Letters

1 March 2000
Dear Editor, I thank you and the many members who have taken the trouble to express their regrets and appreciation on hearing of my resignation as Librarian after some 30 years working for it. Our collections represent a vast source of information on Kent built up since 1857. Our room has been attractively rebuilt after the disastrous arson of 1977 and efforts to move us elsewhere thwarted. We now have a separate storage facility and office in Maidstone and another has been negotiated over several years in Bradbourne House where hang our restored portraits of the Twisden Family.

Substantial strides have been achieved in rebinding, replacing gaps, expanding exchange with other Societies, and making the collection more comprehensive. We now have TWO computers and both the collection of prints, photographs, etc. and of books are painstakingly being described, augmented, and catalogued. All this needs the time of dedicated knowledgeable volunteers of which we now have a good team. What is more, the flow of enquiries has formed ample evidence that we have thereby greatly enhanced the reputation of the Society as a source of accurate information. One of my best moments was when the British Library requested sight of a slim 17th-century volume which appears unique.

As requested by several, the reasons for my resignation are given below:-

(1) The Library Committee was refused a representative on the Finance etc Committee unlike others and the presence of even non-Council members on it.

(2) The last straw for me was the refusal to remit the (very modest) travel expenses of those who have volunteered to help in the Library, for example, to attend and give freely of their expertise.

Let us hope these and other obstructions can be overcome so that the enthusiasm and progress of the recent past are not thwarted.

Peter Draper

NOTE FROM THE PRESIDENT

Council place on record their appreciation of the work of Dr Peter Draper as Hon. Librarian for 25 years, regretting his sudden resignation after the last Annual General Meeting.

The Finance and Investment Committee has included several members of the Library and Muniments Committee. Tight control is exercised over claims for reimbursement of travel expenses.

Council is confident that the Library will continue to make progress with Dr Frank Panton as Hon. Librarian and Mr Larry Ilott as Chairman of the Library and Muniments Committee.

Paul Oldham 3 March 2000 Dear Editors, I am a member of KAS (though long resident in Essex) and wonder if I might use the Newsletter in the quest for information. I am writing a paper on the Rev. John Bedle, a 17th-century rector of Bamston in Essex from 1632 to 1662. Archbishop Laud, reporting to Charles I in 1638, wrote "there is one Bedle, a minister from Essex, came into Canterbury diocese, and at Harbledown near Canterbury (the curate there being dead) preached very disorderly for three hours together at a time, and got himself many ignorant followers. But as soon as ever he was enquired after by my officers, he fled the country; and I purpose, God willing, to speak with the Chancellor of London concerning him". Most of Essex, at that time, was in the diocese of London.

There is ample evidence to show that Bedle was strongly puritan, and that he had already been in trouble with Laud (when he was bishop of London) over liturgical matters. He was a disciple of Thomas Hooker, the Chelmsford lecturer who had had to escape to Holland to avoid the Court of High Commission. Bedle remained rector of Barnston, in spite of his brushes with authority, until his ejection under the Act of Uniformity in 1662, and was buried five years later in that parish church.

I would be very interested to know how he came to be preaching at Harbledown, and whether this village had a reputation for Laudian dissent at this time - or, indeed, any other relevant background information.

Michael Leach

ARCHAEOLOGIA CANTIANA

A full set of Archaeologia Cantiana is for sale. Offers to Mrs CS Detsicas.

THE COFFIN STONE AND ITS CONTEMPORARIES

In order to appreciate the function of the Coffin Stone, the whole remaining stones must be taken into account.

Apparently, the original Neolithic settlement ranged from to the west, Hale Farm and to the east Cossington, north to Kits Coty House and probably from there eastwards. They needed for their functions avenues or roads with either one or two rows of stones. Tottington had two rows of stones, down to the bottom of the field. Where junctions arise, Monoliths were set up. The Monolith for the Kits Coty junction is found at the Lower Kits Coty House stones where it was towed down from above at an unknown date. The monolith for the Cossington Junction was the former White Horse Stone. The present White Horse Stone marked the start of their settlement with the Smythe Megalith nearby.

These Monoliths appear to form a uniform pattern as the Coffin Stone is a larger replica of the one at Little Kits Coty House. Therefore, we must expect that these thick pointed monsters formed a regular pattern. The Coffin Stone, however, was not at a known junction but formed an astronomical function with the stones below. Several large stones were removed from here in the past. Tradition has it that Great Tottington was an experimental station before Stonehenge was planned. Stones lined the road between Hale Farm and Cossington also around Kits Coty House and down to Tottington. Lower Kits Coty House has never been fully understood due to faulty information given by an unnamed person to Dr Stukeley. A visitation in 1824 plus a useful print gives us enough clues to establish roughly its form. These stones, less a pointed endstone, allow using all the stones to form a burial chamber with re-tooled material. This structure, its sides slanting inwards with a capstone, resembled a large casket tomb. Mine appears to be the first serious attempt to solve these problems.

Alan McCrerie

THE NATIONAL INVENTORY OF WAR MEMORIALS

Some years ago, an appeal was made to history societies and others to help record all War memorials on a national database when the National Inventory of War Memorials (NIWM), based at the Imperial War Museum, started work compiling information. There will be a re-launch by the NIWM during the summer of 1999 to try to gather all the information on those War Memorials which may have been missed first time around.

I am the voluntary coordinator for Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, and I am trying to enlist the help of other volunteers to seek out information and record the many memorials that have not yet been advised to the NIWM. There is a great assumption that "they must know about our war memorials .... etc". Why and how should they know? The NIWM is only an office-based recording center of just three people. They cannot check or visit locations and so have to rely on information from the public to complete their database.

If I mention by way of an example that their listing shows the whole area covered by Sevenoaks Council has 32 memorials, Dartford Council 7, Rochester/Chatham 18, Maidstone 34, and so on, you will realize that there may be many more in each location.

For example, there would appear to be only three Post Offices in the county with a memorial; Ashford, Margate, and Sevenoaks. There would seem to be only one Bank, the NatWest at Ashford, and only one Sports Club, Kent County Cricket Club at Canterbury, which have honored members who lost their lives in wartime. Similarly, only two schools have plaques; Brent Primary in Dartford and Canterbury's Judd School. Surely, there must be many more which are not yet known to the NIWM.

I have a complete list of the information currently recorded on 695 Kent memorials, which I think is a tremendous under-reporting. When I say that I have been recording the memorials in the area covered by the London Borough of Bromley (admittedly with zeal), which includes Bromley, Beckenham, Orpington, Chislehurst, Penge, and Anerley, and have so far discovered well over 200, I think readers will agree there must be many more than 695 in the rest of Kent.

You will all be aware that many memorials are lost over the years through decay caused by the weather, or are stolen or, sadly, vandalized. Some are lost through a change of use of a building, as with redundant churches or factories, and some just get left behind when a firm or club moves to more high-tech premises.

It is important, therefore, that as a social history project, the sacrifice of our forefathers is fully recorded and if possible saved, not only for the information but also for an understanding by future generations of this part of our history.

I, therefore, ask all readers to seek out war memorials in any form (including plaques, windows, gates, items of furniture in churches s, or memorial buildings) using a very broad interpretation of a "War Memorial", concerned with ANY conflict, and to record as many details as they can (plus a photograph if possible) and send to The National Inventory of War Memorials, Imperial War Museum, Lambeth Road, London, or contact me at the above address or by e-mail or further details, or contact Margaret Lawrence for details of what still needs to be recorded.

Paul Rason