Committee Round Up

PLACE-NAMES COMMITTEE

New Chair

A new Chairman of this committee, Dr Mark Bateson, was elected on 1 October 2011 in place of Mr Pat Harlow, who was thanked in absentia for over 10 years’ hard work. Dr Bateson was proposed by Mr T Connell and seconded by Mr C Ward: he is moving from Canterbury to work as Community History Officer, a new post, at the new Kent Archive building in Maidstone.

Volunteers needed

Dr P Cullen, Academic Advisor, has moved to the University of the West of England to work on names, so that work on his place-names books on Kent has slowed. However, he is helping to create a searchable electronic names database based on 1377-81 poll-tax assessments, which rely heavily on place-names used as surnames. He would like volunteers to help turn his paper records into Word or Excel format. Is there anyone out there who might respond? His email address is Paul2.Cullen@uwe.ac.uk. He thought that the Committee should consider enlarging its interests to cover names as well as place-names. After a full discussion it was agreed that such a small committee should keep to the narrower focus of place-names only.

November Study Day

This committee decided unanimously to run a fourth Place-Names Study Day on a Saturday in November 2011. This will take place at Rochester; date, speakers and subjects to be arranged, but they will be Kent-based.

Website section

Mr T Connell suggested that, like the Churches Committee, we should have a section on the KAS website on which to display the talks given at previous study days.

The next meeting will take place at the KAS Library, Maidstone Museum, on Saturday 10 March 2012.

CHURCHES COMMITTEE

Benefaction Boards in Churches

by Mary Berg, Chairman, Churches Committee

KAS member Dr John Physick wrote to ask if the Churches Committee would be interested in recording church benefaction boards, some of which are in increasingly poor condition. The Monumental Brass Society records brasses and the Church Monuments Society records memorials but, as far as I know, there is no specific society for benefaction boards. These are recorded by NADFAS when they undertake their comprehensive surveys and are generally included in church and parish histories.

This is something that can be recorded on future Church Visits and then added to the archive on the Churches Committee section of the KAS website. If members have any pictures or reports that include benefaction – or are willing to take pictures of any in their local churches – please contact research@kentarchaeology.org.uk or write to the secretary of the Churches Committee, Dr Paul Lee, 22 Arcadia Road, Istead Rise, Gravesend, Kent DA13 9EH. We would also love to hear from you, if you know of anyone else collecting this information!

Visit to Luddesdown and Cobham churches

by Gill Wyatt

The visit to Luddesdown and Cobham churches on a late September afternoon could not have been blessed with better weather. John Bailey, architect for both churches and past chairman of SPAB, gave an excellent and succinct account of each church while Philip Lawrence gave an equally excellent and well informed précis of the brasses at Cobham. Both churches were connected with a great house and an important family, but are different in atmosphere and size.

St Peter’s Luddesdown is a Saxon foundation but owes many of its features to the patronage of Marie, wife of Aymer de Valance, Earl of Pembroke in the mid fourteenth century. However, today’s visitor will be struck most by the Victorian decorative scheme, much of it dating from the restoration carried out in 1865-6 by Alfred Stump. Unusually, the font is also from the Victorian period, and a couple of items in the church predate the major Victorian restoration. These include the rood stairs and a good piscina in the north chancel chapel. The restoration work extended to the tower where the architects of 1865-6 re-used the original fourteenth century windows, inserted into new masonry. The Victorian chancel roof and floor tiles are very striking, and overall this is a pleasing Victorian church with a modern stained glass east window designed by Barley Studio of York in 2000.

this ‘Victorianisation’ has not succumbed to later changes in taste. The result is a decorated and intimate interior which gives the church a welcoming atmosphere. Of interest to bell ringers, there are two medieval bells surviving and a peal ladder (not for the fainthearted!) which it is hoped will soon be saved and replaced by a more modern one. Further late Victorian work was done by Heaton Butler and Bain, between 1870-94, including the baptistery with its mural of Christ blessing the children.

Cobham, by contrast, is a much larger and grander church with the largest collection of brasses in the country. Perhaps the most striking feature here is the alabaster and black marble Brooke tomb commemorating George Brooke, Lord Cobham and his wife Anne Bray. Round the base are figures of their ten sons and four daughters, all meekly kneeling except for the (reputed) black sheep, George, who is crouching on one knee. The tomb was built in 1561, well in advance of Lord Cobham’s death, and is sited on the exact place of the medieval high altar, a statement of reformation sentiment at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign. Unlike Luddesdown, this church is a grand statement of family pride and status.

The Churches Committee are to be congratulated on arranging yet another interesting and enjoyable outing, and we must also thank the congregation of Cobham for a delicious tea!