Dr Hardman and the Ghostly Nun
By Peter Hobbs MA(Oxon) CCIP FRSA
In the Autumn of 2012 Pernille wrote about Dr F W Hardman’s collection of documents and his interest in St Albans Court at Nonington. His papers are a veritable treasure trove, containing as they do transcripts of documents such as Court Rolls both pre- and post- Dissolution for St Albans Court as well as of documents from the Hammond collection. Gordon Ward, another prominent local historian of the 1930s, was a close working colleague of Hardman.
Ward had a letter from Hardman in July 1936 in which Hardman enthuses that he has new thoughts as the result of information recently acquired and completes his letter: “In fact it encourages me to tell a story to the guileless archaeologists who will come on 9 September which will excite your derision.” This referred to the KAS 86th Excursion on September 9th to Adisham Church and Nonington.
So what was this story?
Hardman was a respected scholar and an able philologist. He had early on appreciated that Nonington was laden with history, even if its neighbours saw it as a rather boring place in the middle of nowhere. Now, access to Hardman’s newly catalogued papers show that he had formulated a theory relating to 9th century activities on the site on part of the Beauchamps manor. The key is the first fifty or so hand written pages of his draft for a history of Nonington and accompanying notes and transcripts.
To understand his “story”, we have to go back to the late 700s when Danish raids appear to have laid waste to the Royal foundation Abbeys at Minster, Reculver and Lyminge and the Abbess Selethryth sought a refuge for her nuns. Selethryth was the joint owner with her brother, Ealdbeorht, of an estate called Oeswalum of about 800 acres, covering what became the later estates around Nonington of St Albans, Beechams, Fredville and Soles. The joint communities of nuns within that estate were supposedly located on a hill site across the ancient North-South roadway, now called Beauchamps Lane.
On Selethryth’s death she was succeeded as Abbess by King Kenwlf’s daughter, Cwoenthryth. Dramatically, a senior Kent noble, the Ealdorman Oswulf, took the ownership deeds of Oeswalum and gave them to Cwoenthryth. However, Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury, claimed that Oeswalum had been awarded to him on the death of Abbess Selethryth and a protracted dispute arose. Wulfred eventually had to concede a large fine and tracts of his personal landholdings to the Crown. King Kenwulf died and his brother seized the throne. Wulfred and the new king made common cause and in 824, Cwoenthryth was stripped of Oeswalum and Wulfred received back his other lands.
Hardman concentrates on the detailed Latin record of these decisions, noting that Oeswalum is identified by implication a special, part of the land in dispute and that despite the agreement in 824, part of it was never handed over but exchanged for other land. It was also observed that Werhard, Wulfred’s kinsman to whom he gave Oeswalum amongst other lands, required in his will (he says at the behest of Wulfred), a substantial charitable contribution to the inhabitants of Oeswalum. The contribution was greater than the endowment for the poor of Canterbury. Hardman was aware of the 19th century evidence of an Anglo-Saxon burial ground at Nonington and thought that the Nonington place-name reflected a substantial 9th century occupation by the nuns before they either returned to their original houses or took refuge in Canterbury. He took issue with the Victoria County History which re-designated the Domesday Manor of Bedmersham from Beauchamps to Betteshanger, a rejection of Hasted’s identification and one which negated Hardman’s philological arguments that the name had church origins.
Where do we stand today?
In the last decade, Keith Parfitt and the Dover Archaeological Group have, in a series of on-going excavations, shown the supposedly Tudor Old St Albans Court to be early 1300s and unearthed a previously unknown manor house at Beauchamps, perhaps dating back to the 13th century, as well as extensive later remains, a 7th century Anglo Saxon burial ground and Neolithic remains. They have also surveyed the substantial early earthworks in Beauchamps Wood itself.
As a result, we have a much more extensive set of ruins than Hardman knew. We now know more about the site of the manor called Beauchamps. For example, the site has a ditched rectangular embankment, parts of which may be prehistoric, and the Anglo-Saxon name for it could, according to the latest authority, actually be the Place of God. The level...
...of occupation revealed by excavation on a fairly inhospitable site suggests activity by the 13th century and it is therefore likely to have been based on earlier occupation. It is not improbable to surmise that a small wooden church on the hill was replaced with something more substantial on Christchurch land down below, perhaps explaining why there is a church at Nonington. We know it was extant in the 11th century, which could argue for an earlier Anglo-Saxon presence.
It is clear from the Latin records of the 824 Court disputes that there was something special about Oeswalum. However, the earliest specific reference to the site and a connection with nuns is not until John Harris in 1719, although we have references to the manor in land documentation from the 11th century onward without any such connection being suggested. But what a splendid tale for the romantics amongst us!
On the site itself we have found Neolithic remains, some small fragments of Roman and a great mass of material and building from the 13th to the 16th century. However, we have nothing Anglo-Saxon, ironic when the spur to dig there initially came from the suspicion that a 7th century Anglo-Saxon burial ground on the opposite slope of hillside might have been overlooking an Anglo-Saxon settlement. We have yet to put a spade within the embanked enclosure and a large area is untouched apart from a geophysical survey suggesting the presence of potentially extensive further remains. Anglo-Saxon habitation remains are normally very sparse. Nevertheless, an Anglo-Saxon presence should by now have manifested itself with at least a fragment of pottery; to date, we have none. So Hardman’s story to KAS still remains a “story”, but a tantalizing one.
About the Beauchamps site as a whole, we can say that we now know a great deal more than when we started, both in terms of documentation and uncovered remains. What we are less certain about is exactly what we do have! But at least Hardman’s “story” might explain the ghostly nun whom so many have seen wandering around the vicinity.
- Kingdom of Kent: K. Witney: Phillimore 1982
- The Period of Mercian Rule in Kent: K. Witney: Arch Cant 1987
- Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Nicholas Brooks: Leicester UP 1984
- Church, Land and Local Nobility in early 9th Century Kent: the case of Ealdorman Oswulf: Julian Crick: BIHR October 1987.
- Investigations at Old St. Albans Court at Nonington: Parfitt, Jones and Hobbs: KAR Winter 2001
- Anglo Saxon Cemetery at Nonington: Keith Parfitt : KAR Spring 2002
- Old St Albans Court: Peter Hobbs: Arch Cant 2005
- The History of Kent: John Harris: Midwinter 1719
Fig 2. Dover Archaeological Group working in ruins first noted in 2011
Fig 3. Map of Nonington from the KAS Beauchamps file, 1938, courtesy of the Gordon Ward Archives.