The History of Buckland and Allington

THE HISTORY OF BUCKLAND AND ALLINGTON (With special reference to Allington Millennium Green) Updated in 2017 Section 1 William Buckland, the Dean of Westminster, died in 1856. It was apparent that his mind was very disturbed during the last few years of his life, and it has been suggested that an event which occurred only a few hundred metres from the Millennium Green contributed to his mental decline. When I mention this, some people immediately make a link between his name and the local area, but this is a coincidence, as the place name 'Buckland' has other origins (more about this in another section, perhaps). No, Buckland was embroiled in the debate which arose after the discovery of the Maidstone Iguanodon (now to be seen on Maidstone's coat of arms) in W H Bensted's quarry off Queen's Road in 1834, as he was not only a senior clergyman, but a celebrated geologist and palaeontologist. However, he believed firmly in the Biblical Flood, and wrote a famous treatise, Reliquiae Diluvianae, or Observations on the Organic Remains contained in caves, fissures, and diluvial gravel attesting the Action of a Universal Deluge. The Iguanodon skeleton was purchased for £25 by another fossil hunter, Dr Gideon Mantell, and became known as 'the Mantel-piece'! It was only the second dinosaur to be given a proper Latin name; the first, named by Buckland, was Megalosaurus. It was once suggested that the site of the Millennium Green may have been another of Bensted's quarries, but research into old maps shows that this was not the case, and that the land was put to agricultural use. However, there is no doubt that a mass of fossils underlies the Green and the whole of Allington, embedded in the Ragstone which was formed in shallow Cretaceous seas. Buckland found that his theories about the supposed Flood were assaulted on all sides by other scientists who were beginning to realise that the Earth was far older than had been supposed: a popular assertion that it was created on 23rd October 4004 BC was inaccurate by many hundreds of millions of years! He died three years before a great hammer-blow was delivered by the most celebrated publishing event of the nineteenth century, when Charles Darwin's astonishing book startled the world: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. All churches reeled under the weight of Darwin's arguments about evolution, and have fought an unequal struggle with his ideas ever since. The Church of England took a brave stand in September this year, when it made a formal apology to Darwin, 200 years after his birth, probably to distance itself from fundamentalist Christians. These words were written by the Church's Director of Mission and Public Affairs: 'Charles Darwin: 200 years from your birth, the Church of England owes you an apology for misunderstanding you and, by getting our first reaction wrong, encouraging others to misunderstand you still. We try to practise the old virtues of "faith seeking understanding" and hope that makes some amends. But the struggle for your reputation is not over yet, and the problem is not just your religious opponents but those who falsely claim you in support of their own interests. Good religion needs to work constructively with good science – and I dare to suggest that the opposite may be true as well.' What would William Buckland have thought? Isn't it interesting how close we can be to places that were associated with major events, often without ever realising their significance? Section 2 ‘Why isn’t there a water feature on the Millennium Green?’ This question was asked by a young person in a working party from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. (They kindly trimmed herb bushes and pruned all of our apple trees during an activity day.) That was an interesting question, as I was able to say, ‘Well, there was water here once.’ The Green lies in a dry valley which ‘drains’ towards the Medway, and evidence of this fact is provided by the pronounced dip in London Road between Tesco and the Pippin pub, and by the topography of Little Buckland Avenue. Of course, over the years, extensive building works have made major changes to the shape of the valley. Not least amongst these were the huge efforts which must have been made in the 1920s (possibly mainly by manual labour) to create the level sports field which was the forerunner of the Green. This valley was created by a stream which probably started to flow towards the end of the last Ice Age, about 12,000 years ago, when the area had a Siberian climate and was roamed by mammoths, woolly rhinoceroses, sabre-toothed tigers and Neanderthals. As the water table has dropped over the centuries, the source of the stream has shifted down the valley, and it now emerges as a spring in the grounds of Maplesden Noakes school. Various professional archaeological studies were carried out in the 1990s, before the Green could be established, but they missed the presence of the stream, as the surveyors did not walk far enough down the valley or ask locals for assistance! This may have clouded their judgement slightly regarding the likelihood of early settlement in the Allington area; nevertheless, they came to some interesting conclusions, which I will describe in future sections. And to answer the question which was posed by our young volunteer helper: we designed the Green without a water feature for reasons of safety, as we realised that it could have posed considerable hazards to local children. I’ll be mentioning the Romans as well in the future, and we are very pleased that Kevin Murton of Fleet Graphic Management has just installed some digitised images of Roman-type mosaics, in the central feature of the Green. These mosaics were designed by pupils of three local primary schools: Allington, Brunswick House and Palace Wood, with the aid of a professional artist, Peter Kesteven. However, when we tried to install them as proper mosaics we ran into technical problems - hence the digitised images instead. Please go and have a look at the really creative ideas which the children produced. Section 3 What human remains from the Prehistoric period have been found in Allington? Well, very few! However, if we look at nearby areas, there are significant human (Neanderthal) artifacts at Oldbury near Borough Green. Oldbury is an elevated hill fort, so features were much less likely to be eroded from it than from the sides of the Medway Valley, where we are situated. Some Mesolithic flint tools were discovered across the valley near Springfield, but the Neolithic is when there was probably significant human settlement in the area, as the first famers moved into Britain from the continent. There is some interesting speculation to be made about this period, in view of remains which occur further along the Medway Valley, so in the next section, I’ll do some speculating about the area around Allington Castle, and Little Buckland, where the Green is situated. I have realised that in order to be able to make proper references to archaeological issues, I need to provide a time scale (see below). You might like to keep this to hand for future reference (and it may be useful in your more general reading as well.) I have adapted this from schemes which are in common use, but bear in mind the fact that dates can be variable, depending on the authority consulted. I have ‘tailored’ the Prehistoric dates, for example, to fit the British situation and cover only the period when the first humans are likely to have reached the British Isles. With the use of modern scientific techniques, the dating of actual objects and fossils is becoming ever more refined, and details of these techniques can easily be found on the Internet. It’s worth remembering, however, that an error of 1% for example, equates to 5,000 years in an overall period of half a million years! And when one considers that the age of the Earth is at least 4.5 thousand million years, there is plenty of room for error! PREHISTORIC Palaeolithic 50,000 to 12,000 /10,000 BC Mesolithic 12,000 /10,000 to 4,000 BC Neolithic 4,000 to 2,000 BC Bronze Age 2,000 to 600 BC Iron Age 600 BC to 43 AD HISTORIC Roman 43AD to 410 Saxon /Early Mediaeval 410 to 1066 Mediaeval 1066 to 1485 Post-Mediaeval 1485 to Present Section 4 I have long suspected that St Laurence’s church at Allington was built on an ancient site which had been used since pre-Christian times. Pagan worship and burial sites were often reused by the Romans and by Saxon church builders, and in the case of St Laurence’s a Roman villa is thought to lie next to it, under the gatehouse of Allington Castle. However, further circumstantial evidence arises from observations of some other phenomena. Our younger daughter, Philippa, used to ride at Trottiscliffe, and I spent many happy hours with our dog, exploring the area around the village. Trottiscliffe and nearby Addington are famous for the remains of massive Neolithic burial chambers (long barrows), built by the earliest British farming communities. One of these, Coldrum Stones (where over 20 people were buried), is on a direct line which can be drawn on a map through the churches at Trottiscliffe, Snodland and Burham, and this might be a so-called ‘ley line’.

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