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A GUIDE TO THE PARISH CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS, SNODLAND Web-site allsaintswithchristchurch.org.uk The Friends of All Saints (Registered Charity Number 1037103) The Friends of All Saints was set up in 1995 to enable members of the commu- nity, whether churchgoers or not, to help care for this beautiful and fascinating building. They assist the Parochial Church Council in repairing and maintaining the building and in seeking to broaden and develop its use by the community. Donations to ‘The Friends of All Saints Perpetual Fabric Fund’ can be made on- line via http://mydonata.bt.com/charities/thefriendsofallsaintsperpetualfabricfund. Photographs in this guide are by the late Reginald Hunt and Andrews Ashbee Engraving by William Tupeny (1820s) of the entrance with the original door. Plan of All Saints Church (not to scale) Features mentioned in the text (letters) and windows (numbers) families, whose memorials were noted earlier in the church. Their later burials are Beginnings in the cemetery. Exactly when the first church was built in Snodland we cannot say. St. Augustine landed in Kent in 597 A.D. and a church at Rochester was built in 604. This be- In 1873 Israel May, stationed at Snodland, was the first Kentish policeman to came the cathedral. Before long other churches sprang up nearby on the banks of have been murdered. His grave is in the north-west corner of the churchyard. This the Medway: Burham, Wouldham, Halling, Snodland, and Aylesford are all sited murder was national news and was widely reported. The funeral was attended by beside the river. Any such building would have been flimsy and just as likely as policemen representing the whole county. May’s assailant Thomas Atkins was the rest of the village to have been razed to the ground more than once as early arrested and he was transported to Australia for 20 years. invaders sailed up the Medway. Surviving Anglo-Saxon churches show that the The Hook family who owned the paper mill were Swedenborgians, so were not tradition of entering the building from the south side, as at All Saints, dates from involved with the parish church and they chose to be buried in Maidstone ceme- before the Norman Conquest. Certainly there is documentary evidence of a tery. One exception was Eustace, the youngest son and his wife, who are buried church here by 1000 A.D. north of the church. Of course this was the only burial ground in the parish, so all When All Saints was first built in stone, the workmen had some useful materials non-conformists as well as Church of England members are here. Extant memori- close at hand from the abandoned Roman Villa a few yards to the north. Some als cover the whole spectrum of society from labourers to managers. Further de- Roman tiles and 'tufa' can still be seen in tails and pictures of all the extant churchyard memorials can be seen at the older walls of the present building. www.snodlandhistory.org.uk . We can suppose that around 1100 All The Snodland Stones Prayer Walk Saints looked very like the other two early This installation was dedicated by the Archdeacon of Tonbridge on 22 June 2014. Norman churches of the parish, Pad- It is part of a larger vision to use the symbolically important location of All dlesworth (shown in the photograph) and Saints, where the Pilgrims Way crosses the River Medway, to make it a centre for Dode, although perhaps rather larger and learning, prayer and reflection around the theme of pilgrimage and spiritual jour- taller. neying. It . Perhaps it was the murder of Thomas a The prayer walk consists of a set of eight two-foot high stones each engraved with Becket at Canterbury which prompted the a traditional Christian symbol and arranged at different points around the church- substantial enlarging of the church during the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. How- yard close to the boundary wall. ever, this may just have been part of the great flowering of church building then in progress throughout the country; in those days parishioners (1) Celtic symbol of the Holy Trinity = God; were only too willing to bequeath money and materials to (2) Ichthus symbol = Jesus; maintain and beautify their church, and as a path to finding (3) Celtic cross = the New Covenant; favour with God. (4) Dove = Holy Spirit; (5) Boat with cross-shaped mast = Church/Fellowship; It seems likely that the original church building would have (6) Crown of thorns = Suffering and Hardship; been sited where the present nave is today, between the pil- (7) Scallop Shell = Pilgrimage/Journey of Life; lars. This space is about ten feet longer than the Paddlesworth (8) Oil Lamp = Witness/being a Light in the World. and Dode churches, but of similar width. The central part of the west wall is perhaps the only part of that earliest stone An apple tree was planted near the river on 3 June 2012 to mark the Queen’s Dia- building to survive. Above the west entrance to the church, mond Jubilee, while the gravestones are additional reminders of the Communion now largely obscured, is an ancient carved figure, finger on of All Saints. face, indicating silence on entering. The first major extension to the church was but this was removed by Rev. Phelps and the present window inserted to match the chancel (described later), probably built in the 1100 or 1200s, although it has the others. since undergone many changes. The west wall is likely to contain the oldest fabric of the building, since this is the only wall not to have been destroyed by later extensions — the aisles and chancel. The arch above the west window seems to be the remains of a Norman window before the present ‘Decorated’ one was inserted in the 1300s. This window was repaired in 1992; the buttress on the south is another 19th century addition and was used to carry the flue from a boiler installed at the west end. The original roof lines of the church before the aisles were built are clearly visible. The west porch is mid-15th century in date and a Thomas Benet gave money to- wards building it in 1461. The niche above the door is actually what remains of the window once at the west end of the north aisle, which Phelps moved here so that he could replace it with the present two-light window. He had found the little window gave insufficient light for baptisms. In those days the porch was used as a vestry. The Churchyard Two public footpaths ran through the churchyard from earliest times. One led to the river and the other ran to the north to ground called ‘church fields’. Phelps became irritated by the noise of workmen using the ferry during Divine Service, so in 1848 he moved the path to run outside the church wall The churchyard was enlarged by half an acre in 1867 at the west and north sides, and a road for new houses replaced the other footpath. When the parish cemetery was opened in 1896 Expert opinion gives the arcades and pillars of the nave as late 13th century work, the churchyard was closed, except for a few burials for families wishing to be bur- suggesting that the north and south aisles were begun then. The pillars are thought ied with their forebears. Many memorials were moved to the north side of the to have developed in two stages, at first supporting a single roof, which can be churchyard in the 1950s to aid maintenance, but unfortunately no record was traced outside in the west and east end walls. Afterwards the construction of the made of the original positions. two aisles required the pillars to be modified, as the roof was splayed wider. A Near the entrance is a large cross erected by Rev. Phelps in 1846. This is standing th 19 century expert on mediaeval glass, Charles Winston, noted that the north aisle on the mediaeval market cross steps which were moved by him from their village 'has windows of a rather later character than those in the south side'. If the pat- site outside the former Red Lion inn. Nearby a table tomb to the Wray family, terns of the top tracery windows are compared, it can be seen that the older farmers at Paddlesworth c.1650-1750, is the earliest memorial now in the church- ‘Decorated’ set has four leaves (‘quaterfoil’) and the later ‘Early Perpendicular’ yard. one has eight. Originally there were quaterfoil windows on each side of the chan- cel too, presumably added at the same time as the south aisle, but the one on the The grave of Thomas Fletcher Waghorn is in the corner beside the vestry door; south was removed in the 19th century. Just to confuse the issue further only one many relatives, including the Fletchers, Goodhughs and Gorhams, are nearby, in a of the two west-end windows in the church is original; that on the north side was group dating back to the eighteenth century. Among these too are the Manleys, maltsters who lived in the mediaeval hall-house still in the High Street. built in the 1840s to match that on the south; the adjacent north-side window is also a 19th century copy, but of the later type. On the north side of the church is a table tomb to members of the Lee and Roberts tensively damaged. The easternmost window is The Tower now filled with ‘The Annunciation’ by Hugh th The tower was added in the early 15 century, and, to- Easton [13], having the caption ‘This window is gether with the little west porch of c.1461, was the last placed here as a thank-offering for the safety of this part of the mediaeval church to have been built.