Historic Villages Trail Leaflet
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HISTORIC VILLAGES Historic Country Trail 1. Capel-Le-Ferne The Battle of Britain memorial, on the cliffs HISTORIC beside the Folkestone/Dover road at Capel, commemorates the 1940 air battle which took place in the skies over this section of the VILLAGES coast. The memorial was funded from donations and represents a young pilot Historic Country Trail looking out to sea. The village’s name comes from a chapel (now St. Mary’s church) which stood beside the road. The Warren, a The rural area of East Kent around Canterbury, wild area below the village, is home to a Sandwich, Deal and Dover is dotted with ancient variety of rare flowers and plants. villages. Over the centuries these little communities witnessed the passage of Kings and Queens, Princes, Dover 2. Alkham Temple At one time it was proposed to turn this Archbishops, soldiers and Ewell charming village, nestling in the steep Alkham sailors. Today many old l valley, into a housing centre for thousands of churches, half-timbered houses coal miners working in the then expanding East and other monuments stand in Kent coalfield. This never happened and the these villages to remind the l kearsney village remains much as it has been for centuries visitor of the history of this with its Norman church, 18th century Rectory, corner of England. Coaching Inn and variety of other old houses. Alkham is a good base for walks in the pleasant We invite you to use this booklet as an introduction to countryside around the coastal chalk downland. this part of the Kent countryside. Sited prominently somewhere near the middle of the villages listed you 3. Temple Ewell will find Historic Village Information Panels. These Situated in the valley of the river Dour above have been erected alkham Dover, Temple by Dover District l Ewell has an Council in ancient history. It partnership with was mentioned in a charter of 772 and local Parish came under the Councils to provide control a detailed and successively of the illustrated history religious orders of of each village. the Knights Templars and the Knights of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Unusual stained There is a small map on the back page of this booklet glass windows from Switzerland are worth showing the approximate location of all the villages and looking at in the church. The river powered one a more detailed map on each page to show the location capel- l of two mills which still stand in the valley. of the Historic Village Information Panels. le-ferne Dover folkestone Capel-Le-Ferne alkham temple ewell 4. kearsney 7. Wooton The village was part of the former Manor of Although Kearsney Abbey is no more, its Dover extensive gardens now constitute a very Wooton, at one time home of Thomas Digges, attractive public park including a large pond l inventor of an early telescope. Digges was General with ducks, geese and swans. The so-called river Surveyor and Engineer at Dover Harbour during the reign of Elizabeth I. He was the builder of the Abbey was actually a private house built original harbour complex which now forms the between 1820-22 for the Dover banker John Western Docks. Unfortunately nothing remains of Minet Fector. The house is now demolished the house which was demolished in 1952. There is except for the remains of its west wing, now Dover an unusual war memorial in the village, consisting the park café. On the other side of the road to l of an oak wayside seat, made to remember the nine Kearsney Abbey are Russell Gardens also a Temple whitfield men of the parish who fell in the First World War. park open to the public. Ewell kearsney 8. Shepherdswell 5. river l The old village grew rapidly after the arrival in The village stands on the river Dour, which 1861 of the London - Chatham - Dover railway, alkham l powered a number of mills on its way out to coldred and expanded later with houses for miners sea. One of these, Crabble Corn working in the Tilmanstone colliery. A railway Mill, dates from 1812 and is open junction was established in 1911 for the East l to visitors at certain times of the Kent Light Railway which serviced the coalfield. The last passenger train ran in 1948 and year. It contains a unique set of shepherdswell commercial services ended with the closure of automatic 19th-century flour the mine in 1987. In recent years part of the line milling machinery. In ancient times has been restored by a railway preservation the Abbey of St. Radigunds, society and is open to visitors at certain times. founded by French monks in the 12th century stood nearby. Only ruins survive today. 9. Coldred Dover Centuries ago, the pond in the village was used 6. Denton for witch trials. In the 1640s it is recorded that an Several historic houses are located near the village including old woman called Broome Park and Tappington Hall. Broome Park, built in 1635, Nell Garlinge was was at one time the home of Field Marshal Lord Kitchener who canterbury tied up and thrown was drowned after a U-boat attack in 1915. Tappington Hall is in the water where, reputed to be the oldest inhabited building in Kent and is said to presumably, she have been the hiding place of drowned. Coldred the knights who murdered wootton Court Farm, next to Thomas a Beckett in l the church of St. Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Pancras, was The house is associated with originally a manor house owned by Bishop Odo various ghost stories. One tale of Bayeux, half-brother of William the says it is haunted by the ghost canterbury Conqueror. The church and the farm stand inside of a Royalist killed during the the remains of a fortified Saxon camp said to date from the 8th century. Archaelogists have English Civil War by his l brother who was on the made numerous finds from the Saxon and denton folkestone Parliamentarian side. Roman periods here. kearsney river denton wootton shepherdswell coldred ST. MARGARET’S 10. Whitfield for other constructions including Henry VIII’s MARTIN coastal fortifications. Later a farmhouse was built This has long been an important crossroads where the roads to MILL Canterbury, Dover and Sandwich meet. Modern Whitfield l on the foundations. The population of the village stands on the site of several old manor houses including has shrunk with the decline of employment in Linacre, Bewesfield, Pising and Archer’s Court. In ancient times agriculture. Throughout the 19th century about the Lord of the Manor of Archer’s Court had to provide an 120 people lived here, but by the 1990s there unusual service – his duty was to hold the King’s head while were less than 40. crossing the Channel and support it during vomiting. l MARTIN 14. Martin 11. Guston In the Rev. Richard Harris Barham’s book of The village is just east of the old Roman road from Dover to mythical stories ‘The Ingoldsby Legends’, Richborough and has been settled since very early times. The written in about 1840, there is a character called l the Leech of Folkestone who was supposed to church of St. Martin of Tours has a Saxon chancel but the rest is WEST Norman. The parish extends to the coast, and cliff top land was LANGDON have lived at Marston Hall in Martin. The Hall used as an aerodrome in the early days of aviation. The Royal was built in the 18th century on the site of an Flying Corps used the Swingate field as a staging post for Dover ancient manor house. The village also had a aircraft joining the British Expeditionary Force in France in the workhouse constructed in 1790 to house the poor First World War (1914-1918). The Royal Naval Air Squadron l from the surrounding area. EAST also had an airfield nearby. LANGDON 15. Martin Mill 12. East Langdon The mill dated from the 18th century and stood Among the interesting items in the Norman church is a on the site of the present bungalow ‘Millstone’. piece of 15th-century embroidery, originally worn as a The ruins of cloak by the Rector. There is also an hour glass stand GUSTON the mill were dating from Elizabethan times which was used by the l demolished in Rector for timing his sermons. In the Middle Ages the the 1960s. The area around Langdon was run by present village the St. Augustine’s Brotherhood. This of Martin Mill lasted until 1538 when Henry VIII was developed dissolved the Abbey and sold the after the lands. East Langdon was acquired construction of the Dover to Deal railway in by the Masters family who built on 1881. Martin Mill was the stopping off point for the site of the abbey. the fashionable seaside location of St. Margaret’s A256 Bay. Horse drawn transport to the beach was DOVER 13. West Langdon A2 provided from the Station Hotel (the present This small settlement lies close to the site of Langdon Abbey, Ugly Duckling pub). There used to be a railway founded by Premonstratensian Canons in 1189. The Abbey was junction nearby from which a works line ran dissolved during the reign of Henry VIII. Inspecting it in 1535, l down to Dover Harbour. This was used for the construction of the Eastern Docks sea defences the Kings Commissioners reported that the Canons were WHITFIELD ignorant, behaved immorally and that the Abbot kept a mistress. and the Southern Breakwater completed in 1909. COLDRED Much of the stone used in the Abbey was carted off and used canterbury A2 WHITFIELD GUSTON EAST LANGDON WEST LANGDON MARTIN MARTIN MILL 16.