Lenham Archeology

(Sept 2004) Work has got underway in the old village hall as most of you have noticed. Several interested people peered around the door to see what was happening. The floor was being dug out and two features were noted – a well and a cellar. Because it is a building within the conservation area of the village (although not itself listed), a professional survey was done by an archaeologist from Canterbury Archaeological Trust. But that does not mean to say we cannot, as locals, observe and record what was there!

George Chambers had noted that the well had a brick lining for the first few feet and then dropped down through the chalk for some 40 feet. It confirmed what he knew as fact, that there were two cottages originally on the site (pre Victorian) and that they would have shared the well. The cellar is towards the front of the building and had an opening to the Square, possibly to load wine. This cellar is being preserved as a feature of the new house. It appears to date from Tudor times. Although the hall, as it was, was not a listed building, the façade is being preserved.

I hope you all watched the BBC ‘Restoration’ programme and voted for the Archbishop’s Palace at Charing.

The June 2004 meeting was a walk to Wrinsted Court (by kind permission of John Leigh-Pemberton) and it was greatly enjoyed by all who came. Members found it rather exciting trying to locate the walls and buildings of the ‘lost’ tumbledown manor house. In one room still standing, there were signatures of soldiers who were there in the war and messages written like haunting whispers of an age gone by.

Finding more on the house’s history draws a blank. The Centre of Kentish Studies has only the reference in Hasted’s History of Kent. The name ‘Wrinsted’ is not even in their main catalogue system and it remains on the Doddington signpost like a relic of the past ….. lost.
Often old estate maps are a source of information but there was nothing of Wrinsted. Andrew Barr has a negative copy of East Lenham Manor estate map dated 1660. The fact that it was white on black somehow made reading difficult and when I got the copy reversed for him, it was odd how the black on white seemed to show so much more! Here is the little sketch of the house itself. The elevation looks Tudor and indeed, so far our prize item found on our dig was a Tudor brick!

This map solves another query regarding Lenham. Few medieval references are of Lenham itself. Most refer to East Lenham and/or West Lenham (Boldrewood area). But on this 1660s map, the Glebe land (of the church) abuts the land of East Lenham Manor and it appears as if the parsonage of East Lenham was in fact our church as we know it …. The prefix dropped somewhere in the Middle Ages.

Only if land/house owners place their old maps (or copies of them) in the CKS do they become available for people to research and I can only encourage people to do so.
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On July 30th 2003 over 20 members met in the Square and then we drove down to Hubbard’s Farm to walk a short section of the Stour Walk, looping round to come back to where we started.

From Hubbard’s Farm the path goes east to Burnt Mill. Apparently this mill has been burnt down twice but the building still manages to appear as though it has been there for aeons, although the water wheel is standing separate, forlornly, in the grass. There is a straight footpath from Bull Hill Mill to Burnt Mill and they were once owned by the same miller.

It is obvious from the position of old riverbanks, that the course of the river had changed many times in the past. The present stream cuts its way through years of sediment, hill-wash and vegetation build-up, and meanders like a ‘senile’ river in its flood plain. It has also lost many of its small feeder streams, cut off by the motorway and railway, and therefore lost a lot of its volume (Stour means the strong river).

Ray Selkirk’s theory that to find Romans one has to search the waterways……… may reveal much truth in the case of the Stour. (See his books “In Search of Roman Legions” and “The Piercebridge Formula”).

It is quite possible, given a water table some 10ft higher than now, and with all its weirs in place and every section dredged that the Stour was a handsome, navigable river in those far off days. To transport iron, produce and wheat by flat-bottomed barge would be infinitely easier and quicker than ox-cart, even allowing for off and on loading at the numerous weirs. The evidence that indeed the Stour and the Len were once navigable Roman waterways may lie under the numerous watermills, once set upon Roman foundations?

All members enjoyed the walk, the company and the ‘excitement’ it was like an expedition in some places … finding the stiles hidden under brambles and negotiating the narrow plank across a boggy piece of stream. One false footstep and one was down in the mire of centuries!

There is no meeting in August. The next is September 24th, 7.30 pm at the United Reformed Church Hall, subject “War Defences of SE England”, by David Otway.
Lesley Feakes 850275

The first meeting of the proposed Lenham Archaeology Society took place on 28th August and a further meeting on the 25th September.

We have well over 12 interested people and many others who are interested in joining at a later date. It was suggested that the Society could be called the Lenham Archaeological/ Historical Society to cover all interests.

Knowledge has surfaced that Grove House has an old ‘Ha-ha’ (a ditch for keeping out sheep!). It begins at the little stone arch that faces the Old Ashford Road and travels north. Interesting, because an ancient Roman ditch was discovered on the new Community site and travels approximately east – west and would cut the ‘Ha-ha’ at right angles somewhere under Grovelands. If the ‘Ha-ha’ was reusing an old Roman ditch then it suggests that a Roman enclosure extends in a rectangle around Forge House, part of the Churchyard, the Pond and Glebe Gardens.

May I suggest people watch for interesting items in their own back yards for Roman iron slag and bits and pieces, which have already surfaced in Court Meadow! One of my Bowling friends tells me that Lenham was known for a short time (about 1619) as ‘Sutton’. Strange, because that means ‘South Town’ and ‘Norton’ area has a lot of Roman buildings suggesting a ‘North Town’ and they are linked by an almost direct route.

My recent research of field names indicates 4 fields south of Tanyards that bear the name ‘Sutton’ so has the Village moved? Did something happen in the plagues of the 1660 that made people move closer to the Church? It would make sense if that was so. If you find these sort of things interesting please join us at the United Reform Church on Wednesday 23rd October at 7.30pm and add your contribution to our research. By the way, strangest field name of all was ‘Cats Brains’. Does anyone where that was? I cannot find its place/number on the tithe map.
Lesley Feakes, Tel:850275.