A BRIEF HISTORY OF HOUSING IN THE PARISH OF LENHAM

Before coming to the present housing situation in Lenham, it may be of some interest to briefly mention some of the features and history that have culminated in the village as we know it today. There has certainly been a settlement of sorts at Lenham for well over a thousand years. It originated from two hamlets, West Lenham and Estlenham. The springs that occur adjacent to these settlements, and no doubt one of the reasons that they came into being, are fed from the aquifers created by the vast chalk deposits in the North Downs and provide the sources of both the river Len and the Stour. Although there is much archaeological evidence of earlier settlements both by Romans and Saxons, the earliest documentary evidence relates to a grant of land in 804 by Culred, king of Kent and his Overlord Cenulf the Mercian King, to the Abbot, Wernod, and the Monks of St Augustine's Abbey at Canterbury. This grant included 20 ploughlands and 12 acorn-bearing dens for feeding pigs. Later, the King of the West Saxons and of Kent, Athelwolf, granted another 5 ploughlands to the Abbott. He followed in 850 this with by a gift of 40 tenements with land attached.

It was on this land in the general area now occupied by the Church of St Mary and the adjacent Church Square that a Monastery and the original church were built together with five tithe barns. Curiously, although the Abbott had owned so much land in Lenham for over two hundred years, by the time of the collation of the Domesday Book there is no mention of a church there. If no church was present in 1086, which seems unlikely, it was certainly and substantially there a hundred years or so later. In 1297, almost seven hundred years ago, in an act of arson to protest about the excessive taxes levied by the church; both the Church and the Tithe barns were burned to the ground. A precedent for things to come?! This event was almost certainly a desperate protest against the rapacity of the of the church hierarchy who were at that time increasingly expropriating land, tithe and other income to their own purposes. The Villagers were formally cursed by the Archbishop with "bell, book and candle". The Church and Barns were rebuilt at the beginning of the fourteenth century and at that time some of the masonry that was reused was considered to be probably pre-conquest.

Later again, with the emergence of the commercial horse drawn coach services, the position of the village tight on the south of the scarp face of the North Downs and on the primitive turnpike road from London to Dover made it a natural staging point. At the height of the days of Coaching Inns the Dog and Bear hostelry, that still occupies the same position on the village square, had six two stall stables. Regrettably the coming of the railway that brought prosperity to so many, meant the end of the coaching business, and financial ruin for the then owner of this establishment. From the earliest records of the village its life has always centred on the Church and the Square. A charter to hold a Market in the Square was granted to the Abbot of Augustine's by Henry III early in the forteenth century and a Fair was granted in the fifteenth century. The present street pattern of the centre of Lenham dates largely from the 15th century and most of the buildings in the old village are earlier than 1830. Although like every other community our village has been drastically affected by the mass ownership of the motor car, it was fortunate insofar as with the opening of the A20 village bypass in 1927 it has been spared the worst effects of traffic suffered by so many other of our villages. Nevertheless it is a sad reflection of our times that what had been for hundreds of years a bustling market place and a great social centre for the rural community, with a wide variety of tradesmen and shops, tea rooms and public houses, is now predominantly a car park.

 

 

Until fairly recent times the general population in both town and country were housed by their employers. In rural areas these would have been in the main the church or other owners of large estates. In many cases the accommodation would be tied to the employment, in others such as tradesmen and shopkeepers it would be rented.

 

 In earlier days the unemployed and elderly were usually housed by the extended family, otherwise in a Workhouse or if they were fortunate in Almshouses. Lenham was no exception to this general rule. The Honywood Almshouses, originally 6, were built in 1622 from a bequest by Mary Honywood. This remarkable lady died in 1620 at the age of 93 leaving 367 living descendents.

Later, in 1723, the Douglas Almshouses were founded incorporating the remains of the local Workhouse. These were funded by an endowment set up by James Stoddart Douglas of Chilston Park. Both of these institutions survive today and I am pleased to say that recently with help from MBC the trustees of the Douglas Almshouses obtained a grant from the Housing Corporation which in 1993 allowed the opening of a further four houses for the elderly of our Parish.

 

It was not until the 1894 Local Government Act that Local Authorities were permitted to build low cost houses. Central government subsidies for this purpose were first introduced in 1919. Of the first 45 Council Houses ("houses for the working classes") in Lenham, 12 were situated in what was then called Station Road on land purchased from Viscount Chilston. They and the others were built between 1920 and  1938.

 

 

This then was the nature of housing provision in our village until the post war years. Until the 1960s the growth in population had been by natural expansion. In the following ten years (1961‑71) and mainly as a result of an influx of newcomers, the population increased from 2487 to 3441. By 1968 only 50% of all households were people with local origins and of the newcomer households those from the Greater London area alone had increased to 37% Like so many villages, Lenham had become an attractive rural home for outsiders from many walks of life, people who had no previous ties or natural affinity to the local community. New housing appeared; Council Houses to meet the needs of the wider community, new houses for sale to the incoming and largely commuting residents. This population explosion inevitably had far reaching impacts on local life and services. In 1974 the KCC produced a new Informal District Plan for Lenham Village and noting the impact of recent and impending development concluded that "existing permissions and land otherwise committed for development provided capacity for new housing considerably in excess of that required for natural growth and the Local Planning Authority considers this to be sufficient".

Sadly, notwithstanding the KCC's decision in 1974, we have fought and lost two planning appeals for further expansion of our village which resulted in a further erosion of the countryside and some seventy odd more houses.

It is against this background and with a determination to halt and strive to reverse the decline in the economy and social cohesion of the village community that Lenham Parish Council have since the late 1980’s undertaken initiatives to restore the centre of the village to at least some of its earlier attractiveness and to deal with the lack of affordable housing which is driving our young people away.

Social Housing Provision

(still being formatted)

	Period Almshouses	Council Houses			Private	Housing Association
		Rented	OAP	Sheltered	Sheltered	Local Needs
Pre 1900	12
1920‑38		45
1947‑68		185
1968‑76	15	267	12	30	25
Sold		-104
1993	19	163			35	12 ( 6 rented. 6 Shared equity)
2003	21	163	12	30	35	22 (11 rented. 11 Shared equity)

 Note! From the best information available in 2001 when this report was last revised the total housing stock in Lenham village 950 dwellings approx. In the Parish 1276 dwellings. Population of Parish 3103 (1991 Census)

When considering the above table it should be borne in mind that the only provision intended exclusively to meet the needs of local people are the Almshouses and the recently completed Local Needs houses. The Council Housing was part of the District Councils stock accessible from their housing list on a District wide basis and of course the private sheltered housing which is very popular is a purely commercial operation. The latter was included to show the growth of elderly people taking up residence in the village. It was this trend taken together with the rapid increase in property prices in recent times that gave rise to the Parish Councils concerns about the future population balance of the village.

 In 2003 the remaining Council Housing stock in the Borough of Maidstone was transferred to a Housing Association. The era of Council Housing which had lasted for more than one hundred years had come to an end.

Housing Needs Survey.

The survey was undertaken in 1988 using a questionnaire based on the format of one used by Ashford BC on their Smarden Project. We later learned of a standard questionnaire form available from the National Agricultural Council Rural Trust (NACRT). The forms were delivered by hand by Parish Councillors and other volunteers (30 in all) and collected about one week later. Where necessary assistance was given in completing the forms at the time they were collected. 1102 questionaires were delivered and 560 were returned completed. A sub‑committee of five Parish Councillors was formed to consider the results of the survey. Being satisfied that a need clearly existed they produced a brief report to the full Council and this was copied to MBC. It was at this stage that Mary Allwood of the NACRT became our advisor and formal but discrete enquiries were started to find suitable sites on the perimeter of the Village. Although this turned out to be a slow process, within a few months several sites were found where the landowner was amenable in principle to selling a small parcel of land at a modest price specifically for local needs housing. Before a planning application was submitted a few of the possible sites were referred to the MBC Planning Officers for informal advice and it was only when all the parties involved were satisfied that the scheme was feasible that the application was lodged. Twelve houses were eventually completed and occupied in the Spring of 1993

In 1995 the Parish Council promoted an appraisal exercise involving the whole of the parish.

From the results published in 1996 it was evident that there was still a significant need for affordable houses for the young people of the parish. Similarly there was clearly strong support for both a new “Village Hall” and a larger and better sited Medical Centre. With the assistance of the Maidstone Borough’s Planning Officers and the co-operation of local land owners a suitable site capable of accommodating all of these needs was identified and purchased by the Parish Council.

After several years of negotiation, fund raising and frustrating set-backs, in 2003 ten more local needs houses were built and occupied, a Community Centre was under construction  and the Len Valley Medical Practice were able to commission a new expanded Medical Centre.

The provision of housing in the parish is still a serious cause for concern. The combination of ever increasing prices is making the economics of providing housing for local needs almost unachievable and the demands for housing to meet the twin pressures of cash-rich incomers and Government targets demonstrates the urgent need for a coherent and defensible Local Development Plan.