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Nonington: settlement before the Anglo-Saxons
Aerial photographs of the old parish of Nonington taken in the last half of the 20th century clearly indicate the sites of several early settlements dating back to the Iron Age [circa 500 BC onwards] and beyond. Accidental finds over the last couple of centuries of worked flints, pottery sherds and pot boilers in fields or gardens uncovered by ploughing or gardening have given strong indications of the locations of sites of early habitation, and a handful of organized archaeological excavations from the mid-19th century onwards have provided more definite evidence as to where some of the early inhabitants of Nonington lived on a more permanent basis.
Pre-historic finds near the old and new St. Alban’s Court houses.The 1997 during a watching brief at St. Alban’s Court the Thanet Trust for Archaeology discovered possible Late Bronze Age, 1000-701 BC., hut circles and enclosure during the construction of an access road which is now the main entrance to the property.
The watching brief produced possible remains of pre-historic hut sites, floors and drip trench and enclosure. There was a lack of datable materials (burn daub and one pre-historic pot sherd) but hut sites reminiscent in form and state of preservation to Late Bronze Age hut circles encountered by excavator at Monkton and Ebbsfleet. Thin general scatter of pot boilers, (flints heated in the fire until extremely hot and then dropped into a vessel of liquid to heat it, pottery the of that period in time could not survive direct flame) in the area and lack of pottery may indicate a low level of occupation.
From the late Stone Age to the early Romans: settlement near Mill Cottage.
Prior to the installation by EDF of an underground high voltage cable to Mill Cottage on the site of the old Easole Feed Mill an extensive archaeological survey and excavation was carried out in September of 2009 by the Canterbury Archaeological Trust in the field between Mill Cottage and Kittington Farm. A wide variety of finds came to light dating from the late Mesolithic [c 6,500 BC] to the early Roman period [c 150 AD]. This and other finds indicated that by early Roman times there was a thriving farm, with associated buildings, where spelt wheat grown on an industrial scale and that some of the spelt wheat what malted for use in brewing.
The records of the excavations were published in Archaeologia Cantiana, Vol. 131, 2011.
The Roman military base at Aylesham.
Evidence of Bronze Age, Roman and Anglo-Saxon settlement has been uncovered during the building of the new housing estates on the west side of Aylesham out towards the Wingham Road. The land being built on once made up the Archbishop of Canterbury’s deer park of Curleswood Park. Until 1951 the present Parish of Aylesham formed a single parish with the present Parish of Nonington.
Early discoveries prior to building work commencing in late 2014 were made by archaeologists from Swale and Thames Archaeology (SWAT) who are still carrying out the ongoing archaeological survey work for developers Barratt Homes and Persimmon Homes. These early discoveries included a Saxon skeleton, Bronze Age urns and Roman domestic objects.In February of 2020 Dr Paul Wilkinson of SWAT disclosed further discoveries at Aylesham. By far the most important discovery disclosed was evidence of a Roman military facility on the Aylesham site. In an article in Kentonline regarding archaeological discoveries at Aylesham Dr. Wilkinson said:
“We are quite certain we have discovered what was a military supply depot on the Aylesham site. This would have been set up a year or two after the Romans invaded Britain and we believe would have been manned by soldiers of a Roman legion. Not all of them would have been fighting men but specialists in a range of support roles – similar to the British Army of the Victorian era – and would have been posted around an area to concentrate on infrastructure tasks.”.If this discovery does prove to be a Roman military supply depot then it sheds a new light on the strategic and logistical importance of the area that became the old Parish of Nonington to the Romans in the years immediately following their invasion of “Britannia” in 43 AD. The site of the presumed depot is only half a days march from the Romans presumed landing place on the coast between Deal and the Wantsum Channel and the important Roman port of “Retupiae”, the present Richborough Castle. The presumed depot site is located near to ancient pre-Roman trackways which then allowed for direct and rapid access to the East Kent hinterland.
Hopefully more detailed information regarding this and other discoveries at Aylesham will be available in the very near future to all who have an interest in the ancient history of Aylesham and Nonington. -
Ralph Colkyn of Esol in Nonington: the massacre of the Jews of Canterbury and the Second Barons War (1264–1267)
Simon de Montfort, from a stained glass window in Chartres Cathedral When Henry III succeeded to the English throne after the death of his father, King John, in 1216. He initially had the support of the powerful English barons. However, over the years support for the King ebbed away as he became increasingly unpopular with many of the barons believing Henry to be an ineffective monarch who was influenced by foreign favourites, levied increasingly harsher taxation, and waged expensive foreign wars for his own personal gain. As opposition to Henry’s perceived misrule grew many of the discontented barons looked to Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, for leadership and he became increasingly more powerful. De Montfort and his supporters wanted to limit the Henry’s power by forcing him to rule with the assistance and advice of a council of barons and when Henry summoned Parliament in 1258 to ask for more funds the barons forced him to accept reforms which in effect gave the power of governance to a council of English magnates. These reforms were known as ‘ “The Provisions of Oxford”, but in the following years the provisions were subject to revocations and reinstatements by King Henry with supported from the Pope.
By 1263 Henry III and the English barons were on the brink of open warfare and to avoid a civil war the barons had asked King Louis IX of France to mediate between Henry and themselves, but Louis was a firm believer in royal prerogative and pronounced firmly in favour of Henry and in January of 1264 the French king issued his decision in what became known as “The Mise of Amiens”. The barons outright rejection of Louis decision was immediately followed by their open rebellion against Henry III under the leadership of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, which became known as “The Second Barons War”.Henry III’s forces had an early success in the conflict when they took the rebel held castle at Northampton in early April of 1264. One of the captured garrison was Simon, the son of Simon de Montfort. However, this success was short lived when the following month the Royalists were defeated at the Battle of Lewes in East Sussex which was fought on 14th May. After the battle the King was forced to issue “The Mise of Lewes” in which he accepted the reimplementation of the Provisions of Oxford. Prince Edward, Henry’s son and the future King Edward I, who had led the Royalist cavalry during the battle was taken as a hostage by the barons. After the victory of 14th of May Simon de Montfort became de facto ruler of England.
Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford and 7th Earl of Gloucester A major concern of the rebel barons was their debt to Jewish money lenders and one of their principle demands to Henry III was that these debts should be written off, but as tallages [taxes] on the Jews were a major source of revenue to the Crown this did not happen. Simon de Montfort, like many barons, was indebted to Jewish moneylenders and in April of 1264 he instigated a nationwide persecution of the Jews and encouraged his supporters to kill Jews, seize their property, and destroy records of debts owed to them.
In the 1260’s Canterbury was one of the main centres for English Jewry and probably had a population of a hundred or so Jews who owned twenty or more houses. For the three decades after 1240 the dominant member of the Jewry of Canterbury was Solomon, or Salle, the son of Josce. In 1241 Salle led a five man delegation from Canterbury to a gathering of the leaders of English Jewry convened in the city of Worcester to raise a tallage [tax] of 20,000 marks. Salle was chirographer of the Canterbury archa in 1249 and he later paid £1 that office to go to Benedict, his son-in-law. As with other Canterbury Jews Salle lent money to Christ Church and other religious institutions as well as to the local laity.The overt persecution of Canterbury’s Jewish population preceded the Second Barons War. In 1261 the Jews were attacked by both clerical and lay inhabitants of Canterbury and although no Jews were killed some of their houses were set on fire and Jewish owned property was damaged or looted, but far worst excesses were to follow after Simon de Montfort’s victory at Lewes.
In April of 1264 what was to become known as known as “The Massacre of the Jews” was instigated by Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford and 7th Earl of Gloucester, after he took possession of Canterbury. At this time of the massacre Gilbert de Clare was an ally of Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester and was one of the most powerful and brutal of all English nobles and held the castle at Tunbridge in Kent. He was known as “Red” Gilbert de Clare or “the Red Earl”, probably because of his hair colour and also for his terrible temper and bloodthirsty demeanour. Although at the time of the Canterbury massacre Gilbert de Clare and Simon de Montfort were allies the two earls later fell out and Gilbert went over to the Royalist side and aided the escape of Prince Edward from captivity just before the Battle of Evesham in August of 1265 where Simon de Montfort was killed.
During the massacre an unknown number of the city’s Jewish inhabitants were killed, Jewish property was looted and destroyed, and a number of Jewish women were baptized to avoid further persecution. Those Jews who survived the pogrom fled the city and did not return until after Simon de Montfort’s death at Evesham. When Salle returned to Canterbury from exile abroad in 1265 his property was restored to him by Henry III.
Ralph Colkyn of Esol was almost certain to have been in debt to one or more of Canterbury’s Jewish moneylenders and appears to have been an active participant in the attacks against Canterbury’s Jews and their property in April of 1264. In 1268 Ralph was summoned by King Henry III to appear before the Exchequer of Jewry and accused of being involved in offences against “the King’s Peace” during the Massacre of the Jews. Ralph’s late grand-father and namesake had also received a summons to appear before the Exchequer of Jewry in 1219, but in 1268 the charges were of a much more serious nature.
The King’s summons accused Ralph of being one of nineteen men who in April of 1264 “came and entered the house of Simon Paable at Canterbury [bailiff (‘Ballivus’) of Canterbury], and by force and arms thence took and carried away the King’s Chirograph-Chest against the King’s peace”. The King claimed that the theft of the chest and the chirographs it contained caused him financial losses of £100.
The nineteen accused were: Thomas de la Weye, later a Sheriff of Kent in 1270’s; Sir Ralph Haket of Hamwold [Hamill]; William de Herthanger [later Barfrestone Court Farm, Barfrestone]; Ralph Colkyn [of Esol]; John de Pecham; John de la Haye; John de Oystregate; Laurence de Neusole; Hugh de Sancto Gregorio; William de Stonham; Roger de Tutesham; Thomas de Farle; Reginald de Blancmuster; Ralph de Hyham; Roger de Tilemanneston; John de Everle; John de Everinge [from Alkham parish]; Nicholas Barrok; and Maynard Wimund.
Jewish money-lenders. An anti-Semitic picture from a 13th-century manuscript. Despite exhaustive inquiries at the time of the alleged offences the Sheriff of Kent had failed to apprehend any of the perpetrators of the theft or recover the chest or any of the chirographs stored therein. The loss of the chirographs stored in the chest would at first appear mean that debts owed to Canterbury’s Jews by church institutions and the laity would be irrecoverable by the lenders. However, for his own financial benefit Henry III wanted to maintain the wealth of the recently plundered Jews and gave Salle, who had survived the massacre by fleeing abroad, and several other surviving Canterbury Jews the authority to collect any loans for which the lender had a written record. This enabled Salle to recover £35 of the debt owed to him with loan charters he held “outside the chest”.
A chirograph was a medieval document, which has been written in duplicate, triplicate or very occasionally quadruplicate (four times) on a single piece of parchment, with the Latin word “chirographum” (occasionally replaced by some other term) written across the middle, and then cut through to separate the parts.
The King’s chirograph chest, or archa, contained records of transactions between Jews and Christians under the provisions of the 1233 Statute concerning Jews which specified that: “Loans contracted with Jews shall be by “chirograph only, not tally”. The Jew shall have the 1st part, with the seal of the Christian debtor attached; the Christian debtor the 2nd part; the 3rd part, the pes [foot] shall be put in the chest for safe keeping by both Christian and Jewish chirographers. A chirograph whose foot is not in the chest shall be invalid”. An archa had three padlocks and three sets of seals. Originally archae were located in six or seven towns in England, including London, Oxford, and Canterbury. The Canterbury archa had been established in 1190.
In the Easter term of the legal calendar of 1270 the proceedings against Thomas de la Weye, William de Herthangre, Ralph Colkin, John de Everle, Roger de Tillemanneston, and John de Evering were ended when the Sheriff of Kent, despite being given previous opportunities to make a return before the court against the six aforementioned defendants, made no return against them.
Previous allegiances at this time were very complex and it’s likely that Ralph Colkyn’s affiliations to Gilbert de Clare and Sir William de Say at the time of the massacre and after the Battle of Evesham in August of 1265 were behind the ending of the proceedings against him.
Sir William de Say had fought for King Henry III at the Battle of Lewes on 14th May, 1264, and after the defeat of the King’s army Sir William’s various manors, lands, & other properties in Kent were seized, often for the benefit of Gilbert de Clare who had fought alongside Simon de Montfort at the Battle of Lewes.
After the Battle of Evesham and the restoration to power of Henry III an inquisition was made as to who had sided with whom in the Second Barons War. The inquisition records that in the Hundred of Bridge the Manor of Patrixbourne was seized from Sir William de Say on 17th May, 1264, and appears to come under the control of Gilbert de Clare. In November of 1264 Gilbert de Clare fell out with Simon de Montfort and went over to King Henry III and fought for the king against his former ally in the Battle of Evesham on 4th August, 1265, where de Montfort was killed. Sir William de Say had also fought for Henry III at Evesham alongside Gilbert de Clare and after the Royalist victory Gilbert de Clare returned Sir William’s property with possession of Patrixbourne returning to Sir William on 8th September, 1265. In the following months Sir William seized various property property in Kent from still active rebels on behalf of Gilbert de Clare.Although there is no known record of the knight’s fee of Essewelle and attached lands held by Ralph Colkyn coming under the control of Gilbert de Clare after the Battle of Lewes, it is almost certain that Gilbert de Clare became Ralph Colkyn’s over-lord. His new allegiance and subsequent obedience to his new over-lord would explain why Ralph was one of the nineteen men who seized and stole the Canterbury chirograph chest at Gilbert de Clare’s instigation. It could also explain the non-presentation by the Sheriff of Kent in the legal proceedings against Ralph in 1270, as Gilbert de Clare had become a very influential supporter of the King after changing to the Royalist side in November of 1264 and playing an important part in the victory at Evesham in August of 1265. In addition to Gilbert de Clare’s possible influence over the proceedings another mitigating factor could have been the support of Sir William de Say, one of Henry III’s steadfastly loyal ante-rebellion supporters.
In the post-Evesham inquisition, there is an entry for the Monday after Michaelmas 49 Henry III. [Michaelmas was Tuesday, 29th Sept in 1265 therefore the following Monday was 5th October, 1265],
Hundred of Estrye [Eastry].
No one in the hundred was a rebel.
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The land of Ralph Colkyn was seized into the hand of Sir William de Say,
but he took nothing away and did not eject Ralph. It is worth 12 marks [£8]
a year, and the Michaelmas rent Ralph received, viz. 14s.
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This inquisition entry confirms that Ralph Colkyn retained the land at Esol held from Sir William de Say’s Barony of Say. Another inquisition entry records that Ralph seized land in the possession of rebels on behalf of Sir Roger de Leyburn [Leybourne], who during the two years of conflict after Evesham served as principal lieutenant of Prince Edward, son of Henry III and later King Edward I, in defeating the Montfortian rebels in Kent.
Ralph Colkyn as holder of the knight’s fee of Essewelle, a part of the Barony of Say, would have his over-lord’s allegiances during the Second Barons War. Initially Ralph would have followed Sir William de Say, Baron Say, as an ally of Henry III until the king’s defeat at the Battle of Lewes. After the seizure of William de Say’s lands and property by Gilbert de Clare, 6th Earl of Hertford and 7th Earl of Gloucester, Ralph would have become a fief of Gilbert who had at the beginning of the rebellion been on the side of Simon de Montfort against King Henry III, but after November of 1264 changed his allegiance to the Royalist cause. In the aftermath of the Royalist victory at the Battle of Evesham and the subsequent restoration of lands to the King’s supporters Ralph would then have once again become a fief of Sir William de Say, a fiefdom in which the Colkyn family remained until the mid-1340’s. -
Church Street in Nonington
Church Street was once made up of the present Church Street and what is now known as Pinner’s Lane.
![If you were church-bound from Acol [Ackholt] then the first buildings you encountered as you walked along Church Street were the old Poor House Cottages on your left. The row of six cottages built in the early 1820's with the rear of the cottages facing onto the road, and the front of the cottages overlooking their gardens. The boy on the left of the picture is believed to be Frank Harrison, whose family lived in Church Street. Beyond the cottages is Church Street Row and beyond the Row is the old main Poor House building.](https://i2.wp.com/www.nonington.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Church-Street-Poor-Cotts-row-1930s-with-child.jpg?w=467&h=277&ssl=1 "Church Street Poor Cotts row 1930's with child")
If you were church-bound from Acol [Ackholt] then the first buildings you encountered as you walked along Church Street were the old Poor House Cottages on your left. The row of six cottages built in the early 1820’s with the rear of the cottages facing onto the road, and the front of the cottages overlooking their gardens. The boy on the left of the picture is believed to be Frank Harrison, whose family lived in Church Street. Beyond the cottages is Church Street Row and beyond the Row is the old main Poor House building.
A front view of the old Poor House main building which once housed eight families. The young girl is Bessie Causer, the photo was taken in 1926.
A side view of the old main Poor House building, now Yew Tree Cottage
A view of Church Street looking back towards the old Poor House building and cottages.
Nonington School pupils on Empire Day in the early 1900’s. The photo was taken from the head-master house which was demolished in the early 1960’s and is now part of the school car park.
Nonington School in the early 1960’s. The first National school, so called because they were founded by the National Society for Promoting Religious Education to provided elementary education in accordance with the teaching of the Church of England to the children of the poor, was built in 1830 and was replaced by the present building in 1861. The centenary of the school was celebrated in 1961, which was in fact the centenary of the construction of the present building and not the founding of the school.
Mid-19th century sketch of the end of the Parsonage Field tithe barn. On the east side of Church Street at its junction with Church Hill in what was known as the Parsonage Field was an ancient tithe barn which probably dated from the early 17th century. The barn was demolished at some time in the late 19th century but the pond that also occupied the site remained until the present bungalows were built. The present Toll Cottage is in the left back ground, and Church Cottage and the site of the later Alms Houses are off to the left. St. Mary’s Church is in the centre background.
A Church Army wagon in 1911. It is believed to be parked on the corner of Church Street and Church Hill, the present Vicarage Lane, on the site of the old tithe barn. This land in now occupied by bungalows.
Before the sale of the St. Alban’s estate in 1938 the Toll Cottages was the name used in census records and farm leases for the house on the junction of Cherry Garden Lane and the Sandwich Road. In the estate sale catalogue for some now unknown reason the name Toll Cottage was given to the house at the junction of Church Street and Church Hill. The tithe barn site was behind the fence in the left background. The Alms Houses and Church Cottage are off to the left.
The Alms Houses on the north side of Church Hill built in the late 1800’s by W.O. Hammond of St Alban’s Court, which became known as Threeways.
Church Cottage, once a yeoman’s farm house.
Nonington Forge in what was then called Church Street [now Pinner’s Lane], late 1920’s, St Mary’s Church is in the background, Church House is off to the right.
Church House, once The White Horse alehouse. In the 1830’s it became the home of the Morgan family who were blacksmiths and vets. In the 1930’s it became the village dairy owned by Abbot Bros. -
The Fredville “Step Tree” and other chestnuts. Updated 24.4.20
In the 1930’s Dr. Hardman, a noted East Kent historian recorded the memories of Richard Jarvis Arnold of of life in Nonington in the 1880’s & 90’s. Mr. Arnold, a blacksmith born in Nonington but who later lived and worked in Walmer, recollected: “The trees of Fredville Park were well known. In addition to the old oak there were some large chestnuts. One was called the ‘Step Tree’ and had some steps affixed to it. In the upper part of the trunk and branches 12 or 20 people could sit”.
It was said that members of the Plumptre family often had tea on the platform in the “Step Tree” in the years before the Great War. The chestnut tree is still there but is now unfortunately showing its age, it is one of the few surviving sweet chestnut trees that once made up two avenues leading from Fredville House into the park.
After the new Fredville House was built by Margaretta Bridges, the sister of Sir Brooke Bridges of Goodnestone, in the 1740’s the farmland in front of the eastward facing house was landscaped after the fashion of the times. Two double rows of Spanish chestnut trees, also known as sweet chestnuts, were planted to form avenues leading from the new mansion into the landscaped parkland. The avenues ran eastward down into the parkland from the south [Frogham] and north [Nonington] ends of the mansion. Anyone then standing in the front door or looking through one of the front windows would have had an uninterrupted view down the avenue towards the top of the park.
The Step Tree from the Frogham side in April, 2020.
The Step Tree from the Frogham side in April, 2020.
The Step Tree from the Nonington side in April, 2020.
Two of the ancient chestnut trees which once formed an avenue on the Frogham side of the house. House side of the coach road.
The remaining trees in the avenue into the park from the Frogham side of the house. East side of the coach road.
Two more ancient Fredville chestnut trees. These were once part of an avenue on the Nonington side of the house. East side of the coach road below the cattle grid.John Evans in “The Juvenil Tourist: Or Excussion Through Various Parts of the Island of Great Britain“, published in 1805, said of the house ““Fredville is neat and spacious—it has, together with the house, within these few years been not only enlarged but improved with taste and judgment. The Mansion, standing on a rising ground, has a handsome brick front, supported by six columns of the Corinthian order—the drawing-room- is truly elegant, and the library contains several thousand volumes, selected from the most approved ancient and modern authors. From the front of the house to the south, Barson [Barfreston] mills wave their swifts above the plantations, and on the north-west Nunnington mills [the Easole corn mill & feed mills] form a correspondent prospect. The swing suspended from the high branch of a towering oak—the rabbits skipping from hole to hole, formed among the fibres of the trees, and a rising family of hearty children seen amidst their innocent gambols constitute at once a piece of rural and delightful scenery. At the south-west end of the Mansion the Green-house has a pretty effect, displaying the skill of the Botanist whilst the industrious bees are observed conveying their plundered stores into glasses fixed within the windows of their abode, which in its turn is plundered to enrich the owner’s table! The gardens behind the house are encircled with a shrubbery, along which a green walk, defended by a light post and rail, presents us with a view of the surrounding country. The woods on the south [Broom Hill and Oxney Woods, the first is under the colliery tip, the view of the second is now obscured by the same tip],—the distant telegraph on the west [the Admiralty telegraph at Womenswold] , and the Isle of Thanet with Ramsgate harbour, &c. on the north-east, tend to enrich and diversify the prospect. The Bowling Green also hid among the trees—the laurelled-covered Ice-house, the sweet briar hedge and the weeping ash trees enhance the sensations of delight arising from the contemplation of this spot. In a word, should any thing be thought wanting, a stream of water would complete the situation”.
Royal Marines in the Step Tree, 1908 Gymkhana
The tree with young girl and servant.
Fredville woodmen cutting timber:Jubal Moody-Mr West-Jim Sutton-L Moody
Fredville Park-moving timber-Jubal Moody et al
Fredville Park 1930’s incl Step Tree, the house is off to the left
Fredville Park- Clayson post card c1930’s
Fredville Park-children on another chestnut-the house is directly behind the tree.
The Step Tree in the early 1990’s.The programme for an excursion by Kent Archaeological Society to Nonington in September, 1936, noted that: ‘The well known ‘Majesty
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Nonington Parish Charities
Thomas Bate of Challock held land in Challock and Nonington with which he made charitable bequests during the reign of Henry VIII.
In Nonington his bequest consisted of:-
“Landes given by Thomas Bate to thentent that one priest shulde celebrate masse within the said parishe iij (3) tymes yerelie for ever.
Also: rent or ferme of v rods (5 rods or 1 ¼ acres) of land in the parish of Nonyngton next Harelestrete (Holt Street Buttes, now Butter Street) butts now or late in the tenure of Richard Mockett there, yerely ijs (2s) (previously owned by the Knights of St. John and confiscated by the Crown).
Also: rent or ferme of i (one) and half acres at Frogham Hill there now in tenere of William Stuppell yerely xviijd.(18.d)”.
The above mentioned land came into the possession of William Boys of Fredville who acted as a Crown Agent during the Reformation with the responsibility of recording the possessions and assets of religious bodies and institutions and was therefore well situated to purchase confiscated land and other property. In 1600 William Boys of Tilmanstone, a descendant of the above mentioned William Boys of Fredville, is said to have made a bequest of the one and a half acres at Frogham Hill which specified that there were to be two houses for two poor house keepers on the land, and the paupers were also each to receive a sack of wheat at Christmas. However, some other ancient sources state that the donor of this property was unknown.
At the end of the 18th century Edward Hasted recorded in the Nonington chapter of his history of Kent that the annual revenue from the land was £5 10/- [£5 50p] which was at the disposal of the Reverend James Morrice, the owner Bettshanger manor.
Some forty years later the Report of the Commissioners for Charities of the County of Kent of 1839 recorded:
“Nonington-unknown donor.
It is stated in Hasted’s History of Kent that a donor unknown gave to five poor housekeepers of this parish two houses and one acre and a half of land, at Frogsham (sic), with a sack of wheat to each housekeeper every Christmas, then vested in the Rev. James Morrice, owner of Betshanger (sic) manor, and of the annual produce of 5l. 10s (£.5 10 s).
It is stated by J. P. Plumptre, esq., of Fredville Park, in this parish, that the property consists of two old tenements under one roof, with two small outbuildings east, and about a quarter of an acre of land adjoining, used by the inmates of the houses as garden-ground; that there also belongs to the charity a quarter of an acre of land, which has been for many years taken into Fredville Park, and for which the proprietors of the estate have always paid a yearly rent of 3l (£.3). Also two small fields contiguous to each other, containing each about 1a 1r (1 acre & 1 rood or 1 ¼ acres), and bounded on every side by land belonging to Mr. Plumptre, who pays the yearly rent of 2l 2s (£2 2s) for each field.
The patronage of these almshouses has for upwards of a century been considered as vested in the owners of the Betshanger estate, and it is stated by Mr. Morrice, the present proprietor, that in consequence of the charity-houses and land being situated in the midst of the Fredville property, an agreement was entered into with the late Mr. Plumptre, that he should fill up the vacancies, taking upon himself the annual payment of a sack of wheat to the tenants of the houses, a bounty to which they were entitled, as is supposed, out of the Betshanger estate.
Two old labourers have been appointed to these almshouses from time to time by Mr. Plumptre and his predecessor, and they have received a sack of wheat or its value in money, and the rents of the three pieces of land before mentioned equally between them.
The buildings are very old and dilapidated, and there appears to be no fund for the repairs, except by detaining part of the rents above mentioned for that purpose”.
Bagshaw’s directory of 1847 reports that: ‘two old labourers have been appointed from time to time by Mr. Plumptre and £7 4/- is divided equally between the inmates as the yearly value of the lands’. The 1839 tithe map apportionment recorded William Young and others as living there, and the apportionment for the 1859 Poor Law Commissioners map listed Mary Burville and one other as resident in the Nightingale cottages.
1859 Poor Law Commissioners map-showing the Charity Land between the present Nightingale Lane, once known as Frogham Hill, and Fredville House. The woodland along the eastern edge of the Charity Land was Western Wood. Over the years the much of the Charity Land became overgrown and eventually became the woodland now known as Humphrey’s Wood with Western Wood forming the eastern edge of Humphrey’s which took it’s name from the game-keeper who used to live in the present Longlands House in the early part of the 1900’s. The banks which formed the eastern and western boundaries to the Charity Lands are still clearly visible in the wood, and the northern boundary bank is still prominent in the field bounding the wood. In 1903 the Charity Land was sold by consent of the Charity Commissioners to H. W. Plumtre. Four trustees were appointed to administer the investment of the proceeds of the sale for such purposes as sanctioned by the committee, this became known as the Nightingale Trust. At the time of the sale the land was occupied in part by two newly built cottages, the present Nightingale Cottages.
Other Nonington charities were mentioned by Edward Hasted in his history of Kent, but Bagshaw’s Directory of 1847 stated that these charities were not recorded in the Charity Commissioners reports.
The charities recorded by Hasted were:
The 1596 will of Edward Boys, gentleman, of Nonington and Challock, a son of William Boys, esq., of Nonington, which gave a 40/- (£.2.00) per annum annuity from 15 acres in Nonington and Barfreston to be paid annually to the poorest of the parish.Robert Barger, yeoman, of Bridge, gave to the parson and churchwardens of Nonington in his will of 1600 the rents and profits of his house in the parish for the relief of the poor of Nonington.
The 1634 will of Sir Edward Boys of Nonington gave the poor of the parish the sum of £6 to be ‘employed for a stock to set the poor at work, and not otherwise to be employed, so as the overseers or any sufficient man of the parish be bound yearly to the heirs of Fredville, whereby the stock be not lost’.
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Holt Street in Nonington: a photographic guided tour-updated 22.03.2020
Looking from Nightingale Lane down the valley towards the cricket ground
Upper Holt Street viewed from Nightingale Lane, 1950’s.![1907 Holt Street cross-roads. The funeral cortege of Edwin Knight, the first man killed at Snowdown Colliery. Edwin was a sinker [digger] working on the digging of the No 1 shaft at the nearby Snowdown Colliery where work had then only recently begun. He was drowned by a sudden inrush of water into the shaft. Flooding was a major problem in sinking shafts in the Kent coalfield. Shortly after Edwin Knight’s death another flood at 260 feet killed 22 men. It’s interesting to note that several of the mourners are wearing their distinctive working clothes. Holt Street Cottage, now Old Cooky's, is to the left of the cortege.](https://i0.wp.com/www.nonington.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Holt-1907-Holt-St-x-roads.-Funeral-of-Edwin-Knight-sinker-at-Snowdown-Colliery.jpg?w=291&h=237&ssl=1 "Holt-1907 Holt St x-roads. Funeral of Edwin Knight, sinker at Snowdown Colliery")
1907 Holt Street cross-roads. The funeral cortege of Edwin Knight, the first man killed at Snowdown Colliery. Edwin was a sinker [digger] working on the digging of the No 1 shaft at the nearby Snowdown Colliery where work had then only recently begun. He was drowned by a sudden inrush of water into the shaft. Flooding was a major problem in sinking shafts in the Kent coalfield. Shortly after Edwin Knight’s death another flood at 260 feet killed 22 men. It’s interesting to note that several of the mourners are wearing their distinctive working clothes. Holt Street Cottage, now Old Cooky’s, is to the left of the cortege.
1909 Holt Street cross-roads. The funeral cortege of Harry Mepham, another worker employed at the nearby Snowdown Colliery. . Once again, it’s interesting to note that several of the mourners are wearing their distinctive working clothes. In the background is the old Holt Street Cottage, now Old Cooky’s. On the left is a now long demolished cottage which occupied what is now the garden of the first house in Johnson’s Terrace.
Holt Street cross-roads, 1905-1910. Johnson’s Terrace, now Nightingale Terrace, is to the right, Butter Street to the left..
A 1950’s view of Holt Street from the cross-roads, the old telephone exchange is the first building on the right
Johnson’s Terrace from below the cross-roads. Most of the terrace and the thatched cottage in the field on the left were destroyed in November of 1940 by a German aerial mine probably targeted at the nearby Snowdown Colliery. Several villagers were killed by the explosion
The Holt Street cross-roads area and Holt Street farm, 1975
Upper Holt Street just below the cross-roads. Holt Street farm yard is to the left, the old telephone exchange and the Plymouth Bretheren’s original meeting house are off to the right. Both the telephone exchange and meeting house buildings were replaced by the present buildings.
Ingleside circa 1904. The children are members of the Groombridge family who had recently taken over the tenancy of Holt Street Farm.The tenancy is still held by members of the family. At this time Ingleside was the Holt Street farm house. the larger Holt Street Farm House in Butter Street was the residence of Mr. Henry Weston Plumptre and later officers from the Dover garrisons.
Ingleside in Holt Street circa 1904.To the right was Symond’s Barn, and to the left a cottage which stood between Ingleside and Holt Street row. The cottage was demolished around 1910 when Ingleside was improved and extended. Symond’s Barn, or at least a wooden successor, was not demolished until the 1970’s. Both barn and cottage were mention in a 1670 lease for the Holt Street estate.![An early 1900's view of the four cottages [now three] in Holt Street Row.](https://i1.wp.com/www.nonington.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Holt-Street-Cottages-row-of-four-cottages-now-three-cottages.jpg?w=636&h=423&ssl=1 "Holt Street Cottages-row of four cottages, now three cottages")
An early 1900’s view of the four cottages [now three] in Holt Street Row.
Holt Street near the present garage, 1920’s. The resent garage office building is in mid-picture. At the time the phot was taken the building was in use as a laundry.
The washing mangle in the Holt Street laundry.
The garage area seen from the air, early 1960’s
Two members of the Maxted family in front of the thatched cottage that stood at the bottom of the garage yard and was demolished in the early 1960’s
Holt Street looking towards the cross-roads, 1930’s. The garage is in mid picture on the left by the telegraph pole,
The old sadler’s shop in the garden of 4 Sunny Banks in Holt Street. This building is now sadly obscured by trees.
Sunny Banks Cottages on the west side of Holt Street just down from the present garage.
1960’s aerial view of the Sunny Banks area
Holt Street:the newly built El Nido in 1929. The home for many years of Mr. Chipper, the owner of the Aylesham Cinema and Bingo Club. Now called Badgers.
Holt Street: the old Walnut Tree alehouse, on the left, as it was in 1929. Now a single storey dwelling.
The three houses on the west side of The Drove in lower Holt St., early 1900’s.
Rose Cottage in lower Holt Street. a view from the early 1900’s,
Rose Cottage in the early 1900’s
Rose Cottage looking back towards the Drove
The Old Post Office, in the Drove taken in the 1930’s before the PO moved to the new building in Easole Street as there is a sign on the telegraph pole.
The Holt Street gate lodge to Fredville Park
The Lodge Stores, just before the shop was demolished in the late 1990’s
The Royal Oak corner:1950’s
Holt Street pond, 1910. Taken from a glass plate negative from around 1910 the picture shows the pond across the road from the Royal Oak
A 1920’s view of the pond with the Holt Street lodge at the entrance to Fredville Park in the background -
Holt Street Farm in Nonington: the Slave Trade, Caribbean Pirates, and the founding of the British Museum.
It is now difficult to believe that the pleasant hamlet of Holt Street, more especially the present Holt Street Farm, had connections to the Atlantic Slave Trade between West Africa and the Caribbean. This was one of the darkest periods in British history which, whilst bringing incredible riches to a few European plantation owners, brought unimaginable misery to thousands of male and female convicts sentenced to transportation by English and Irish courts and millions of forcibly enslaved Africans who laboured and died on these wealth creating Caribbean plantations.
The connection is as follows.
By the 1660’s the fortunes of Major John Boys of Fredville were in terminal decline. Years of living beyond his means had burdened him with large debts which he was unable to repay. In 1658 he and his son Nicholas, heir to the Major, had mortgaged “the manor of Elmington (Elvington) and the appurtenances of Nonington, Eythorne and Wymblingswold (Womenswold) and the avowedson of the Church at Eythorne” to Thomas Turner, the Major’s brother-in-law, for £1,550.00. This mortgage was renewed in 1668.
The Major’s financial problems persisted and in July of 1673 “the mansion house called Fredville, wherein the said John Boys then lived and lands ect. unto the said manor belonging and situated in the several parishes of Nonington, Barfrestone and Knowlton together with a farmhouse called Frogham farm and several closes thereunto belonging containing two hundred acres, which farm was already mortgaged to one William Gilbourne” were conveyed to Denzil, Lord Holles of Ifield, as security for an advance of £ 3,000.
It would appear that the Major and Nicholas Boys did not repay the money as the Kings Bench at Southwark imprisoned them both for many years. Nicholas Boys died in 1687 and the octogenarian Major John Boys in March 1688 and was buried at St. Mary’s Church, Nonington. James Boys, one of the Major’s younger sons, tried without success in 1689 to retrieve the estates. However, the Holt Street estate was not acquired by Denzil, Lord Holles of Ifield, but remained in the possession of Christopher Boys, another of the Major’s sons who in 1676 let the estate to Fulke Rose, a physician and Jamaica merchant and plantation owner.
Fulke Rose was born at Mickleton in Gloucestershire on the 10th April, 1644, to the Reverend Thomas Rose and his wife Frances, and had several brothers. In later years brothers Thomas and Francis were resident in Jamaica, John was a London merchant, and William was an apothecary.
1671 The Island of Jamaica by John Ogilby Fulke qualified as a physician and moved to the Caribbean island of Jamaica which had come under English control in 1660. At this time the population of Jamaica was about 4,500 Europeans and 1,500 African slaves. On his arrival in Jamaica in the late 1660’s Fulke practised as a physician but soon expanded his horizons and began to acquire land which was readily available as the Jamaican economy at the time of his arrival was in transition from one being based mainly on piracy to one based on the production of sugar. Records show that he was in Jamaica by 1670 and by then already owned 380 acres of land in Saint Catherine Parish.
Within a short time Fulke was on the way to becoming a very wealthy man from his medical practise and from his plantations. As the owner of several sugar plantations Fulke was one of the principal buyers of West African slaves transported to Jamaica by the Royal African Company from whom he purchased 131 slaves.
The prospering Fulke married Elizabeth Langley, daughter of Alderman John Langley of Cornhill in London, at Port Royal in Jamaica on 11th July, 1678, and the couple had four daughters, three of whom were called Elizabeth, Anne, and Mary.
Like other prominent colonists and landowners in Jamaica Fulke took an active part in Jamaican politics and administration. He was returned as member for Saint Thomas in the Vale Parish for the House of Assembly of Jamaica in 1677 and was also a member of the Legislative Council of Jamaica as well as serving in the militia.
Fulke continued to prosper and around the time he purchased the Holt Street estate in Nonington he was referred to in State Papers of 1684 as “a surgeon bred, and a very discreet and virtuous man. His plantations render him over 4ooo£ per annum and his practice about 600£.”
Henry Morgan as imagined in Alexandre Exquemelin’s “Piratas de la America” of 1681 Fulke continued to practise as a physician and in early 1688, in company with another physician called Hans Sloane, he attended Sir Henry Morgan, the infamous Welsh former pirate and privateer who had made a considerable fortune raiding Spanish cities on the Caribbean coast of Central and northern South America as well as capturing Spanish and other shipping on the Caribbean. The wealthy and well connected reformed pirate owned plantations in Jamaica and had served as Lieutenant Governor of the colony after having been knighted in 1674.
Now in his mid-fifties, Sir Henry was receiving treated for a swollen belly along with other ailments attributed by his physicians to excessive alcohol consumption and lack of exercise. Sloane recorded that Sir Henry was prescribed “Electuary of Cassia, Oil of Juniper, and Cremor. Tart.” but that not being completely satisfactory they, gave him all manner of Diuretics, and easie Purgers we could find in Jamaica, Linseed and Juniper-Berries infus’d in Rhenish-Wine, Milleped. ppd. in Powder, Juniper-water, advis’d him to eat Juniper-Berries, us’d Oil of Scorpion, with Ung. Dialth. outwardly, by which means he recovered again”. However, the two physicians efforts were in vain as Sir Henry failed to heed their advice and reverted to his old dissolute ways which led to his death on 25th August,1688.
Fulke Rose returned to London in 1692 shortly after Jamaica was hit by an earthquake which killed hundreds of people and almost completely destroyed the capital town of Port Royal. He remained in England until his death in March of 1694 and may possibly have visited and stayed at the Holt Street estate. Fulke was buried at St Peter’s Church, Cornhill, on 29 March 1694. In his will the Holt Street estate, therein referred to as “Nonnington Farm near Canterbury”, was left to his daughter Mary.
Elizabeth Rose, Fulk’s widow, remarried in 1695. Her second husband was Hans Sloane, an Irish physician, naturalist and collector who had been Fulke’s physician colleague when treating Sir Henry Morgan in Jamaica. Elizabeth received a one third share of the annual income from her late husband’s estate which accordingly became available to her new husband and allowed him to fulfil his love of travel and collecting. Sir Hans Sloane, as he later became, collected in his lifetime over 71,000 objects: books, manuscripts, drawings, coins and medals, and plant specimens which he bequeathed to the British nation so laying the foundations of the British Museum, the British Library, and the Natural History Museum in London. His purchase of the manor of Chelsea near London in 1712 also provided the grounds for the Chelsea Physic Garden.
Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) Sir Hans Sloane died on 11th January,1753, at his Chelsea manor house and was buried in the south-east corner of the churchyard at Chelsea Old Church with the following memorial:
“To the memory of SIR HANS SLOANE BART President of the Royal Society, and of the College of Physicians; who in the year of our Lord 1753, the 92d of his age, without the least pain of body and with a conscious serenity of mind, ended a virtuous and beneficent life. This monument was erected by his two daughters ELIZA CADOGAN and SARAH STANLEY”.
It can therefore be said that in its own minuscule way the Holt Street estate contributed financially to the founding of those world-renowned establishments, namely the British Museum, the British Library, the Natural History Museum and the Chelsea Physic Garden.
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Nonnington via Sandwich to London by sea, a weekly service!
An original handbill advertising the weekly service by sea aboard “The Fortune” from Chester’s Quay near the Tower of London to Sandwich. The service carried “goods and passengers for Sandwich, Walmer, Wingham, Eastry, Mongham, Goodnestone, Deal, Ash, Littlebourn, Tilmanstone, Nonnington, Eythorn”. In the 1830′s Nonington was served by a weekly service to London via the port of Sandwich allowing residents, especially the shop keepers, to have goods brought in from outside of East Kent. I only became aware of this service when I was fortunate enough to find an original hand-bill for “The first hoy for Sandwich” at a local boot-fair in 2012.
The service departed every Saturday from Chester’s Quay, near the Tower of London and took in “goods and passengers for Sandwich, Walmer, Wingham, Eastry, Mongham, Goodnestone, Deal, Ash, Littlebourn, Tilmanstone, Nonnington, Eythorn”. Nonington was therefore in much closer contact with the capital than was previously thought and those residents who wished, and could afford too, could keep up with the latest news and fashions. This may explain in part why so many minor gentry and wealthy merchants lived in East Kent.A hoy was a small sloop-rigged coasting ship or heavy barge which carried goods and occasional passengers. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, English hoys plied a trade between London and the north Kent coast that enabled middle class Londoners to escape the city for the more rural air of Margate.
William Stokes appears to have been the master of “The Fortune” circa 1835, and earlier, as the ship appears on the Ramsgate register for that year registered as coal/coasting vessel. Barber and Smith, warfingers, are in Kent’s registry of 1823 at the London address shown.
A deck-scene on board a Margate hoy, an 1804 cartoon by Charles Dibdin the Elder (1745-1814) caricaturing the antics of some of the middle-class passengers who used the service between Margate and London. Comparable scenes would undoubtedly have been witnessed aboard the Sandwich to London hoys. The coast of Kent was busy with hoys which often loaded and unloaded on the beach if there was no quay, and sometimes small boats ran out to meet the ships at anchor. Many hoys served the markets in London and merchants with access to the service these vessels provided grew rich as the demand for goods increased.
“The beauties of England and Wales: or, Delineations, topographical, historical, and descriptive, of each county”, Volume 8, Part 2, published in 1808, refers to hoys carrying produce from the market gardens surrounding Sandwich to the markets of London. Many of these market gardeners where the descendants of Flemish immigrants who had begun market gardening in the reign of Elizabeth I. They also produced flax, teazle, and canary seed which had a ready market in London and beyond.
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The Quadryng family at Fredeuyle and Esol-revised and updated 03.01.2020
John Quadryng, a City of London mercer, acquired one half of the Manor of Fredeuyle, as Freydvill’ was by then known, in the opening years of the 15th century and the manor remained with the Quadryng, also Quadring, family for much of that century. It’s not clear when the Quadryngs acquired the Esol house and lands as there are at present no known records of any such property purchases by the Quardryngs. It’s highly likely that they purchased Esol house and lands from Sir John Harleston at the same time, or possibly before, they acquired the Manor of Fredeuyle.
A mercer by trade, John Quadryng may have bought Esol partly as a country residence and partly for use as a warehouse for storing the wool he exported and the silk, linen, fustian, and other textiles he imported through the nearby ports of Dover and Sandwich. Esol was especially well situated for trading through Sandwich which was only some six miles or so away by, for the time, a good direct road. After 1363 Calais was made the wool staple [market] through which all wool exports from England to the Continent had to pass.
During their tenure at Esol the Quadryngs acquired other land in and around Nonington. In addition to their holdings at Esol and Fredville they also held land in North and South Nonington.The 1469 survey of the manor of Wingham records the heirs of Richard Quadryng holding an unspecified amount of land in South Nonington and about 135 acres in North Nonington. During their tenure at Esol the Quadryngs built up a holding of over 400 acres of arable, pasture and woodland as well as receiving annual manorial and other rents in the parishes of Nonington and Goodnestone. John Quadryng added to the Nonington acquisitions in 1403 with the purchase of “1 messuage, 1 toft, 80 acres of land, 3 acres of meadow, 3 acres of marsh, 6 acres of pasture, 3 acres of wood, 24 shillings of rent and a rent of 4 bushels of barley in Sholdon’, Staple, Northborne, Eastry, Hamme, Wodenesbergh’, Lymmyng and Elham”.
As merchants the Quadryngs needed a ready supply of cash and credit to trade, and were susceptible to the ups and downs of fortune where losses can be more easily made than profits. The loss of a cargo or a bad debt would have put the family in the financial mire. Richard Quadryng, draper and citizen of London and probably John’s grand-son, traded through various English ports including Bristol and in 1436 he took Robert Frere of Bristol, esquire, before Richard Estfeld, Mayor of the Staple at Westminster for a debt of £20.00. This indicates that Richard was a member of “Mayor and Company of Merchants of the Staple of England”.
[“The Company of Merchants of the Staple is one of the oldest mercantile corporations in England. It is rare, possibly unique, in being ‘of England‘ and not bounded by any city or municipality. It may trace its ancestry back as far as 1282 or even further. A group of 26 wool merchants apparently first started the Company. The Dukes of Burgundy and Counts of Flanders granted it charters. The Merchants were in Bruges in 1282, Dordrecht in 1285, Antwerp in 1296 and St Omer in 1313. The Company controlled the export of wool to the continent from 1314. The Duke of Flanders awarded a grant to the English Merchants in 1341. Its first charter from an English monarch was in 1347 giving it control of the export trade in staple commodities. Commercial significance was in Calais – under English rule from 1347 and the main port for wool. Exports were restricted to the Freemen of the Company who, in return for their monopoly, paid a levy back to the Crown. With some two hundred merchants, in 1363 it was known as the “New Company of English Merchants dwelling nowe at Calais” and in 1369 as “The Mayor and Company of the Staple at Calais“. The Company later paid for and eventually managed the garrison in the city” –information from the website of The Company of the Staple of England].
Medieval merchants trading cloth and other goods. In the mid-1440′s Richard Quadryng raised a mortgage of £200 against land and property held in Nonyngton which was the subject of various legal proceedings and transfers in 1447. A few years later in 1456 Richard Quadrynge, Robert Euyngham and Robert Sandeforde demised land & tenements in Chislet and Lympe to John de St. Nicholas of Ash, possibly to ease persisting financial problems.
The Mercers Company register for 1476 records that Thomas Quadryng, presumably the son of Richard Quadryng, was made a Freeman [member] of the Mercers Company of London and the same year another Thomas Quadryng , the son of the new Freeman, was apprenticed to John Godyng, a Master Mercer of London.
In 1476 Thomas Quadryng the Elder became a Freeman [member] of the Mercers Company of London Freeman by patrimony, meaning his father or a close relative was also a Freeman of the Mercers Company. In that same year Thomas Quadryng the Elder’s son, Thomas the Younger, was apprenticed to John Godyng, a Master Mercer of London, and the Mercers Company record that Thomas the Younger was in his turn made a Freeman of the Company in 1490.
The coat of arms of the Worshipful Company of Mercers. After the death of King Edward IV in April of 1483, the heir to the throne was the late king’s twelve year old eldest son, Prince Edward, who was set to become King Edward V. The deceased king’s younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, was made Lord Protector of the presumed successor to the throne.
In May, 1483, Thomas Quadryng the Elder was one of the representatives of the City of London who greeted Edward V at Harnsey Park, now Hornsey Park in present Harringay.
However, Prince Edward was never crowned as Edward V as shortly after he succeeded his father the late King Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, the mother of Prince Edward and the younger Prince Richard, was declared illegal. This made the two boys illegitimate, and therefore the young Prince Edward was not the legal heir to the throne. When this illegitimacy was declared Richard, Duke of Gloucester, seized the throne and had himself crowned as King Richard III in July of 1483.
By 1483 Thomas Quadryng the Elder appears to have had serious financial problems, both having money owed to him and owing money in his turn. At some presently unknown time in 1483 he was a co-defendant in a legal action for the recovery of debt by Alan Horde, treasurer of Middle Temple in London. What the debt was for and for what amount is unfortunately not recorded.
During the short reign of Edward V between the 9th April and 26th June in 1483 Law Court records show Thomas Quadryng, mercer, as the plaintiff in at least eight legal proceedings in London for the recovery of debts owed to him by other mercers and merchants, as well as cloth-makers, dyers and other assorted tradesmen from London, Bristol, Bedfordshire, East Anglia, and by William Roos, gentleman, of Canterbury.
These actions for the recovery on debts owed to him are undoubtedly linked to a pressing need for money which resulted in the sale of “the manors of Fredeuyle and Beauchamp with appurtenances, and two messuages, 405 acres of land, three acres of wood and 76s 4d of rent, and the rent of eight cocks, 30 hens and one pair of gloves with appurtenances in Nonyngton and Godneston” before the death of Edward IV in April of 1483.In the Trinity Term of the Law Courts [June and July] of 1484 John Nethersole, William Boys, Thomas Butte and Robert Gerneys began legal proceedings through William Rose, their attorney, to regain possession of “the manors of Fredeuyle and Beauchamp’ with appurtenances, and two messuages, 405 acres of land, three acres of wood and 76s 4d of rent, and the rent of eight cocks, 30 hens and one pair of gloves with appurtenances in Nonyngton and Godneston” as their right. They claimed that the property in question had been illegally seized by John Metford, a wealthy London grocer, who appears to have taken possession of the properties as payment for money owed to him by Thomas Quadryng.
The record of this legal dispute is the first known use of Beauchamp’ when referring to a part of what had previously been Esol, or Esole, manor that had previously been under the ownership of Sir John de Beauchamp, and then his brother, Sir Thomas de Beauchamp, 11th Earl of Warwick, some one hundred and twenty years previously.The area referred to corresponds with the wood and pasture land in present day Nonington known as “Beauchamps Wood” and “The Ruins”. Over the last ten years or so ongoing archaeological excavations there have brought to light the remains of a series of manor houses and associated out-buildings probably dating from between the mid-13th to the late 15th to early 16th centuries. Most of the last parts of the final manor house on the site were most likely built by the Quadryng family with attached outbuildings probably used as warehousing for trade goods and raw materials imported and exported through the nearby port of Sandwich. In 1501 manorial roll for Essesole manor the manor house with its adjacent gardens and orchards, now probably Beauchamps or Beachams Wood, were referred to as “Bechams”.
![1483 Court of Common Pleas record:Trinity Term of the Law Courts [June and July]. John Nethersole, William Boys, Thomas Butte and Robert Gerneys legal proceedings to regain possession of “the manors of Fredeuyle and Beauchamp' ect".](https://i1.wp.com/www.nonington.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1484BO3.jpg?resize=960%2C1280)
1483 Court of Common Pleas record:Trinity Term of the Law Courts [June and July]. John Nethersole, William Boys, Thomas Butte and Robert Gerneys legal proceedings to regain possession of “the manors of Fredeuyle and Beauchamp’ ect”. The four plaintiffs stated that they had been in possession of the property “as of fee and lawfully at the time of peace at the time of lord Edward IV, late king of England”, which meant they had held it since before April of 1483. As evidence of this they produced proof of suit of court to show that they had fulfilled their feudal duty to their overlord for Fredeuyle and Beauchamp [previously Esol], so confirming their possession of the two manors. After further claims and counter-claims before the court the plaintiffs possession of the property was confirmed.
During the court proceedings a Denis Guyer, recorded as being the tenant at of the properties in dispute, initially stated that John Metford had not disseise [deprived of seisin; wrongfully dispossess of a freehold interest in land] John Nethersole et al, but failed to return to court when summoned. This reference to a tenant at “the manors of Fredeuyle and Beauchamp with appurtenances, and two messuages ect.” is further evidence of the state of Thomas Quadryng’s finances. It would appear that he could not afford to live there and that he had found it necessary to rent out the manors and associated properties, and had been doing so for some time before their sale to John Nethersole et al prior to the death of King Edward IV.
On 8th July, 1484, after the end of the court proceedings, a feet of fines [a form of conveyance of property] with John Nethersole, William Boys, Thomas Butte and Robert Gerveis as the querents [plaintiffs], and Thomas Quadryng’ and Anne, his wife, as the deforciants [one/those who keep out of possession the rightful owner of an estate] confirmed the ownership of the property in question by the plaintiffs.
In 1485 John Nethersole in turn conveyed the properties to William Boys of Bonnington in Goodneston. Boys appears to have done well at this time as he also gained possession of other local property including the Manor of Shebbertswell (Shepherdswell), which had also previously belonged to the rebellious Richard Guildford.
There has over the centuries been some erroneous recording of the ownership and inheritance of Fredville in the years prior to its coming into the possession of William Boys of Bonnington.
Thomas Philpott in his 1659 “Villare Cantianum: or, Kent surveyed and illustrated”; and William Hasted in his “The History and Topographical Survey of Kent, volume IX” published in 1800, both recorded that Thomas Quadryng and his late wife Anne, herself a wealthy heiress in her own right, had a daughter called Joane who was their sole heiress and inherited their joint property. Joane was then said to have conveyed her inherited property to her husband, Richard Dryland, who in 1484 conveyed the Manor of Fredville and other property to John Nethersole, who in turn shortly afterwards conveyed it to William Boys of Bonnington.
However, the Thomas Quadryng and wife Anne which Philpott and Hasted both write of were actually from a separate but distantly related branch of the Quadryng family who held several estates in the vicinity of Faversham. The confusion probably initially arose from the fact that both Thomas’ had wives called Anne.
Close examination of the legal proceedings regarding the possession “the manors of Fredeuyle and Beauchamp’ ect” clearly proves that Thomas Quadryng the Elder of Fredeuyle and Beauchamp did not die around 1482 and leave his property to an only daughter and sole heiress, but that he sold the manors and other properties to John Nethersole et al at some time prior to the death of King Edward IV in April of 1483. The appearance of his wife’s name with his own on the feet of fines is also clear evidence of Anne Quadrynge of Fredeuyle and Beauchamp still being alive in 1483, and if Anne had been a wealthy heiress in her own right there would have been no need for selling up.Following his coronation the new king faced problems with bringing the country under his control, and Kent was one of the counties where he faced opposition. Sir William Malyverer was one of six knights from King Richard III’s estates in the North of England brought down to Kent to restore order after a minor rebellion there against Richard III in October of 1483. These knights were well rewarded by the King with land and property confiscated from the rebels. The Kent rebellion was one of several insurrections in England and Wales known collectively as the Buckingham Rebellion which were intended to assist Henry Tudor, later Henry VII, to overthrow Richard III and become king in his place. The rebellion failed when Henry Tudor and five hundred armed men in seven ships were unable to cross the sea from Brittany because of a storm.
Malyverer was rewarded for services against the rebels by King Richard in August of 1484 with a grant in tail male [meaning only a direct male descendant who could trace his descent through male descendants of Malyverer could inherit the property] which included “Hertang (Hartanger), and Paratt’s landis, (both) in the parish of Berston (Barfreston); also a windmill called Berston Mylle; (Barfreston mill), lands in the lordship of Freydefeld (Fredville) ; the manor of Eythorne, and a rent therein; lands called Mottes in the parish of Nonyngton (in Frogham)“. The entailed land and property had belonged to Sir George Brown of Betchworth Castle in Surrey who had been another of the leaders of the Kent rebellion.
Malyverer was also made Escheator for Kent, a potentially lucrative Royal appointment. An escheator was responsible for escheats, the reversion of lands in English feudal law to the lord of the fee when there are no heirs capable of inheriting under the original grant.Sir George had been tried in Westminster Hall and taken to Tower Hill and beheaded on 3rd or 4th December of 1483 and his estates were subsequently declared forfeit to the Crown by an Act of Attainder in January of 1484. Land and property belonging to Sir Richard Guildford, Sir George Brown, Sir John Fogge, and other rebels forfeit to the Crown had then been given by King Richard III loyal supporters such as William Malyverer.
Soon after the end of the legal dispute regarding “the manors of Fredeuyle and Beauchamp’ ect” Thomas Quadryng the Elder came up against Sir William Malyverer. William Langley of Knolton died in February of 1483, leaving his son John, a minor, as his heir. Joan, William’s newly widowed wife, appears to have married William Malyverer shortly after William Langley’s death, possibly for political reasons, but most likely under duress. The manor of Knolton is only a mile or so to the north-east of the manor of Esol [Beauchamp] and William Langley, or at least his widow, appears to have been a close friend of Thomas Quadryng.
In November of 1483 Malyverer seized the Kent lands of his newly acquired wife’s late husband which had previously been granted along with the wardship of the young John Langley to Richard Guildford (Guldeford) of Rolvenden, Kent. As one of the leaders of the recently failed Kent rebellion Guildford had subsequently had his estates confiscated by the Crown. Such was Malyverer’s power in this time of ineffectual central authority that despite a Royal grant awarding “the warde & marriage of John Langley son & heire of the said William; with the keeping of alle Lordshipds ect” to Joan Langley and Thomas Quadring he managed to retain possession of of his step-son’s property, probably by use of his office as an escheator, until August of 1485 when Malyverer’s power and authority in Kent came to an abrupt end when his patron Richard III was defeated and slain at the Battle of Bosworth and Henry Tudor became King Henry VII.
Thomas Quadryng the Elder lived at least until 1490, when he was involved in a court case to recover a debt of £80.00 from Richard Seintnicholas, citizen and tailor of London, who had property in and around nearby Ash. Whether this dispute had any link to the 1456 demise of land & tenements in Chislet and Lympe to John de St. Nicholas of Ash by Richard Quadrynge, Robert Euyngham, and Robert Sandeforde is not known, but at the time legal disputes could be protracted.
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The lost Holestrete or Holt Street windmill in Nonington
A line drawing of an early post windmill In 1309 John (1), the son of Stephen de Akolte (Acholt) transferred **[see below] to John (2), the son of Thomas de Akholte, and Lucia, his mother, the ownership a windmill [unum molendinum ventifluim] in the parish of Nonington. The mill was recorded as being situated “in the parish of Nonyngton, near Holestrete [Holt Street] on Freydviles land [the manor of Fredville]”, and with it came two shillings [10 pence] and two hens annual free rent [duos solidos et duas gallinas de libere redditu] from Thomas le Kete of Holestrete, who was presumably the miller. The Fredvile land in question was almost certainly a part of Cookys, now known as Cooks Hill.
In the 1440’s there was a protracted and convoluted dispute over ownership of land in and around Akholte along with subsidiary property in Womenswold, Nonington [Cookys or Cooks Hill, Chillenden [Chillenden Court, part of the Manor of Hame (Hamill)] and Rowling. It was resolved in 1448 when the disputed land and property was divided amongst several claimants.++++++++++++++++++
** “Carta qua Johannes Filius Stephani de Akholte, concedit Johanni filio Thomae de Akholte et Lucie matri ejusdem, unum molendinum ventifluim (venti fluim) in paroch de Nonyngton juxta Holestrete in ter(re) de Freydvile,et duos solidos et duas gallinas de libere redditu, a Thoma le Kete de Holestrete annuatin debite tenend praedictus Johanni et Lucine et herdibus Johannis de corpore procreates; quimbus deficientibus Thomas fratri dicti Johannis filii Thomas de Akolte, et heribus suis, quibus deficient praedicto Johanni fili Stephani de Akolte et heredibus suis per servitia inde annuatum debita. Et pro hac confirmatione Johannes Fil Thomae et Lucia dederunt Johhani fil Stephani xx marc sterling in gersuman. Test Thomas de Godwynstone, Thomas de Akholte, Johanne de Akholte et aliis. Et quia Johannes de Akholte infra aetatem est, et proprium sigillum non habet, sigillum Johannis de Grenehelle apposuit huic scripte Dat. 3 Edw II (1309-10)”“Charter of John, son of Stephen de Akolte, granting to John, son of Thomas de Akholte and Lucy, the mother of the same, one wind mill in the parish of Nonyngton, near Holestrete [Holt Street] on Freydviles land [the manor of Fredville], and two shillings and two hens free rent, annually from Thomas le Kete of Holestrete, held of the aforesaid John and Lucy and the heirs of John ect ., by the services due annually. In confirmation of this John, son of Stephen received 20 marks (£.12.13s 4d) sterling in gersuman from John and Lucy.
Witnessed by Thomas de Godwynstone, Thomas de Akholte, John de Akholte and others. And because John de Akholte was under age and does not have his own seal, he signed under the seal of John de Grenehelle”.
Dated 3 Edward II (1309-10)
Gersuman was a fee paid to the lord of the manor when the ownership of property on his manor was transferred. At this time John Colkyn held the Manor of Fredville).
++++++++++++++++++The windmill would have almost certainly been located just to the north-west of the old Snowdown Collier pit-head baths, canteen, and car park on the brow of the hill on the west side of the road up from Holt Street. The site would have been well served by roads to Ackholt, Holt Street in Nonington, and to Womenswold and Woolege Green. As can be seen on the annotated 1859 Poor Law Commisioners map below, the road up from Ackholt which now joins the main road from Holt Street on the south side of Snowdown railway bridge then joined the Holt Street road some two hundred yards or so closer to Holt Street approximately where the gate now goes into the field at the north-east end of the old colliery car park. The road was re-routed when the railway line through the parish of Nonington was actually built in 1860-61, over a year after the survey for the map was made. The map shows the land then owned by the L.C.D.R. company in order that Poor Law rates could be charged to them.
The most likely location of the 14th century Holestreet or Holt Street windmill [1859 Poor Law Commissioners map]. In 1341 John de Acholte granted the mill along with other property and rents in Nonyngton, Rollynge (Rolling) and Wimelyngewelde (Womenswold) near Crodewode (Crudeswood or Curleswood) to Peter Heyward. After this transfer there is no presently known reference to this mill, so it would appear to have gone out of service and was not replaced.
These early post mills were usually constructed with two crossed beams resting on the ground and four angled beams coming up to support a central post, usually wooden, around which the superstructure of the mill was built. These cross beams were often buried stop the mill blowing away in a storm. This style of construction allowed the mill to be turned to face the wind by using a long beam attached horizontally to the body of the mill. Often the windmills were built on a specially constructed mound, although sometimes an existing barrow (burial mound) was used, to increase exposure to the wind. The sails on the early mills were sometimes only six or seven feet long, much smaller than those on later mills.
![1907 Holt Street cross-roads. The funeral cortege of Edwin Knight, the first man killed at Snowdown Colliery. Edwin was a sinker [digger] working on the digging of the No 1 shaft at the nearby Snowdown Colliery where work had then only recently begun. He was drowned by a sudden inrush of water into the shaft. Flooding was a major problem in sinking shafts in the Kent coalfield. Shortly after Edwin Knight’s death another flood at 260 feet killed 22 men. It’s interesting to note that several of the mourners are wearing their distinctive working clothes. Holt Street Cottage, now Old Cooky's, is to the left of the cortege.](https://i0.wp.com/www.nonington.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Holt-1907-Holt-St-x-roads.-Funeral-of-Edwin-Knight-sinker-at-Snowdown-Colliery.jpg?ssl=1 "Holt-1907 Holt St x-roads. Funeral of Edwin Knight, sinker at Snowdown Colliery")
![An early 1900's view of the four cottages [now three] in Holt Street Row.](https://i1.wp.com/www.nonington.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Holt-Street-Cottages-row-of-four-cottages-now-three-cottages.jpg?ssl=1 "Holt Street Cottages-row of four cottages, now three cottages")
![1483 Court of Common Pleas record:Trinity Term of the Law Courts [June and July]. John Nethersole, William Boys, Thomas Butte and Robert Gerneys legal proceedings to regain possession of “the manors of Fredeuyle and Beauchamp' ect".](https://i1.wp.com/www.nonington.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/1484BO3.jpg)
