tradition over some five centuries has been traced by any local historian, and whether there are still signs of it in the 21st century amongst the indigenous people of Wealden Kent.
Michael Steed
Canterbury
Image of the house in question