Title :   Old Tenterden
Author:  J. Ellis Mace;  J.P.
Printed & Published By:  W. Thomson, High Street, Tenterden.
Dated:  1902


Inside front page: 

ERRATA.

Page 26, Line 17, read - It was his great nephew John that built the first Hales 
Place, and whose son Henry married Juliana Capell. *

Page 31, Line 23, read- Has the date 1741 upon it. **

Page 31, Line 26, read - But in 1766 they built Homewood. ***

Page 50, Line 1, read - Whose gravestones have been placed under the Church 
Tower. ****
______________

NOTES:
 
Page 4.  Some curious crystals have recently been fund in blue clay on French 
Hay Farm, by Mr. Wm. Body.
    The part of supposed tusk on being submitted to the authorities at the 
Natural History Museum, was pronounced by Mr. Smith Woodward to be part of the 
tibia of an iguanodon.

Page 5.  A smaller gold coin supposed to be Roman or British, was found near 
Penhill Farm.  The name of this place sounds British, but it was known at one 
time as Pinhale.
   Another name, that of Coldharbour, is connected in other places with Roman 
remains, and though none have been found on this farm, it is not far from the 
place where Mr. Croughton found the Roman Vase, see page 30.

Page 26.  Portions of the buildings at Hales Place seem to be Tudor rather then 
Jacobean, and the remains of a stone staircase in the cellar is evidently older 
still.

{ this is where the book begins, page 3.}mk

HISTORICAL NOTES, and other items of interest concerning OLD TENTERDEN,  and 
Neighbourhood.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   To give anything like a continuous History of Tenterden is practically 
impossible, but many interesting particulars may be gathered from Hasted, 
Furley, and other Kentish Historians.
   Geologically Tenterden stands on some of the oldest ground in the County, 
being on the Hastings Sands formation, which was deposited either under a great 
river, or a vast fresh water lake, ages before the Green Sand and Chalk.  The 
sand formation itself being succeded during the intervening period by the Weald 
Clay.
   Although sand rock occurs in many parts of Tenterden, as between Silcox and 
Reader's Bridge in the North, Goods Hill in the West,  the Sand-hole by the 
Milestone fields on the East, the bed of the Meeting House Pond in the Ashford 
Road,  Dumborne and the  Devil's Drop on the South,  there is a great deal of 
clay here and there, interspersed with the sand.
   The largest areas of sand are Knockwood and the district round the Mill-pond, 
while in the S.E. towards Reading, clay is more general.  These clays are not 
the  Weald Clay proper, but the Wadhurst beds, which appear in places among the 
group of sands constituting the Hastings formation.

{page 4}
   
   The Wealden Sands and Clays after being elevated to the surface are supposed 
to have been denuded of the superincumbent strata of greensand and chalk.  The 
central line of elevation runs from Fairlight through Brightling to Crowborough, 
and in places this range of sandstone hills equals the North and  South Downs in 
height.
   When the late Mr. J. S. Thomson was Borough Surveyor, a fossil, in the shape 
like a tusk, measuring 3 ft. long, was dug up at a stone quarry at Pick-hill, 
about 14 ft. underground, imbedded in a large layer of stone.  He also found 
some of the fossil vertebrae of an Iguanodon when digging for stone near the 
Mill Pond.
   The whole of the Wealden formation, extending through parts of Kent,  Sussex 
and Surrey into Hampshire, was covered by the great Forest of Anderida, or 
Andred's Weald, the Old Forest in contra-distinction to the New Forest, and 
2,000 years ago it must have been an all but trackless wilderness.

{page 5}

   There are scarcely any traces of pre-historic inhabitants in the district.  
Flint cores and chippings have been found by Mr. William Body in a field on the  
Gibbet Farm on the banks above Shirley Moor, but no flint implement, except 
scrapers.  A celt was recently picked up in a wood at East End Benenden, and a 
small flint spear head near Clay Hill on the Woodchurch Road.

   Some years ago an ancient British or Romano British Gold coin was found near 
the old British earthwork or camp called Castle Toll,  by the Hexden Channel in 
Newenden.  This mound is visible on the right from the Rother Valley Railway 
between Maytham and the Rother Bridge, after passing the Station called  
Wittersham Road.
   Some banks on French Hay Farm have been thought to be the site of old wharves 
or landing places, and there are traces of old pottery works in the same 
neighbourhood,  pieces of earthenware having been found similar to Upchurch 
ware, others also were taken from a pond at Broad Tenterden by Mr. Finn.

   There is a legend that Julius Caesar came up as far as Kench Hill, and a Mr. 
Appach wrote an interesting little book, to prove that Caesar landed in the bay 
or estuary of Appledore instead of near Deal.  But if he did, it is much more 
probable that he would go northward from near Hythe, rather than come west into 
the Forest.  There was however, a curious episode of a small outpost party,  
which Mr. Appach thought, probably occupied the Isle of Ebony.
   An altar exists in the Churchyard of  Stone-in-Oxney, which is considered to 
be Roman.
   There are two tracks of Ancient Roads marked on the Ordnance Map, one from 
Hemsted in Benenden, through the Northern part of Tenterden above St. Michaels 
Church, to some point beyond Harlackenden in Woodchurch;  and the other going 
south from Hemsted through Sandhurst towards Bodiam.  These have been called 
Roman Roads, but the construction is hardly good enough, and the amount of iron 
slag and cinders with which they are made, points rather to their use during the 
times of the iron foundries.  No Roman coins being found near these roads tells 
against them.

{page 6}

   The only Roman remains discovered in the Weald during the 19th century says 
Furley, were found by Mr. Stephen Judge, when draining a field at Reading HIlll, 
in Tenterden, and consisted of a  Roman urn and coins, and a quantity of ashes 
deposited in a bank which had evidently been raised.
   Philipott wanted to fix the site of the ancient  Anderida at Reading Hill, 
which would be almost the eastern extremity of the great forest.  Newenden has 
also been supposed to be the site of this great fortress, but it is now pretty 
generally acknowleged to have been at Pevensey.
   Wambarde,  writing over 300 years ago, states, " there is not one monument of 
great antiquity in the Weald of Kent."

   The most remarkable discovery of antiquarian remains near Tenterden was made 
in 1822, when Mr. Wm. Elphee, a looker on the estate of Mr. J. B. Pomfret of 
Tenterden, dug out of the bank of one of the branches of the Rother near 
Maytham,  the remains of an ancient vessel,  63 ft. 8 in. long and about 15 ft. 
broad.  The vessel

{page 7}

was 9 ft. in depth, from gunwale to keel one would say, only it had no keel.  
And it was found at a depth of 10 ft. below the surface of the ground, which 
makes a total accumulation of 19 ft. of sand and mud upon the bed of the river 
since she was lost.

   The Rother and its branches were formerly much wider and deeper than at 
present, and the main course of the river flowed eastwards, between Tenterden 
and Wittersham by Ebony to Appledore, while the ebb and flow of tide was 
naturally much greater than would now be possible.  Sand and Sea shells have 
been dug up some distance below the present surface of the marsh land;  and when 
borings were made between Freizingham and Morghew in 1898, for a viaduct on the 
proposed extension of the Paddock Wood and Cranbrook Railway to Tenterden and 
Appledore, it was found the foundations would have to go down 40 ft. to reach 
solid ground, which shows the enormous accumulation of alluvial deposit.

   This vessel appears to have been single masted with a round stern, flat 
floored and without a keel, resembling some Dutch vessels.  There were two 
cabins in the stern, one decked over with a hatchway for entrance, the other 
covered over with a caboose, which fell in on being exposed;  also a short deck 
forward.  The bulwarks and strong beams proved her to be a sea vessel,  the 
timbers and planks were remarkably sound and hard, and in parts quite black, the 
cauking was done with moss.  The steering appears to have been by rudder bands, 
and was a very curious windlass on the aft.  deck.  The wreck of a small boat  
was discovered near the stern, this boat was partly caulked with hair.
  In clearing out the vessel a number of articles were found in the sand, part 
of a sword, two locks of curious mechanism, several bricks of light red-and-
yellow colour, 6  1/2 in. by  3  1/4 in. thick, three earthen vases, and a small 
glass bottle of rude manufacture,  a circular oak board perforated with 28 
holes,  a sounding lead,  several shoes or sandals of a singular shape,  tiles 
bound together with iron (doubtless for a fire hearth, as they had charred wood 
askes adhering)

{page 8}

some ornamental tiles, hooks, and chain, &c.  Also a board with peculiar lines 
and figures cut upon it.  Sundry bones and horns were found, the lower jaw of a 
boar,  the skeleton of a dog, and portions of human skeletons, one being that of 
a child.  And another skeleton was found outside the vessel.

{page 9}

  The size of the bricks is almost identical with that of the Dutch bricks found 
at Reading, and of others in existing old buildings, which gives the idea of her 
being a trading vessel of Edward 111. time referred to later on.  But according 
to the author of the old pamphlet, which is dated 1823, and from which these 
details are extracted, there are documents in existence, dated prior to the time 
of King John, showing that embankments had been made and the course of the river 
contracted, so that he thought a vessel of her size could not have come so far 
up the river, and taken together with her position in the bank and the depth at 
which she was found she must have foundered at a much earlier period, while from 
her shape and build and other peculiarities he and others who saw the vessel 
considered she was not a trading ship, but might have been one of the great 
Danish fleet under Hasting or Haesten, part of which occupied Appledore in 893.  
The  Danes had a camp there, making it a centre of operations and a difficult 
place from which to be expelled, surrounded as it was with swamps and lagoons, 
with Shirley Moor as an inland sea at high tide, such as Poole Harbour is to 
this day.  King Alfred eventually succeeded in getting rid of the intruders, and 
it is quite likely that his son, who led the Saxons in Kent, fought the Danes at 
Kennardington.  Kilburne says "the Danes partly destroyed Castle Toll at that 
time,"  so no doubt both Saxon and Danish ships sailed up the river valleys 
south of Tenterden, but whether the buried wreck was one of them the evidence is 
not sufficient to say.

   And so far as Tenterden is itself concerned,  history does not even go back 
so far as the time of William the Conqueror, for Doomsday Book, which gave an 
account of places and people in hie reign,  does not refer to either Tenterden 
or Cranbrook.

   Furley gives an explanation that the various "denes" situate in the Weald, 
were certain difined districts attached to manors held in other parts of Kent.  
In old Saxon Charters, there were grants of the rights of pasturage and pannage 
or feeding of swine in the  Andred's Weald.  Also,  "in the woods called Andred, 
120 waggons of wood to support the fires for preparing salt."

{page 10}

   These rights were granted to religious houses, and to Thanes or military 
followers of the King.  In process of time limits were put, and names given to 
these districts or denes,  which sometimes bore the name of the occupier.  
Doomsday returns 44 denes, some containing 500 acres, but in the case of denes 
being attached to manors, there was no necessity to notice them further, and the 
names of the manors only were given.  It may be inferred, therefore, that 
Tenterden only comprised denes appendant to these distant manors, which were 
situate mostly in East Kent, such as  Aldington and Wye.

   There were 30 denes wholly or partly in Tenterden, according to Court Rolls 
of a later date, viz:--Tenterden itself, Pitlesden, Heronden,  Prestone,  
Ridgeway,  Houseney,  Dumborne,  Mensden,  West Cross, Chepperegge,  Reading,  
Igglesden,  Eldershurst,  Strenchden,  Elardene,  Godden,  Gatesden,  Morgue,  
Boresisle,  Bugglesden,  Finchdene,  Saltkendene,  Twisdene,  Haldene,  Little 
Haldene,  Dovedene,  Haffendene, and Brissendene.  The boundaries of some of the 
denes were preserved by treading them as late as Henry V11.

   But if history says nothing till later, there is the notorious legend of 
Tenterden Steeple and  Goodwin Sands;  and if Earl Goodwin really built the 
Steeple, and if by so spending his money and employing his men, he neglected the 
sea walls to such an extent that his rich marsh lands became buried beneath the 
sand, it is evident there must have been a church, and if a church, inhabitants 
to attend it as far back as the Saxon times.

   The first reference to a church which Furley could find was in 1242, when a 
priest was provided by the Abbot of St. Augustine.

   Kilburne says that the lands of Earl Goodwin were in 1099 part of the 
possession of the Abbot of St. Augustine, and that this Abbot in building the 
steeple neglected the sea wall.  The existence at that time of an island where 
the sands are now is more than doubtful.  And it must not be forgotten that the 
present church tower is known to have been built about the time of the Wars of 
the

{page 11}

Roses, 400 years after Goodwin's time.  Probably a coincidence in date accounts 
for the other legend.

         "Of many people it hath been sayed,
            That Tenterden steeple Sandwich Harbour hath decayed."

   The meaning of the name of Tenterden has not been clearly defined.  The 
termination "den", so common in this neighbourhood, means hollow, but as many of 
the dens or denes are on the tops of hills, we must go further, and remembering 
that the whole district was a wood, we may take the derivation to be a hollow or 
clearing in the wood;   It may be thought the seat of the cloth manufacture, 
would be a place for tenter fields, but the name is older than the manufacture, 
and the original spelling different.  The historian Philipott going back to 
Saxon times for a name, suggests that it was the Thanes ward in the woods, and 
originally written Theinwarden.  It was first written as in the present day 
about the end of the 16th century, somtimes " alias Tentwarden."

   There is no mention in Doomsday of any of the Hundred in the centre of the 
Weald, and we first meet with Tenterden as a hundred about the 12th Century, and 
then it is classed with six neighbouring hundreds for municipal purposes.  The  
Sovereign had power to create and consolidate hundreds, "and I believe,"  says  
Furley,  "that this consolidation was effected towards the close of the reign of 
"the Conqueror."  The Seven Hundreds were presided over by a Norman Bailiff, who 
held a Court once in three weeks;   they were charged with a payment of 10 
pounds towards the garniture of Dover Castle.  Each hundred elected its own 
constables and borsholders, and the jurisdiction extended over murders, 
manslaughters  and robberies, with appeal to the court at  Penenden Heath, and 
thence to the Sovereign.   Henry 11  introduced the practice of hanging thieves, 
and a gallows was set up in Tenterden.

   The hundred of Tenterden was divided into six boroughs, known as Town, 
Castweasle, Boresisle, Dumborne, Shrubcote, and Reading.  Every holder of a 
tenement in Tenterden was bound to do suit and

{page 12}

service at the Hundred Court when summoned by the Borsholders.  The hundred was 
gildable and subject to scot and lot,  a contribution laid on all inhabitants 
according to their ability.  This burden was not met with in more ancient 
Hundreds, and Tenterden was relieved from it when united to the Cinque Ports in 
the reign of Henry V1.

   The Plea Rolls during the reigns of Henry 111,  Edward 1, and 11, show how 
justice was administered, and that Tenterden had become a ville or town.  The 
Fair which was held on the eve and the day of St. Mildred, had been exempt from 
tolls, but the King's bailiff had recently exacted them.  The  Bailiffs of the 
Hundred of Tenterden and of the liberties of the Archbiship and Prior of Chirst 
Church, Cantebery, were accused of amercing offenders instead of punishing by 
pillory and tumbril.  Henry 111  had passed a statute that, if the offence was 
grievious,  the baker should go to the pillory and the brewer to the tumbril.

   From the Pea Rolls of 1255, it appears that  there was an ecclesiastical 
dispute here in the time of Henry 111.   One Henry of Wingham,  afterwards 
Chancellor of England and Bishop of London, was the Pope's nominee to the Church 
at Tenterden, or as it is spelt  Thendwardene;  but certain persons came with an 
armed band to distrub the representatives of Henry from possession of the Church 
and a conflict ensued in the which Henry de la Smalelide was wounded and died of 
his wounds.  Both sides appealed to the KIng, and the matter seems to have been 
hushed up, as Henry 111, pardoned the offenders and directed the justices not to 
interfere.

   In the same reign Alexander de Tenwardene had been guilty of encroachment on 
the King's Highway by the erection of three shops;  the Jury decided that these 
were not a nuisance, and they were permitted to remain on payment of a rent of 
twelve horse shoes.  In 1279 there was again an encroachment made in the High 
Street of Tenterden, for it is recorded that " The Jury say that seven shops 
have lately been built upon the High Street in the Hundred of Tenwardene, and 
are rented at three shillings and fine-pence per "annum."   The Sheriff was 
commanded to cause the money to be levied for the Kings use from the aforsaid 
shops.

{ page 13}

   About this time the path between the Ville of Tenterden and the Ville of 
Reading had been wrongfully enclosed with a hedge and ditch;  another from 
Reading to Woodchurch and Halden had also been stopped, and the Sheriff was 
ordered to "de-obstruct" them.

   From futher notes of Furley's as to the administration of justice in those 
days we have the following items - Ralph de la Burn, accused of larceny, was 
apprehended, but escaped from the frankpledge or borough of Waren de  
Burwarsile, and Waren was amerced for his escape.  Certain persons were indicted 
for robbery and fled, but being strangers the Hundred was not liable.  At a 
quarrel in a tavern at Tenterden, a man struck another on the head so that he 
died,  the offender fled, and the borough was amerced because the hue and cry 
was not raised.  A man killed a girl in shooting with an arrow at the Assize 
butt in the borough of Bourwarsile.

   Thomas de Tenwardine held an entire Knight's Fee, but was not yet a knight 
though of full age.  Edward 1  compelled those who possessed land of the value 
of 20 pounds to take up their knighthood and attend the sovereign to the wars at 
their own expense, for forty days in every year.  This was afterwards commuted 
into a money payment.

   In 1299, John, Vicar of Tenterden, and 16 others of the Kentish  Clergy were 
ex-communicated and imprisoned in Canterbury, for refusing to pay the King's 
taxes.

   History records that the unfortunate Edward 11  the first Prince of Wales,  
stayed here when about 22 years of age, and wrote letters dated Tenterden,  on 
July 1st, 1305.  He was in disgrace at the time, in company with his friend 
Piers Gavestone,  for killing a Bishop's deer, and he was not allowed to 
approach his father's court,  though showing a dutiful submission to the King's 
will,  and anxious to regain his affection.  The King himself is supposed to 
have visited Tenterden earlier, when inspecting the embankments in Walland 
Marsh, and in 1305 was staying at his country seat in Newenden.

{page 14}

   Tradition says, that on the present site of the Manor House, ( Mr. W. 
Thomson's) was formerly a residence of Earl Goodwin, and it has been suggested 
as a probable place where the Prince may have stayed.  The ponds, now filled up,  
were probably parts of the moat surrounding the house.

   There were disputes in Edward 1  time as to the cutting of timber,  and 
enquiries were made with a view of settling the question in the reign of Edward 
111.   Eight oaks were cut in Tenterden, which were claimed by the Archbishop,  
and in Rolvenden as many as 362 trees were felled,  half of which the Archbishop 
claimed as his own,  the land being held of him under certain services.

   In May, 1337,  King Edward 111  issued an edict to encourage Flemish cloth 
workers to reside in England.  Kent was selected as the seat of the broad cloth 
manufacture,  and the Weald of Kent acquired the reputation of making strong 
durable broad cloth of good mixtures and colors.  This trade was carried on in 
Tenterden and other places in the Weald.

   At the time of the great storm of 1287, and for two or three hundred years 
after,  the Rother flowed north of the Isle of Oxney by Smallhythe.   Tenterden 
prospered during the 14th and early part of 15 centuries from the cloth 
manufacture,  and partly no doubt from the sea flowing up the river to 
Smallhythe.  It even became of sufficient importance to be called upon to help 
Rye,  which owing to the decline of the Cinque Ports and occasional pillage by 
the French,  became greatly impoverished in the time of Henry V1.   Tenterden 
seems to have been far enough inland to escape injury..  Amongst other 
profitable trades carried on here, may be named the manufacture of charcoal,  
but owing to foreign vessels coming here after wood and charcoal,  and at the 
same time smuggling away wool and hides,  in the year 1355  Edward 111  forbade 
vessels coming further than Winchelsea.  A few years later this edict was 
partially revoked on complaint of the people of the Weald,  who had  "in all 
past times been accustomed to sell firewood at Rethyng ( Reading ) Bodyham,  
Maytham,  Newenden,  and elsewhere,  wherever in the

{page 15}

sallt water ships are accustomed to apply."   There are traces of old pottery 
works on French Hay Farm at Reading, and it is said, some of the houses 
thereabouts are buuilt of Dutch bricks, probably brought in exchange for 
firewood or charcoal.

   Watermills and tilekilns were in existence in other parts of the county, and 
the remains of old dams still existing show that there were ponds, and probably 
mills, here at an early period.

   There were two of these ponds in the valley between Park Gate and Halden 
Place,  close to one of which an old mill stone has been found.  Further up the 
same valley there were others,  and also above Gribble Bridge  on one of the 
streams which run down into the western arm of the Millpond.  Some of these 
ponds are however supposed to have belonged to the cloth factories,  possibly 
the one formerly existing at the bottom of Brewhouse Lane  was for this purpose.  
The largest dams are those in the Millpond valley,  four in number, viz:  that 
of the existing pond of 13 acres,  two others which held ponds of 6 acres each,  
only laid dry within the last 20 years,  and another intermediate one long since 
disused. The only watermill that has survived in working order into the 20th 
century is the one at Ashbourne close to the Rother Valley Station,  and 
probably it gives the name to the stream below,  called the New Mills Channel,  
which divides Tenterden from Rolvenden ;  for on the Rolvenden side,  near the 
footpath and the noted spring,  traces remain of a small pond, probably 
connected with an old mill.

   Returning to history,  Furley tells us men from Tenterden and Smallhythe were 
concerned in Wat Tyler's rebellion. Also that John Waddon,  a Tenterden priest,  
was burnt about 1428, as follower of Wycliffe.

   In the year 1449,  Tenterden,  the only Corporate town in the Weald of Kent,  
was annexed to Rye and became a limb of the Cinque Ports,  sharing all their 
privileges.  The ships of Tenterden are said to have been built at Smallhythe,  
and it must be remembered there was then direct communication down the Rother, 
via Reading, Ebony, Appledore and Stone to Rye.  By the Charter of Henry V1,  
Courts

{page 16}

were to be held fortnightly,  after the custom of the Cinque Ports,  and the 
inhabitants became exempt from all tolls, levies and burdens of shire and 
hundred,  and from attending the Shire Courts at Penenden Heath,  or the Courts 
of the Seven Hundreds,  but all pleadings were to be before the Bailiff of 
Tenterden,  or in the Court of the Cinque Ports called Shepway.

   So, when Edward 1V , getting the advantage over Henry V1 became King,  the 
prosperous Tenterden was a Corporate Town.  And in process of building was the 
present steeple, or rather tower of the church.  The will of Thomas Pittlesden,  
dated 1462, ordered  "100 marcs to be paid out of his land to the steeple so 
long as it was a making."  The marc was  13/4,  equal in value to about 10 
pounds to-day.

   Richard Berne of Canterbury, in 1461, bequeathed  6/8 to the building of the 
new bell tower of Tenterden.

   From 1458 to 1601  Tenterden was governed by a Portreeve or Bailiff.  Then it 
received at the hands of Queen Elizabeth its present Charter of Incorporation,  
which provided for the election of a Mayor and 12 Jurats,  and granted other 
priviliges which were confirmed by William 111.    John Hales  was the first 
Mayor.   Much of the early history of the town was lost when the Town Hall was 
burnt on 19th March, 1660.   Hasted says  " the Hall was burnt by prisoners 
confined in the prison over it,"  and he adds  " that afterwards the election of 
Mayor took place on Aug. 29th, under one of the great "old oaks which stood near 
the site of the Hall."  The present Town Hall was built in 1792.

   How early the marsh land below Reading, called Shirley Moor was originally 
reclaimed is not known,  it seems to have been overflowed by the sea in 1459,  
it being recorded that " Sharley Moor broke out,"  and 50 years after we find 
another record, "Sharley Moor was made."

   In the 8th year of Henry V11,  a composition was entered into between Rye and 
Tenterden,  apportioning the services between the two towns,  and payments to be 
made by each.  And in the next reign the sea,  or at any rate the tide still 
came up to Smallhythe for faculty was granted to bury the bodies of those cast 
by shipwreck on the shore.  The Corporation minute book states that on July 
31st, 1514,  Smallhythe was destroyed by fire.

{page 17}

   Mr. A. H. Taylor notes a record of a barge, which cost over 40 pounds, being 
built at Smallhythe in 1400, for the Corporation of Romney.

   At an inquiry concerning this hamlet in the reign of Edward V1,  ten 
witnesses were examined and it was agreed that the Chapel was not a Chapel of 
Ease,  that lands called Chapel lands had been left for the support of a priest 
and that mass had been said for the last two years by one Peter Hall.   Also 
that there were 60 to 100  "houseling people"  in Smallhythe,  that there was no 
haven,  save only a creek of salt water frequented by lighters to fetch wood, 
though a little pinnace of the King's  had been brought there to be repaired.  
It would appear that a fresh trust must have been created later, based upon the 
principles of the Reformed Church.

   Henry V111  visited Tenterden on August 28th,  1537.  "A marvellous, 
abominable and seditious sermon"  was preached in Tenterden Church one Easter 
Wednesday,  in Henry V111 reign,  information of it being given by inhabitants 
to the Privy Council,  and the priest was ordered to be arrested.

   The Parish Registers ( St. Mildred's ) date from the reign of Henry V111 
(1544) and appear to have been re-copied in 1599.

{page 18}

   The Guldeford family had a residence at Halden Place in Rolvenden, their park 
was enlarged by the addition of land in Tenterden, probably near Park Gate.  The 
historian Lambarde states it was disparked in his time,  1570.

   Sir Edward Guldeford, who was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and held many 
other high offices in the time of Henry V111, wrote interesting official reports 
on the condition of the land and people;  he was descended from the Pittlesden 
family and owned the estate of that name as well as Kench Hill.  His only 
daughter and heiress Jane  married Sir John Dudley,  afterwards  Duke of 
Northumberland;  one of her sons was the husband of Lady Jane Grey,  another was 
the Earl of Leicester ( the favourite of Queen Elizabeth), and Sir Philip Sidney 
was her grandson.   One can imagine that Tenterden as well as Rolvenden, was 
familiar ground to these historical personages,  though the Duke sold Pittlesden 
to Sir Thomas Cromwell,  the agent of Henry V111  in suppressing monasteries, 
(and the perpetrator probably of some of the acts of vandalism with which the 
greater Cromwell of a century later is credited).  The King himself  next bought 
these two estates and granted Kench Hill to Thomas Argal.   Edward V1  granted 
Pittlesden, with pond of water, weir,  fishery and dove house to Sir John Baker 
of Sissinghurst,  Attorney General to Kings Henry and Edward and Queen Mary.  
Was this the pond at the bottom of Brewhouse Lane near Chennel Park,  and did 
the lane turn to the right and cross the dam as has been suggested ?  If so the 
footpath to the left from that spot to West Cross was probably also a lane,  but 
old maps do not show.

   Sir John had also granted to him by Henry V111  on the suppression of a 
chantry to which they belonged,  two small manors called Lights Notinden  and 
East Asherinden.  Apparenty these were south of Kench Hill,  and Harris says 
"there was a little church shown in old maps,"  but probably that was 
Smallhythe, as Hasted refers to no other.  These two historians and Philipot say 
the chantry was founded by John Light;  and Kilburne says Smallhythe Chapel was 
founded by one Shepherde.

   A romance might be made of a hermit dwelling on one of those

{page 19}

steep banks, tending a Light to warn the mariners in the river below,  and 
saying masses for the souls of the shipwrecked ones.

   Another manor, the only one in Tenterden held by Knight service, was 
purchased in 1454, together with the adjoining Morghew,  from Sir Walter Moyle 
of Eastwell,  by the chaplain of one of the forty seven chantries in St. Paul's 
Cathedral.  This was Gatesdene,  which was called a borough in the reign of 
Edward 11,  but in Hasted's time only some marsh land between Smallhythe and 
Maytham went by that name,  though probably it may still be traced in the name 
of Gazedown Wood.  On the suppression of the chantry in the first year of Edward 
V1  these properties passed to Sir Miles Partriche,  afterwards to the Argals,  
Colepeppers, Curteis and Pomfrets.  In 1549  the chapel in St. Paul's was pulled 
down and the materials used in the building of Somerset House.

   Besides these chantries Furley states there was one in Tenterden church 
called Peter Marshall's chantry, and that houses and land in Tenterden and 
Woodchurch,  including the Woolsack (?Woolpack)  were given for the support of a 
chaplain,  for celebrating Divine Service and for teaching in the Grammar 
School.  The south chancel of the church was appropiated to this school during 
part of the 18th century.  The benefation table in the church informs us, 
according to the Report on Education in 1836,  that  "one Hayman, ancestor of  
the late Peter Hayman, very anciently founded the free school of this town.  
William Marshall,  clerk,  about the year 1521,  gave 10 pounds per annum, to be 
paid to the masterof the said school, issuing out of a messuage and 12 acres of 
land in Tenterden, now belonging to Sir Edward Hales.  John Mantel in 1702  gave 
200 pounds,  which was laid out in purchasing 10 acres of marsh land at St. 
Mary's,  let as 10 pounds per annum,  payable to the master of the said school."  
The School house premises ( an ancient building two doors east of the present 
Town Hall,)  according to an indenture dated 10th November, 1666, consisted of a 
messuage,  and half an acre of land.  This half acre has since disappeared,  no 
witnesses in 1836  remembered the property in any other than its state,  and the 
income from the whole property at that time was 58 pounds 15s.  When in the

{page 20}

18th century,  the Master  ( Mr. Hall ) died,  the revenue was transferred to 
Mr. James Buckland who had set up a school in the town.  But as it did not 
appear that he found anybody disposed to send children to be instructed in 
grammar (i.e. Latin),  the trustees proposed that the revenues should be applied 
to support of the National School,  from the year 1812, leaving always six 
perfectly free scholars to preserve the foundation district.  It would seem now 
that all scholars are free, the question may arise whether six of them might not 
be found who would be willing to learn Latin.

   In 1523,  George Guldeford of Hemsted obtained an Act of Parliament to divert 
a road "which was in places right deep and noyous,"  it led from the Hundred of 
Cranbrook to Tenterden Cross and passed "nigh to a great oak called Hemsted 
Oak."

   In 1573, Queen Elizabeth was at Hemsted,  Sissinghurst,  Northiam and  Rye,  
but did not come to Tenterden.  She complained of the rocks and valleys in the 
Wild of Kent and Sussex as worse

{page 21}

than in the Peak.  In 1585,  an act was passed declaring that highways were 
greatly injured by carriage  of charcoal and iron, and exacting that ironmasters 
carrying the same between 12th October and 1st May, shall likewise carry a load 
of cinder or stone to be deposited where the justices shall direct.  There does 
not appear to have been any iron foundry or furnace in Tenterden,  the nearest 
seems to have been in Biddenden;  but iron slag is found on the track of the 
Ancient Roads.  (see page 5.)

   The Reformation was well supported in this part of Kent.  As early as May 
2nd, 1511,  six men and four women,  mostly from Tenterden,  appeared at Knole, 
and did penance before Archbishop Warham, nearly 50 were accused of heresy,  and 
William Carder and Agnes Grebel suffered martyrdom.  A number of the martyrs of 
Mary's reign also came from the Weald,  and John Lomas of Tenterden was burnt at 
Canterbury on January 31st, 1554.  Even one of the Hales family was imprisoned.

   At the time of the Spanish Armada, Kent provided double the men and 
ammunition of any other county,  the Tenterden contingent consisting of 24 men 
and 4 horses, and a beacon was prepared here to communicate with others around, 
if required.  Hasted  describes one in later years on the top of the steeple,  
as a sort or iron kettle hung on a piece of timber 8 ft. long.

   In the reign of Queen Elizabeth we can find very interesting entries in our 
old parish register.  Evidently one of the chief men of the town was John 
Tilden,  who was Mayor in 1585-6,  and in 1600;  why he is so described at the 
time when the chief magistrate was supposed to be a port reeve or bailiff is not 
clear, perhaps coming events cast their shadows before.  At his death on January 
29th, 1626, he is called  " the ancient jurat."  He was married in 1570, and his 
eldest daughter was married before she was seventeen.

   Some members of his family emigrated to America in 1634;  but all through the 
17th century his descendants and those of Thomas  Tilden were found in 
Tenterden, one son with the quaint name of Hopestill.  Another son John,  was 
Mayor in 1623 and died in 1640,

{page 22}

being at the time bailiff to Sir Edward Hales, possibly he lived at Belgar and 
the Telden Gill may have been named after him.  A representative of the American 
branch,  Governor Telden of New York, came here in 1876 hoping to find the site 
of a " Stone House"  which belonged to his ancestors and was occupied by a 
Lambarde.  John Tilden the elder had cloth works at West Cross,  and was 
succedded by his son Samuel, who, in 1604, when 25 years of age, sold cloth to 
London Merchant-Tailors,  and purchased woad, anil and other materials for 
dyeing.  At his marriage to Rebecca Giles in 1612, his father settled upon him 
three peices of land at West Cross containing 9 acres, and called the Workhouse 
field ( from Dye Works) Tenter Field and Barn Field.  Samuel died in 1623, 
leaving three young sons;  his executor was James Skeets the husband of his 
sister Judith.  Skeets was also in business as a clothier at Tenterden,  his 
mother Agnes, widow of Grimbold Skeets,  alias Keethe,  lived at Hastings, and 
at  her death left James her heir.  He appears to have been twice Mayor and died 
in 1631, after which date diaries and accounts show numerous transactions of 
James Skeets the younger.  In 1632  fifty pieces of cloth were sent to London, 
doubtless on packhorses,  and about 30 pieces to Folkestone and Lewes.  "A 
cloth"  38 yards in length realized 17 pounds 10s.  The hire to Folkestone was  
2/6  and to Lewes  4/-  a horse.

   A good deal of business was done by barter, and new vat for dyeing being 
partly paid for in cloth.  Whether all clothiers had dye works is doubtful, most 
likely some of the smaller ones did weaving at home and brought to men like 
Skeets.  The  accounts asto spinning and weaving are not very clear,  24/- per 
piece was paid to Richard Girdler, weaver, and  9/- was charged for "woading a 
wool"  whatever that may mean technically, and  1/6  " a wool " was paid by 
Thomas  Burgess apparently for the use of the dye works or vat.  But a number of 
the work-people or apprentices lived under the same roof with their master.   
Some received 5 pounds or 6 pounds per annum;  one,  William Peirse,  who was 
bound for 2  1/2  years, had only 2 pounds 10s.    Some had horses of their own 
which they paid Mr. Skeets for keeping.  The took in a boarder  Wm. Knatchbull  
at  4/-  a week.  The maid servant  Anis Berry was

{page 23}

engaged for  40/-  a year.  The accounts show other prices and values on Charles 
1   time,  which are of interest,  a horse 6 pounds 10s.,  cows 5 pounds  and 3 
pounds 10s.,  ewes and lanbs  13/- .   Wheat  4/-  and oats  1/2  the bushel,  
beef  3  1/4d. per lb.,   wool  11d. per lb.,  meadow grass to be made into hay  
15/-  an acre,  underwood  4 pounds to 8 pounds per acre,  a load of faggots  
7/6,  and a load of bats or wood  8/- , (probably used to heat furnaces for 
dying).  Labour  1/4 per day,  making faggots  1/10 per hundred,  cutting bats  
1/- per load.  Horse keep  1/2 a week,  cow keep on rowens  1/6.   Rent of an 
upland farm  20/- an acre,  land in Shirley Moor  2 6/8,  tithe 6d. an acre.  
The school master, Mr. Hawkens,  received  15/-  a quarter for two boys John and 
James Skeets.

   The carriers were paid  3/-  "a cloth" to London, and 3/- a  cwt. for 
bringing goods down.  Redwood cost 29/-,  woad  23/-,  galls  88/-,  and wood 
ashes 14/- per cwt.  indigo 4/- a lb.,  olive oil  3/-  a gallon.   Mr. Skeets 
paid Wm. Jones the Fuller  10/- a cloth for 'thicking'  or milling. He sold fine 
willow coloured cloth at 9/7 per yard,  chesnut colour at 6/-,  carsy (? 
kerseymere)  at 3/6,  other cloth at 8/- and 11/-  and blanketing at 2/10.

   In 1641, the second James Skeets purchased, for 450 pounds, the premises 
which originally belonged to his grandfather Telden,  from the three sons of 
Samuel Tilden,  who according to the ancient custom of gavelkind inherited them 
equally from their father, two tenements,  dye house, barn, &c., being included 
as well as the nine acres of land bounded on the south by King's highway, on the 
west by land of Wm. Shorte, and the north and east by land of James and Robert 
Skeets, and on the east by a certain lane.

   Rev. Edward Talbot, whose first wife was descended from the Blackmores,  and 
from whose notes many of these items are extracted, was of opinion that the 
residences of the Tildens were behind the present Westwell house, and that the 
property included the site of the house, and extended to the lane at West Cross 
by Mr. Milsted's or to the roadway west of his house  Skeets is suposed to have 
lived cast of the said lane,  and the tenements on the Tilden property were 
occupied by Burgess & Caldwell.  His grandaughter in 1721 married into the 
Blackmore family, of which more anon.

{page 24}

   These premises were sold in 1703 by Samuel Housegoe, clothier, to Thos. 
Chapman blacksmith.

   The cloth trade seems to have fallen off a little, times were troublous, some 
people went to America, among them a Hinckley, a connection of the Cadwells;  
and William Curteis,  some of whose descendants, like those of Tilden and 
Lambarde, have been here to trace their ancestry.  No doubt some of these 
emigrants gave the name to the fishing village of Tenterden mentioned in Bret 
Hart's poems.  Other changes were taking place in Tenterden.  John Baker,  the 
Town Clerk, died in 1635,  William Finch in 1637, and John Gee,  the Vicar in 
1639;  after his death there was a petition to Parliament from Tenterden ( 
amongst other places ) against the conduct of the Clergy.  There was only a 
badly paid curate here then,  the new vicar being rector of Acrise;  this vicar 
exacted excessive fees,  and would not allow the people to provide a minister at 
their own cost.  The names of Curteis, Finch, Haffenden, Shorte, Tilden, Weller 
and others are among the eighty signatures.  Archbishop Laud reported that there 
were refractory people at Tenterden, but by the help of the Archdeacon he hoped 
to keep them in order.

{ page 25}

   Among the Skeets papers is one reffering to the levying of  Ship money, 
Tenterden was assessed at 90 pounds (Liverpool at the same time at 25 pounds).  
From 1644 to 1647  Mr. Skeets paid heavy scots or cesses to Parliament, 
deducting as much as 15 pounds out of a rent of 60 pounds,  so that the people 
of this district, though they were on the winning side,  suffered in pocket if 
they escaped the horrors of wars itself.  Prices of corn do not seem to have 
risen,  wheat remaining at 4/- a bushel.  James Skeets was Mayor in 1643, and we 
find that he received 6/8 from Stephenson for "bloodshed,"  1/- for 
"amercements"  and paid Mr. Stretton 5/8 for mending the way against his house.  
His sister Judith was a woman of character and diligence, she took great pains 
in coping out Thos. Brewster's book against the Quakers, also Colepeppers 
Herbal.

   Mr Skeets occupied Teffenden in Halden, and lived there in 1647, he died in 
1654, his eldest son John was an attorney at Lydd,  and his other son ( a third 
James Skeets) appears to have carried on the clothing trade, but we do not learn 
much more about it.  The family like most others about here was a Puritan one.

{page 26 * }

   The Rectory of Tenderden at the time of Commonwealth was let on lease to old 
Sir Edward Hales,  who was a member of the Parliamentary party.  A survey was 
made at that time of all the Church possessions, as well as of the property of 
"Charles Stewarte, late King of England, "  with a view to sale thereof.  Some 
of these crown lands were in the Seven Hundreds;  and among the Royalists who 
had lands in Tenterden, were the Argals, Colepeppers, Guldefords, Sir Robert 
Pointz, and Sir Peter Richards.

   The Argals held Kench Hill and also Morghew.  The scot on their lands from 
1644 to 1648  amounted to 1025 pounds, owing to an inunduation of the Wittersham 
levels drowning 156 acres of Morghew.

   The largest estate at one time in Tenterden was that of the Hales family, 
upon the history of which a paper was read at the Tenterden meeting of the Kent 
Archaelogical Society in 1880 ( see  Vol. XIV. of Archaeoliciaal Cantiana for 
this and other notes).

   Sir Robert Hales the Treasurer was beheaded by Wat Tyler's followers, his 
great nephew John that built the first Hales Place, his son Henry married 
Juliana Capell of Tenterden,   one of their grandsons Sir Christopher who died 
in 1542, was Master of the Rolls, another was Baron of the Exchequer,  and from 
him was descended Sir Edward Hales,  who married Deborah heiress of the 
Harlackendens of Woodchurch.  There is little doubt that this was the man who 
built the present Hales Place.  He was created a Baronet in 1611,  and died in 
1654, at the age of 85, his later years were troubled by the behaviour of his 
grandson, who took up arms at Maidstone against the Government in 1648, and was 
compelled to flee the country.  Others of Sir Edward's descendants, like his 
grandson, were supporters of the Stuarts, one being created Earl of Tenterden by 
James 11,  and another losing his life at the Battle of the Boyne.  The direct 
descendants have continued Catholics, the last representative being Miss Hales, 
who sold the estate to a number of different purchasers about 30 years ago;  the 
Mansion is now the residence of Edmund H. Hardcastle, Esq.

{page 27}

   Before going on with the course of events, wome account may here be given of 
the families and houses existing in the 17th Century.

   Furley states, that Finchden on Leigh Green, was held by one family for over 
400 years.  William de Fynchdene was Chief Justice

{page 28}

of Common Pleas in the reign of Edward 111  and other members of the family were 
people of note.  The name appears three times among the list of Mayors in 17th 
century, and accounts relating to John Finch, who died in 1685, were found among 
the Skeets papers.  One of the last of the family was William Finch, Town Clerk 
towards the end of the 18th century.  The present house has the initials E.F. 
upon it and the date 1658, but it does not appear to have been all built at the 
same time.  In consequence of the place being used as a Catholic seminary about 
30 years ago,  the name was changed to St. Benedict's Priory.  It is now the 
property of Mr. G.F.T. Beale.  

   The wood adjoining the Devil's Drop being called Finchbourne Wood, seems to 
indicate that the Finch family at one time owned Kench Hill, but there is no 
other evidence of that being so.  That estate held many years by the Argals and 
others, came into the hands of Mr. Robert Clarkson,  was purchased in 1687 by 
Mr. John Mantell,  and afterwards passed through an heiress to the Westons.  It 
now belongs to Mrs. Easton.  Kinch Hill House is an 18th century one, there are 
old paintings on some of the panels of the rooms.

   Heronden belonged to a family of that name, and is classed by Furley among 
the first of the denes that possessed a residence.  From Hasted's Kent it 
appears that part of the estate was sold to Sir John Baker of Sissinghurst, 
whose descendant of the same name died in 1661.  He held a court of the "Manor 
of Herneden Magnum at West Crosse Oake,"  on September 23rd, 1635,  "the 
Wednesday before St. Mychaell, being allwayes the accustomed day,"  when rents 
of 2d. each were paid for certain houses by Mr. Skeets.

   Another portion called Little Heronden was purchased by the Shorts in the 
reign of Charles 1 ,  from whom it passed to a branch of the Curteis family, 
belonging in Hasted's time to Samuel and afterwards to Jeremiah Curteis of 
Tenterden, who was Mayor several times between 1785 and 1807.

   The old black and white house, just beyond West Cross, was pulled down in the 
19th century and made way for the lodge gates and entrance drive when Heronden 
Hall was built by Mr. Whelan.

{page 29  pictures}
{page 30}

   The remainder of the Heronden Estate, including the mansion dated 1585, was 
sold to Jr. John Austen, who resided here, and left it to his nephew Robert in 
1655.  It was inherited in 1742 by Mr. Richard Righton, whose son sold it in 
1782 to Mr. Jerimiah Curteis of Rye,  who pulled down the Mansion.  Some of the 
materials, including some fine oak carving, &c., were used by Mr. John Neve in 
fitting up the house in Ashford Road, next the Chapel, and now called Woodlands,  
the residence half a century ago of Mrs. Neve,  who was born May 18th, 1792, and 
is still living in Guernsey at the age of 109.

   The present house was built in 1819 by Mr. William Croughton and is now the 
residence of Mrs. Peel his descendant.  

   On this estate, near the site of the old mill below Ashbourne,  the late Mr. 
Croughton found a bronze vase of Roman workmanship, which evidently Mr. Furley 
was not aware of.( see page 6.)

   The Short family provided Mayors as many as fifteen times in 16th & 17th 
centuries, some of them were Clothiers, Daniel Shorte in 1632 borrowed materials 
for dyeing from James Skeets,  and William Shorte had land to the west of the 
Tilden Dye Works.

   The Curteis family came from Appledore in 16th century, William Curteis who 
died in 1582 was twice married, first to Joane Bunting, and secondly to Joane 
Pattenden.  His second son Thomas was Bailiff in 1598,  Mayor in 1606,  he 
married a Short.  The eldest son William, like his father, was twice married, 
some of the descendants of the first wife left  Tenterden, among them have been 
several Rectors of Sevenoaks,  the Misses Curteis, who were nieces to Jeremiah 
Cliffe,  and lived next the  Town Hall 100 years ago,  belonged to this branch.  
This Wm. Corteis was Mayor in 1603, his son Robert (by his second wife) in 1632, 
and grandson in 1658.  George Curteis Mayor in 1699, was the youngest son of 
George, Mayor 1658, and from him are descended the late Canon Curteis, the 
existing Tenterden family of Curteis,  the Beales and the youngest generation of 
Maces.

   Going back to 1621, Stephen Curteis, who was Mayor that year was son to the 
second wife of the Wiliam who died 1582;  he

{page 31   ** & ***}

married Elizabeth Shorte, his grandson was Mayor in 1663 and 1668, and great 
grandson in 1696.  Representatives of this branch are to be found in the Curteis 
family of Rye, the Peels and the Pomfrets.  Edward Curteis, M.D., whose 
"Charity" is a well known institution in Tenterden, was grandson to Jeremiah, 
Mayor in 1696, and first cousin to Jeremiah of Rye,  and to his brother Richard 
who bought Morghew from the Colepeppers in 1781, and later took over the 
Heronden estate.  These two brothers married two Misses Giles,  members of a 
Biddenden Family.

   Richard Curteis was the largest ratepayer in the Borough 100 years ago, and 
did not hold the Corporation of Tenterden in great respect, for he said he did 
not care who was Mayor, he would be King.  One of his daughters married Mr. Wm. 
Croughton, the other Mr. J. B. Pomfret, also connected with Biddenden, where the 
uncommon name Virgil borne by his son, who died in 1875, may be traced in 
parochial references to the family many years before.

   There is a fine monument in St. Mildred's Church to Herbert Whitfeld, who 
died in 1622, and to his wife Martha.  The family lived at Eastgate, and the 
name appears several times in the list of fMayors early in the 18th Century.  
Hasted says,  the heirs of Dir Herbert Whitfeld sold the seat to Mr. William 
Austen of Heronden,  and Sir Robert Austen,  the last of that name resided 
there.  The house now occupied by Mrs. Beale, has the date 1746 upon it.** 

   A fine old gabled house called Bugglesden, just off the Headcorn road, near 
the third mile stone, was long the residence of the Haffendens, but in 1760 they 
built Homewood and removed thither.***

   Another interesting 16th or 17th Century house is now being re-built by Mr. 
J. R. Diggle, it was new fronted and added to in the Georgian period, the old 
timber work being covered in.   During the present alteration a quantity of 
panelling has been found, some of the linen fold pattern, and in one upper room 
some fine carving, and black letter inscriptions, in another gilding and other 
ornamentations were uncovered, including a hunting scene painted in fresco on 
plaster, showing costumes of early Stuart days, also a rather fine head, but all 
in too dilapidated a state to be restored.   When this

{page 32}

house stood empty some years ago, a number of old portraits were cut from their 
frames and stolen, doubless those of members of the Holman family, who resided 
here in the 18th century.  The name of John Holman is down as Mayor three times, 
from 1709 to 1727.  Who were the previous owners has not been ascertained, and 
no historian refers to the place.  The earliest record of the family in the 
parish register is the baptism of Ann daughter of John and  Anne Holman in 1674.  
The name died out 100 years ago or more, but daughters of the house married into 
the families of the Austen, Chambers, Curteis, and Morphett.

   Another old house in Boresisle which stands between Mr. Diggle's and St. 
Michael's, has in one of the windows something like a royal coat of arms with a 
crown over it in stained glass.  The motto is  Hony Soit Qui Mal -------ce, and 
there are three lions on a red gound, but two other quarterings have diamonds on 
a blue ground in place of fleur de lis,  and the forth is plain amber colour.  
The house must have been larger formerly.

   One of the few black and white houses left is Plummer House, which would 
probably be the residence of Captain John Plummer, who was one of the Jurats 
during Cromwell's time.

{page 33} 

   The house shown on the preededing page is of a different build from Plummer 
house, and its early history has not been traced, nor has that of Mr. Milsted's 
house (see page 24,)  which does not seem to have been Skeets property.  Several 
other houses in the town were formerly timbered in the same way, and have lost 
their picturesque character by being tiled or boarded over, like the Eight Bells 
( which shows the timber work at the side).  There are fine old beams in the 
houses attached to the Tanyard, and "Dutch" bricks may be seen in one of the 
chimneys, but otherwise, externally, little appearance of antiquity appears.  
The old Schoolhouses ( see page20), though tiled, are still quaint.

   Another house which now only shows timber work at the back, but inside has 
oak beams 15 ins. square, is known as the Manor House.  There were evidences of 
its former importance till recently, in the moat, enclosing about two acres, 
traces of which might be found nearly all round it;  cellarage also extending 50 
ft. from the present building.  Hasted, Kilburne and Furley have each references 
to Pittlesdeu Manor, which was one of the denes to possess a family residence;  
Sir John Dudley, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, inherited it with Kenchill, 
in right of his wife, Jane, a daughter of Sir Edward Guldeford, and he with the 
license of Henry V111, conveyed it to Sir Thomas Cromwell.  He sold it to Henry 
V111  in whose hands it remained till the next reign, when it passed to Sir John 
Baker.  It was bought by Mr. Jasper Clayton in Charles 1 reign and the 
Blackmores afterwards possessed it;  in the deeds of Mr. W. Thomson dated 1870, 
the house is referred to as " the Ancient Manor of Pittlesden."  Mr. J. S. 
Thomson rented if off the Blackmores  from 1847 to 1870, when his son, the 
present occupier, purchased it.

   Among farm houses The Forstal is one of the best specimens of black and 
white.  There are also Knockwood, Belgar and some houses at Reading, besides two 
small houses in the Town,  the cottages at Smallhythe ( see page 17),  and near 
the Ferry Gate the old farmhouse of the Hopes, now being restored by Miss Ellen 
Terry.  There are two ancient brick built houses, formerly part of the Hales 
estate, worth notice on the  Appledore  Road,  the first called

{page 34}

Brunger Farm on the town side of Finchden, with  porch and arched doorways and 
traces of old windows, probably one of the oldest houses existing in the 
Borough;  the other with string courses over the windows, between Reading Hill 
and the little church of St. Mary.

   Passing from old houses to old records, we find that Capt. "Plomer" (referred 
to above) and Antony Bodle were appointed Jurants in 1656, Edward Curteis in 
1658.  The Jurats appear to have been qualified as Justices of the Peace, and in 
the Commonwealth period the full quota of 12 Jurats was kept up, but diring the 
latter half of the 17th century the numbers were much reduced.  In 1704, when 
there were eight Jurats and twelve Commoners, all the Jurats and four of the 
Commoners are described as "Gentlemen" in the Corporation Minute Book.  From the 
same book we learn that after the burning of the Town Hall, it was resolved at a 
Meeting on April 12th, 1661, that the New Court Hall and "Goale" be built in 
separate places, and that the Jurats consult with workmen and report.  And on 
May 14th, that 200 pounds be raised for the " New Goale,"  and that the old 
timber of  " the late Court Hall and Goale" be used and also of the "Market 
Crosse."

   At the annual elections on August 29th, a number of things were yearly 
enumerated as being in the custody of various officers of the Corporation, 
charters and writings, seals and keys and measures, whips and branding irons for 
felons.  The maces are of course mentioned in these lists, and in 1656 are 
described as "three maces of silver, whereof one is gilt."  The Mayor generally 
had charge of Charters, but apparently he kept them at the Court Hall.  For 
after the fire a letter was ordered to be written by Mr. Edward Finch and the 
Town Clerk, Mr. Wm. Aldcroft, " To represent our late disaster and great loss in 
the Common Goale and Court Hall, and the Charters then therin being lately 
burnt."  Probably the copies and minute books were in the keeping of the Town 
Clerk and so were saved, as also the writings of Smallhythe Chapel Land which 
were then in the keeping of  Edward Finch and afterwards of James  Skeets.


{ page 13}

   About this time the path between the Ville of Tenterden and the Ville of 
Reading had been wrongfully enclosed with a hedge and ditch;  another from 
Reading to Woodchurch and Halden had also been stopped, and the Sheriff was 
ordered to "de-obstruct" them.

   From futher notes of Furley's as to the administration of justice in those 
days we have the following items - Ralph de la Burn, accused of larceny, was 
apprehended, but escaped from the frankpledge or borough of Waren de  
Burwarsile, and Waren was amerced for his escape.  Certain persons were indicted 
for robbery and fled, but being strangers the Hundred was not liable.  At a 
quarrel in a tavern at Tenterden, a man struck another on the head so that he 
died,  the offender fled, and the borough was amerced because the hue and cry 
was not raised.  A man killed a girl in shooting with an arrow at the Assize 
butt in the borough of Bourwarsile.

   Thomas de Tenwardine held an entire Knight's Fee, but was not yet a knight 
though of full age.  Edward 1  compelled those who possessed land of the value 
of 20 pounds to take up their knighthood and attend the sovereign to the wars at 
their own expense, for forty days in every year.  This was afterwards commuted 
into a money payment.

   In 1299, John, Vicar of Tenterden, and 16 others of the Kentish  Clergy were 
ex-communicated and imprisoned in Canterbury, for refusing to pay the King's 
taxes.

   History records that the unfortunate Edward 11  the first Prince of Wales,  
stayed here when about 22 years of age, and wrote letters dated Tenterden,  on 
July 1st, 1305.  He was in disgrace at the time, in company with his friend 
Piers Gavestone,  for killing a Bishop's deer, and he was not allowed to 
approach his father's court,  though showing a dutiful submission to the King's 
will,  and anxious to regain his affection.  The King himself is supposed to 
have visited Tenterden earlier, when inspecting the embankments in Walland 
Marsh, and in 1305 was staying at his country seat in Newenden.

{page 14}

   Tradition says, that on the present site of the Manor House, ( Mr. W. 
Thomson's) was formerly a residence of Earl Goodwin, and it has been suggested 
as a probable place where the Prince may have stayed.  The ponds, now filled up,  
were probably parts of the moat surrounding the house.

   There were disputes in Edward 1  time as to the cutting of timber,  and 
enquiries were made with a view of settling the question in the reign of Edward 
111.   Eight oaks were cut in Tenterden, which were claimed by the Archbishop,  
and in Rolvenden as many as 362 trees were felled,  half of which the Archbishop 
claimed as his own,  the land being held of him under certain services.

   In May, 1337,  King Edward 111  issued an edict to encourage Flemish cloth 
workers to reside in England.  Kent was selected as the seat of the broad cloth 
manufacture,  and the Weald of Kent acquired the reputation of making strong 
durable broad cloth of good mixtures and colors.  This trade was carried on in 
Tenterden and other places in the Weald.

   At the time of the great storm of 1287, and for two or three hundred years 
after,  the Rother flowed north of the Isle of Oxney by Smallhythe.   Tenterden 
prospered during the 14th and early part of 15 centuries from the cloth 
manufacture,  and partly no doubt from the sea flowing up the river to 
Smallhythe.  It even became of sufficient importance to be called upon to help 
Rye,  which owing to the decline of the Cinque Ports and occasional pillage by 
the French,  became greatly impoverished in the time of Henry V1.   Tenterden 
seems to have been far enough inland to escape injury..  Amongst other 
profitable trades carried on here, may be named the manufacture of charcoal,  
but owing to foreign vessels coming here after wood and charcoal,  and at the 
same time smuggling away wool and hides,  in the year 1355  Edward 111  forbade 
vessels coming further than Winchelsea.  A few years later this edict was 
partially revoked on complaint of the people of the Weald,  who had  "in all 
past times been accustomed to sell firewood at Rethyng ( Reading ) Bodyham,  
Maytham,  Newenden,  and elsewhere,  wherever in the

{page 15}

sallt water ships are accustomed to apply."   There are traces of old pottery 
works on French Hay Farm at Reading, and it is said, some of the houses 
thereabouts are buuilt of Dutch bricks, probably brought in exchange for 
firewood or charcoal.

   Watermills and tilekilns were in existence in other parts of the county, and 
the remains of old dams still existing show that there were ponds, and probably 
mills, here at an early period.

   There were two of these ponds in the valley between Park Gate and Halden 
Place,  close to one of which an old mill stone has been found.  Further up the 
same valley there were others,  and also above Gribble Bridge  on one of the 
streams which run down into the western arm of the Millpond.  Some of these 
ponds are however supposed to have belonged to the cloth factories,  possibly 
the one formerly existing at the bottom of Brewhouse Lane  was for this purpose.  
The largest dams are those in the Millpond valley,  four in number, viz:  that 
of the existing pond of 13 acres,  two others which held ponds of 6 acres each,  
only laid dry within the last 20 years,  and another intermediate one long since 
disused. The only watermill that has survived in working order into the 20th 
century is the one at Ashbourne close to the Rother Valley Station,  and 
probably it gives the name to the stream below,  called the New Mills Channel,  
which divides Tenterden from Rolvenden ;  for on the Rolvenden side,  near the 
footpath and the noted spring,  traces remain of a small pond, probably 
connected with an old mill.

   Returning to history,  Furley tells us men from Tenterden and Smallhythe were 
concerned in Wat Tyler's rebellion. Also that John Waddon,  a Tenterden priest,  
was burnt about 1428, as follower of Wycliffe.

   In the year 1449,  Tenterden,  the only Corporate town in the Weald of Kent,  
was annexed to Rye and became a limb of the Cinque Ports,  sharing all their 
privileges.  The ships of Tenterden are said to have been built at Smallhythe,  
and it must be remembered there was then direct communication down the Rother, 
via Reading, Ebony, Appledore and Stone to Rye.  By the Charter of Henry V1,  
Courts

{page 16}

were to be held fortnightly,  after the custom of the Cinque Ports,  and the 
inhabitants became exempt from all tolls, levies and burdens of shire and 
hundred,  and from attending the Shire Courts at Penenden Heath,  or the Courts 
of the Seven Hundreds,  but all pleadings were to be before the Bailiff of 
Tenterden,  or in the Court of the Cinque Ports called Shepway.

   So, when Edward 1V , getting the advantage over Henry V1 became King,  the 
prosperous Tenterden was a Corporate Town.  And in process of building was the 
present steeple, or rather tower of the church.  The will of Thomas Pittlesden,  
dated 1462, ordered  "100 marcs to be paid out of his land to the steeple so 
long as it was a making."  The marc was  13/4,  equal in value to about 10 
pounds to-day.

   Richard Berne of Canterbury, in 1461, bequeathed  6/8 to the building of the 
new bell tower of Tenterden.

   From 1458 to 1601  Tenterden was governed by a Portreeve or Bailiff.  Then it 
received at the hands of Queen Elizabeth its present Charter of Incorporation,  
which provided for the election of a Mayor and 12 Jurats,  and granted other 
priviliges which were confirmed by William 111.    John Hales  was the first 
Mayor.   Much of the early history of the town was lost when the Town Hall was 
burnt on 19th March, 1660.   Hasted says  " the Hall was burnt by prisoners 
confined in the prison over it,"  and he adds  " that afterwards the election of 
Mayor took place on Aug. 29th, under one of the great "old oaks which stood near 
the site of the Hall."  The present Town Hall was built in 1792.

   How early the marsh land below Reading, called Shirley Moor was originally 
reclaimed is not known,  it seems to have been overflowed by the sea in 1459,  
it being recorded that " Sharley Moor broke out,"  and 50 years after we find 
another record, "Sharley Moor was made."

   In the 8th year of Henry V11,  a composition was entered into between Rye and 
Tenterden,  apportioning the services between the two towns,  and payments to be 
made by each.  And in the next reign the sea,  or at any rate the tide still 
came up to Smallhythe for faculty was granted to bury the bodies of those cast 
by shipwreck on the shore.  The Corporation minute book states that on July 
31st, 1514,  Smallhythe was destroyed by fire.

{page 17}

   Mr. A. H. Taylor notes a record of a barge, which cost over 40 pounds, being 
built at Smallhythe in 1400, for the Corporation of Romney.

   At an inquiry concerning this hamlet in the reign of Edward V1,  ten 
witnesses were examined and it was agreed that the Chapel was not a Chapel of 
Ease,  that lands called Chapel lands had been left for the support of a priest 
and that mass had been said for the last two years by one Peter Hall.   Also 
that there were 60 to 100  "houseling people"  in Smallhythe,  that there was no 
haven,  save only a creek of salt water frequented by lighters to fetch wood, 
though a little pinnace of the King's  had been brought there to be repaired.  
It would appear that a fresh trust must have been created later, based upon the 
principles of the Reformed Church.

   Henry V111  visited Tenterden on August 28th,  1537.  "A marvellous, 
abominable and seditious sermon"  was preached in Tenterden Church one Easter 
Wednesday,  in Henry V111 reign,  information of it being given by inhabitants 
to the Privy Council,  and the priest was ordered to be arrested.

   The Parish Registers ( St. Mildred's ) date from the reign of Henry V111 
(1544) and appear to have been re-copied in 1599.

{page 18}

   The Guldeford family had a residence at Halden Place in Rolvenden, their park 
was enlarged by the addition of land in Tenterden, probably near Park Gate.  The 
historian Lambarde states it was disparked in his time,  1570.

   Sir Edward Guldeford, who was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and held many 
other high offices in the time of Henry V111, wrote interesting official reports 
on the condition of the land and people;  he was descended from the Pittlesden 
family and owned the estate of that name as well as Kench Hill.  His only 
daughter and heiress Jane  married Sir John Dudley,  afterwards  Duke of 
Northumberland;  one of her sons was the husband of Lady Jane Grey,  another was 
the Earl of Leicester ( the favourite of Queen Elizabeth), and Sir Philip Sidney 
was her grandson.   One can imagine that Tenterden as well as Rolvenden, was 
familiar ground to these historical personages,  though the Duke sold Pittlesden 
to Sir Thomas Cromwell,  the agent of Henry V111  in suppressing monasteries, 
(and the perpetrator probably of some of the acts of vandalism with which the 
greater Cromwell of a century later is credited).  The King himself  next bought 
these two estates and granted Kench Hill to Thomas Argal.   Edward V1  granted 
Pittlesden, with pond of water, weir,  fishery and dove house to Sir John Baker 
of Sissinghurst,  Attorney General to Kings Henry and Edward and Queen Mary.  
Was this the pond at the bottom of Brewhouse Lane near Chennel Park,  and did 
the lane turn to the right and cross the dam as has been suggested ?  If so the 
footpath to the left from that spot to West Cross was probably also a lane,  but 
old maps do not show.

   Sir John had also granted to him by Henry V111  on the suppression of a 
chantry to which they belonged,  two small manors called Lights Notinden  and 
East Asherinden.  Apparenty these were south of Kench Hill,  and Harris says 
"there was a little church shown in old maps,"  but probably that was 
Smallhythe, as Hasted refers to no other.  These two historians and Philipot say 
the chantry was founded by John Light;  and Kilburne says Smallhythe Chapel was 
founded by one Shepherde.

   A romance might be made of a hermit dwelling on one of those

{page 19}

steep banks, tending a Light to warn the mariners in the river below,  and 
saying masses for the souls of the shipwrecked ones.

   Another manor, the only one in Tenterden held by Knight service, was 
purchased in 1454, together with the adjoining Morghew,  from Sir Walter Moyle 
of Eastwell,  by the chaplain of one of the forty seven chantries in St. Paul's 
Cathedral.  This was Gatesdene,  which was called a borough in the reign of 
Edward 11,  but in Hasted's time only some marsh land between Smallhythe and 
Maytham went by that name,  though probably it may still be traced in the name 
of Gazedown Wood.  On the suppression of the chantry in the first year of Edward 
V1  these properties passed to Sir Miles Partriche,  afterwards to the Argals,  
Colepeppers, Curteis and Pomfrets.  In 1549  the chapel in St. Paul's was pulled 
down and the materials used in the building of Somerset House.

   Besides these chantries Furley states there was one in Tenterden church 
called Peter Marshall's chantry, and that houses and land in Tenterden and 
Woodchurch,  including the Woolsack (?Woolpack)  were given for the support of a 
chaplain,  for celebrating Divine Service and for teaching in the Grammar 
School.  The south chancel of the church was appropiated to this school during 
part of the 18th century.  The benefation table in the church informs us, 
according to the Report on Education in 1836,  that  "one Hayman, ancestor of  
the late Peter Hayman, very anciently founded the free school of this town.  
William Marshall,  clerk,  about the year 1521,  gave 10 pounds per annum, to be 
paid to the masterof the said school, issuing out of a messuage and 12 acres of 
land in Tenterden, now belonging to Sir Edward Hales.  John Mantel in 1702  gave 
200 pounds,  which was laid out in purchasing 10 acres of marsh land at St. 
Mary's,  let as 10 pounds per annum,  payable to the master of the said school."  
The School house premises ( an ancient building two doors east of the present 
Town Hall,)  according to an indenture dated 10th November, 1666, consisted of a 
messuage,  and half an acre of land.  This half acre has since disappeared,  no 
witnesses in 1836  remembered the property in any other than its state,  and the 
income from the whole property at that time was 58 pounds 15s.  When in the

{page 20}

18th century,  the Master  ( Mr. Hall ) died,  the revenue was transferred to 
Mr. James Buckland who had set up a school in the town.  But as it did not 
appear that he found anybody disposed to send children to be instructed in 
grammar (i.e. Latin),  the trustees proposed that the revenues should be applied 
to support of the National School,  from the year 1812, leaving always six 
perfectly free scholars to preserve the foundation district.  It would seem now 
that all scholars are free, the question may arise whether six of them might not 
be found who would be willing to learn Latin.

   In 1523,  George Guldeford of Hemsted obtained an Act of Parliament to divert 
a road "which was in places right deep and noyous,"  it led from the Hundred of 
Cranbrook to Tenterden Cross and passed "nigh to a great oak called Hemsted 
Oak."

   In 1573, Queen Elizabeth was at Hemsted,  Sissinghurst,  Northiam and  Rye,  
but did not come to Tenterden.  She complained of the rocks and valleys in the 
Wild of Kent and Sussex as worse

{page 21}

than in the Peak.  In 1585,  an act was passed declaring that highways were 
greatly injured by carriage  of charcoal and iron, and exacting that ironmasters 
carrying the same between 12th October and 1st May, shall likewise carry a load 
of cinder or stone to be deposited where the justices shall direct.  There does 
not appear to have been any iron foundry or furnace in Tenterden,  the nearest 
seems to have been in Biddenden;  but iron slag is found on the track of the 
Ancient Roads.  (see page 5.)

   The Reformation was well supported in this part of Kent.  As early as May 
2nd, 1511,  six men and four women,  mostly from Tenterden,  appeared at Knole, 
and did penance before Archbishop Warham, nearly 50 were accused of heresy,  and 
William Carder and Agnes Grebel suffered martyrdom.  A number of the martyrs of 
Mary's reign also came from the Weald,  and John Lomas of Tenterden was burnt at 
Canterbury on January 31st, 1554.  Even one of the Hales family was imprisoned.

   At the time of the Spanish Armada, Kent provided double the men and 
ammunition of any other county,  the Tenterden contingent consisting of 24 men 
and 4 horses, and a beacon was prepared here to communicate with others around, 
if required.  Hasted  describes one in later years on the top of the steeple,  
as a sort or iron kettle hung on a piece of timber 8 ft. long.

   In the reign of Queen Elizabeth we can find very interesting entries in our 
old parish register.  Evidently one of the chief men of the town was John 
Tilden,  who was Mayor in 1585-6,  and in 1600;  why he is so described at the 
time when the chief magistrate was supposed to be a port reeve or bailiff is not 
clear, perhaps coming events cast their shadows before.  At his death on January 
29th, 1626, he is called  " the ancient jurat."  He was married in 1570, and his 
eldest daughter was married before she was seventeen.

   Some members of his family emigrated to America in 1634;  but all through the 
17th century his descendants and those of Thomas  Tilden were found in 
Tenterden, one son with the quaint name of Hopestill.  Another son John,  was 
Mayor in 1623 and died in 1640,

{page 22}

being at the time bailiff to Sir Edward Hales, possibly he lived at Belgar and 
the Telden Gill may have been named after him.  A representative of the American 
branch,  Governor Telden of New York, came here in 1876 hoping to find the site 
of a " Stone House"  which belonged to his ancestors and was occupied by a 
Lambarde.  John Tilden the elder had cloth works at West Cross,  and was 
succedded by his son Samuel, who, in 1604, when 25 years of age, sold cloth to 
London Merchant-Tailors,  and purchased woad, anil and other materials for 
dyeing.  At his marriage to Rebecca Giles in 1612, his father settled upon him 
three peices of land at West Cross containing 9 acres, and called the Workhouse 
field ( from Dye Works) Tenter Field and Barn Field.  Samuel died in 1623, 
leaving three young sons;  his executor was James Skeets the husband of his 
sister Judith.  Skeets was also in business as a clothier at Tenterden,  his 
mother Agnes, widow of Grimbold Skeets,  alias Keethe,  lived at Hastings, and 
at  her death left James her heir.  He appears to have been twice Mayor and died 
in 1631, after which date diaries and accounts show numerous transactions of 
James Skeets the younger.  In 1632  fifty pieces of cloth were sent to London, 
doubtless on packhorses,  and about 30 pieces to Folkestone and Lewes.  "A 
cloth"  38 yards in length realized 17 pounds 10s.  The hire to Folkestone was  
2/6  and to Lewes  4/-  a horse.

   A good deal of business was done by barter, and new vat for dyeing being 
partly paid for in cloth.  Whether all clothiers had dye works is doubtful, most 
likely some of the smaller ones did weaving at home and brought to men like 
Skeets.  The  accounts asto spinning and weaving are not very clear,  24/- per 
piece was paid to Richard Girdler, weaver, and  9/- was charged for "woading a 
wool"  whatever that may mean technically, and  1/6  " a wool " was paid by 
Thomas  Burgess apparently for the use of the dye works or vat.  But a number of 
the work-people or apprentices lived under the same roof with their master.   
Some received 5 pounds or 6 pounds per annum;  one,  William Peirse,  who was 
bound for 2  1/2  years, had only 2 pounds 10s.    Some had horses of their own 
which they paid Mr. Skeets for keeping.  The took in a boarder  Wm. Knatchbull  
at  4/-  a week.  The maid servant  Anis Berry was

{page 23}

engaged for  40/-  a year.  The accounts show other prices and values on Charles 
1   time,  which are of interest,  a horse 6 pounds 10s.,  cows 5 pounds  and 3 
pounds 10s.,  ewes and lanbs  13/- .   Wheat  4/-  and oats  1/2  the bushel,  
beef  3  1/4d. per lb.,   wool  11d. per lb.,  meadow grass to be made into hay  
15/-  an acre,  underwood  4 pounds to 8 pounds per acre,  a load of faggots  
7/6,  and a load of bats or wood  8/- , (probably used to heat furnaces for 
dying).  Labour  1/4 per day,  making faggots  1/10 per hundred,  cutting bats  
1/- per load.  Horse keep  1/2 a week,  cow keep on rowens  1/6.   Rent of an 
upland farm  20/- an acre,  land in Shirley Moor  2 6/8,  tithe 6d. an acre.  
The school master, Mr. Hawkens,  received  15/-  a quarter for two boys John and 
James Skeets.

   The carriers were paid  3/-  "a cloth" to London, and 3/- a  cwt. for 
bringing goods down.  Redwood cost 29/-,  woad  23/-,  galls  88/-,  and wood 
ashes 14/- per cwt.  indigo 4/- a lb.,  olive oil  3/-  a gallon.   Mr. Skeets 
paid Wm. Jones the Fuller  10/- a cloth for 'thicking'  or milling. He sold fine 
willow coloured cloth at 9/7 per yard,  chesnut colour at 6/-,  carsy (? 
kerseymere)  at 3/6,  other cloth at 8/- and 11/-  and blanketing at 2/10.

   In 1641, the second James Skeets purchased, for 450 pounds, the premises 
which originally belonged to his grandfather Telden,  from the three sons of 
Samuel Tilden,  who according to the ancient custom of gavelkind inherited them 
equally from their father, two tenements,  dye house, barn, &c., being included 
as well as the nine acres of land bounded on the south by King's highway, on the 
west by land of Wm. Shorte, and the north and east by land of James and Robert 
Skeets, and on the east by a certain lane.

   Rev. Edward Talbot, whose first wife was descended from the Blackmores,  and 
from whose notes many of these items are extracted, was of opinion that the 
residences of the Tildens were behind the present Westwell house, and that the 
property included the site of the house, and extended to the lane at West Cross 
by Mr. Milsted's or to the roadway west of his house  Skeets is suposed to have 
lived cast of the said lane,  and the tenements on the Tilden property were 
occupied by Burgess & Caldwell.  His grandaughter in 1721 married into the 
Blackmore family, of which more anon.

{page 24}

   These premises were sold in 1703 by Samuel Housegoe, clothier, to Thos. 
Chapman blacksmith.

   The cloth trade seems to have fallen off a little, times were troublous, some 
people went to America, among them a Hinckley, a connection of the Cadwells;  
and William Curteis,  some of whose descendants, like those of Tilden and 
Lambarde, have been here to trace their ancestry.  No doubt some of these 
emigrants gave the name to the fishing village of Tenterden mentioned in Bret 
Hart's poems.  Other changes were taking place in Tenterden.  John Baker,  the 
Town Clerk, died in 1635,  William Finch in 1637, and John Gee,  the Vicar in 
1639;  after his death there was a petition to Parliament from Tenterden ( 
amongst other places ) against the conduct of the Clergy.  There was only a 
badly paid curate here then,  the new vicar being rector of Acrise;  this vicar 
exacted excessive fees,  and would not allow the people to provide a minister at 
their own cost.  The names of Curteis, Finch, Haffenden, Shorte, Tilden, Weller 
and others are among the eighty signatures.  Archbishop Laud reported that there 
were refractory people at Tenterden, but by the help of the Archdeacon he hoped 
to keep them in order.

{ page 25}

   Among the Skeets papers is one reffering to the levying of  Ship money, 
Tenterden was assessed at 90 pounds (Liverpool at the same time at 25 pounds).  
From 1644 to 1647  Mr. Skeets paid heavy scots or cesses to Parliament, 
deducting as much as 15 pounds out of a rent of 60 pounds,  so that the people 
of this district, though they were on the winning side,  suffered in pocket if 
they escaped the horrors of wars itself.  Prices of corn do not seem to have 
risen,  wheat remaining at 4/- a bushel.  James Skeets was Mayor in 1643, and we 
find that he received 6/8 from Stephenson for "bloodshed,"  1/- for 
"amercements"  and paid Mr. Stretton 5/8 for mending the way against his house.  
His sister Judith was a woman of character and diligence, she took great pains 
in coping out Thos. Brewster's book against the Quakers, also Colepeppers 
Herbal.

   Mr Skeets occupied Teffenden in Halden, and lived there in 1647, he died in 
1654, his eldest son John was an attorney at Lydd,  and his other son ( a third 
James Skeets) appears to have carried on the clothing trade, but we do not learn 
much more about it.  The family like most others about here was a Puritan one.

{page 26 * }

   The Rectory of Tenderden at the time of Commonwealth was let on lease to old 
Sir Edward Hales,  who was a member of the Parliamentary party.  A survey was 
made at that time of all the Church possessions, as well as of the property of 
"Charles Stewarte, late King of England, "  with a view to sale thereof.  Some 
of these crown lands were in the Seven Hundreds;  and among the Royalists who 
had lands in Tenterden, were the Argals, Colepeppers, Guldefords, Sir Robert 
Pointz, and Sir Peter Richards.

   The Argals held Kench Hill and also Morghew.  The scot on their lands from 
1644 to 1648  amounted to 1025 pounds, owing to an inunduation of the Wittersham 
levels drowning 156 acres of Morghew.

   The largest estate at one time in Tenterden was that of the Hales family, 
upon the history of which a paper was read at the Tenterden meeting of the Kent 
Archaelogical Society in 1880 ( see  Vol. XIV. of Archaeoliciaal Cantiana for 
this and other notes).

   Sir Robert Hales the Treasurer was beheaded by Wat Tyler's followers, his 
great nephew John that built the first Hales Place, his son Henry married 
Juliana Capell of Tenterden,   one of their grandsons Sir Christopher who died 
in 1542, was Master of the Rolls, another was Baron of the Exchequer,  and from 
him was descended Sir Edward Hales,  who married Deborah heiress of the 
Harlackendens of Woodchurch.  There is little doubt that this was the man who 
built the present Hales Place.  He was created a Baronet in 1611,  and died in 
1654, at the age of 85, his later years were troubled by the behaviour of his 
grandson, who took up arms at Maidstone against the Government in 1648, and was 
compelled to flee the country.  Others of Sir Edward's descendants, like his 
grandson, were supporters of the Stuarts, one being created Earl of Tenterden by 
James 11,  and another losing his life at the Battle of the Boyne.  The direct 
descendants have continued Catholics, the last representative being Miss Hales, 
who sold the estate to a number of different purchasers about 30 years ago;  the 
Mansion is now the residence of Edmund H. Hardcastle, Esq.

{page 27}

   Before going on with the course of events, some account may here be given of 
the families and houses existing in the 17th Century.

   Furley states, that Finchden on Leigh Green, was held by one family for over 
400 years.  William de Fynchdene was Chief Justice

{page 28}

of Common Pleas in the reign of Edward 111  and other members of the family were 
people of note.  The name appears three times among the list of Mayors in 17th 
century, and accounts relating to John Finch, who died in 1685, were found among 
the Skeets papers.  One of the last of the family was William Finch, Town Clerk 
towards the end of the 18th century.  The present house has the initials E.F. 
upon it and the date 1658, but it does not appear to have been all built at the 
same time.  In consequence of the place being used as a Catholic seminary about 
30 years ago,  the name was changed to St. Benedict's Priory.  It is now the 
property of Mr. G.F.T. Beale.  

   The wood adjoining the Devil's Drop being called Finchbourne Wood, seems to 
indicate that the Finch family at one time owned Kench Hill, but there is no 
other evidence of that being so.  That estate held many years by the Argals and 
others, came into the hands of Mr. Robert Clarkson,  was purchased in 1687 by 
Mr. John Mantell,  and afterwards passed through an heiress to the Westons.  It 
now belongs to Mrs. Easton.  Kinch Hill House is an 18th century one, there are 
old paintings on some of the panels of the rooms.

   Heronden belonged to a family of that name, and is classed by Furley among 
the first of the denes that possessed a residence.  From Hasted's Kent it 
appears that part of the estate was sold to Sir John Baker of Sissinghurst, 
whose descendant of the same name died in 1661.  He held a court of the "Manor 
of Herneden Magnum at West Crosse Oake,"  on September 23rd, 1635,  "the 
Wednesday before St. Mychaell, being allwayes the accustomed day,"  when rents 
of 2d. each were paid for certain houses by Mr. Skeets.

   Another portion called Little Heronden was purchased by the Shorts in the 
reign of Charles 1 ,  from whom it passed to a branch of the Curteis family, 
belonging in Hasted's time to Samuel and afterwards to Jeremiah Curteis of 
Tenterden, who was Mayor several times between 1785 and 1807.

   The old black and white house, just beyond West Cross, was pulled down in the 
19th century and made way for the lodge gates and entrance drive when Heronden 
Hall was built by Mr. Whelan.

{page 29  pictures}
{page 30}

   The remainder of the Heronden Estate, including the mansion dated 1585, was 
sold to Jr. John Austen, who resided here, and left it to his nephew Robert in 
1655.  It was inherited in 1742 by Mr. Richard Righton, whose son sold it in 
1782 to Mr. Jerimiah Curteis of Rye,  who pulled down the Mansion.  Some of the 
materials, including some fine oak carving, &c., were used by Mr. John Neve in 
fitting up the house in Ashford Road, next the Chapel, and now called Woodlands,  
the residence half a century ago of Mrs. Neve,  who was born May 18th, 1792, and 
is still living in Guernsey at the age of 109.

   The present house was built in 1819 by Mr. William Croughton and is now the 
residence of Mrs. Peel his descendant.  

   On this estate, near the site of the old mill below Ashbourne,  the late Mr. 
Croughton found a bronze vase of Roman workmanship, which evidently Mr. Furley 
was not aware of.( see page 6.)

   The Short family provided Mayors as many as fifteen times in 16th & 17th 
centuries, some of them were Clothiers, Daniel Shorte in 1632 borrowed materials 
for dyeing from James Skeets,  and William Shorte had land to the west of the 
Tilden Dye Works.

   The Curteis family came from Appledore in 16th century, William Curteis who 
died in 1582 was twice married, first to Joane Bunting, and secondly to Joane 
Pattenden.  His second son Thomas was Bailiff in 1598,  Mayor in 1606,  he 
married a Short.  The eldest son William, like his father, was twice married, 
some of the descendants of the first wife left  Tenterden, among them have been 
several Rectors of Sevenoaks,  the Misses Curteis, who were nieces to Jeremiah 
Cliffe,  and lived next the  Town Hall 100 years ago,  belonged to this branch.  
This Wm. Corteis was Mayor in 1603, his son Robert (by his second wife) in 1632, 
and grandson in 1658.  George Curteis Mayor in 1699, was the youngest son of 
George, Mayor 1658, and from him are descended the late Canon Curteis, the 
existing Tenterden family of Curteis,  the Beales and the youngest generation of 
Maces.

   Going back to 1621, Stephen Curteis, who was Mayor that year was son to the 
second wife of the Wiliam who died 1582;  he

{page 31   ** & ***}

married Elizabeth Shorte, his grandson was Mayor in 1663 and 1668, and great 
grandson in 1696.  Representatives of this branch are to be found in the Curteis 
family of Rye, the Peels and the Pomfrets.  Edward Curteis, M.D., whose 
"Charity" is a well known institution in Tenterden, was grandson to Jeremiah, 
Mayor in 1696, and first cousin to Jeremiah of Rye,  and to his brother Richard 
who bought Morghew from the Colepeppers in 1781, and later took over the 
Heronden estate.  These two brothers married two Misses Giles,  members of a 
Biddenden Family.

   Richard Curteis was the largest ratepayer in the Borough 100 years ago, and 
did not hold the Corporation of Tenterden in great respect, for he said he did 
not care who was Mayor, he would be King.  One of his daughters married Mr. Wm. 
Croughton, the other Mr. J. B. Pomfret, also connected with Biddenden, where the 
uncommon name Virgil borne by his son, who died in 1875, may be traced in 
parochial references to the family many years before.

   There is a fine monument in St. Mildred's Church to Herbert Whitfeld, who 
died in 1622, and to his wife Martha.  The family lived at Eastgate, and the 
name appears several times in the list of fMayors early in the 18th Century.  
Hasted says,  the heirs of Dir Herbert Whitfeld sold the seat to Mr. William 
Austen of Heronden,  and Sir Robert Austen,  the last of that name resided 
there.  The house now occupied by Mrs. Beale, has the date 1746 upon it.** 

   A fine old gabled house called Bugglesden, just off the Headcorn road, near 
the third mile stone, was long the residence of the Haffendens, but in 1760 they 
built Homewood and removed thither.***

   Another interesting 16th or 17th Century house is now being re-built by Mr. 
J. R. Diggle, it was new fronted and added to in the Georgian period, the old 
timber work being covered in.   During the present alteration a quantity of 
panelling has been found, some of the linen fold pattern, and in one upper room 
some fine carving, and black letter inscriptions, in another gilding and other 
ornamentations were uncovered, including a hunting scene painted in fresco on 
plaster, showing costumes of early Stuart days, also a rather fine head, but all 
in too dilapidated a state to be restored.   When this

{page 32}

house stood empty some years ago, a number of old portraits were cut from their 
frames and stolen, doubless those of members of the Holman family, who resided 
here in the 18th century.  The name of John Holman is down as Mayor three times, 
from 1709 to 1727.  Who were the previous owners has not been ascertained, and 
no historian refers to the place.  The earliest record of the family in the 
parish register is the baptism of Ann daughter of John and  Anne Holman in 1674.  
The name died out 100 years ago or more, but daughters of the house married into 
the families of the Austen, Chambers, Curteis, and Morphett.

   Another old house in Boresisle which stands between Mr. Diggle's and St. 
Michael's, has in one of the windows something like a royal coat of arms with a 
crown over it in stained glass.  The motto is  Hony Soit Qui Mal -------ce, and 
there are three lions on a red gound, but two other quarterings have diamonds on 
a blue ground in place of fleur de lis,  and the forth is plain amber colour.  
The house must have been larger formerly.

   One of the few black and white houses left is Plummer House, which would 
probably be the residence of Captain John Plummer, who was one of the Jurats 
during Cromwell's time.

{page 33} 

   The house shown on the preededing page is of a different build from Plummer 
house, and its early history has not been traced, nor has that of Mr. Milsted's 
house (see page 24,)  which does not seem to have been Skeets property.  Several 
other houses in the town were formerly timbered in the same way, and have lost 
their picturesque character by being tiled or boarded over, like the Eight Bells 
( which shows the timber work at the side).  There are fine old beams in the 
houses attached to the Tanyard, and "Dutch" bricks may be seen in one of the 
chimneys, but otherwise, externally, little appearance of antiquity appears.  
The old Schoolhouses ( see page20), though tiled, are still quaint.

   Another house which now only shows timber work at the back, but inside has 
oak beams 15 ins. square, is known as the Manor House.  There were evidences of 
its former importance till recently, in the moat, enclosing about two acres, 
traces of which might be found nearly all round it;  cellarage also extending 50 
ft. from the present building.  Hasted, Kilburne and Furley have each references 
to Pittlesdeu Manor, which was one of the denes to possess a family residence;  
Sir John Dudley, afterwards Duke of Northumberland, inherited it with Kenchill, 
in right of his wife, Jane, a daughter of Sir Edward Guldeford, and he with the 
license of Henry V111, conveyed it to Sir Thomas Cromwell.  He sold it to Henry 
V111  in whose hands it remained till the next reign, when it passed to Sir John 
Baker.  It was bought by Mr. Jasper Clayton in Charles 1 reign and the 
Blackmores afterwards possessed it;  in the deeds of Mr. W. Thomson dated 1870, 
the house is referred to as " the Ancient Manor of Pittlesden."  Mr. J. S. 
Thomson rented if off the Blackmores  from 1847 to 1870, when his son, the 
present occupier, purchased it.

   Among farm houses The Forstal is one of the best specimens of black and 
white.  There are also Knockwood, Belgar and some houses at Reading, besides two 
small houses in the Town,  the cottages at Smallhythe ( see page 17),  and near 
the Ferry Gate the old farmhouse of the Hopes, now being restored by Miss Ellen 
Terry.  There are two ancient brick built houses, formerly part of the Hales 
estate, worth notice on the  Appledore  Road,  the first called

{page 34}

Brunger Farm on the town side of Finchden, with  porch and arched doorways and 
traces of old windows, probably one of the oldest houses existing in the 
Borough;  the other with string courses over the windows, between Reading Hill 
and the little church of St. Mary.

   Passing from old houses to old records, we find that Capt. "Plomer" (referred 
to above) and Antony Bodle were appointed Jurants in 1656, Edward Curteis in 
1658.  The Jurats appear to have been qualified as Justices of the Peace, and in 
the Commonwealth period the full quota of 12 Jurats was kept up, but diring the 
latter half of the 17th century the numbers were much reduced.  In 1704, when 
there were eight Jurats and twelve Commoners, all the Jurats and four of the 
Commoners are described as "Gentlemen" in the Corporation Minute Book.  From the 
same book we learn that after the burning of the Town Hall, it was resolved at a 
Meeting on April 12th, 1661, that the New Court Hall and "Goale" be built in 
separate places, and that the Jurats consult with workmen and report.  And on 
May 14th, that 200 pounds be raised for the " New Goale,"  and that the old 
timber of  " the late Court Hall and Goale" be used and also of the "Market 
Crosse."

   At the annual elections on August 29th, a number of things were yearly 
enumerated as being in the custody of various officers of the Corporation, 
charters and writings, seals and keys and measures, whips and branding irons for 
felons.  The maces are of course mentioned in these lists, and in 1656 are 
described as "three maces of silver, whereof one is gilt."  The Mayor generally 
had charge of Charters, but apparently he kept them at the Court Hall.  For 
after the fire a letter was ordered to be written by Mr. Edward Finch and the 
Town Clerk, Mr. Wm. Aldcroft, " To represent our late disaster and great loss in 
the Common Goale and Court Hall, and the Charters then therin being lately 
burnt."  Probably the copies and minute books were in the keeping of the Town 
Clerk and so were saved, as also the writings of Smallhythe Chapel Land which 
were then in the keeping of  Edward Finch and afterwards of James  Skeets.

con't part 4
















{ page 13}

   About this time the path between the Ville of Tenterden and the Ville of 
Reading had been wrongfully enclosed with a hedge and ditch;  another from 
Reading to Woodchurch and Halden had also been stopped, and the Sheriff was 
ordered to "de-obstruct" them.

   From futher notes of Furley's as to the administration of justice in those 
days we have the following items - Ralph de la Burn, accused of larceny, was 
apprehended, but escaped from the frankpledge or borough of Waren de  
Burwarsile, and Waren was amerced for his escape.  Certain persons were indicted 
for robbery and fled, but being strangers the Hundred was not liable.  At a 
quarrel in a tavern at Tenterden, a man struck another on the head so that he 
died,  the offender fled, and the borough was amerced because the hue and cry 
was not raised.  A man killed a girl in shooting with an arrow at the Assize 
butt in the borough of Bourwarsile.

   Thomas de Tenwardine held an entire Knight's Fee, but was not yet a knight 
though of full age.  Edward 1  compelled those who possessed land of the value 
of 20 pounds to take up their knighthood and attend the sovereign to the wars at 
their own expense, for forty days in every year.  This was afterwards commuted 
into a money payment.

   In 1299, John, Vicar of Tenterden, and 16 others of the Kentish  Clergy were 
ex-communicated and imprisoned in Canterbury, for refusing to pay the King's 
taxes.

   History records that the unfortunate Edward 11  the first Prince of Wales,  
stayed here when about 22 years of age, and wrote letters dated Tenterden,  on 
July 1st, 1305.  He was in disgrace at the time, in company with his friend 
Piers Gavestone,  for killing a Bishop's deer, and he was not allowed to 
approach his father's court,  though showing a dutiful submission to the King's 
will,  and anxious to regain his affection.  The King himself is supposed to 
have visited Tenterden earlier, when inspecting the embankments in Walland 
Marsh, and in 1305 was staying at his country seat in Newenden.

{page 14}

   Tradition says, that on the present site of the Manor House, ( Mr. W. 
Thomson's) was formerly a residence of Earl Goodwin, and it has been suggested 
as a probable place where the Prince may have stayed.  The ponds, now filled up,  
were probably parts of the moat surrounding the house.

   There were disputes in Edward 1  time as to the cutting of timber,  and 
enquiries were made with a view of settling the question in the reign of Edward 
111.   Eight oaks were cut in Tenterden, which were claimed by the Archbishop,  
and in Rolvenden as many as 362 trees were felled,  half of which the Archbishop 
claimed as his own,  the land being held of him under certain services.

   In May, 1337,  King Edward 111  issued an edict to encourage Flemish cloth 
workers to reside in England.  Kent was selected as the seat of the broad cloth 
manufacture,  and the Weald of Kent acquired the reputation of making strong 
durable broad cloth of good mixtures and colors.  This trade was carried on in 
Tenterden and other places in the Weald.

   At the time of the great storm of 1287, and for two or three hundred years 
after,  the Rother flowed north of the Isle of Oxney by Smallhythe.   Tenterden 
prospered during the 14th and early part of 15 centuries from the cloth 
manufacture,  and partly no doubt from the sea flowing up the river to 
Smallhythe.  It even became of sufficient importance to be called upon to help 
Rye,  which owing to the decline of the Cinque Ports and occasional pillage by 
the French,  became greatly impoverished in the time of Henry V1.   Tenterden 
seems to have been far enough inland to escape injury..  Amongst other 
profitable trades carried on here, may be named the manufacture of charcoal,  
but owing to foreign vessels coming here after wood and charcoal,  and at the 
same time smuggling away wool and hides,  in the year 1355  Edward 111  forbade 
vessels coming further than Winchelsea.  A few years later this edict was 
partially revoked on complaint of the people of the Weald,  who had  "in all 
past times been accustomed to sell firewood at Rethyng ( Reading ) Bodyham,  
Maytham,  Newenden,  and elsewhere,  wherever in the

{page 15}

sallt water ships are accustomed to apply."   There are traces of old pottery 
works on French Hay Farm at Reading, and it is said, some of the houses 
thereabouts are buuilt of Dutch bricks, probably brought in exchange for 
firewood or charcoal.

   Watermills and tilekilns were in existence in other parts of the county, and 
the remains of old dams still existing show that there were ponds, and probably 
mills, here at an early period.

   There were two of these ponds in the valley between Park Gate and Halden 
Place,  close to one of which an old mill stone has been found.  Further up the 
same valley there were others,  and also above Gribble Bridge  on one of the 
streams which run down into the western arm of the Millpond.  Some of these 
ponds are however supposed to have belonged to the cloth factories,  possibly 
the one formerly existing at the bottom of Brewhouse Lane  was for this purpose.  
The largest dams are those in the Millpond valley,  four in number, viz:  that 
of the existing pond of 13 acres,  two others which held ponds of 6 acres each,  
only laid dry within the last 20 years,  and another intermediate one long since 
disused. The only watermill that has survived in working order into the 20th 
century is the one at Ashbourne close to the Rother Valley Station,  and 
probably it gives the name to the stream below,  called the New Mills Channel,  
which divides Tenterden from Rolvenden ;  for on the Rolvenden side,  near the 
footpath and the noted spring,  traces remain of a small pond, probably 
connected with an old mill.

   Returning to history,  Furley tells us men from Tenterden and Smallhythe were 
concerned in Wat Tyler's rebellion. Also that John Waddon,  a Tenterden priest,  
was burnt about 1428, as follower of Wycliffe.

   In the year 1449,  Tenterden,  the only Corporate town in the Weald of Kent,  
was annexed to Rye and became a limb of the Cinque Ports,  sharing all their 
privileges.  The ships of Tenterden are said to have been built at Smallhythe,  
and it must be remembered there was then direct communication down the Rother, 
via Reading, Ebony, Appledore and Stone to Rye.  By the Charter of Henry V1,  
Courts

{page 16}

were to be held fortnightly,  after the custom of the Cinque Ports,  and the 
inhabitants became exempt from all tolls, levies and burdens of shire and 
hundred,  and from attending the Shire Courts at Penenden Heath,  or the Courts 
of the Seven Hundreds,  but all pleadings were to be before the Bailiff of 
Tenterden,  or in the Court of the Cinque Ports called Shepway.

   So, when Edward 1V , getting the advantage over Henry V1 became King,  the 
prosperous Tenterden was a Corporate Town.  And in process of building was the 
present steeple, or rather tower of the church.  The will of Thomas Pittlesden,  
dated 1462, ordered  "100 marcs to be paid out of his land to the steeple so 
long as it was a making."  The marc was  13/4,  equal in value to about 10 
pounds to-day.

   Richard Berne of Canterbury, in 1461, bequeathed  6/8 to the building of the 
new bell tower of Tenterden.

   From 1458 to 1601  Tenterden was governed by a Portreeve or Bailiff.  Then it 
received at the hands of Queen Elizabeth its present Charter of Incorporation,  
which provided for the election of a Mayor and 12 Jurats,  and granted other 
priviliges which were confirmed by William 111.    John Hales  was the first 
Mayor.   Much of the early history of the town was lost when the Town Hall was 
burnt on 19th March, 1660.   Hasted says  " the Hall was burnt by prisoners 
confined in the prison over it,"  and he adds  " that afterwards the election of 
Mayor took place on Aug. 29th, under one of the great "old oaks which stood near 
the site of the Hall."  The present Town Hall was built in 1792.

   How early the marsh land below Reading, called Shirley Moor was originally 
reclaimed is not known,  it seems to have been overflowed by the sea in 1459,  
it being recorded that " Sharley Moor broke out,"  and 50 years after we find 
another record, "Sharley Moor was made."

   In the 8th year of Henry V11,  a composition was entered into between Rye and 
Tenterden,  apportioning the services between the two towns,  and payments to be 
made by each.  And in the next reign the sea,  or at any rate the tide still 
came up to Smallhythe for faculty was granted to bury the bodies of those cast 
by shipwreck on the shore.  The Corporation minute book states that on July 
31st, 1514,  Smallhythe was destroyed by fire.

{page 17}

   Mr. A. H. Taylor notes a record of a barge, which cost over 40 pounds, being 
built at Smallhythe in 1400, for the Corporation of Romney.

   At an inquiry concerning this hamlet in the reign of Edward V1,  ten 
witnesses were examined and it was agreed that the Chapel was not a Chapel of 
Ease,  that lands called Chapel lands had been left for the support of a priest 
and that mass had been said for the last two years by one Peter Hall.   Also 
that there were 60 to 100  "houseling people"  in Smallhythe,  that there was no 
haven,  save only a creek of salt water frequented by lighters to fetch wood, 
though a little pinnace of the King's  had been brought there to be repaired.  
It would appear that a fresh trust must have been created later, based upon the 
principles of the Reformed Church.

   Henry V111  visited Tenterden on August 28th,  1537.  "A marvellous, 
abominable and seditious sermon"  was preached in Tenterden Church one Easter 
Wednesday,  in Henry V111 reign,  information of it being given by inhabitants 
to the Privy Council,  and the priest was ordered to be arrested.

   The Parish Registers ( St. Mildred's ) date from the reign of Henry V111 
(1544) and appear to have been re-copied in 1599.

{page 18}

   The Guldeford family had a residence at Halden Place in Rolvenden, their park 
was enlarged by the addition of land in Tenterden, probably near Park Gate.  The 
historian Lambarde states it was disparked in his time,  1570.

   Sir Edward Guldeford, who was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and held many 
other high offices in the time of Henry V111, wrote interesting official reports 
on the condition of the land and people;  he was descended from the Pittlesden 
family and owned the estate of that name as well as Kench Hill.  His only 
daughter and heiress Jane  married Sir John Dudley,  afterwards  Duke of 
Northumberland;  one of her sons was the husband of Lady Jane Grey,  another was 
the Earl of Leicester ( the favourite of Queen Elizabeth), and Sir Philip Sidney 
was her grandson.   One can imagine that Tenterden as well as Rolvenden, was 
familiar ground to these historical personages,  though the Duke sold Pittlesden 
to Sir Thomas Cromwell,  the agent of Henry V111  in suppressing monasteries, 
(and the perpetrator probably of some of the acts of vandalism with which the 
greater Cromwell of a century later is credited).  The King himself  next bought 
these two estates and granted Kench Hill to Thomas Argal.   Edward V1  granted 
Pittlesden, with pond of water, weir,  fishery and dove house to Sir John Baker 
of Sissinghurst,  Attorney General to Kings Henry and Edward and Queen Mary.  
Was this the pond at the bottom of Brewhouse Lane near Chennel Park,  and did 
the lane turn to the right and cross the dam as has been suggested ?  If so the 
footpath to the left from that spot to West Cross was probably also a lane,  but 
old maps do not show.

   Sir John had also granted to him by Henry V111  on the suppression of a 
chantry to which they belonged,  two small manors called Lights Notinden  and 
East Asherinden.  Apparenty these were south of Kench Hill,  and Harris says 
"there was a little church shown in old maps,"  but probably that was 
Smallhythe, as Hasted refers to no other.  These two historians and Philipot say 
the chantry was founded by John Light;  and Kilburne says Smallhythe Chapel was 
founded by one Shepherde.

   A romance might be made of a hermit dwelling on one of those

{page 19}

steep banks, tending a Light to warn the mariners in the river below,  and 
saying masses for the souls of the shipwrecked ones.

   Another manor, the only one in Tenterden held by Knight service, was 
purchased in 1454, together with the adjoining Morghew,  from Sir Walter Moyle 
of Eastwell,  by the chaplain of one of the forty seven chantries in St. Paul's 
Cathedral.  This was Gatesdene,  which was called a borough in the reign of 
Edward 11,  but in Hasted's time only some marsh land between Smallhythe and 
Maytham went by that name,  though probably it may still be traced in the name 
of Gazedown Wood.  On the suppression of the chantry in the first year of Edward 
V1  these properties passed to Sir Miles Partriche,  afterwards to the Argals,  
Colepeppers, Curteis and Pomfrets.  In 1549  the chapel in St. Paul's was pulled 
down and the materials used in the building of Somerset House.

   Besides these chantries Furley states there was one in Tenterden church 
called Peter Marshall's chantry, and that houses and land in Tenterden and 
Woodchurch,  including the Woolsack (?Woolpack)  were given for the support of a 
chaplain,  for celebrating Divine Service and for teaching in the Grammar 
School.  The south chancel of the church was appropiated to this school during 
part of the 18th century.  The benefation table in the church informs us, 
according to the Report on Education in 1836,  that  "one Hayman, ancestor of  
the late Peter Hayman, very anciently founded the free school of this town.  
William Marshall,  clerk,  about the year 1521,  gave 10 pounds per annum, to be 
paid to the masterof the said school, issuing out of a messuage and 12 acres of 
land in Tenterden, now belonging to Sir Edward Hales.  John Mantel in 1702  gave 
200 pounds,  which was laid out in purchasing 10 acres of marsh land at St. 
Mary's,  let as 10 pounds per annum,  payable to the master of the said school."  
The School house premises ( an ancient building two doors east of the present 
Town Hall,)  according to an indenture dated 10th November, 1666, consisted of a 
messuage,  and half an acre of land.  This half acre has since disappeared,  no 
witnesses in 1836  remembered the property in any other than its state,  and the 
income from the whole property at that time was 58 pounds 15s.  When in the

{page 20}

18th century,  the Master  ( Mr. Hall ) died,  the revenue was transferred to 
Mr. James Buckland who had set up a school in the town.  But as it did not 
appear that he found anybody disposed to send children to be instructed in 
grammar (i.e. Latin),  the trustees proposed that the revenues should be applied 
to support of the National School,  from the year 1812, leaving always six 
perfectly free scholars to preserve the foundation district.  It would seem now 
that all scholars are free, the question may arise whether six of them might not 
be found who would be willing to learn Latin.

   In 1523,  George Guldeford of Hemsted obtained an Act of Parliament to divert 
a road "which was in places right deep and noyous,"  it led from the Hundred of 
Cranbrook to Tenterden Cross and passed "nigh to a great oak called Hemsted 
Oak."

   In 1573, Queen Elizabeth was at Hemsted,  Sissinghurst,  Northiam and  Rye,  
but did not come to Tenterden.  She complained of the rocks and valleys in the 
Wild of Kent and Sussex as worse

{page 21}

than in the Peak.  In 1585,  an act was passed declaring that highways were 
greatly injured by carriage  of charcoal and iron, and exacting that ironmasters 
carrying the same between 12th October and 1st May, shall likewise carry a load 
of cinder or stone to be deposited where the justices shall direct.  There does 
not appear to have been any iron foundry or furnace in Tenterden,  the nearest 
seems to have been in Biddenden;  but iron slag is found on the track of the 
Ancient Roads.  (see page 5.)

   The Reformation was well supported in this part of Kent.  As early as May 
2nd, 1511,  six men and four women,  mostly from Tenterden,  appeared at Knole, 
and did penance before Archbishop Warham, nearly 50 were accused of heresy,  and 
William Carder and Agnes Grebel suffered martyrdom.  A number of the martyrs of 
Mary's reign also came from the Weald,  and John Lomas of Tenterden was burnt at 
Canterbury on January 31st, 1554.  Even one of the Hales family was imprisoned.

   At the time of the Spanish Armada, Kent provided double the men and 
ammunition of any other county,  the Tenterden contingent consisting of 24 men 
and 4 horses, and a beacon was prepared here to communicate with others around, 
if required.  Hasted  describes one in later years on the top of the steeple,  
as a sort or iron kettle hung on a piece of timber 8 ft. long.

   In the reign of Queen Elizabeth we can find very interesting entries in our 
old parish register.  Evidently one of the chief men of the town was John 
Tilden,  who was Mayor in 1585-6,  and in 1600;  why he is so described at the 
time when the chief magistrate was supposed to be a port reeve or bailiff is not 
clear, perhaps coming events cast their shadows before.  At his death on January 
29th, 1626, he is called  " the ancient jurat."  He was married in 1570, and his 
eldest daughter was married before she was seventeen.

   Some members of his family emigrated to America in 1634;  but all through the 
17th century his descendants and those of Thomas  Tilden were found in 
Tenterden, one son with the quaint name of Hopestill.  Another son John,  was 
Mayor in 1623 and died in 1640,

{page 22}

being at the time bailiff to Sir Edward Hales, possibly he lived at Belgar and 
the Telden Gill may have been named after him.  A representative of the American 
branch,  Governor Telden of New York, came here in 1876 hoping to find the site 
of a " Stone House"  which belonged to his ancestors and was occupied by a 
Lambarde.  John Tilden the elder had cloth works at West Cross,  and was 
succedded by his son Samuel, who, in 1604, when 25 years of age, sold cloth to 
London Merchant-Tailors,  and purchased woad, anil and other materials for 
dyeing.  At his marriage to Rebecca Giles in 1612, his father settled upon him 
three peices of land at West Cross containing 9 acres, and called the Workhouse 
field ( from Dye Works) Tenter Field and Barn Field.  Samuel died in 1623, 
leaving three young sons;  his executor was James Skeets the husband of his 
sister Judith.  Skeets was also in business as a clothier at Tenterden,  his 
mother Agnes, widow of Grimbold Skeets,  alias Keethe,  lived at Hastings, and 
at  her death left James her heir.  He appears to have been twice Mayor and died 
in 1631, after which date diaries and accounts show numerous transactions of 
James Skeets the younger.  In 1632  fifty pieces of cloth were sent to London, 
doubtless on packhorses,  and about 30 pieces to Folkestone and Lewes.  "A 
cloth"  38 yards in length realized 17 pounds 10s.  The hire to Folkestone was  
2/6  and to Lewes  4/-  a horse.

   A good deal of business was done by barter, and new vat for dyeing being 
partly paid for in cloth.  Whether all clothiers had dye works is doubtful, most 
likely some of the smaller ones did weaving at home and brought to men like 
Skeets.  The  accounts asto spinning and weaving are not very clear,  24/- per 
piece was paid to Richard Girdler, weaver, and  9/- was charged for "woading a 
wool"  whatever that may mean technically, and  1/6  " a wool " was paid by 
Thomas  Burgess apparently for the use of the dye works or vat.  But a number of 
the work-people or apprentices lived under the same roof with their master.   
Some received 5 pounds or 6 pounds per annum;  one,  William Peirse,  who was 
bound for 2  1/2  years, had only 2 pounds 10s.    Some had horses of their own 
which they paid Mr. Skeets for keeping.  The took in a boarder  Wm. Knatchbull  
at  4/-  a week.  The maid servant  Anis Berry was

{page 23}

engaged for  40/-  a year.  The accounts show other prices and values on Charles 
1   time,  which are of interest,  a horse 6 pounds 10s.,  cows 5 pounds  and 3 
pounds 10s.,  ewes and lanbs  13/- .   Wheat  4/-  and oats  1/2  the bushel,  
beef  3  1/4d. per lb.,   wool  11d. per lb.,  meadow grass to be made into hay  
15/-  an acre,  underwood  4 pounds to 8 pounds per acre,  a load of faggots  
7/6,  and a load of bats or wood  8/- , (probably used to heat furnaces for 
dying).  Labour  1/4 per day,  making faggots  1/10 per hundred,  cutting bats  
1/- per load.  Horse keep  1/2 a week,  cow keep on rowens  1/6.   Rent of an 
upland farm  20/- an acre,  land in Shirley Moor  2 6/8,  tithe 6d. an acre.  
The school master, Mr. Hawkens,  received  15/-  a quarter for two boys John and 
James Skeets.

   The carriers were paid  3/-  "a cloth" to London, and 3/- a  cwt. for 
bringing goods down.  Redwood cost 29/-,  woad  23/-,  galls  88/-,  and wood 
ashes 14/- per cwt.  indigo 4/- a lb.,  olive oil  3/-  a gallon.   Mr. Skeets 
paid Wm. Jones the Fuller  10/- a cloth for 'thicking'  or milling. He sold fine 
willow coloured cloth at 9/7 per yard,  chesnut colour at 6/-,  carsy (? 
kerseymere)  at 3/6,  other cloth at 8/- and 11/-  and blanketing at 2/10.

   In 1641, the second James Skeets purchased, for 450 pounds, the premises 
which originally belonged to his grandfather Telden,  from the three sons of 
Samuel Tilden,  who according to the ancient custom of gavelkind inherited them 
equally from their father, two tenements,  dye house, barn, &c., being included 
as well as the nine acres of land bounded on the south by King's highway, on the 
west by land of Wm. Shorte, and the north and east by land of James and Robert 
Skeets, and on the east by a certain lane.

   Rev. Edward Talbot, whose first wife was descended from the Blackmores,  and 
from whose notes many of these items are extracted, was of opinion that the 
residences of the Tildens were behind the present Westwell house, and that the 
property included the site of the house, and extended to the lane at West Cross 
by Mr. Milsted's or to the roadway west of his house  Skeets is suposed to have 
lived cast of the said lane,  and the tenements on the Tilden property were 
occupied by Burgess & Caldwell.  His grandaughter in 1721 married into the 
Blackmore family, of which more anon.

{page 24}

   These premises were sold in 1703 by Samuel Housegoe, clothier, to Thos. 
Chapman blacksmith.

   The cloth trade seems to have fallen off a little, times were troublous, some 
people went to America, among them a Hinckley, a connection of the Cadwells;  
and William Curteis,  some of whose descendants, like those of Tilden and 
Lambarde, have been here to trace their ancestry.  No doubt some of these 
emigrants gave the name to the fishing village of Tenterden mentioned in Bret 
Hart's poems.  Other changes were taking place in Tenterden.  John Baker,  the 
Town Clerk, died in 1635,  William Finch in 1637, and John Gee,  the Vicar in 
1639;  after his death there was a petition to Parliament from Tenterden ( 
amongst other places ) against the conduct of the Clergy.  There was only a 
badly paid curate here then,  the new vicar being rector of Acrise;  this vicar 
exacted excessive fees,  and would not allow the people to provide a minister at 
their own cost.  The names of Curteis, Finch, Haffenden, Shorte, Tilden, Weller 
and others are among the eighty signatures.  Archbishop Laud reported that there 
were refractory people at Tenterden, but by the help of the Archdeacon he hoped 
to keep them in order.

{ page 25}

   Among the Skeets papers is one reffering to the levying of  Ship money, 
Tenterden was assessed at 90 pounds (Liverpool at the same time at 25 pounds).  
From 1644 to 1647  Mr. Skeets paid heavy scots or cesses to Parliament, 
deducting as much as 15 pounds out of a rent of 60 pounds,  so that the people 
of this district, though they were on the winning side,  suffered in pocket if 
they escaped the horrors of wars itself.  Prices of corn do not seem to have 
risen,  wheat remaining at 4/- a bushel.  James Skeets was Mayor in 1643, and we 
find that he received 6/8 from Stephenson for "bloodshed,"  1/- for 
"amercements"  and paid Mr. Stretton 5/8 for mending the way against his house.  
His sister Judith was a woman of character and diligence, she took great pains 
in coping out Thos. Brewster's book against the Quakers, also Colepeppers 
Herbal.

   Mr Skeets occupied Teffenden in Halden, and lived there in 1647, he died in 
1654, his eldest son John was an attorney at Lydd,  and his other son ( a third 
James Skeets) appears to have carried on the clothing trade, but we do not learn 
much more about it.  The family like most others about here was a Puritan one.

{page 26 * }

   The Rectory of Tenderden at the time of Commonwealth was let on lease to old 
Sir Edward Hales,  who was a member of the Parliamentary party.  A survey was 
made at that time of all the Church possessions, as well as of the property of 
"Charles Stewarte, late King of England, "  with a view to sale thereof.  Some 
of these crown lands were in the Seven Hundreds;  and among the Royalists who 
had lands in Tenterden, were the Argals, Colepeppers, Guldefords, Sir Robert 
Pointz, and Sir Peter Richards.

   The Argals held Kench Hill and also Morghew.  The scot on their lands from 
1644 to 1648  amounted to 1025 pounds, owing to an inunduation of the Wittersham 
levels drowning 156 acres of Morghew.

   The largest estate at one time in Tenterden was that of the Hales family, 
upon the history of which a paper was read at the Tenterden meeting of the Kent 
Archaelogical Society in 1880 ( see  Vol. XIV. of Archaeoliciaal Cantiana for 
this and other notes).

   Sir Robert Hales the Treasurer was beheaded by Wat Tyler's followers, his 
great nephew John that built the first Hales Place, his son Henry married 
Juliana Capell of Tenterden,   one of their grandsons Sir Christopher who died 
in 1542, was Master of the Rolls, another was Baron of the Exchequer,  and from 
him was descended Sir Edward Hales,  who married Deborah heiress of the 
Harlackendens of Woodchurch.  There is little doubt that this was the man who 
built the present Hales Place.  He was created a Baronet in 1611,  and died in 
1654, at the age of 85, his later years were troubled by the behaviour of his 
grandson, who took up arms at Maidstone against the Government in 1648, and was 
compelled to flee the country.  Others of Sir Edward's descendants, like his 
grandson, were supporters of the Stuarts, one being created Earl of Tenterden by 
James 11,  and another losing his life at the Battle of the Boyne.  The direct 
descendants have continued Catholics, the last representative being Miss Hales, 
who sold the estate to a number of different purchasers about 30 years ago;  the 
Mansion is now the residence of Edmund H. Hardcastle, Esq.

{page 27}

   Before going on with the course of events, some account may here be given of 
the families and houses existing in the 17th Century.

   Furley states, that Finchden on Leigh Green, was held by one family for over 
400 years.  William de Fynchdene was Chief Justice

{page 28}

of Common Pleas in the reign of Edward 111  and other members of the family were 
people of note.  The name appears three times among the list of Mayors in 17th 
century, and accounts relating to John Finch, who died in 1685, were found among 
the Skeets papers.  One of the last of the family was William Finch, Town Clerk 
towards the end of the 18th century.  The present house has the initials E.F. 
upon it and the date 1658, but it does not appear to have been all built at the 
same time.  In consequence of the place being used as a Catholic seminary about 
30 years ago,  the name was changed to St. Benedict's Priory.  It is now the 
property of Mr. G.F.T. Beale.  

   The wood adjoining the Devil's Drop being called Finchbourne Wood, seems to 
indicate that the Finch family at one time owned Kench Hill, but there is no 
other evidence of that being so.  That estate held many years by the Argals and 
others, came into the hands of Mr. Robert Clarkson,  was purchased in 1687 by 
Mr. John Mantell,  and afterwards passed through an heiress to the Westons.  It 
now belongs to Mrs. Easton.  Kinch Hill House is an 18th century one, there are 
old paintings on some of the panels of the rooms.

   Heronden belonged to a family of that name, and is classed by Furley among 
the first of the denes that possessed a residence.  From Hasted's Kent it 
appears that part of the estate was sold to Sir John Baker of Sissinghurst, 
whose descendant of the same name died in 1661.  He held a court of the "Manor 
of Herneden Magnum at West Crosse Oake,"  on September 23rd, 1635,  "the 
Wednesday before St. Mychaell, being allwayes the accustomed day,"  when rents 
of 2d. each were paid for certain houses by Mr. Skeets.

   Another portion called Little Heronden was purchased by the Shorts in the 
reign of Charles 1 ,  from whom it passed to a branch of the Curteis family, 
belonging in Hasted's time to Samuel and afterwards to Jeremiah Curteis of 
Tenterden, who was Mayor several times between 1785 and 1807.

   The old black and white house, just beyond West Cross, was pulled down in the 
19th century and made way for the lodge gates and entrance drive when Heronden 
Hall was built by Mr. Whelan.

{page 29  pictures}
{page 30}

   The remainder of the Heronden Estate, including the mansion dated 1585, was 
sold to Jr. John Austen, who resided here, and left it to his nephew Robert in 
1655.  It was inherited in 1742 by Mr. Richard Righton, whose son sold it in 
1782 to Mr. Jerimiah Curteis of Rye,  who pulled down the Mansion.  Some of the 
materials, including some fine oak carving, &c., were used by Mr. John Neve in 
fitting up the house in Ashford Road, next the Chapel, and now called Woodlands,  
the residence half a century ago of Mrs. Neve,  who was born May 18th, 1792, and 
is still living in Guernsey at the age of 109.

   The pr