Committee Round Up
KAS Churches Committee Visit to Brabourne and Aldington
by Paul Lee
The committee’s last organized visit of 2010, on Saturday 25th September, focused on two fine medieval churches in the area of Kent between Ashford and Folkestone. The visitors were welcomed by the Revd Richard Le Rossignol at Brabourne and the Revd Martin Jones at Aldington, and the committee chair, Mary Berg, gave brief talks on the architectural history of each building. In addition, Mrs Jean Bowden from Court Lodge Farm, adjacent to Aldington Parish Church, spoke about the surviving medieval features in her farmhouse which originated as an archiepiscopal manor house.
St Mary the Virgin’s Brabourne has a beautiful setting in a small village at the foot of the North Downs. It is an impressive and lofty building with many surviving from its late 12th century construction. In particular, the chancel has richly carved decoration, a fine priest’s door and an extremely rare contemporary stained glass window. Imogen Corrigan spoke about the foliate head on the chancel arch’s north capital, and Mary Berg identified possible Cluniac influence in the shape of the arch itself. This reflected the sympathies of the lord of the manor Robert de Vere, who gave the church to the nearby Cluniac Horton Priory in 1142.
The church was subsequently enlarged in the late 13th/early 14th centuries by the local Scott family. Interesting survivals from that period, and up to the Reformation, include the (empty) Bethersden marble heart shrine, the log ladder in the tower and a fine set of Scott brasses.
St Martin’s Aldington owes its impressive scale to the fact that the manor belonged to the archbishops of Canterbury from the Norman conquest up to the Reformation. The visitor’s first sight of the church is of the impressively tall tower, which was started by Archbishop Warham in 1507. On the day of the KAS visit, Aldington’s bell tower captain accompanied visitors to the top to enjoy the magnificent views. The base of the former 11th century tower survives as the vestry on the south side of the nave. Other Saxon and Norman work can be seen in the nave and chancel, but the church was much extended in the 13th century. Notable contents include a complete set of 15th century stalls with poppy heads and misericords in the chancel.
The church was restored in 1876 by Blomfield, who was the brother of the then incumbent, and it also contains some good 19th century stained glass by Heaton, Butler and Bayne. Wall displays and audiovisual equipment testify to the activities of the 21st century congregation, members of whom kindly provided refreshments to the KAS visitors.
Historic Buildings Conference
by Angela Davies
The annual Historic Buildings Conference held on Saturday, 9 October at Harrietsham Village Hall covered a wide range of topics, with presentations on domestic, agricultural, and industrial buildings, from possible Iron Age roundhouses to 20th century lime kilns.
The first speaker welcomed by Christopher Proudfoot, Chair of the Conference and of the Historic Buildings Committee, was David Martin of Archaeology South-East. In his presentation, ‘Historic Buildings – Linking Documentary and Physical Evidence’, David provided illustrations of some houses in the High Weald, and invited the audience to consider what sort of people might have lived in them. Based on documentary research, he went on to describe who had actually lived in them - in some instances quite a surprise. David demonstrated how significant the work of the documentary historian was in establishing the evolution of buildings and stressed how much could be gained by documentary and physical research being carried out together.
David Carder, member of the KAS Historic Buildings Committee, then spoke on ‘Kent’s Agricultural Building Heritage’. David pointed out that not only did Kent have some outstanding old agricultural buildings but also access for examination was usually much easier than for dwellings. He focused on two types of agricultural building in which Kent was particularly rich: barns and oasthouses.
He explained how they functioned, and gave advice on how to date them by examining various features and styles of the buildings.
After lunch came presentations on the activities of two local archaeological groups. First, Albert Daniels of the Maidstone Area Archaeological Group, who spoke on ‘The Limekilns of Charing’. Albert gave a fascinating description of work done to clear and record a set of limekilns, which had been built as recently as the 1920s and closed down in 1959. As well as explaining how the kilns and associated buildings on the site were used in the process of making lime and quicklime, he gave an insight on the working life of the men who were employed there.
Paula Jardine-Rose talked about the activities of the Wychling, Doddington & Newnham Historical Research Group in her presentation: ‘An Archaeological Investigation on the North Downs’. The recently formed group had been looking for the location of the medieval village of Wychling, with unexpected results. Initial discoveries included possible Iron Age roundhouses and a dew pond, although so far little evidence of the site of a medieval settlement could be found.
Roger Cockett, newly appointed coordinator of the Peopling Past Landscapes Project, summarized the history of the project since its launch. Then, looking to the future, he described the shift in focus to study the people in the PPL transect from 1066 to the 1860s: what they did, where they lived, and how the different landscapes affected people’s lives.
The findings of the research would be recorded on a KAS database and on the KCC Historic Environment Record.
Finally, after a lively discussion session, the day was rounded off with a visit to St. Margaret’s Church. The majority of the audience made the journey to Wychling, where the group was welcomed to by the Rev. Richard Frost. After a tour, Peter Draper shared the results of his research on the history, architectural features, and contents of this remote little church.
His animated presentation also offered a glimpse into the social history of the parish, and even put forward a theory on the missing settlement of Wychling.
KAS Place-names Day at Rochester
by Anita Thompson
Three distinguished place-name experts from Nottingham University talked to an enthralled audience at this sold-out event in November 2010. Dr Paul Cullen started with surnames from the 1377 Rochester list, separating them into relationship, nickname, occupational and locative names. He emphasised the south-eastern flavour of names with -atte- such as Simon atte hale and -ere used as a locative (Bridger, a man living near a bridge). He said how useful the British 19th century surname atlas had been to him when mapping names. It is on sale from www.archersoftware.co.uk at £12.99.
Dr Jayne Carroll spoke about mint names on Anglo-Saxon coins, and how in the small compass of the silver penny lie 87 early forms of place-name, 11 of which are unrecorded elsewhere. They were made by artisans using spoken forms, less archaic than contemporary manuscript spelling. She gave us an interpretation of ‘Rochester’, derived not from the spurious warleader Hrof but from the Roman name ‘Durobrivum’, with the accent on the second syllable not the first. An unsuspected ‘Ro-’ appeared.
Dr John Baker tackled Anglo-Saxon warfare and governance, studying the map for strongholds, meeting places and beacons by using geography together with place-names. Beacons by definition lie in high places, the same places in Anglo-Saxon times as in 1588. Pepinbury (now Pembury) is named for a watchman. I had to look at the high places round the hospital to be convinced.
Dr Paul Cullen’s final talk was about the Rochester area. He touched on Celtic roots (very few) and Roman, and ended the day by emphasising the narrowness of Anglo-Saxon definitions. A holt, for instance, is a managed single-species wood. A cliff must slope 45 degrees or above. A hythe is a river landing, while a ford is never tidal. Any place named –church was visible from a long way away. This was an excellent day.