Thanington: an Introductory History

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Thanington: An Introductory History

1. Problematique: Within, Without, Wherever ?

To date, nobody has ever tried to write the history of Thanington. Indeed, when the Community Treasures organization tried to get locals to undertake one, for performance, they got nowhere. This is most probably due to the apparent insignificance of the place and people's lack of any background knowledge. However, as I have found, it is also because so many problems emerge when we try to write a history, problems related not to size but to uncertainties about the place as such. What follows here is therefore only a beginning. It is an attempt to provide the background information which is so clearly lacking. At the same time, it is also an attempt to identify issues, possibilities and sources, so as to confront the methodological difficulties which Thanington presents. In other words, it is only an introductory history, a narrative meant to open the way to more detailed and solid studies. To begin with, what problems does writing the history of Thanington, as opposed to any other locality actually pose? To begin with, problems start with the fact that it depends what we mean by 'Thanington'. Historically this was a very small settlement, hardly justifying the name hamlet according to one historian. Indeed, it often seems to have been as much a description of an area of activity as the name of an actual settlement around the church of St Nicholas, let alone a village. However, with the passage of time Thanington has both expanded and changed its name. All this has raised considerable questions about its actual identity. Firstly, in terms of expansion, it has moved both eastwards towards Canterbury and also southwards into the hills above the Stour valley, into what I like to call the 'Thanington High Lanes' area, rather than Hilltop which is not a very accurate term. Moreover, the actual core also been very closely linked historically with nearby settlements in the Stour Valley from Horton eastwards to Wincheap, all of which have had somewhat different histories. The borders of Thanington, in other words, have been very porous and embrace both the urban and the rural. So, in line with Charlesworth's warning about hyper-localism, we need to see Thanington in the context of the areas around it since it was never hermetically sealed from the outside world.

Only by doing this are we likely to gain a full appreciation of the past of Thanington. This is especially so for the mediaeval period. Then, secondly, there is further problem where names are concerned. In fact, from the 1890s civil servants reflected the first move by giving the new civil parishes the fanciful new names of 'Within' and 'Without', even though both were well outside the city walls if not the city boundary. Of these only the second has really persisted, even though it has now lost its original significance. Indeed, in early 2014 the City Council and the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, briefly decided that the South Ward of the Civil Parish is actually 'Thanington Without' and the north is just Thanington. However, the initial change of name does make it clear that the 'Thanington' of today is very different in nature and scope from the old hamlet which emerged in the Dark Ages. Indeed, though it is fairly old, Thanington is actually also very new since it has undergone more changes in the last hundred years than ever it did in previous centuries. Thirdly, in terms of identity, for some Thanington today is simply a suburb, even though it is parished. Hence it has to be considered an integral part of the contemporary urban fabric. Thus the City Council does not include it in its list of villages, seeing it as more a part of the city. Others have found it difficult to place or classify in different ways. In fact, Thanington seems to have had a love-hate relationship with the city. One source thus referred to it as 'Thanington beside Canterbury' and another called it 'the first hamlet out of Canterbury'. This lack of certainty and status is symbolic of the fact that 'Thanington' is a very mixed area, and we have to look in several places to find out about its history. Only by including a number of outliers can we get an approximate idea of the way Thanington as such expanded, developed and changed. In other words, it is not bereft of identity, as some have claimed, but has always had a very unusual identity: changing, fragmented and often multiple. Fourthly, nobody has ever written a history of Thanington before, which creates further difficulties. Hence there is no easy starting point. Nor is there an established historiography to which we can turn for guidance. Moreover, specific primary sources are often lacking. Unfortunately, Thanington's core, such as it was, has never been a large or rich place, so it has produced precious few records especially for earlier periods. Often we are very dependent on the church and here, one major loss are the Select Vestry and PCC Minutes between 1905 and 1945. Possibly departing vicars took such records with them when they left, so that we have no information for crucial periods of Thanington's recent transformation. And we have to turn to a

2 whole range of scattered and peripheral sources. As a result, this often means that we are limited to pointing out what did not happen, such are the gaps in our knowledge. This leads to a fifth and final problem. This is that we need to avoid considering Thanington in the abstract and on its own. We have to see it not just in the context of Canterbury but in terms of wider English social and political history. Unless we know something of these it is hard to establish what the parameters of Thanington's history actually are. And these can give us helpful hints about what was happening. So we have to rely on setting out the context so as to tease out how the place may have developed. This often means deducing things from the national and social background, something too often ignored by previous commentators. This also often means posing questions that we cannot yet properly answer. All this makes it hard to produce what is needed, which is an introductory narrative which will provide a starting guide for interested readers and, ultimately, other historians. Nonetheless, this is the aim here, to tell a story - as consistent, comprehensible and as complete as possible - and not just to list disparate facts or retell colourful anecdotes as so many writers have done in the past. Indeed, doing any kind of research suggests that some attractive myths have to be debunked. To sum up, the aim is to play a door opening role, and not to provide the last word. In fact, a narrative has to be the key to further work. Only when this is there can we see where more intensive and professional research needs to be concentrated. Hence, because this attempt at a history is likely to serve as a starting point, footnotes are hardly necessary.

What seems to me to emerge from my investigations, and what shapes the following pages, is firstly, that Thanington's history is often shaped by its geographical setting, so this needs spelling out. Secondly, its history falls into several clearly defined periods. In both prehistory and Roman times we know nothing of it. So, though there could have been something there beforehand, for instance in early Anglo-Saxon times, its origins - and its real history - really begin as an indeterminate agricultural area in late Anglo- Saxon times. After 1066 it was socially unchanging for many years as part of post Conquest feudal society, dominated by its Lords. Then, after 1485, it was somewhat affected by the conflicts of the Reformation era although it seems to have ridden out the Civil War years easily enough. From the later 17th century onwards, it entered a new aristocratic age as new landed elites took over control and resisted challenges. Then, from about 1840 onward, it moved into industrial modernity, beginning in the later 19th century. The period involving the two world wars carried on the process of modernization.

After 1945 Thanington expanded further so that it developed a new suburban identity. And change has continued since 1990. Not only were the boundaries altered, but new building projects came to dominate Thanington's life. Indeed they could well change it dramatically in the future. And socially it experienced considerable new difficulties which tested its new network of community organizations. In other words, history in Thanington, accelerates rather than dying away. It is very much on going and does not end years ago as people too often think is the case with history.

2. The Setting.

Geography obviously plays a role in making the history of Thanington so problematic, at least in earlier times. This is because the geography of the area is so diverse. So, before starting the history proper, it is worth analyzing the geography of Thanington. Here we can take the modern civil parish as our starting point. In fact, we find that Thanington is a very mixed area, geographically and geologically. Agriculturally, the area is divided between the North Kent fruit belt and the East Kent arable belt, hence it has often been an area of orchards and grain fields. To the south it includes the hilly uplands above the Stour Valley (part of the Ashdown beds) and described by Hasted as being poor, flinty soil. This is part of the North Kent chalk downs, whereas the Stour Valley is part of the London clay zone, including chalk dip slope with brick hearth cover. Then, to the east Thanington embraces part of the built up area of Canterbury proper, in the middle and to the west it covers much of the alluvial flat valley bottom. The course of the Stour has changed over the years with old quasi oxbows from Hanging Banks to the Church, and then round the Recreation Ground, being cut off and dried out. To the north it includes part of the gentle slopes leading up to Harbledown on the other side of the river, which was much wider in earlier times than is now the case. Hasted described this as poor, rough land. Given both this diversity and the fact that Thanington is an area with a limited and indistinct core, as it was until the last century, it is an area defined as much by the roads which go through it as by anything else: Wincheap, Stone Street, the tracks up to Bigbury and to St Faiths, the road from Canterbury to Petham - now known as New House Lane - and the two roads running west towards Ashford. All hold the area together. So it has to be understood as basically an historical creation

As a result, Thanington has, historically been connected with a range of other settlements, old and new, beyond the original hamlet. In other words, its history cannot be understood without including nearby places. These must include, as already suggested, both the High Lanes (Hollow, Iffin, Merton, New House and Stuppington Lanes) and the valley settlements of Cockering, Horton, Howfield, Larkey Valley, Milton, St Jacobs, Tonford and Wincheap. To an extent this is because the ecclesiastical parish goes beyond the civil parish, providing another link. In other words, there is a kind of 'Greater Thanington', not in the sense of Thanington controlling them - if anything the reverse is true - but because the settlements are so closely related. So Thanington has to be seen in this wider geographical and settlement context and not just within the narrow, if uncertain, confines of the core round the church and the farm. The reasons why this is so lie in history and developments over many years and periods. The development of England was thus played out in Thanington as well as in more significant places.

3. Prehistory

Although Thanington is, historically speaking, a relatively new settlement, parts of it lands seem to have been used, and possibly settled, albeit extremely sparsely, for many centuries. How do we know this, given that there are no written records before 530 AD? The answer comes from archaeology. Thus we know that a Neolithic axe was found at Upper Horton in 1949 which means that there were people there in the Stone Age, although we do not know if they lived there or were just passing through. However, there have been other finds which give us a better idea of what happened in prehistoric times. It is probable that, during the Paleolithic (or early Stone Age), that there was some settlement in our area, as there was all over Kent. Flint flakes, tools and weapons have been found along the county's western side. This would have involved communities working local stone and hunting. This was probably the earliest human occupation. Some of it may have been in Thanington as Paleolithic implements have been found. However, the last Ice Age, which lasted for nearly a hundred thousand years, probably then drove such people out. So it was only after the ice finally retreated, about 13,000 BC, that people again returned to Kent and the rest of Britain. However, given that the people of this new period, the so called Mesolithic Age, were nomadic hunter-gatherers, who did not live in fixed

settlements, it is unlikely that they could have left any meaningful traces in Thanington. They just hunted and gathered plants as they moved from one spot to another. It was not until 5,000 years later that this changed The coming of Neolithic culture (in the later Stone Age, c 8000 BC onward), brought by immigrants who first overlapped with, and then gradually merged with, or replaced the Mesolithic peoples and their culture, meant there were more people around. And they lived in different ways, using new tools and adopting new pottery styles. From about 6000 BC settled farming, both arable and pastoral, also became common, we find new enclosures for animals. At about this time, southern England was finally separated from the Continent, giving way to the Channel. As a result, forest clearances probably started later on, about 3000 BC. No doubt the kind of prehistoric peoples who started clearing and farming probably stayed in the Thanington area just as they later did round the Julieberry barrow at Chilham, a ritual centre dating from about 1100 BC, where there is also evidence of ploughing. This was one of the few settlements at this time. However, there does not seem to have been much real settlement until shortly before Roman times if then, the area probably still being too heavily forested. And, with land next to rivers often being marshy, most settlement would have been on the hillsides although we do not have much evidence for this in our area. Things may have changed with the discovery of metal, which gave man new powers. The Bronze Age is usually understood to have begun about 2500 BC and, more significantly, the Iron Age about 500 BC. During the former period the area saw more activity than in the Stone Age. In fact, in 1953 a Bronze Age tumulus, dating from about 1700-1100 BC, was discovered in Iffin Wood along with urns and ashes. This was one of some 1000 such monuments in the country, most of which have been destroyed by subsequent ploughing. All this suggests that there must have been a settled and not numerically insignificant population by then. The people who lived Iffin Wood seem to have belonged to what is known as the 'Beaker Folk' after their distinctive cord zoned pottery. Coming from the continent and replacing the existing neolithic peoples, they also began to weave cloth and to practice individual burial. It was at this time that the Stour valley itself probably began to be opened up as in Chilham there is more evidence of ploughing, this time by oxen. The area was probably low lying arable combined with pastoral at this time and agriculture was well developed. For Richard Cross of CCC, the Iron Age saw still more development. Some put this down to the arrival of new peoples, notably between 700 and 400 BC but mainstream opinion now believes that the indigenous population just adopted the new techniques. Iron was, after all,

6 easily available because of deposits to the west of our area, in the Weald. In other words, there was continuity with the Bronze Age settlement, perhaps even population growth, and more woodland clearance. In fact, Cross believes that most of the woodland in the South East was cleared by the late Iron Age. Certainly there are traces of settlement at Horton and Milton while an Iron Age La Tène lynch pin has been found on Iffin Farm while late Iron Age cremations have been found in Chilham and Swarling. A fair number of Iron Age coins, mostly copper, have been found around our area. All of these finds were probably, for Jenkins, the result of two incursions, firstly in the early 5th century BC and then again the so called Marnians in the mid-3rd century, who established themselves as a new aristocracy and may have built the first defences of Canterbury. However, much more significant change seems to have followed later in the Iron Age with the arrival of the Belgae from continental Europe. Probably a Germanic speaking people, though they may have moved because of pressure from other Germanic peoples. they arrived from Gaul about 100 BC. They then dispossessed the old elite from the 3rd century BC and emerged as a new ruling class in much of south eastern England. They probably pushed many of the existing people into the Weald so that East Kent was probably wholly Belgic by the time of Caesar's invasions. However, whether there was more large scale 'Celtic' colonization thereafter, is doubtful. Nonetheless, the population then started to grow and society to develop. Hence Bigbury, the most easterly Kentish hill fort, if that was what it was, of the Belgic era, was established around c 300 to 200 BC partly to control the vital river crossing at Tonford.. However, it may have fulfilled other functions than defence. Moreover, the newcomers brought with them new farming methods, based on a heavier plough. They also helped to develop Canterbury, then a collection of round wattle and daub huts, into something more substantial. Their origins meant that they also developed trade with the continent, from where they had come, as well as clearly maintaining political links across the Channel. In fact, the British seem to have exported cattle, corn, dogs, gold, hides, iron, silver and slaves, receiving jewellery, oil and pottery in return. All of this must have had some impact on the Thanington area Indeed, the discovery in the 1890s of a Belgic cemetery at Swarling, excavated in 1920, gave rise to the idea of there being a specific Iron Age culture in our region. This 'Aylesford- Swarling' culture, dating from before Caesar's invasion, probably meant that people rejecting Roman control in Gaul had escaped to south-eastern England. Aylesford and Swarling are now the type sites of this culture in Kent. The culture involved urned cremation in flat graves, the use

of wheel-thrown pots with pedestal bases and horizontal cordon ornament on pottery. Brooches (fibula), wooden stave-built buckets, and bronze have also been found. The culture seems to have survived for a time after the Roman conquest in 43 AD. The area was very probably involved in Caesar's invasions in 55 & 54 BC since Bigbury Camp was stormed by the Roman army as a punishment for helping the Gallic Belgae to resist Caesar's legions. In fact, as already implied, local chiefs may well have controlled land in Gaul proper as well as in Kent, rather than being purely local. Some authorities think that Belgic families could have been resident on both sides of the Channel at this time. This would have boosted cross Channel trade. Caesar recognized four kings in Kent, all subject to the Iceni, but we do not know who ruled our area. In any case, given these connections, people working or living across the river Stour would presumably been affected by the Roman onslaught. It seems that Bigbury was slighted as Caesar left so that it could not be use. And its population was then dispersed, many going to Canterbury. . Hence, after the Romans withdrew after Caesar's invasions, the area had nearly a century of peace, during which contact with Gaul must have certainly continued if not have increased. This may well have led to the development of the first few villas around Canterbury. However, as long as Bigbury flourished (assuming it was some sort of town, which is open to doubt, as no coins have been found there), it is unlikely that there would have been another major settlement just across the river in Thanington. East Kent may also have become part of Cunobelinus' (or Cymbeline's) Cantevallauni kingdom based on Colchester. One son, Adminius, seems to have been a dependent sub-King of Kent within the new kingdom from about 9AD to 42AD. An elder son Caratacus, who succeeded Cunobelius, defeated the Atrebates and moved the Kingdom westwards before leading the resistance to the Romans, Some authorities believe that the earthworks in Iffin Wood were actually 'British' creations of this time. However, this seems improbable. They are more likely to be mediaeval constructions. Hence, the area seems to have been largely unsettled at this time and on the periphery of local developments. To put it another way, the area was obviously still open to renewed Roman involvement even though there was not a lot to attract their attention.

4. The Roman Era

However, although the Roman occupation was very significant for Canterbury, there is only limited evidence that it made a great impact on our area. The occupation was not taken up until nearly a century after Caesar's landings. In fact, a new invasion of Britain was considered by the Emperor Caligula but it only came about under his successor, Claudius. And, once the Romans were in control after the Aulus Plautus' successful invasion in 44 AD, Canterbury probably took off. It probably fairly soon succeeded Bigbury (which was the first point at which the Romans were resisted) as the local hub at this time. Recent research suggests it was abandoned no later than the early part of the 1st century AD. However, the city too may well have been erected on Belgic foundations. Farming and settlement probably developed around about it, notably alongside the Stour, an area increasingly dominated by the new city. Thus there are also several Roman sites in our area. Remains have been found near the 'Plantation' in Hollow Lane and, more importantly, under the A2 shortly before it crosses Hollow Lane. Here there was evidence of buildings, pits and a pottery kiln. And some archaeologists think that some of the finds are due to the fact that the Romans exported their night soil to Thanington. Houses would have been timber framed round houses. Further south, in fields running uphill from Stuppington and Merton there is evidence of another settlement, roughly in line with the little unnamed lane at the bottom of the settled part of Iffin Lane. Many coins and tiles have been found there and some residents believe there to have been both a villa and a fort. The former seems the most likely since, the settlement was probably too far east of Stone Street to be able to control it militarily. And there seem to have been few villas in the Canterbury area, though there was probably one at Swarling. Nonetheless, the discovery in 1949 on New House Farm land of a Romano-British grave, dating from about 90 AD does suggest settlement on the hills. Roman era skulls have also been found on Ridlands Farm. However, none of this adds up to really significant Roman settlement. Moreover, Cross says one needs to be careful of such beliefs about Roman settlement because these are often exaggerated as with inventions of a 19th century antiquary called Vine. Thus, as already noted, Iffin is probably mediaeval and not prehistoric. But there was definitely a Roman settlement on Merton Farm land leading the Canterbury Archaeological Trust to declare a watching brief there in 1997 and 2003 although there was no excavation. There is also a rumour that the ghost of a Roman soldier was once seen in Iffin lane. Roman kilns were

9 certainly found near a new footway when the Motorway was built. Cross thinks that the so called fort is more likely to be an agricultural enclosure of which there are number around. There was also a Roman cemetery at Wincheap Green. In any case, such development as there was, probably came about because the area was being opened up by the creation of proper roads. The most important one was known as Stone Street because of the material which was used to build it. It runs, from Durovernum (or Canterbury) to the coast at Portus Lemanus (or Lympne). When this got close to Canterbury it turned into the southern part of Iffin Lane. However, crop markings suggest that it did not actually continue all the way down Iffin and Hollow Lanes as is usually thought. Rather, from the old Iffin farm site it went straight on to Stuppington Lane and entered the town from that direction, possibly joining the end of the footpath that runs south from the junction of Hollow and Merton lanes. Iffin Lane in fact meanders slightly to the west of the old road. Alongside the river there must also have been a secondary road, running roughly along the line of the modern A28 and running through Godmersham to connect with the road from the Wealden iron workings between Anderida, Hastings, Ashford and Maidstone. This seems to have been built about 70 AD. No doubt the roads helped to open up the remaining virgin woodland to farming. Branching out from a road, surrounded by cleared margins, would have been much easier than trying to create clearings in the middle of nowhere. But we do not know how much land was reclaimed from the forest under the Romans. However, it is possible that some of the present day footpaths emerged at this time. In any case, the Roman occupation led generally to another few centuries of peace and prosperity. With Canterbury being mainly a trade and socio-religious centre, it would have needed food from the surrounding countryside. And the Thanington area might well have been one of the places which supplied it, along with other settlements along the Stour. At all events, the area for many years became part of a peaceful and Romanized countryside. Hence, until the very end of the Roman period, East Kent remained in close contact with the continent even if fewer and fewer people were involved in these contacts. So it is likely that the Thanington area followed the general development of late Roman Canterbury and indeed England, perhaps even being abandoned as the city itself was at one stage in the 5th century AD. 450 is the favoured date for this. However, some authorities think that the decline was much slower than is sometimes suggested, the city imploding as army wages were withdrawn as much as because of incursions. Unfortunately, Thanington does not provide any evidence which might enable us to judge which explanation is true. In other words,

10 during the Roman period, Thanington was sparsely, if at all settled. Some land may have been tilled but we do not know where or how much. However, this to change thanks to new arrivals over the five hundred years.

5. The Early Anglo-Saxon Period: Colonization and Conflict

During the 5th century, as problems escalated on the continent, prosperity and stability certainly began to ebb in Kent. By then the Empire had begun to implode, exposing the province to attacks from Picts and others. So, around 410 AD, the Empire withdrew its military protection from Britannia. Troops crossed back across the Channel and relations with Rome began to weaken. This led local leaders to appeal, in traditional Late Roman fashion, to Germanic tribes to help defend them. This is at the root of the story of Vortigern and Hengist & Horsa. It seems likely that once small groups of German warriors came, their families and others followed so that the later 5th century saw a new elite Germanic takeover, replacing the Roman British elite, though leaving the rest of the population unaffected save in their language which changed to that of the new masters. From 475 to 525 AD these changes were restricted to the Stour Valley, but thereafter their effects spread out more widely, reaching the heavily forested Weald in the 7th century. Exactly what impact this had on our area we cannot really say although there are few signs of new settlements then. While contact with Gaul continued, southern England fell apart politically, into a web of competitive petty principalities, a process which has been described as 'Bosnification'. Migration only created a loosely organized familial society, heavily influencing the local population from the start, and ultimately leading to the creation of a new monarchy under the Oiscingas family established by Hengist. Interestingly the incomers took over the name of Kent which dated back to before Caesar, calling themselves the Cantewara or the Kentings. This perhaps symbolized their limited numbers and lack of ethnic homogeneity. They also accepted the Belgic name for the local river, the Stour. In places this change may have meant the dispossession of the native population but there was probably never any mass migration. It is unlikely that more than 10%-20% of the total population of England were truly Germanic so there must have been intermarriage, intermingling and linguistic adaption. While the existing population, as many as two thirds of which were

descended from the Neolithic inhabitants and later migrations, continued, it probably changed its language Moreover, as the area was relatively unpopulated, and numbers probably fell, there was probably land enough for all, although the Anglo-Saxons normally settled on good agricultural land, already farmed under the Romans, and not on marginal new lands. These were not settled until the later 6th century. Large open fields and trans-humance also seem to have been common. With the new comers becoming a new ruling class, and the Belgae speaking a similar dialect, it is not surprising that the newcomers' language began to take over. In other words acculturation was as important as immigration. Tradition has it that East Kent was colonized by Jutes from Jutland. However, the evidence actually suggests that the Jutes B who also settled the Isle of Wight and the surrounding coastal area of Hampshire B may have come from the Frankish Rhineland as well as from Jutland itself. And they may also have included Frisians and other peoples from Southern Scandinavia. Over time they probably all merged into one people. In any case, the term Jutes does not seem to have come in until much later, having been introduced by Bede in his writings. One theory is that Ethelbert, who was partly Frankish, was part of a Merovingian strategy to create a gateway to Europe and hence control the opposite coast. So the use of the Jutish idea may have been a way of local elites distancing themselves from this. Whoever they were, they seem to have settled in our area since there was a cemetery and settlement on the hill above Horton Manor. Pagan burials are also known round about from 470-620 AD. However, no single site has yet been identified as demonstrably Jutish. Canterbury itself remained in use but became much more agricultural than it had been, suggesting there would have been less need for food from Thanington. Any settlement may therefore have become more self-contained and self-sufficient at this time. Certainly it does not seem that the area was part of the big estates which emerged round Wye and Sturry. There seems little doubt but that life became more difficult in the early years after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons. Save perhaps in Kent, trade dried up and society was often very insecure. And in Kent society developed in isolated hamlets and not in nucleated villages. In fact, there is no evidence for a village of Thanington at this stage, nor of any kind of social community in our area. At best there might have been some isolated farming in the area but it is not impossible that the area was deserted after the Romans left. Hence the name Thanington did not emerge until some time later, when the country was somewhat more developed, economically and politically. Nonetheless, before then there were 6th and 7th century burials at Horton, Martyrs Field and by the Fagge Arms, which showed that there were Anglo-Saxon

settlers. Cockering may also mean a hall of warriors, suggesting that there was some kind of settlement there too. However, further change was to be needed before Thanington proper could finally emerge.

6. The Later Anglo-Saxons: Consolidation and the Emergence of Thanington.

The fact that an identifiable settlement was actually created in Thanington seems to have been related to broader changes in Anglo-Saxon England. In fact things began to change in two ways from the late 6th century. Politically this was when the Kingdom of Kent was at its peak. King Ethelbert was in fact recognized as Bretwalda or nominal overlord of the kingdoms of central and southern England. This brought new law codes (including the gavelkind general inheritance law), more stability and hence the renewal of Christianity. This was to be a second conditioning factor. We do not know exactly when Thanington was actually established but the likelihood is that it emerged in the second half of the 8th century. This is because it was mentioned in a Mercian charter of 791. And it would have had have to have been a recognized place before this could happen. There is, as already noted, a further charter reference to the settlement in 833 when ownership seems to have been transferred to the Archbishop. The fact that it was recorded in a charter means both that there was something there and that it had some importance and value. However, as to exactly why the settlement was created we do not know. This is partly because there is uncertainty as to what the name actually means. Some, like Eckwall and Everitt, think the name means the wood (or pasture of the men of Thanet) pointing to it being a staging point along the road to their summer pastures in the Weald near Tenterden. It was a place where they could guard their cattle overnight. Tenterden actually means the wood or pastures of the men of Thanet. This reflects the fact that transhumance was a notable element of the rural economy at this time. Others attribute the name to a specific individual, possibly a Jute, called Teyna or Tanna who also founded the larger settlement of Teynham. The suggestion is that Thanington means the farm of the sons of Tanna. A Church guide book suggests that the farm in question was actually Tonford. A further complication is that, for Wallenberg, it means a twig, shoot, or branch settlement. This is essentially a third

interpretation. although it might be said partially to reinforce the second interpretation, suggesting it was a subordinate settlement to Teynham. The present spelling used dates from c 1570 though years later Hasted still used Tanyton. The fact that we know things like this is partly because of the renewed strength of the Church. This led to it taking over new lands near the city and Thanington may have been included in these, possibly thanks to the seasonal pasturing of swine there. Thus in 833 King Ethelwulf of Kent transferred meadows at Thanington to Christ Church Monastery. He also bestowed three plough lands at Merton on St Augustine's Abbey and, in 874, gave the Archbishop more land in Milton. By then there was probably an Anglo-Saxon cemetery together with a settlement on the hillside above. Before then moreover, King Cenwulf of Mercia, a kingdom which was becoming increasingly influential in the region, had bestowed Swarling on Christ Church Monastery. This was in 865. All told about a third of all land was transferred to the Church at this time. The fact that such transfers took place meant that written records had to be kept and it is to some of these that we owe the first formal recognition of the existence of somewhere called Thanington. And the development of Church manors usually meant that new churches were established, as at Godmersham and Upper Hardres. We do not know whether this was the case in Thanington. All we know is that contemporaries recognized that there was some kind of settlement there and gave it a name. The revival of the country in later years also led to the expansion of the Kingdom into West Kent and the establishment of new sub administrative structures: the Lathes. Thanington was in the Borough, or Borowar Lathe, which held its meetings in the old Roman Amphitheatre in Canterbury. The city was by then the settled capital of Kent, with its own Mint and Cathedral, replacing the peripatetic monarchy of earlier days. As a result of all this it has been argued both that a new self-awareness of being Kentish developed and that the area became more inwardly focussed than during the earlier so called 'Frankish' period. Economic change followed on this. In fact, Hamerow argues that, from the late 7th century, improving stability and climate, plus demands for taxes, made it worthwhile for farmers to start producing surplus produce for a growing market, presumably that in Canterbury in the case of Thanington. By then there was certainly a market in Wincheap. And Hollow Lane may then also have replaced the old Roman road. This was part of a revival of trade after centuries of stagnation, using coins from the Rhineland. Farmers also began to use heavy new ploughs, often drawn by oxen which needed cooperation and new big open fields. More use of sheep

also led to the creation of new enclosures to keep them hemmed in. This led to the emergence of new clustered villages of which Thanington may have been one. The likelihood is that, whoever founded the farmstead / hamlet, it was both small, given that there were perhaps only 50,000 to 60,000 people in the whole county, and a reflection of the ways that Anglo-Saxon England was developing. The use of the name probably signifies more an assemblage of people living close to each other, perhaps as part of a manor, than an organized community let alone one with significant stone buildings. Most of the population must have been farmers of one sort or another, along with a few craftsmen. Nonetheless, the community seems to have carried on despite the turmoil of succeeding years. It may even have acquired a wooden Saxon style church. So too did Milton which was given to Christchurch by a landowner called Egelric Biggs in 1044. Despite this growth of Anglo-Saxon society the Kingdom of Kent did not enjoy a peaceful or united life. There were often divisions inside the royal family which allowed other Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms to expand into Kentish territory. Thus Wessex took over Surrey in 664- 73 and the Isle of Wight in 686, greatly reducing the Jutish position. Kent was also attacked by the Mercians in 676 and then conquered by Caedwalla of Wessex in 686. If some stability was later restored under King Wihtred between 690 and 725, it was only fitfully independent thereafter. Internecine divisions were later to allow in the rising power of Mercia. This initially took Kent over in 760-74 though its forces seem to have been beaten off in 776. But by 780s Offa of Mercia was ruling Kent directly and his followers started taking over land here but were ousted after Offa died in 792. Nonetheless, Mercia remained dominant till the early 9th century. The Kingdom then again fell under the control of Wessex which installed its own 'sub' King between 805 and 825. After the Battle of Ellundun near Swindon that year, which saw Egbert of Wessex (son of a client ruler of Kent) crush the Mercians, Wessex became even more dominant, as all of the South East came under its control. Nonetheless, titular Kings of Kent remained in place until 860. On the other hand, the new Wessex province B which was divided into Hundreds as the Kingdom lost its independence - was greatly affected by the Danish invasions which started in 792. Canterbury was re-fortified, but was still sacked in 842 and again in 851. Hence it then briefly fell under Danish control was thereafter freed by the efforts of first Alfred and then Athelstan in the late 9th and early 10th centuries. Their victories brought with them further economic growth, rebuilt defence structures and new links with Continent, not to mention the

15 first Kingdom of England. However, there was to be a second wave of Viking attacks from 991 which again hit Canterbury hard. Thus on 8 September 1011, a large Viking army under the command of Thorkell the Tall besieged Canterbury. The city's terrified inhabitants held out bravely behind the city walls for three weeks until their defences were finally overwhelmed. Canterbury was sacked, the cathedral burned and many residents were killed in a bloody massacre. St Alphage was also slaughtered shortly afterwards. Being so small and obscure it is likely that Thanington was left relatively unscathed by all this. And, even if it was raided or burnt, it was probably quickly and easily rebuilt, so small was it and so flimsy were its few buildings. Nonetheless, by the end of the Anglo-Saxon era, we can be pretty certain that there was an area called Thanington. Exactly what sort of settlement was there then, and where exactly it was, we do not really know, so few and vague are the references to it. In fact, it was probably only a farm and may have been on the way to becoming a manor. Yet it was able to ride out the storm from, across the Channel which was shortly to hit England with the Norman invasion. And it has remained in being ever since.

7. The Feudal Age, 1066-1485: Manors and Monasteries

Thanington was able, in fact, to ride out the storms of war in 1066 and the following feudal take over. Thus, in the aftermath of 1066, during which William the Conqueror may well have marched his forces past Thanington when advancing on London after Canterbury had rapidly submitted to him, the surrounding areas were turned into places dominated both by feudal structures and by the power of the Church. As a result, although Thanington continued in existence, albeit under new rulers, and eventually acquired its first stone building, it was not the only new manor in the area. In fact there were at least seven in the area: Cockering, Horton, Howfield, Iffin, Milton, Stuppington, Thanington Court and Tonford. The emergence of these new feudal manors meant very marked change because the South East of England was the most 'normanized' part of the country. And other settlements also deserve consideration. Manors also tended to generate churches. 43 of those Kentish manors mentioned in Domesday had churches attached to them. It was only under Pope Innocent XI in the late 11th century that the link between the two was ended, the Pope then decreeing that Churches had to be free standing and open to the public, and not mere possessions of nobles. And, although

most of these manors interacted with, and often impacted on Thanington, they also had their own separate histories which need to be remembered. Initially a good deal of our area was entrusted to William's half manors in the county, about six of which were round Canterbury, to ensure that a crucial part of the country was kept under control. Several of his manors were along the Stour valley and including Chilham, Horton and Stuppington. He did not farm these directly but enfeoffed (or leased) them out to knights called Fulbert, Ansfrid and Hugh respectively. Such tenants were required to supply knights at the Bishop's command, often to help garrison Dover, which was the essence of the feudal system which was based on securing military service by handing out land. While Odo was granted all these manors as a secular lord, despite being a Bishop, the Church as such also came to enjoy much land, with Christ Church Priory, St Augustine's and the Archbishopric prominent among the institutions involved. Thus the latter, as already noted, still owned Milton and Godmersham. His tenants would also have been required to provide Knights service. St Nicholas Church itself seems to have been part of the ancient possessions of the Priory of St. Gregory which was founded by Archbishop Lanfranc and stood in Northgate, Canterbury. At the same time Battle Abbey controlled the old royal manor of Wye. This was by way of the Conqueror thanking the Church for divine support during the Conquest. Although it had relatively rich soil, mainly arable to judge by the big barns of later times, and a relatively dense population, the area to the west of Canterbury was not as prosperous as the lands to the east and north. These were, as a result, more heavily taxed . To the west it may be that the Weald then still had to be reclaimed. But the ability of farmers to sell to the London market meant that local peasants were in a strong position and, aided by the application of Jutish gavelkind law, they were able keep their lands together and avoid serfdom to some extent. In fact, residence in Kent came to be treated as proof of freedom from villeinage. We do not know if this applied to the area round Thanington. But it also seems to have still been used for getting rid of night soil. Much of the area was developed by monks and feudal lords. Thus the new monasteries, like that of St Gregory, probably played a part in developing farming in the area. Later on the Eastbridge Hospital also seems to have owned land in Thanington High Lanes. However, it was not until the thirteenth century that most of the building took place. Thanington was by then, as already noted, also surrounded by a crop of other manors and farms. The presence of Knights Templar at Waltham may also have helped to develop the road which is now New House Lane. All of these had somewhat varying histories so they need to be looked at separately even

17 though the area was probably affected by national events, notably in the fourteenth century. It may have been affected by the Black Death and the Peasants Revolt of 1381 since some of those involved came from the area south of Canterbury. Equally the Wars of the Roses may have hurt the area although the fact that the Kings Head was built then points in the opposite direction. As to Thanington itself, it was not actually mentioned in the Doomsday Book though it appears in the 1100 Domesday Monachorum. Thanington (Tenitune) is, in fact, among the list of churches making payment to the Christ Church, Canterbury. The monks would seem to have made use of its meadows. Moreover, it seems to have soon emerged as a wealthy Lordship, worth £5 and supporting three knights fees. This was a seventh of the whole value of Westgate Hundred. Thus one Godefridus Dapifer (or Geoffrey the Bailiff) is recorded to have held one suling (about 200 acres) of land in 'Tenetune', valued at one hundred shillings as part of that manor. And it remained sufficiently valuable for one Geoffrey Waleys to go to court to keep it in 1211. This was probably because it provided good pastures, facilitating mixed farming, as well as useful timber. Opposite the church was a plot called the Up and Down field. Later the manor was held by the eminent Norman families of Valynes and Septvans. Thus, in 1347 a William Septvans of Milton paid aid for the manor at one knight's fee and, by the reign of Richard II it was owned by Sir William Waleys Knt. From him it passed by the marriage of his only daughter Elizabeth to Peter Halle (or Hales or de Hall) of Herne who left it to Thomas, his eldest son. He died unmarried in 1485 and was buried in Thanington Church, under a Brass in the Lady Chapel. The Hales connection with the Church continued into the sixteenth century. The church was confirmed to it by Archbishop Hubert in the reign of Richard I (1189-1199) although the first priest recorded on the modern Incumbents Board dates only from 1316. It may well have begun its life as a stone rather than a wooden building with what is now the Lady Chapel, which probably dates from the 12th century, as the original building the modern chancel and tower coming later. This would account for the small external door and the recently discovered aumbrey. In fact, the stone church was probably twice enlarged as it moved from being a manor chapel to a church catering for the local population as a whole. By 1385 the church was valued at £11. 6s. 8d. and the vicarage at £4. It must have been reasonably important and well attended because, as well as developing the Hales link, it acquired donations. Thus, in 1444, one Thomas Byng left 20d. for a light of the Holy Cross in the church. It seems more than likely that there were also close links between Thanington and the neighbouring manor of Tonford, on the northern side of the Stour. Tonford means between the

18 fords and was extant in 1215. Records certainly reveal the existence of a dwelling on the same site since the time of Henry III. Originally owned by a family which took its name from the house and ford including one John de Toniford who lived at the time of Henry III. From his family it passed to Fagge family in the 1370s. A descendent Sir John Fogge, was the Keeper of the Wardrobe to Henry VI, and founder of Ashford College, the last collegiate church to be established in England before the Reformation. His descendent Thomas Fogge bequeathed it, perhaps along with land in Harbledown and Thanington, to Sir Thomas Browne of Beechworth Castle in Surrey, who was a large scale landowner in the county as well as in Surrey. In fact it seems that the family also controlled land in Horton and Chilham. The money for all this may well have come from the large part in the wool trade which he had acquired thanks to royal patronage. Sir Thomas held many local and royal offices including being an MP (but Speaker of the House as has been claimed) and, more significantly, Chancellor of the Exchequer to Henry VI. Thus no doubt helped him to obtain a licence to crenellate in 1449 and is responsible for the four towered brick built building which then emerged. It may be that, at one time there was a chapel there then, but later the owners were buried in St Nicholas, which suggests this was a more important link. In any case, his closeness to the Lancastrian crown was to prove his undoing as, in 1460, he was arrested for treason for his part in breaking a Yorkist blockade of the Tower of London. He was then either hung or, more likely, hung, drawn and quartered at the Tower. At the same time Lord Roos of Chilham was also executed by Edward IV for having joined the Lancastrians and fought at Towton. As a further punishment Chilham was then handed to one of Edward's officials, Sir John Scott of Scott Hall, Smeeth who held it to his death in 1485. Sir Thomas Browne had seven sons, including George, who seems to have initially served the Yorkists, being knighted after the battle of Tewkesbury in 1471. It was perhaps due to his influence that Edward IV had previously, in 1461, lifted the attainder on his father, allowing the family to keep Tonford and some other lands. He may also have served Edward IV as Comptroller. Certainly he went on to be an MP including for Canterbury in 1483. However, by then George had again chosen the wrong side and was beheaded in 1483 for having supported the Duke of Buckingham and the Kentish rebels against Richard III. He may have done this because he had further shifted his allegiance to Henry Tudor. A second son, Anthony, survived unscathed into the 16th century but it is unclear who actually inherited Tonford. It may have been the eldest son William or a younger son such as

Thomas or Robert, who was born in Chilham in 1440. However, the former seems to have moved to Devon. In any case ownership of Tonford probably remained in the hands of the family, although it may well have played a secondary role compared to the Surrey castle of Bedworth. Nonetheless the family remained influential in our area for years to come. Tonford was not the only place to have close ties with Thanington. This was true of the neighbouring Stourside manors to the west. The first and probably the most significant of these was the hamlet of Milton. The name, which did not really settle down till the 17th century, means a farm with water mill attached. At times it was known as 'Milton by Canterbury' to distinguish it from the bigger settlement near Sittingbourne. n Domesday the manor is recorded as one of the Archbishop's properties, but held of him by Hamo de Crevequer, the Sheriff of Kent. It was valued at 100 shillings and its population then ran to five borderers and one servant. Later it passed into the hands of the de Clares, Earls of Gloucester and Hertford, who leased it to the Septvans family who, as we have seen, also controlled Thanington and had relations with Chartham. The family, which came from Sept vents near Bayeux, controlled Milton for over 250 years and provided the county with a series of Sheriffs, into the 15th century. In fact, it may have become a symbol of lordly oppression because (a not wholly reliable) legend has it that Wat Tyler's rebels attacked the manor in 1381 and destroyed many records and poll returns. This may have been either a prelude to, or a confusion with, the so called Battle of Chilham when some local peasants made a futile attack upon the castle before joining the march to London. After Tyler's death the revolt collapsed and peace returned. The Manor of Milton itself never seems to have had a court which makes the anger unlikely. In any case it was presumably under the Septvans that the Church was built in the 13th century or shortly after. It was small and simple, little more than a chapel for the Manor. In the late Middle Ages it had only 17 communicants. It was once dedicated to St Nicholas but was re- consecrated to St John the Baptist much later. Further west along the Stour was Horton. This too was recorded in Domesday and had its own chapel, ruins of which survive. Long redundant it is now facing redevelopment as a residence. Dating originally from the late 13th or early 14th centuries it was rebuilt by the Shuckborough family in 1380. We do not know its dedication. The manor House itself dates from the 15th century. The manor itself embraced riverside marshlands and drier land extending up hillside to chalk downs ie as far as Petham Road in this case. Hence, although the Manor was originally in Felborough Hundred it got transferred to that of Bridge & Petham.

The farthest west place linked to Thanington was Howfield. This was a place which the Prior and Monks of Christ Church used as a retreat. The original portion used to form the kitchen and breakfast room, is believed to date from 1181 when it was a chapel in the possession of the Priory of St. Gregory in Canterbury. Archbishop Lambert, who died in 1206, confirmed the manor then known as Haghefeide, to the Priory with which it remained until Henry VIII's reign. Apparently its old chapel now serves as a restaurant. South of these two was Cockering. Originally home to the Robert de Cockering who is reputed to have helped Eastbridge Hospital in the reign of King John, probably in the early13th century. The farm was first mentioned in 1235. Robert is also notable for having glazed his house in 'Wybnchepe', situated where the children's playground now stands. Glazing was most unusual in those days and suggests the family was well to do. However, it is not clear how long Cockering stayed in the family possession. And some doubt that it was actually a manor in the legal sense. Another link to Thanington was created by the establishment of St Jacobs (or St James) a priory or hospital situated just outside the western bounds of the City in what is now Ada Road. It was founded about 1188 by a Master Feramin (or Firmin), a doctor. Firmin must have been quite a character. He was physician to the monks of Christ Church Cathedral, and also claimed to have had visions of St. Thomas. Enjoying the protection of Christ Church, St Jacobs provided a home for 25 leprous women. The Priory agreed to maintain three priests and one clerk there for the service of religion, each at four pounds a year, who were to be provided for out of the profits of Bredgar Church which Henry III afterwards confirmed to this hospital "in pure and perpetual alms for ever". No tithe was paid but money was given yearly to the vicar of Thanington. This possibly reflected the fact that the Manor of Thanington is known to have had land in Wincheap. However, in 1414 the Prior of Christ Church, Dom John Wodnesburgh, visited the place and ordered that the canonicals were to be said in the church on ordinary days after the sounding of bells, while the sisters were forbidden to sit round or near the altars during divine service, or to serve the priests at the offices or hours, since this ought to be done by a clerk in holy orders. This suggests that all was not running smoothly. At that time, while Thanington had links along the river valley to north, east and west, it probably did not have so many with the land to the hills south of it. Nonetheless, there was development there which was eventually to link to Thanington. Closest to the city were Stuppington and Merton although Iffin Manor was probably more important. A was apparently originally called Doddingdale after a now lost 11th century manor called Dodingale (or Dungeon)

21 with links to St Jacobs Priory. It passed on extinction of the original owner’s family to one Elias de Merton, and the name stuck though land passed on to other owners the reign of Henry III. It does not seem that there is any connection to Merton College, Oxford or William de Merton, who was Bishop of Rochester 1274-77. Generally, little seems to be known about Merton Manor and it may have ceased to exist quite early, or been downgraded to simply a farm. Stuppington Court means 'on a steep slope. Originally Stuppingdun (and never Stub). It was recorded as a Christ Church possession in 1233. Later it was allocated to St Mary Bredin parish, the only one with a large agricultural area attached. The mediaeval parish of St Mary Bredin was the only one in the city which spread two miles outwards out of the city into the country, almost as far as Stuppington. The latter remained in the hands of same families as Dungeon/Donjon Manor. To the south west of this was the much more significant manor of Iffin. This means the settlement of the young warriors. It was there from 1086. CAT reported in 1982 that Iffin Wood contained large earthworks known as Iffin Castle, along with two barrows, dene holes, dew ponds and field systems. The main earthwork is the mediaeval manor and includes the remains of St Leonard's Chapel, a stock enclosure and another structure. The 'castle' may have belonged to the family of a knight called Vitalis who is pictured in the Bayeux Tapestry and who founded the churches of St Edmund Ridingate and its successor the old St Mary Bredin. Vitalis allegedly had a daughter, Matilda, who married a William Caevel and they apparently possessed the land later. This William Caeval is probably the man who was Portreeve of Canterbury about 1100 and founded Saint Sepulchre's Nunnery in the Old Dover Road. By the early 13th century there was a manor house there which, according to the late Charles Day, was burnt down in 1272 and replaced by one on the site of New House Farm, hence the name. However, the evidence does not support his theory. Thus the Manor was still there in 1315 by when it was known as Iffen. This suggests that it could not have burned down in 1270 and been rebuilt to the west as Day hinted. In fact, it had belonged to the de Normanville family of Rutland and elsewhere in the 13th and 14th centuries. The last heiress Margaret de Normanville then married William de Basing and ultimately Sir Edmund de Passele. In the latter's will Iffin was left to Thomas de Basing but despite this it was abandoned in the 15th century. Some sources say this was because of the effects of the Wars of Roses but what these were has never been explained. It is possible that the family, which was based in Rutland, petered out in 1445 when Sir John Basynges (son of

Thomas d 1400 and grandson of William) died. He may not have had heirs and nobody may have wanted to exploit such a far off estate in such uncertain times. It is also possible that it did actually burn down in the 15th century and nobody was willing to rebuild. As to New House Farm, the original farm has been dated by Charles Day to 1270/8 though there is evidence of Romano-British settlement there before. Wallenberg also says it was recorded as Attenewhouse in 1270. Given that Iffin Manor was already in existence it is unlikely, as we have already suggested, that it could have been given the name in replacement of Iffin, especially as the latter continued to flourish for another two hundred years or so. So it is more likely that the farm got its name because it was a new creation on hitherto unsettled and uncultivated land. This seems a more convincing explanation especially as it always seems to have been a secondary place and never became either a manor or stately home. However, Thanington seems to have provided support for pilgrims prior to the Reformation. It seems that many pilgrims turned off from Cockering Road to St Nicholas where they found food and drink. For this reason, the road acquired the name of Strangers' Lane. Moreover, there is an incised p and a face on the walls of the church. And one rumour has it that Huguenot weavers came to Canterbury via Strangers' lane In any case, New House Farm, along with the other manors and farms were the essential structures of our area in the feudal period. However, they were to become a fixture in the new landed society that emerged in the sixteenth century. And it was the families who owned them who determined how the area lived and worked over the next two hundred years. Social and religious change, in other words, were to have as great an impact on Thanington as had the vicissitudes of the feudal years.

9. Under the Tudors and Stuarts: 1485-1660, Religion and Civil War

In fact, the end of the 15th century proved to be the beginning of a very different era for Thanington, initially mainly because of the Reformation. On the one hand, this brought new religious divisions, some of which seem to have affected the area. On the other, the dissolution of the Monasteries not merely ended the Church's role as a feudal landowner but encouraged the emergence of new secular landlords who began to dominate the social, political and

economic life of our area, and indeed far beyond. And such landlords increasingly operated on modern and not feudal lines. The ending of the Wars of the Roses probably changed Tonford more than anywhere else. It certainly reinforced the position of the Browne family in Tonford thanks to their Lancastrian connections since the attainder of Sir George Browne was reversed under Henry VII. The latter also rewarded George's brother Sir Anthony who was made Royal Standard Bearer and later Governor of Calais. He died peacefully in 1504. However, the return of peace certainly did not lead to any rebuilding of Iffin Manor which might have been expected if the civil war had actually been the cause of its abandonment. Tonford, in fact, continued to flourish and entertained Henry VIII and Catharine of Aragon at the time of their marriage in 1512 (and not 1520 as some sources say). This visit was used as the starting point for a 1903 historical novel by one Sardius Hancock. Born in 1865 and originally a miller's clerk from 2 Mote Road in Maidstone, he must have moved near our area since his Rifleman son is commemorated on the Harbledown World War 1 War Memorial. The latter died on the Somme having enlisted after being given a 'white feather' when a government clerk. Given the fact that most of the geographical references in Hancock's book refer to the land running up to Bigbury, Blean and Harbledown he must have lived there, looking down on Tonford and dismissing the riverside as merely swampy cow pasture, much less fine than the cultivated land running up to Blean. In any case, by then Hancock had written a number of poems, novels (several for children) and tracts. An active Methodist and devotee of the Lollards - an early reformist movement - he moved away from our area at the end of the War to a bungalow in Malvern which was his wife's home. He then stood unsuccessfully as a Liberal candidate against Stanley Baldwin in 1922. He died in Malvern aged 90 in 1955. He introduces his novel, Tonford Manor: A Pre Reformation Story as a study of the clash of chivalric culture and Renaissance learning, but it is actually a love story interwoven with plugs for Lollardy and attacks on Catholicism. The story is of a Margaret Browne, younger daughter of Sir Matthew Browne, who refused to marry her to Lord Roos of Chilham as commanded by Henry VIII on his visit. Roos, who seems to have been a made up character although the family did, as we have seen, once own Chilham. But, having lost it in 1461, it was not restored until 1525 when it went to Thomas Manners, Baron Roos, the great-grandson of the executed Lancastrian. Fourteen years later, the King himself bought Chilham from Thomas, by then Earl of Rutland, and later bestowed it on Sir Thomas Cheney who demolished it to use as materials for another property.

Anyway, the novel's Roos then staged a bad tempered courtship of Margaret, including kidnapping Sir Robert Hundon, one of Henry's knights in 1512 who was also enamoured of the fair Margaret. He had become something of a Wycliffite, wanting to read the scriptures in English while Roos was a 'strict catholic'. Robert was rescued from Chilham by a minstrel sent by Margaret and went on to serve valiantly at Flodden, after which he came back, married Margaret and took her off to his home. If this was the real Robert Hundon this may have been in Lincolnshire. Hancock also managed to work into all this criticism of pilgrimages, such as that to Becket's tomb, and priestly corruption. In other words, the novel pointed the way to the Protestant Reformation. However, in fact the Brownes do not seem to have been much caught up in this. What this means for the impact of the Reformation on Thanington is hard to say especially as the list of vicars is partly blank for the period although later research suggests that there were no great upheavals in the early 16th century. In any case Tonford was eventually sold during the reign of Charles I to a Captain Collins. However, the family remained a considerable force in the area. Sir George's Browne's son Matthew inherited some land and his son Thomas sold this on to a member of another old local family, the Honeywoods of Charing. The Browne family also owned property elsewhere in the Westgate Hundred and seem to have moved their main seat to Milton at some stage. This suggests that the old Manor was, as Charles Day says, larger than the present farm house, much of which is older than the 1715 facade. Thanington itself underwent much less change, staying in the hands of the Hales family who proved to be even more notable nationally than the Brownes, leading the way in to the Protestant camp. The Hales family goes back into the Middle Ages and had strong links with Tenterden as well as Thanington. As we have seen, the Thomas Hales who died unmarried in 1485, and was buried in Thanington Church, left the Manor to his sister Joanne and her husband Thomas Atkins. Hancock in fact refers to a William Atkins and to a Manor House standing by the 'little Church'. By then the yew may have been hollowed out for longbows. However, by 1526 Thanington Manor was held by John Hales I of the Dongeon. The great grandson of the founder of Hales Place, he was born about 1480 and had a distinguished career. Locally he was Steward of the estates of Christ Church and later of St Augustine's. He was MP for Canterbury in 1512 and proved active in defending the interests of Canterbury in London. He also became a Baron of the Exchequer and a member of the Kings Council in the 1520s. He died about 1539.

The connection with Protestantism came partly from his cousin Christopher who lived in Hackington. Born about 1488 he too was a lawyer and succeeded John as MP for Canterbury. He rose to be Attorney General and Master of the Rolls as well as Chief Baron of the Exchequer. As such he was close to Thomas Cromwell, helping to prosecute Thomas More and gaining new estates. He died in 1541, but not before he had taken over Howfield on the dissolution of the monasteries. Another John Hales worked for him and was also accepted in the service first of Cromwell and then of Ralph Sadler who carried on Cromwell's work, so he flourished under Edward VI and began buying monastic lands in the Midlands. On Edward's death he went abroad and lived with continental reformers until Elizabeth came to the throne. Well before this the Protestant links of the family had been further strengthened firstly by John I's second son Thomas, who seems to have been close to Cranmer. He was a Freeman of Canterbury and MP for the city. In Parliament he sought to push through ecclesiastical legislation for the corporation but after the fall of Cranmee he returned to merely local judicial duties in Kent. He was to be the ancestor of the Hales Baronets of Bekesbourne, as well as inheriting ownership of Thanington where the family stayed until moving to Howletts in the next century. Even more striking, secondly, was the puzzling life of John I's eldest son Sir James, also of the Dungeon. He was a lawyer who became Kings’ Serjeant and Justice of the Common Pleas. A convinced Protestant, he became an adviser to Cranmer and, as such, helped prosecute Bishop Gardiner, a leading catholic politician. But later he was one of three judges who refused to accept the Duke of Northumberland's setting aside of Mary and Elizabeth in favour of Lady Jane Grey. Other explanations and datings of his fall do not seem to hold water. In any case, while his stance initially won him favour under Mary he then ran into trouble when he insisted- in support of the rule of law - on maintaining the existing restrictions on religious dissidents even though relaxing these, as the Queen wanted, would have helped Catholics. Gardiner therefore had him imprisoned in the Fleet, tortured and forced to convert. He tried to commit suicide then and probably went mad. Others think was he was simply filled with remorse for having recanted. In any case, when he was released to live at Tonford, he laid down in the Stour and drowned, causing lawyers to ask if this was really suicide, a question picked up by the grave-diggers in Hamlet. His death is also said to be hinted at in the big Cathedral monument to his grandson, another James, who drowned at sea in 1589 after a raid on Cadiz, undertaken as a reprisal for the Armada. And some authorities think that the church portrayed in the memorial is actually St

Nicholas. Nonetheless, the monument is certainly symbolic of the dominant position enjoyed by the family in our area, a dominance increased by the dissolution of the monasteries. It was at this time that Milton manor began to flourish, Thanington was leased out and New House Farm was bought in 1583 by the Hales family from the Roberts family of Harbledown. This was part of a large shift in landownership All this reinforces the likelihood that Thanington was influenced by the Reformation although we cannot be certain of this. Obviously the religious changes demanded new, and changed commitments on the part of priests and people. In the case of St Nicholas there is no clear evidence of the Reformation much affecting things though no doubt the new prayer books must have been used there. The list of incumbents suggests that new men may have been imposed under Mary, notably one Robert Davidson, who replaced Thomas Panton who came back under Elizabeth. He may have been related to the Rev John Panton of St Dunstans who was pilloried in 1553 for seditious utterances. However, there was not that much persecution in Kent. In fact, only 88 of 550 Kentish clergy were ejected in 1550 while 76 refused to accept the new Act of Uniformity which underpinned Protestantism. Thereafter, under Elizabeth there was considerable stability in Thanington. Indeed the Rev James Bissell served for 44 years between 1593 and 1637 when he went to be Rector of St Mary Bredin. And he was followed by Rev John Rogers who served a further 26 years as a curate, between 1637 and 1663, serving throughout the upheavals of Laud and the Civil War which is quite remarkable. An Oxbridge graduate, he had previously officiated in Acrisse and Herne Hill. However, although the church seems to have remained socially acceptable, as it was still favoured with gentry tombs and had its bells rehung between 1623 and 1638, it did not provide Rogers with enough to live on (there being only 40-88 communicants) or so he complained to the Dean and Chapter at a time of personal financial difficulties. It appears that his wife's annuity had dried up, while his stipend had not been paid and yet he was still expected to pay £4 rent for their accommodation. So he had been forced to sell off his best books and household goods to get enough to live on. His complaints were apparently heeded as, at the Restoration, Archbishop Juxon increased the stipend. It is ironic that there is such continuity at this time whereas until recently there was, as already noted, apparently a large gap in the list of curates between 1460 and 1550. This is odd, as one would expect that gaps would be more likely in the mid-17th century when in fact St Nicholas saw no changes at all. However, thanks to Professor Ken Fincham and the Clergy of the Church of England project, it has been possible to establish virtually all the

clergy between the late 15th century and 1550. And rather than a great deal of change then there was considerable continuity. So it looks as though the gap was due to poor initial research and not to theological upheavals. Significantly we have no evidence that people never seemed to have complained about changes in the liturgy. But they must have been worried by the burning of many reformers under Mary in what is now Martyrsfield Road and the erection of a gallows in Oaten Hill in 1576. However, they may have seen Queen Mary when, in 1550, she rode along Wincheap, passing James Hales' water meadows. Thanington seems to have remained an estate of 360 acres, comprising timber, fruit, and pastures. In fact .it was probably more pastoral then than it was to become. Fruit also gained a foothold at this stage, the first cherry orchards being planted in Teynham under Henry VIII. A little later, however, there is some suggestion that the Church was open to Puritans as a wife of the Priest of Thanington found herself in difficulties for ill-chosen words about Christ. Bridge and Hackington had also been centres of Lollardy and Canterbury was generally pro- Parliamentarian, at least before 1647. Moreover, in the 1620s a number of marriages solemnized there were of couples who emigrated to New England in the 1630s, often on the good ship 'Hercules' of Sandwich. This suggests at least an openness to Puritans or the fact that, being within walking distance from the city, but not in it, Puritan ceremonies could be held without too much fuss. This is true of people like William Hatch, a husbandman from the Weald who married Jane Young in Thanington in 1624 and, eleven years later, sailed west from Thanet. He went on to be an Elder and Train Band Officer in New Plymouth in Massachusetts. Others, including a carpenter and a tailor, went to New Haven and Salem. There is no evidence that the 'stranger congregations' of Walloons had any influence on this. However, there may have been links with St Georges Church which was a centre of dissent and from where 20 families sailed to Massachusetts in 1637. Of course the effects of the Reformation went well beyond the political and economic impacts it had on the leading landed families of the area. Even if the theological impact was limited. Firstly, the dissolution of the monasteries fundamentally changed the nature of the Church in ways which must have affected people's everyday lives. The Reformation seems to have cut the link between manors and churches so that chapels like Horton went under, leaving it to parishes. Despite this, the fabric of existing churches also suffered. Hence an Archbishop's Visitation in 1573 found that the steeple of St Nicholas was decayed and the church lacked essential books by Erasmus and others. Moreover, although the Church remained a land owner,

it increasingly ceased to farm directly, as the monasteries had done. Rather it used its landholdings to support its priests, through rents and tithes so that its property became increasingly secularized. Milton was also in a bad way as one of its priests never preached and eked out a living as a schoolmaster in Sandwich in the late 1560s. Thirty years on the parson of Milton, William Hawkins, then sold the tithes to Robert Honeywood of Canterbury. As a result of all this, the Church as a body ceased to directly exploit the land in the way monasteries had in the Middle Ages, leaving this to secular landlords, its rectors and patrons. The property basis of the Church thus changed considerably. The patronage of Thanington seems to have been transferred from St Gregory's to the Archbishop and became a perpetual curacy, not a vicarage or rectory. Secondly, the Church no longer provided welfare in the old way. In the case of St Jacobs for instance, its revenues remained high during Henry VIII's reign, being valued at £531 on the whole, or £321 clear annual income. However, it changed its nature as, by 1546, it had become an alms house with a chapel and a hall. It now housed only six poor (presumably not leprous) women. Later in the same reign the hospital escaped dissolution but was ultimately surrendered in 1552. It was then granted to a Robert Dartnell by which time it was almost empty. It next passed to the Younge family of Stuppington who held it till 1608. Thirdly, the Reformation in Canterbury was economically bad for the city and, presumably, also for its surroundings, opening what has been called a 'period of obscurity', The destruction of Becket's tomb meant that the city lost its remaining pilgrimage trade. Feudal revenues also died out. At the same time the cloth trade ran into difficulties so that the middle of the century was a time of depression, the city ceasing to be one of the ten richest in the country. This was symbolized by the silting up of the Great Stour and, in 1548, the blocking off of Worthgate in 1548, leaving only the Wincheap Gate access. Nonetheless, the street still attracted husbandmen, artisans, gentry and absentee landlords, a very rich mixture. Recovery came from the arrival of the first Walloon protestant exiles (followed by the Huguenots) and by the ability to supply the growing needs of London, possibly with hops for which Thanington was to become famous. The diversion of food to London caused riots in 1596 because of the way it depleted local supplies. Vagrancy was also a problem. And some think that economic hardship helped to encourage people to emigrate to the American colonies. In any case cloth manufacturing passed Thanington by, so the parish remained poor despite becoming Protestant.. Despite this, Thanington does not seem to have got really drawn into the troubles of the Civil War years. This was in part because the county escaped the worst of the conflict, partly

29 because the Parliamentarians took preventative steps against this. In 1642 Colonel Sandys of Northbourne Court went on a rampage across the county seizing arms, ammunition, money and plate, forcing many royalist gentry to go north. In any event Sandys' campaign ensured that the city and county remained Parliamentarian with no attempt being made to reverse this until 1648. And, it may be that when, in 1648, Waller brought his victorious army from Maidstone to put down the pro-Christmas riots in Canterbury, his forces may have passed through the district, leaving behind the royalist centre of Olanteigh, where Richard Thornhill was a Colonel in Charles' army (as was Francis Lovelace of Chartham). One of the Browne family also served as a colonel in Charles I's army. This suggests that by then Thanington was unlikely to have been a Puritan stronghold. Indeed, it was preachers from outside the city who seem to have played a large part in the Canterbury radicalism and iconoclasm of the times, which saw the expulsion of royalist priests from the Cathedral in 1644. St Nicholas does not seem to have been involved, its vicar as we have seen, having served undisturbed, if neglected, throughout the Civil War and Commonwealth years. And, although there were Levellers at Charing Heath there is no evidence of their having affected Thanington. Nonetheless, it is wrong, as some have done, to see this period of one in which nothing changed. Modes of worship and behaviour must have changed. Equally, landownership changed greatly, in style and family, with the rise of new dynasties like the Honeywoods and the Hales. The position of the Church in landed society also altered dramatically. It became, as has become clear, part of the social elite rather than a dynamic socio-economic entrepreneur as it had been. And throughout the period national politics had an impact even on peaceful Thanington. So change was frequent. Stasis, if this ever really existed, was to come later in fact.

10. The Age of Aristocracy: Into the Eighteenth Century and After, 1660- 1840

Canterbury welcomed the Restoration and then settled down into an era of relative stability in which religion ceased to be a major divisive force. It was also a period dominated by agriculture, which was the basis both for a changed landed society in which new men gradually emerged as economically and politically dominant, as large estates began to absorb smaller ones. At the same time agriculture began to develop, producing both new crops and new social pressures.

The latter were to lead to the Swing Riots in the early 1830s. And by then, despite (or because of) the Napoleonic Wars, the city and its surrounding areas began to undergo new improvements, notably in the provision of new metalled toll roads. The City greeted Charles II's Restoration with relief, and possibly with enthusiasm. It was right to do so since it opened the way to a long period of relative stability. And, throughout this period, which only really came to an end in the 1830s, our area remained small and insignificant, with a population of no more than 150 being recorded in the 1680s. It may even have attained a modicum of prosperity because in 1726 the Harris Almshouses were built for five poor people. This means there must have been people with considerable spare capital. Even more importantly, the area seems to have been very peaceful. Day and others dispute this, implying that the area must have had crime because of the use for executions of the southern hillside immediately past the present built up area on the A28 . Hence it was given the name of the 'Hanging Banks'. The last execution was allegedly of a sheep stealer in 1800. There are three problems about this, beginning with the fact that there is little evidence of other crimes in the area, though in 1792 a John Head was transported for trying to defraud the Hammond, Gipps & Simmonds Bank (known as the Canterbury Bank after 1808). Secondly, and more significantly, lists of execution in the city, which were relatively rare, were never recorded as having taken place in Thanington. They took place in Oaten Hill (then known as Gallows Green), in front of the Castle and finally at Westgate. And sheep stealing was not recorded as a reasons for any of the executions. A third reason, is that it seems very unlikely that anybody would have come that far out of the city for such a public ceremony as a hanging. The alleged gallows site on the junction of Hollow Lane and Wincheap - which survived until 1799 - would have been more likely and, even then, this does not seem likely. What is most probable is that the place got its name from a one off event in 1782. In that year one Henry Parker/Perkins, who worked in the Chartham Paper Mills, was murdered by Charles Storer or Story, a servant of the well-known local Sankey family. We do not know why, or how, the murder was committed, partly because a reference in the Cathedral archives is erroneous. In any case poor Charles was found guilty at Maidstone Assize and executed at Pennenden Heath soon after. However, the law required the body to be displayed at the scene of the crime. Unfortunately there was nowhere suitable in Thanington itself, so the road side in Milton parish was chosen instead. And this was obviously well remembered locally, hence the continuing use of the name Hanging Banks and the mistaken assumption that executions were regularly carried out there.

Another reason for the period after 1660 having been stable and peaceful is that religious division seems to become less pronounced in Thanington. The purging of Puritan preachers in the City at the Restoration no doubt helped with this. Indeed, even as late as 1851 the only churches in our area were Anglican: St Nicholas and St John the Baptist in Milton. However, neither had big congregations which explains why the two were partly merged in the 1690s so that they shared a priest between 1715 and 1770. There were no dissenting chapels - as there were in Petham, Stone Street and Waltham - and no record of any house meetings. The reasons for this must have been that Thanington was very small and fairly close to the city where there were plenty of nonconformist churches even though only 5% if the population were dissenters in the city, compared to less than half that in the surrounding districts. Moreover, it was unlikely that the main landowners, G B Gipps and Matthew Bell, being active Anglicans would have leased ground to Methodists or others, had this been sought. However, the area does seem to have had a relationship with one episode where religion remained a source of division. This was because one branch of the once dominant Hales family became both Catholic and a very close supporter of James II. In fact Sir Edward Hales, the third Baron Hales of Tunstall, who in 1675 bought Hales Place from the Culpeppers (who had bought it from Roger Manwood) became a crypto Catholic. He went on to raise a regiment of foot to support James II in his conflict with William of Orange. And his son was killed in the crucial defeat on the Boyne in 1689. Then, when James had to flee the country, he did so dressed as Hale's servant. The latter's reward was, while in exile in St Germain-en-Laye, to be made the Earl of Tenterden and to serve in James II's cabinet. His somewhat reclusive son John converted back to Anglicanism in 1718 but refused the offer of a peerage from George I because the Tenterden title was not recognized. His descendants, who rebuilt Hales Place in 1768-70, then returned to the Catholic faith. And, when their male line died out with the 6th Baronet in 1829, the female descendants adopted the Hales name and made Hales Place a centre of Catholic worship. In fact, until 1855 this was the only place in Canterbury where Catholics could worship. Other branches of the Hales family remained staunchly Anglican. They also remained large scale landowners in our area. Indeed, they owned St Augustine's Palace from the mid-16th century until 1791 when the new prison, hospital and court house were built on the surrounding land. They also owned New House Farm until 1775 when it was sold by Sir Philip Hales to George Gipps I who had already bought New House Farm.

Gipps was, in fact, one of two major landowners in the area who, in line with national trends at the time, began to build up big estates at the expense of smaller owner occupiers, gavelkind notwithstanding. Growing agricultural prosperity after 1750 would certainly have helped this. Land tax rates round this part of Canterbury seem to have been high. And, as we will see, this served to give the new men a foothold in national politics as well as local society. In other words, the landed elite, then probably a hundred familis strong, dominated county politics as well as the economy. This was probably why Stuppington Court farm was rebuilt in the 1790s. It belonged then to the Toker family but was sold a little after to one Aklen Grebel of Little Barton. Iffin farm was rebuilt on Stone Street about this time while Bifrons, originally erected in 1634 was rebuilt by Edward Taylor in 1775, In 1820 it was sold to the Conynghams. Tonford was in the hands of a family called Kingsford in mid-century. The late eighteenth century, in other words, saw something of a shift in landownership around Thanington. For while the Hales family of Bekesbourne had, as noted, continued for a while, it eventually died out and new men made it into the elite ranks of the hundred or so families reckoned to make up 'Kent society'. The most notable of these were the Gipps. The family was founded by George I Gipps. Born in 1728, the son of a stay maker in Ashford, he became an apothecary and moved to Canterbury. His real break-through came when he began trading in hops. This made him a great deal of money. He also married well-- his first wife Elizabeth Roberts of Harbledown, who died in 1775, brought him money and Hall Place as his base. At the same time, he was using his wife's money to buy up land, buying New House Farm from Sir Thomas Pym Hales in 1775, Thanington Court and manor in 1779, Howfield in 1796 and Thanington, from the Archbishop in 1799. He rented out the farm and Thanington parsonage. However he presided over the Court baron of Thanington. On the other hand, the Honeywoods, who were patrons of St Nicholas, were ceding some land. They took over Cockering from the Hales in 1770 but they also sold land in Milton to a rising lawyer called John Bell, who replaced the Sankeys as well. He had been born in Kendal in 1764 and died in 1836, leaving his estate to his grandson Matthew I (1841-1903) of Bourne Park, a magistrate and one timer High Sherrif of Kent. However, the Bell family, though active in the army, law and land, did not get into Parliament. In Canterbury George Gipps I became Alderman and Mayor and was then invited to be a founding member of a bank set up by Alderman Simmons and Gipps' own nephew Henry, a wool draper. By then he seems to have given up hop trading, finishing his life as a banker and,

more significantly, as a politician. In fact, George Gipps I unsuccessfully first stood for Parliament in Canterbury in 1780 as an independent, in opposition to Lord Newhaven. He was more successful in 1784 and thereafter, although 1797 he owed his election to the fact that the initially successful candidates were ejected for corruption. In fact, the constituency was a fairly open one with over 2,000 freeman voters on the eve of the Reform Act, (with many enfranchised shortly before elections) many of whom lived in London and not Canterbury. There do not seem to have been any dominant interests although Baron Sones of Lees Court and the Earl of Darnley from Cobham had some influence, as did the Dean and Chapter. As a result, although a Whig dominated town, Canterbury was prone to use the cry of 'independence' to mask their control. So it was an expensive constituency to contest, mainly attracting local candidates like Gipps. It could also be rowdy as the violent election of 1826 showed. Gipps himself gradually moved to become a supporter of Pitt. He died in 1800, leaving two sons by his second wife, the daughter of a Spanish merchant living in Harbledown. One of these, George Gipps II (1783-1869), who moved the family seat to the Hales' ancestral home of Howletts, served as MP for Ripon between 1807 and 1826. He owed this to the patronage of his step-mother. He was also a captain in the Ashford Regiment of the Kent Militia. Interestingly, although a government supporter, he was opposed to Catholic Emancipation. He also opposed parliamentary reform. However, he and his father in law also supported the building of Waterloo churches. His brother Henry was a leading evangelical clergyman. The Gipps family was far from being unique amongst local landowners. Thus the Hales family was well represented. Sir Thomas Hales of Bekesbourne sat for a number of constituencies, including Hythe between 1722 and 1762. His sons Sir Thomas Pym hales and Sir Philip followed him into the Commons, the former sitting from 1762 to 1773, mainly for Dover. Sir Philip Hales stood unsuccessfully for Canterbury and came a bad fourth. So he shifted to Wiltshire seats which he occupied from the late 1770s into the 1790s. All of them, however, were dependent on other patrons for their seats. From 1790 to 1802 Sir John Honeywood was the second Canterbury MP before he shifted to a cheaper seat in Honiton. His brother William held the Kent seat between 1806-12 and was succeeded by his heir William who served between 1818-1830. A further relative, Sir Filmer Honeywood was also a Whig member for Kent between 1780 and 1806. In 1820 Sir John's son was rumoured to be a candidate but did not in the end stand. And James Simmons, the great city benefactor and founder of the Kentish Gazette, was elected as an MP for the City

in 1806, only to die the following year, leaving his great project of a canal from Canterbury to the sea at Sandwich without support. Canterbury's economy and society at this time was apparently increasingly dominated by hops. Upwards of 60 planters used to meet in a dining club in the early 19th century. And Thanington played a key part in this producing some of the best and encouraging the opening of the Hop Poles Inn in the 1690s. Indeed, in 1779 a 'travelling woman' called Mary Davis died while hop picking in Milton. In fact hops were found everywhere, in Nunnery Fields, between Stone Street and Cockering (including round what is now New House Lane). The hop gardens produced both for the local Canterbury market, which had many inns, and beyond. The local press thus followed the evolution of hop prices very closely. And the money they generated obviously helped to develop the new landed estates. However, there were problems. Hence in 1822 the city petitioned against the duties its traders had to pay on hops. This did not stop a growth in hop cultivation in the South East from 1821. The way that agriculture developed in this period, towards bigger estates, more efficiently exploited, had very deleterious social consequences. Employment declined and wages fell. And the small farmers, artisans and labourers affected by this were not willing to accept the deterioration in their circumstances. Hence they turned to political reform and challenged the so called 'old corruption' which they believed permitted it. So, after very bad harvests in 1829 and 1830, and when there was an outbreak of revolution in France, the area round Canterbury led the country in what has been described as the 'last agrarian revolt in England, the so called Swing Riots. These involved threatening letters, machine breaking and barn burning. This was because machines (along with the employment of Irishmen) were seen as reducing the need for workers. They also allowed big farmers to get their corn to ahead of small farmers using hand threshing. And, presumably to create a sense of menace and to confuse the authorities, the outbreaks were attributed to a mythical figure in 'Captain Swing'. The name may suggest the possibility of hangings. Trouble had started in February 1829 when a farmer was beaten up at Elmstead and in may a barn with a threshing machine in it was burnt at Lye Court in Lyminge. However, political circumstances meant that things really deteriorated in 1830. Shots were fired at landowners in Benenden in March and threatening letters began to circulate. Then on 24 August came the first machine breaking at Wingmore Court between Barham and Elham. Five days later a body of men came up from Lyminge to Lower Hardres and destroyed two machines. There was also an attack on Farmer Inge in Upper Hardres who had rented machines from Collick in Lower

Hardres. Farmer Dodd then called for police and troops to guard Hardres Court, to little avail because his two machines were destroyed. And, by the end of October 16 machines had been destroyed in 9 places including Bishopsbourne and Bekesbourne. Here a machine belonging to a Mr Gardener was destroyed on 29 October which impinged on George Gipps. Although seven men from Lyminge were arrested and tried in Canterbury in early October, Sir Edward Knatchbull - thinking that the worst was past and understanding how joblessness was debilitating, especially when relief was being cut back. sentenced them only to four days in Canterbury Gaol. This did not succeed as the sentences seem to have legitimized disturbances amongst people who felt they had a moral right to protest. And some clergy seem to have encouraged them too. So trouble continued including arson attacks at places between Chilham and Waltham and threatening letters, although these apparently never invoked Swing as they did elsewhere. Annoyed big farmers like Gipps also reacted badly to Knatchbull's lenient verdicts and helped persuade the authorities to take a harder line, which they duly did. Gipps in fact was one of the most vocal critics of the first lenient sentences. At the same time, small farmers round Chilham urged their labourers to go on destroying machines so as to preserve their marketing advantage. Small farmers also often refused to sign up as special constables because their sympathies were often on the side of their workers. By late November there had been a total of 65 outbreaks in East Kent, even though, by then rioters were being transported on conviction. Nonetheless, in late November a new wave of unease and radicalism spread up the Stour valley from Ashford and trouble continued in East Kent until early December. Although there seems to have been no actual machine breaking in Thanington, it seems most unlikely that our area was not affected by the trouble. It was close to many of the hot spots, including Blean, and its landlords were either victims or politically active. Equally it stood on roads up and down which news and radicals travelled and it was close to where the troops and courts were active. And it had a pub which was where much of the trouble was planned. The fact that any local unrest did not translate into actual violence was probably because Thanington was a dominantly hop growing area and most of the troubles were in corn country. Nobody had invented a machine to harvest crops although the work was often undertaken by women, which was a grievance of many Kentish labourers. Nonetheless, Thanington must have been shaken by the troubles and the way they were eventually put down. However, while the losers from the agricultural revolution were trying to resist change, this was coming to the city and its environs in other ways. On the one hand the population of Thanington expanded from the turn of the century, rising from 201 in 1801 to 239 in 1831 and to

379 by 1841. By then there were 82 houses and a rental value of just under £3000. Nonetheless in 1801 the only buildings at the centre of our area were the Church and Thanington Court farm. Similarly, there were no houses in Milton, Horton or Howfield. This growth showed up in a change in the make-up of the people using St Nicholas. Whereas at the end of the 18th century the majority of people married or buried there came from outside the parish, by the 1830s far more were local. And they were no longer almost exclusively labourers. Victuallers, toll gate keepers, shoemakers, servants, paupers and blacksmiths all brought their children for baptism. This suggests that the area was becoming more developed and not just a collection of hop and other farms. Nonetheless, the 1838 Tithe map shows that there were a good number of hop gardens in the area, owned, amongst others by the Bluecoat School, East Bridge and other Hospitals and the Church itself, which seems to have a glebe field just opposite the church, with rented out pasture behind it. Arable was, however, more common. The Trustees of Ashford Road, who had a toll house just west of St Jacobs were also hop growers. The nicest one was Molly Lill's garden. A lot of the arable plots were called Coney something which suggests there were then plenty of rabbits about. There were also two pieces of woodland which no longer exist, such as New England Shaws. The area was, however, still poor. At the turn of the century, the Select Vestry - the combined Church and local council - which usually met in the Church but sometimes in the Kings Head - was raising anything up to £200 a quarter by levying a rate of 2/6 in the £ on rents and values of local landowners. There seem to have been over 60 resident landowners and more than 30 outsiders who owned land in the Parish. The biggest landowner, paying the most, was Gipps. The Croasdells, the Wills and the Sankeys were the next biggest. One, Filmer Honeywood, was also listed amongst the outsiders. Tonford Farm was then occupied by the Bing family. Unfortunately, we do not always know who benefitted from this poor relief. Up to the early 1830s the Poor Law guardians dealt with an increasing stream of demands from help, to pay for illegitimate children, for shoes and clothes, for rent, or to tide people over sickness or unemployment. Monies were disbursed every week in the early 19th century. And the Vestry was not above censoring farmers for not employing local labourers, since this mean t that the latter were more likely to be a charge on the Parish. Another was told off for taking in lodgers because this could encourage outsiders to make demands on the Parish. What we do know though is that, by then, some of its population seem to have been dissenters as there were Wesleyan and Independent house churches in Thanington and its

environs, though there were no chapels. They were served by ministers operating across a number of other local villages and towns. However, it is likely that they still used St Nicholas for both, marriages and deaths, whatever their other beliefs. However, there was a Nonconformist cemetery in Wincheap by the end of the century. The city itself grew even more rapidly thanks to the opening of the barracks in 1794 which brought 3750 men and 1800 horses to Canterbury. On the other hand the area acquired new communications with the first turnpike road, to Whitstable, opening in 1736. Others followed and, during the Napoleonic Wars, French POWs helped to develop the new turnpiked Ashford Road which was eventually to replace Cockering Road. Access to the city was also improved by the demolition of the Wincheap Gate in 1770. Worthgate followed in 1833. This was part of the work of the Improvement Commissioners who made the town better paved, better lit and better managed. Sewers were also being considered in 1823 when surveys were carried out. And the first water works may have been established around this time, replacing a structure built into the Castle. All this change, however, was only a prelude to the even more dramatic developments which were to come later in the 19th century.

11. The Industrial Age: 1840-1914.

The next hundred years saw at least three major changes affecting our area. To begin with, this was the age of the railways, an innovation which brought a distinctive new dimension to Thanington. Secondly, it was a period of peaceful population growth, which meant that the city grew out westwards, bringing new industrial enterprises and a decline in agriculture. This was to presage the ultimate break-up of the landed society which for so long had dominated Thanington. Thirdly, at the end of the century local government reform meant that the area was given a new political structure, which was at the start of a new self-governing trend. Probably the most obvious, and most symbolic, impact of the new age was the building of railways through Thanington. They would have been immensely visible, immensely audible and very smelly. And although there was no station actually in our area, they dominated the road into Canterbury through Thanington thanks to the two bridges over Wincheap. Building the lines was a continuous process for almost 50 years. So nobody could have been unaware of this new comer to the peaceful agricultural world of Thanington, even though some commentators think it

38 had but little impact. However, some contemporaries argued that it brought more crime to the area. It certainly encouraged the building of public houses such as the Railway Inn on Wincheap Green. The first to come was the Southeastern line from Ashford through Canterbury into Thanet in the mid -1840s. This came up the Stour valley in the mid 1840s, reaching Canterbury West by 1846. Shortly after plans were laid for a new line as land was sold by Gipps and the city's Board of Guardians. The company also found itself paying the poor rate for the land it owned. However, it was not till some fifteen years later, in 1860, that the London, Chatham & Dover line finally arrived. Its tracks were laid to the north of the line from Ashford, crossing over it near Bingley Island, just outside the city as it ran into Canterbury East, making its last approach on an elevated mound and a bridge over Wincheap, thereby rather cutting Wincheap itself and Thanington off from the city visually and psychologically. Nearly 30 years later, in 1889, the Elham Valley line was pushed through from Bridge, first to a new South Canterbury station and then via a cutting at Stuppington and a viaduct over Wincheap at Thanington Row to join up with the line into Canterbury West. This was despite the opposition of the Bells of Bourne End. All this encouraged the opening of the Railway Inn at Wincheap where the gate was taken down in 1859. The industrial age also brought light engineering to the area in the shape of what became Finns' works, with their steam rollers and other equipment. There was a new saw mill by 1909, along with warehouses, a workshop and, from 1896, a rebuilt water works. This used a steam pump right up to the Second World War. At some stage there may also have been a gas works in Cockering Road. There were also allotments between Ashford Road and Tonford Lane. And, by 1912, the area had a bus service to Ashford, not to mention sites for ballooning and airships. There are also records of an airship landing at Chilham in 1913. However, no factories were built in our area although there was the odd workshop along the Ashford Road by the turn of the next century. Rather the area served as a dormitory for workers in the city, who lived in the new houses built by Gipps and others in Ada Road, Hollow Lane and St Jacobs Place. This reflected the second facet of change in the later 19th century, the peaceful growth of a larger and more complex society. As we have already seen, there was a much wider mix of people using St Nicholas than had previously been the case. As houses were built and the parish moved westwards from Wincheap its numbers grew and its relations with the city began to eclipse those with the country. By 1905 there were 120 living in the parish and its rateable value was £1834..

Nonetheless, it remained a poor place. This was demonstrated, on the one hand, by the low income enjoyed by its curates. Indeed, Thanington was even called a 'pauper parish'. Despite this, it was one of a number of parishes the patronage of which was then exercised for Archbishop Rowley between 1845 and 1857 by the High Church Dean of Canterbury, William Lyall. Hence, some of the clerics installed there by Dean Lyall, complained about its yield of some £60 pa which compared with £450 in Godmersham. The Glebe produced nearly £40 and there were few fees. The church as a whole did not charge pew rents on half its 180 seats, no doubt because of the paucity of its congregation and their resources. Because of this, one cleric is said to have broken off his engagement because he could not guarantee to support his affianced, given that he was paid less than a farm bailiff. Despite this apparent poverty, Lyall was happy to claim it as part of his empire as he administered the patronage of Archbishop Rowley until his own death in 1857. He pushed both the high church element and his own relations. The first of the latter was his nephew the Rev George Pearson, an absent minded valetudinarian scholar recluse who rarely preached. And he once forgot that he should be taking services in Thanington. Overall he preferred to spend his time in the city rather than in his suburban benefice. He found it hard to support his butler on his stipend so he only served a couple of years before moving on to a position in St Augustine's College. He died in 1894. He was succeeded by another nephew, from a different part of the family, Thomas Darling, who had been a curate in London. He found the congregation tiny and unresponsive and soon moved on. George Pearson's brother William in turn succeeded him in 1848, after having served as a curate in Great Chart. He stayed there for 14 years before moving to a richer parish in Warwickshire in 1862. This was despite the Archbishop having made up the stipend to £118. In 1828 the Archbishop had already augmented the value of the benefice by taking money from the Rectory of Herne Hill. William only served a couple of years in Warwickshire before he died in 1867. However, he seems to have left a good memory in Thanington even though he spent much of his time in London, as his brother chose to commemorate him with the present lychgate in 1874. It may have been that his connections help to explain why clerics from other parishes around the city chose to be buried there. The graveyard also contains he remains of people who served the Empire, a Lieutenant Mount who died in HMS Inconstant in 1811 and an officer in the 46th Regiment of Foot. After the war the Fermor family were to follow in their footsteps. The first medical student at Kings College, London is also buried there. Familiar local names like Wiffen,

40 which was to re-occur on the war memorial, and Tolputt also occur. And George Penn, a long serving Clerk to the Select Vestry, is also buried there. Despite this popularity, given the poverty of the parish, the church depended on local landowners and richer clergy for its upkeep, something it much needed in the 1840s.This was despite the levying of a Church rate which was supposed to cover maintenance. It was them who paid for the re-modelling of the church by the well-known architect William Butterfeld - another relation of Dean Lyall's - in 1847. He was the main architect of the new St Augustine's College. As Butterfeld was close to the Oxford Movement the re-modelling presumably made St Nicholas more gothic and more High Church. It may have been this which led the Archdeacon of Maidstone to ask to be buried there in 1887. And prior to this, in 1829 John Bell had paid for the rebuilding of Milton Church, the parish having a Clerk but very few parishioners. In 1854 St Nicholas again closed for the installation of decorated windows which were paid for by George Gipps III, the lay patron/rector, a man who also had a house in Hanover Square in London. In 1856 the tower had to be rebuilt after being damaged by high winds. And in the early 1880s Gipps, Bell and others had to pay £1120 for further maintenance work involving new roofs, arches and buttresses etc. An organ was installed in 1900, no doubt due to donations. Gipps also provided land to the west which allowed for expansion. Local landowners were also responsible for the building in May 1858 of a small 'national school' on the southern side of Thanington Road, where no 77 now stands. This may have replaced an earlier school either at the west end of the Church or in the Lady Chapel. Significantly, the Lady Chapel was then known as the Tonford Chapel. The school had 30 pupils in two classes, who had to climb down to get to the other class closed 1903 and replaced by farm workers cottages. This in turn closed in 1903 to be ultimately replaced by Wincheap School which was to be built on farm land off Hollow Lane at the very end of 1930s. In 1885 the parish was merged with that of Milton, which by then had no more than 20 communicants, this out of the 30 people who lived in the parish. By comparison Thanington had 43 inhabited houses and 209 inhabitants according to returns for the 1870 Education Act. The Church in Milton was probably rededicated to St John at this time to avoid confusion within the merged benefice. There was also a piggery nearby. And, about the same time, Thanington ceased to be a perpetual curacy so that the Parish acquired a Rector. The holder of the benefice was, moreover, a major figure in local administration which was then run by the Select Vestry. One of the dominant figures in this, and in church life, at this time was one Jarvis Bing of Tonford Farm. But the church was also home to members of the

Cooper family, to which the artist Sidney Cooper belonged. Their memorials can still be seen inside and outside the Church. They were also generous donors to the church as was Rev Richard Lake, one-time vicar of Milton. On the other hand, the poverty of the area is also demonstrated by the amounts disbursed in welfare by the church and others. In the middle of the 19th century the Select Vestry was still mainly taken up with welfare, presumably for the Bridge Union, since, after Poor Law Reform in the 1830s, Thanington was finally attached to this rather than to that in Canterbury itself. The Vestry, which could involve up to 20 people, including George Gipps and Matthew Bell on one occasion, used to elect Guardians, Overseers, Assessors and Surveyors for the Poor Law, the first of which were paid posts. There was an annual meeting of what were called ratepayers (and then parishioners) to elect and consider accounts. The Vestry also appointed four Constables to police the area and had responsibility for levying a highway rate. Finances were much more organized and professional than before. And disbursements were made by the Union, using monies raised by the parishes, so we do not have details of who received them. Apart from this the Vestry also elected churchwardens, checked their accounts, saw to maintenance (after the Rural Dean checked off the state of the Church) and organized services such as that for an especially good harvest in 1863. From the 1870s the incumbents replaced laymen as chairmen, possibly reflecting the move from a Perpetual Curacy to a Rectory. Alderman Cooper, an Ashenden and the Bings, Henry and Jarvis were major participants. Mostly these came from the north of the parish although in 1870 James Harvey of New House Farm was elected churchwarden and served for several years. By the end of the century Lillywhite and Brett were involved. The Vestry usually met in the Church but was known to adjourn to Thanington Court and even to the King's Head in Wincheap. The last record is dated 1906 though the vestry must have continued in existence as a church body for probably another 20 years. The likelihood is, as already suggested, that a retiring vicar took the records with him when he left. The records of the local overseers, which run up to 1912, show that a fair amount of money was raised for welfare by men such as Lillywhite and Ashenden. However, again we do not have much idea of how it was disbursed since this was now handled by the Union. Half the pews in the church were still free, rather than rented, which suggests that people round about continued to be far from well off. There were about 70 children in the Sunday School, a figure which was to rise to 200 in the early 1930s.

Despite the changing economy, in other words, the church was still very dependent on local landlords. The Gipps family owned land both to the west of St Nicholas (including Thanington Court Farm, then farmed by a Hambrook, and opposite St Nicholas on both sides of what is Strangers Lane. Hence they were able to give the Church a strip of land on which to build a wall marking off the graveyard from the road. Tonford also owned some of the boxes in St Nicholas. Bell owned land on other side of road from Gipps, land later sold to Ashenden. Bell owned much of the North Ward and Howfield - including land adjoining Iffin Wood. The Fausetts of Heppington estate also had land in Thanington though they sold off some land, including Iffin Wood, in 1874. The Neame family also owned land nearby along with more on Stone Street. It was later to sell Stuppington to the Ashendens. The Sankey family owned the land, where Morrisons now is for 150 years up to 1888 when they sold to Finn. The Mounts and the Neames also had land in the area, the former at Howfield at one time. They were also involved in Milton Manor though later on the Tolputts were ensconced there. Milton itself was also the scene of a great tragedy which attracted much local attention. This was because in 1893 two dead bodies were discovered there. These turned out to be the corpses of Nicholas Starr, a German, and his wife Elizabeth. It seems that he shot her and then took his own life, though it is unclear why. Unsurprisingly there was then much speculation about the reasons for the tragedy. In any case, despite this close attachment of the landed elite with the established church, nonconformity does not seem to have made much of an impact in our area. In 1840 a house in the parish, owned by a widow called Elizabeth Smith, was recorded as a Wesleyan place of worship but this does not seem to have lasted long. Probably any Methodists would have been able to make their way into St Peters in the city centre. However, Chartham, Chilham, Shalmsford Street and Petham also seem to have acquired Methodist or other non-conformist chapels. This may have been because the rising middle class were also firmly engaged with the Church of England, as was the case with the Lilywhites. They were also involved in the old style of local government. This was part of a series of reforms which swept away the old systems of ecclesiastical and feudal local government and replaced them with elected bodies. So, at the end of the century, the area received what could have been a major boost to its identity and political self- awareness. In fact, following on the 1888 Local Government Act which had created country and district (urban and rural) Councils, a new Act of 1894 created civil parishes, distinct from ecclesiastical parishes. By 1890 the

Ecclesiastical parish, whose boundaries were different from those of the new civil bodies, had a population of 690. In our case the Act set up two new Thanington civil parishes, Within and Without. Both of these were actually well outside both the city walls and the main area of settlement in Wincheap, albeit the former was inside the city limits. Nonetheless, they would have been better called Near and Far Thanington, but some civil servant decided otherwise. No doubt he liked the romantic sound of the names, as later Councillors were to do. The former started half way along Wincheap and ended at a toll bar around the St Jacobs area while the latter went far up the hillside to the south west as well stretching westwards towards Ashford. The Within Parish, for all that it was the more populous lasted only a few years, since it did not attract much interest. It was then absorbed into the city in 1912, leaving little or no trace. Its prosperity must have been due to the shops recorded in Wincheap around this time, which included a saddle maker, a laundry, an oil seller and a slaughter house. Thanington Without, on the other hand, proved longer lasting, despite an uncertain start. Because it had less than the minimum required number of voters, it was initially run, not by a Council as such, but by an annual Parish Meeting of male parishioners. Theoretically the Meeting should have started in 1894 but in fact the first gathering did not actually take place until 1899. This was because, according to the Kentish Gazette, nobody turned up to the initial meeting when it was called in 1894. This non-appearance would have prevented the taking of decisions and the holding of regular meetings. It probably also explains why the Select Vestry continued transacting secular business for several years after the reforms came in. Only when other Parish Councils were having new elections in 1899 did things change and annual meetings started. The Meeting ran the Thanington Without Civil Parish until the population grew large enough to gain its own Parish Council in the mid-1930s. The Meeting was then dominated , like the outgoing Select Vestry, by tenant farmers such as the Lillywhites, of Thanington Court, and the Miles brothers, of New House and Iffin Farms. As we have seen they all also acted as administrators of the Poor Law, the predecessor of national assistance and a major element in local life throughout the country. The Rector was also a major figure in the parish meeting. However, the Civil Parish remained a very formal and rather inactive body before 1914. It was quite small, with only 104 people in the Civil Parish and 825 in the Church Parish which went a good way along Wincheap towards the city. Moreover, it was also continued to be a rather a poor area. Hence, even after the war the Church was providing free coal to the poor of the Parish. The people coming to church were mainly

44 labourers still but with an admixture of other trades such as jewellers, tailors and innkeepers. And single women are often recorded as bringing children for baptism. Even before the War, however, there were signs of major changes to local social structures thanks to problems on the land. In fact, the situation of landowners was deteriorating. Competition from the USA and South America, made possible by the completion of transcontinental railways and the introduction of refrigerated ships, undercut British production especially of grain and meat. Dairy farming and fruit did better but returns fell and many landlords sought to divest themselves of land. Locally the value of farm output declined by a fifth between 1870 and 1911. This meant that rents and returns to landowners fell at a time when their expenses were rising. Hence, in July 1906 George Bowdler Gipps, the surviving male of the family, sought to sell large parts of his estate at auction in London, including Wincheap farm and its hop fields, Thanington Court Farm, Tonford and Howfield. Howletts and land in Bekesbourne, Cobham and Petham was also put on the market. This was a preliminary to him moving from Howletts a few years later. In fact he may have moved to a smaller residence in Thanington However, none of the lots attracted their reserve price, suggesting . As a result, it was all withdrawn. It came back on the market three years later along with new land in Harbledown and Chartham. This time again it proved hard to sell all the 41 lots, despite the land agent trying to push the idea of creating a golf course behind Hollow Lane. However, quite a lot was withdrawn and then sold privately. Thus William Lillywhite bought the Hollow Lane hop gardens and, in 1910, Matthew Bell II bought the farms in New House Lane, Thanington Court and Wincheap. The first had been tenanted by the Miles family, as noted, as far back as 1894. They also farmed land in Cockering and, until 1911, Iffin Farm. In that year Iffin Farm was taken on by one James Gibbs, again presumably as a tenant. The area was described as having some 'capital grazing' for sheep and no doubt a good deal of woodland as well. Interestingly, in 1908 a Mrs Smith was still recorded as having cows in Cow Lane. Hops, which remained the main crop, were grown to the north of New House Lane and Iffin Lane. But although they were high quality and well regarded hops, they too had problems. This may have been because the acreage had over expanded and could not be sustained in the face of foreign competition. This led to wide spread protest demonstrations against imports in 1908. And, significantly, the Hop Poles Inn fell into disrepair and had to be rebuilt in 1904. In other words, the agricultural crisis had not gone away and it was to be worsened by the war.

Hence Bell's acquisitions were to prove short term purchases. This was a sign of the continuing rate of change, something which was to be speeded up by coming events.

12. From One War to Another: 1914-1945.

At first sight, the First World War had only a limited effect on our area. However, underneath it speeded up existing trends, creating expansive growth. As a result, Thanington Without extended in two directions, creating a new settlement to the south in the High Lanes area and, later, in the east. This was when the City decided to build a new housing estate on the land south of Ashford Road, altering the parish's eastern boundary in so doing. Come the Second World War, Thanington found itself rather in the front line. Once again soldiers were stationed on its fields while bombs and airplanes fell on it. Nonetheless, Thanington was to finish the war in an unexpectedly optimistic and socially active mood. Unsurprisingly some in Thanington had expected the war to bring trouble and disorder, so leading figures were made special constables, so that they could respond to any troubles. In fact the new constables were never to have been called on to use their new powers during the four years of war. The fact that troops were stationed near the Water Works may, of course, have deterred would be wrong doers. Presumably Canterbury must have been a staging post for soldiers being sent to France via the all- important Kentish Channel ports. And there is no record of the troops themselves causing any trouble. Nonetheless, the war must inevitably have placed a good deal of stress on the local community. On the one hand, poverty and food shortages must surely have had an impact here as elsewhere. On the other, many men must have been called up only to be wounded or killed. We do not know about the former but the war memorial in St Nicholas shows us that 21 men from Thanington died in the war, or just after. Nineteen of these are also listed amongst the 531 names on the Canterbury War Memorial in the Buttermarket. They make up 3.6% of the total though two do not appear on the Canterbury list: G.H. Priest and Horace Tottman. The former was a 19 year old private in a Hertfordshire regiment, originally from Blean, who was killed as British forces captured the village of Naves near Cambrai, in October 1918. His Blean origins may explain why he is not named in the Buttermarket whereas Horace Tottman is missing

because we know absolutely nothing about his war service. And presumably this was true then too. One of the sad statistics of the Thanington Memorial is that a surprising number of them were, like Private Priest, killed in 1918 itself, one only a week before the armistice. And three died after the war had ended: Samuel Haste of the Iniskillen Dragoons, Thomas Brett of the RFC and an otherwise unidentified David MacPherson. The first two are buried in the churchyard at St Nicholas, Brett with a family provided stone, because he died of mastoiditis, Haste with a CWG stone behind the Church Hall. Frank Iddenden who came from Canterbury but had moved to Tring and enlisted in the Bedfordshire regiment, lies in Canterbury's main cemetery. The fact that over half of those listed died in 1918-19, and none earlier than 1916, suggests that they were probably conscripts and not the enthusiastic volunteers of 1914. Conscription came in from January 1916 by when the army was very short of men. This led to large numbers of very ordinary young men being called up, most of them being in their 20s by the time of their deaths. Only two, Arthur Parker of the Buffs and George Priest were teenagers. Equally three were older, Horace Tottman, John Walsh and Ellis Rampling. Walsh was the oldest being 40 when he died in March 1918. The latter was a professional soldier who was probably stationed with the 7th Hussars in Canterbury around 1914. Because of this age distribution, the majority of those listed were single. The fact that the death rate at the front in the last months of the war was as high as during the Somme probably also helps to explain this phenomenon. Amongst the names on the war memorial are two examples of brothers being killed. One was the Parkers, both of who served in the Buffs, one dying in Iraq and the other in Flanders. The other was the Tottman brothers, John and Horace. The former was killed when serving with the Royal Sussex Regiment somewhere on the western front while, as noted, we do not know where his elder brother Horace fell. All we know about the family is that it seems to have run a knackers yard in Cow Lane after the War. Virtually all those listed seem to have come from the city side of our area: Ada Road, Seymour Place and various parts on Wincheap itself. However, not all were born and bred in Canterbury. Some had come from Northants, Reading and Suffolk, others from other parts of the city including Blean and St Peter's. One had come from Ramsgate. Few of them were socially elevated, save perhaps Thomas Brett whose well-known local family lived in Prospect House in Wincheap. Amongst those whose fathers we know were a blacksmith, a coal merchant

47 and a nursery gardener. Their own professions were equally unexceptional, including a bread maker, a labourer, a pawnbroker, a shopkeeper and a van man. Not surprisingly given this and their late entry into the forces, only two were officers and then only 2nd lieutenants. These were Edward Johnson of the Middlesex Regiment, who died only four days before the armistice and Harold Ledger who had achieved the same rank in the RFC. There were also six NCOs of varying ranks. Unsurprisingly over 70% of those listed were privates. Though so many came from the Canterbury 'menu peuple', as the French would say, this did not stop them from serving in a variety of services and theatres. Most were in the army, but one was in the Marines, one each in the navy and the Merchant Marine and two in the RFC. Royal Fusiliers in 1916. Within the army, the largest number served in the many battalions of the Buffs, the East Kent Regiment. And there was one, Percy Fairbrass, who was part of the Kent Cyclists Battalion for which he volunteered in May 1916. This turned into a regular infantry unit when sent to India, where cyclists were not needed as couriers. He died of pneumonia in Dgasha just before the end of the war. However, many served in other units, some elite like the Welsh Guards and the Royal Fusiliers, others in ordinary county line regiments: Bedfordshire, Inniskilling, Middlesex, Sussex and West Surrey. Most unusually Ellis Rampling finished up overseas in the Imperial Camel Corps. If he, like Percy Fairbrass, died in India, and Arthur Pearson in Basra, the majority fell in Europe. Thus William Wiffen of the West Surreys died in Italy and Benjamin Turner drowned when, as a 3rd Mate on the Landovery Castle, his ship was torpedoed south of Ireland in one of one of the worst atrocities of the war. Two died in the UK but eight fell in the French and Flanders front and are buried in a series of Commonwealth War Graves cemeteries. As far as we know many of them died in action but others died of their wounds later. One of these was Edward Broadbent, an Able Seaman on HM Motor Lighter X14, who died after an air raid on Dunkirk in September 1917. One unusual fact about the dead of the parish is that the St Nicholas graveyard also holds a memorial to a victim of the war who is not commemorated on the war memorial. This is Oliver Robert Giles, a Corporal in the 6th Battalion of the Buffs who died on 10 April 1917 of wounds received at the battle of Arras. He was one of 2018 casualties of a successful advance of some 4000 yards. He is recorded on the grave stone of his parents Charles and Emily Giles. We do not know why this was. He may have been overlooked by mistake when the war memorial was drawn up or he may have been deliberately withheld or excluded for reasons lost to us.

He was actually born in 1896, the fifth and last child in the family. His father was then a seller of hay and the operator of a fly - or light coach - service. By 1911 the family had moved to the Woodman's Arms where Charles was then the publican. By the time of Oliver's death the parents had moved to Orchard Cottage in Thanington Place, having retired or just given up the licence. Oliver clearly fits the overall patterns of Thanington's war dead. There are two other graves of people who do not figure on the War memorial, another Giles who served in the Rifles and a man called Butin who is recorded as dying at Gallipoli. Nearby the graveyard also contains a family memorial to a former soldier who died after the end of the war. This was Alan Fermor Leggatt, son of an Anglican missionary. He had been born in Serang in Sarawak in February 1893. He had served 'throughout the Great War', in the Somerset Light Infantry and then the RAF. He went on to serve in Ireland, whether as a regular or a 'black and tan' we do not know, only to be killed in a road accident near Guildford in Surrey in late December 1921. We can only assume that he was buried in St Nicolas partly because his father, the Reverend Frederick William Leggatt, born in Aldershot about 1862, had been at St Augustine's College in the early 1880s and partly because there was were relatives, John and Stephen farming 190 acres in the area (rented from Gipps) and acting as vicar's churchwarden for several years after 1879. The Rev Leggatt was made a Companion of the Bath in 1933 for his services to the Empire. The graveyard also contains a memorial to another member of the family, F J Fermor who died trying to save a rubber estate in Borneo from an attack by coolies at the beginning of the 20th century. Many neighbours must also have been affected by the sad news coming from across the channel or further afield, especially towards the end of the war. All this suggests that something like one family in twenty across our area lost a son during the war. So it is hardly surprising that they wanted their loved ones celebrated in the local church, something which happened in 1925. We also have to remember that for every man who died in the war, several more would have served but come back alive, perhaps as many as eight for every death. But we do not know how many were badly wounded, if any had been POWs or whether any served in a local defence force. Nor do we have any information on how the war affected women or whether the presence of injured Belgians in Dane John made themselves felt. However, the area seems to have been spared the Zeppelin and air raids which affected coastal parts of Kent. Nonetheless, together with the privations and taxation of the times, Thanington must have been all too aware of the trauma it had been caught up in. And, given that it was largely a hop producing area, Thanington probably did not benefit that much from the boost to agriculture

49 provided by the war. This was especially so because the government was worried about the effects of drink on munitions production and other things, and thus looked down on hops. In any case, this boost was to be short lived and its ending had a dramatic effect on Thanington. During the war, in fact in 1914 and 1917, Lt Colonel Bell also bought up more land in the area probably previously owned by the Eastbridge Hospital, and including the central portion of land to the south east of New House Lane. This was to prove a crucial step in bringing together the core High Lanes land under one owner. Moreover, there was then no suggestion that it would be broken up or used for anything other than farming. Even then, the accretion of large estates was still going on apparently. Much of this was then rented out to people like the Miles family who, as well as working Iffin and New House Farms, also farmed the land between the two Lanes as well. Once the war was over things changed. And, on 20 September 1919 Bell got Finns to auction the Milton Estate of 1350 acres, in the parishes of Milton, Thanington, Nackington, Petham and Lower Hardres. This meant that Thanington Court Farm, then rented by William Lillywhite, was bought by the Hanbrooks for £1700. Milton Chapel Farm was sold to Myers for £3800 and Iffin Farm was rented out to J.H.Gibbs, who already rented New House Farm. This and Cockering Farm failed to sell. Eventually new House and Iffin farms were sold, partly to the Mount and King families. More significant was what happened to Lot 23 embracing Hollow Lane and the road to Petham, land then being let to Miles at a rent of £56 pa. Tithes on it were payable to Thanington and Thanington Rectorial and a quit rent payable to Manor of Thanington but there were no lay tithes. This triangle of land between Iffin and New House Road (as it then was), amounting to 68 acres 1 road and 21 perches in all and described as good arable was sold to a relative newcomer, one William Henry Vipan. His use of it was to be revolutionary, creating the first of two significant expansions of Thanington during the interwar years. Vipan , then aged 79, was a retired surgeon who had been living at 37 Castle Street since about 1907. Born in Soham (Cambs) in January 1842, the son of a landowning gentleman, he had been educated at Kings School, Ely and then at Guys Hospital, he graduated as a surgeon and apothecary by 1864. He seems have done well and published an article on quinine in the Lancet, which may reflected his travels to Palestine and Armenia. Back in England he seems to have practised in Uxbridge, Southend and Hampshire. He married Selina Challis who left him with two unmarried daughters and a son before she died in the late 1870s.

By the late 1890s he was settled in Horton Court, where he was able to pursue his agricultural and sporting interests, as well as carrying on his surgical work. He was an active actor in the land market, buying farms in Swarling, Kingston, Sarre and other places, leaving them to be run by a bailiff. He also owned land south of New House Farm and Iffin and Larkey Valley Woods which were probably bought from Eastbridge Hospital in 1906. He was also active in local reformist agricultural politics, being an early member of the National Farmders' Union. Vipan was, at the same time, a great sportsman, riding with East Kent Hounds and inviting friends to shoot on his land. This and living in Horton might explain why he bought land on the hill above his residence, thus bringing him into contact with Thanington High Lanes. Why he moved into Canterbury some ten years after arriving in the area, we do not know. It may be because by then he wanted to give up farming as he had probably already given up surgery. It may also because he wanted to get more involved in local political life as he canvassed for the Conservatives and joined the Kent & Canterbury Club. In any case, he became a well-known local figure while continuing to dabble in property. It may have been because of his land in Horton that he got interested in the New House Lane area and bought the 68 acres from Matthew Bell. He does not seem to have done this in order to help create a 'land fit for heroes to live in' , as the thinking then was, or to follow through on his agricultural ideas. It was more to make a quick sale and boost his assets so that his children, who included a son he did not trust, were properly provided for. And it may be that he felt he would get more if the land was divided up. Hence his will stipulated that, on his death, his property was to be sold off to provide an income to be divided equally between his children. What was revolutionary was that the 68 acres were sold off almost immediately, in March 1920, in small lots and not merely added to an existing large scale holding . There was one 5 acre plot (which went to the only women purchaser), five ten acre plots and one of 13 acres. The last was sold to the then tenants of Iffin farm. Some were helped to buy by Vipan who himself provided mortgages, though the Oddfellows later took these over. The purchasers, not all of who were to live in the new settlement, often came from Wincheap or surrounding streets like Tudor Road. Some of them seem to have been builders, others came to live off the land, either to support themselves or to supply greengrocers' shops in the towns. Most of the properties sold during the inter-war years included a clause reserving mineral rights to a Sackville West and others. This reflected a hope that the discovery of the East Kent coalfield might be replicated elsewhere. And the first houses were converted army huts brought up on

51 carts from Shornecliffe. All this was to transform the area into an area of small holdings and market gardens rather than hops and arable. However, life was hard on what was described a 'rough land' and, with no facilities available, living off the new plots proved difficult. Residents needed both a pioneering spirit and a willingness of local carriers to bring up basic necessities. The lack of water was a particular problem. Sheep rearing failed, though there was more success with pigs and chickens. Cabbages, potatoes and fruit and possibly even some hops were also grown. But this was not enough. So, with a number of builders involved, parts of plots were sold off, mainly along the road side, and new houses went up. In New House Road as it was eventually to be called, there were houses only on the eastern side of the road. This was because, on the western side, Wincheap Farm was still a thriving enterprise. Then, in 1937, a KCC Ribbon Development Order blocked any new building. Such legislation was frequently invoked by the City Council in resolving planning applications. Around this time the lane seems to have become a metalled road. Other roads in the north of the area were also widened at this time. Many of the new houses were built with materials provided by the demolished Jesuit College in Hales Place. As a result, they were often somewhat basic. Nonetheless, a small community began to emerge up and down the two lanes. It even acquired a small shop by 1927. There was also a weekly library in the old Mission Hall in Hollow Lane. And, because of the lack of facilities, the community became quite active politically. It began to push for a bus service, street lights, piped water and a public telephone box. In none of these was it successful, hence residents called it Thanington 'without everything'. Interestingly, in March 1934 Bridge-Blean RDC rejected a City Corporation offer to share the costs of bringing water and gas to the High Lanes. Nonetheless, the area did get involved in the life of the parish, which was to change in the 1930s. On the one hand, in the Church the Select Vestry vanished to be replaced in the mid 1920s by a Parochial Church Council, such as there is today. This had no secular responsibilities. Unfortunately, its records do not start until 1946. No doubt another departing vicar walked off with the minute book. So we do not know the exact relations between the High Lanes area and St Nicholas. On the other, the expansion of population on the hill and elsewhere, meant that Thanington Without as a whole now met the criteria for having an actual Parish Council and not just an Assembly. This was prefigured by the transfer of the Harris Charity to the Meeting in the early 1930s. The Council itself set up in the mid 1930s with F.G Leigh a retired sanitary

52 engineer from what was to become New House Close, but was then New House Lane, as its first Chairman. He was, apparently, well known for riding around the parish on a large tricycle. He served till 1940 when he was succeeded by Edmund Lillywhite, his Vice Chairman and a link with the Church and the old system of local government. Interestingly, the majority initially elected (by show of hands) came from the South Ward. This shows how far the new community had come by then. Indeed by then many committee meetings were held in the Hollow Lane Hall, or in Lillywhite's nearby Wincheap Farm House, now the Old Farm Care Home. Previously the Parish Assembly had, in 1929 fiercely resisted ideas of moving the Parish from the County into the city because the latter was seen as poor and not very progressive. However, in 1933 there were new boundary reviews as a result of which 55 acres, with a population of all of 23, were transferred to Canterbury, while, on the other, Milton next Canterbury was added to Thanington Without. The parish thus gained 403 acres and population of all of 13. This was a scaled down version, involving only one third of the land envisaged and only 60% of the people who would have been transferred, of an earlier plan to expand the city. But this had been opposed by Bridge Blean RDC and KCC, forcing the Corporation to seek a more modest extension. Nonetheless, this resulted in the western boundary with Bridge-Blean running a few yards west of Strangers Lane. This meant that three houses on each side of Bramley Avenue were brought into the city, leaving the rest in Bridge-Blean. Moreover, the fourth house on the southern side of the Avenue had the boundary running right through it. Bramley Avenue, in fact, was merely one part of another major expansion of Thanington in the inter-war years, an expansion which had a twofold nature. On the one hand, and most significantly, the Council in 1926 - probably encouraged by new government legislation, notably the 1925 Housing Act - technically the Act to consolidate enactments relating to housing of the working classes Chap. 14 - began to build large numbers of houses for ret. The Act gave powers to local authorities to inspect or demolish properties, to provide houses for the working class and to deal with unhealthy properties. It also allowed councils to borrow from the Public Works Board to do all this. Some of these new houses were in Forty Acres, St Martins and Sturry. On its western fringe it bought the 1.75 acres of what it called Thanington site 1 though initially Bridge RDC was not happy about this. The houses were to be rented to local people who could show a good record of paying their rents. These were to be built on what came to the called, at the suggestion of the Rev S. Gordon Wilson, Rector of St Nicholas Thanington and Mayor of Canterbury, St Nicholas and Ingoldsby Roads. Entry was delayed because of damp and

cracked radiators but they were soon in use. There were three types of house, though all were semi-detached. Thus there were two three bedroomed types, one smaller than the other and one larger four bedroom type. Together, they were known as 'non parlour' houses. They also seem to have generated a real community spirit because, by September 1927 parents were expressing their concern over the distance their children had to walk to school. They wanted something closer and petitioned for this. But it took the local Education Committee to respond and start considering a new school. Only k November 1930 did they begin to look for land which could receive the potential pupils, by then 250 in number. But negotiations with Lillywhite, the owner of the preferred site in Hollow Lane proved difficult. So in 1933 the Corporation started looking at other sites. A year later, in July 1934, a temporary school was opened in wooden buildings in the grounds of the Woodville House, a Council run home. Its salary costs ran to £199 per month. As this was just opposite the Hop Poles Inn it meant that the local children had much less far to walk than in the past. Unfortunately there is not much more information about the school. The area also pushed for, and got, a pillar box and a telephone box. Before this was sorted out, the Corporation pushed ahead with house building, across the city. In Thanington further acres were bought in 1927 from William Lillywhite, along with King and Ashenden, to provide for more houses on Site 2, later to become Athelstan, Gordon and Windsor Roads. These were built with a loan from the Public Works Loan Board and the first ones were ready in summer 1928. They were let at rents of between 6 and 7 shillings per week. They were supposed to be equipped with fixed baths and gas heating. The money for them was provided by a mortgage with the Hearts of Oak Building Society. This was not the end of the story because in November 1930 the Corporation was estimating that it needed a further 3,000 houses over the next quinquenniums. And the Corporation, despite pressure from the Ministry of Health, the responsible department, that the need was not a reflection of slum clearance (although this was pushed by the 1930 Housing Act) and was going on, but a response to what it called 'over crowding'. By this it probably meant that too many people were having to share or live in unsatisfactory rented accommodation inside the old city. It pointed to the waiting list for Council housing as evidence of the pressures of over-crowding. Hence larger houses would go to families with at least seven members. However, later on, demolition of condemned properties did increase demand, with some 33 more houses needed. The Ministry was concerned in late 1934 that the building programme might slow down slum clearance. The Corporation was also very keen to build as a

means of soaking up local unemployment. It also told the Ministry that it was determined to provide houses for the working classes at an economic rent, a surprisingly socialist concern. As a result, in March 1934 the Corporation paid £840 for 10.4 acres north of Cockering Road, known as 'the old camp site'. To this was added allotment land (once its use for housing was cleared by the Ministry of Agriculture & Fish, which together made up Thanington Site 3 and on which it was proposed to build 120 houses, later increased to 162. The land was sold to them by Alderman Hooker, Chairman of the Housing Committee who, along with Councillor Lefevre had bought it from Cockering Farm in 1927 aware that, were the City to expand, as it did on 1 April 1934, it would need more building land, a far sighted move for which they were much praised. Moreover, the pair sold the land for what they had paid for it. However, the Council had to pay £160 to redeem the tithes still outstanding on some of the land. The initial costs of the new development were partially covered by the sale of houses in earlier phases, supplemented by a new mortgage from the Public Works Loans Board. There was some dispute about the cost of decorating the new houses, something which was actually left until the houses were occupied. The contract, of £50,280, was awarded to Keens of Bexley in mid-1935 with an estimated completion date of 31 December 1937.Providing the new houses with electricity proved a long drawn out saga, turning on whether the Council could take electricity from the Strangers Lane sub-station, then described as a 'kiosk' if the land was not in the city. They were to be rented at 7 or 8 shillings per week. Despite this, in October 1935, the Housing Committee was pressed to find to more land, something which sent it to look at allotments, of which there were many such as Thanington (Kings) which were behind St Nicholas Road and ran down towards, but not up to, Thanington Road. However, the Allotments Committee did not like a proposed swap of land although later some three acres behind Strangers lane was allowed to be developed, allowing a Thanington 4 site to be developed. Arrangements were soon in progress for arranging for construction and this started in May 1939. Thereafter the Housing Committee decided that the city now had made sufficient provision for its housing needs. In any case the war would no doubt have ended the expansion anyway. And what had been achieved was impressive enough to bring the Minister of Housing to visit the sites in 1935. By then, there had also been some progress on the school front. The Education committee had set up a special sub-committee to deal with the problem. And, in January 1936 the Committee finally committed itself create a new Infant and Junior School in Wincheap. A little later a compulsory purchase order was issued on Lillywhite's Hollow Lane land but even so

it took some time to finally acquire control of the land, a contract with Lillywhite only being agreed in January 1937. There was also much discussion with both other committees and the District Valuer and an arbitrator had to be called in during June 1938. In the end Lillywhite received £474 compensation and arrangements were made for eliminating land tax and tithes. Finally purchase was agreed in March 1939. Nonetheless, a preliminary specification had been drawn up in April 1937 and architects were appointed in November of that year. Quantity Surveyors were also appointed. A contract was then awarded to Denne (who later merged with Brownings) to build the new school. The £35000 involved was then borrowed. However, unfortunately before the new building was started, Woodville House wanted to get its land back and the temporary buildings had to come down and equipment removed in the autumn of 1938. So from November 1938 the pupils had to be bussed from outside the Water Works into Northgate St John's School. With the Finance Committee demanding cuts in costs, it was decided to omit a turret with clock saving £160. And it was decided to omit a bomb shelter in the building proper, a reflection of the growing fear of war which had affected the city, leading to arrangements for treating bomb victims, air raid precautions policy and the purchases of respirators. It was also agreed to merge Wincheap with St Mary Bredin school. By September 1939 two thirds of the roofing had been done but there were then doubts about whether the war would make is hard to get the remaining supplies needed. Contact was therefore to be made with the Ministry of Supply. Nonetheless, it seems that the school was able to open in 1940. As a result, the new community finally acquired the major facility it needed, especially with Thanington 4 nearing completion. This was not the sum total of housing expansion in the inter-war period. For, on the other hand, there was another spill over effect from the Council's building plans in Thanington, as well as the boundary changes. This was in the effect that Council development had on private sector builders. Thus the development of Strangers Lane led to new roads off it being created, notably Bramley Avenue. Oddly tithes were still an issue there in the 1950s. Elsewhere, at the end of the 1930s, builders came up with projects for new houses off Hollow Lane and at the junction of New House Road and Iffin Lane. In the end the war put an end to such projects. Nonetheless, it does show how strong the urge to expansion in Thanington had been in the inter war years, making it a larger and more diverse and modern place. This was taken up after the war with Hollowmede being built in 1946-7. To an extent these moves may also have reflected the fact that agriculture was continuing to do badly in the 1930s, with rural depopulation. Hence some land in Thanington

returned to pasture or sport and was bought by the Council in 1928 to create a playing field for the city's elementary schools. Two years later, more land was bought from the Lillywhites to create a the present recreation ground. This was used for a flying circus in the 1930s led by Sir Alan Cobham, the well-known air pioneer. There were also large fetes held on Bretts' nearby sports field. Some time before this, moreover, the Milton Estate finally succeeded in selling New House and Iffin farms, which were bought by Kings, previously Canterbury butchers, and Mounts respectively. At this time, the beginnings of the move to fruit farming seem to have begun. A lot of land in Hollow Lane and further west was also given over to allotments. At the same time hops began to recede. Another element in the greening of Thanington came in 1932 when Alderman Frank Hooker donated Larkey Valley Wood to the City, even though it was actually in Bridge-Blean. It was sometimes troubled by gipsy encampments and depredations. Another sign of the weakening hold of traditional landed society came at the beginning of the 1930s. This followed on the death of George Bowdler Gipps, the last Lord of Thanington, in 1929. Gipps, who had regularly held a feudal court at the Hop Poles, died in 1929 and his legal executors then caused great confusion by writing to many local tenants and property owners and telling them that they could now redeem the old feudal quit rents on their properties by a one off cash payment. As many of them clearly did not know they had ever been liable to pay such dues, there was uproar. And, although the sources do not make this clear, it seems that most did not seek to redeem their liabilities and the feudal obligations just lapsed. Meanwhile suburbanization slowly increased. This was mainly residential as a proposal in the 1930s to build a garage, workshop and shop in Ashford Road was rejected. And the Elham Valley rail line was downgraded, which was to lead to its closure in 1947. However, the new society remained relatively distant, poor and underdeveloped. The Church was then described by a Rector as 'remote' and 'away from everywhere' when seeking lights in the street outside. Many inhabitants still depended on charitable donations, often of coal, while facilities were few and far between. Thus in the New House Lane area demands for electricity and water supply went unheeded, and people remained dependent on septic tanks. Moreover, there were only a handful of cars there by the end of the decade so children had to walk down Hollow Lane to school. However, the registers of the church show that the area was still a largely working class one though people were employed in newer and more technical jobs than had been the case at the end of the 19th century. In any case, the whole area was about to be subject to new stresses since the Second World War hit it in ways very different from what had happened in 1914-18.

War was much less unexpected in 1939 than it had been in 1914. Thus in 1939 the Mayor of Canterbury appealed for air raid wardens some of whom he clearly found in Thanington. Many more were also called into the Royal Observer Corps and the Home Guard who watched for planes and fires. Both had bases in New House Lane, as did the ARP, with the Royal Observer Corps manning a post from August 1939 until May 1945. There were probably other posts down by the Ashford Road. Interestingly, in 1943 the local police force was merged with that of the County to form the Kent Constabulary. For Thanington, World War II was also much more aerial than its predecessor. This started very early with the first bombs falling on Chartham on 10 May 1940. Four months later the first person was killed by a bomb in Thanington. Later Wincheap School was set on fire by incendiaries, this despite being home to a barrage balloon station. In 1942 ME 109s strafed the area. The biggest hit came on 31 October 1942 when a house in Athelstan Road was destroyed. One resident recalls one bomb going through one house, digging a trench, taking off the corner of another house and ending up in the playing field where it exploded. And people sometimes had to move out of their houses because there were unexploded bombs nearby. Ridlands farm was also bombed. The planes involved in the so called Baedeker raid that year regrouped over Thanington before hitting the city. V1s started to arrive in 1944, one landing in a field near the water works and another at Cockering, opposite Upper Horton. All told 296 buildings in Thanington were hit and 115 people killed. The air war had impacts in other ways. On the one hand, defensive efforts had side effects. Thus anti-aircraft guns off New House Lane dangerously spewed out shrapnel as, no doubt, did the one on Upper Horton Farm. And there were telegraph poles in the field facing New House Lane to stop German gliders from landing. And some houses in New House Lane built their own air raid shelters. On the other hand, there was a good deal of activity in the sky over Thanington with many dog fights, one of which interrupted the taking of a choir photo in St Nicholas) during the Battle of Britain. The sight of planes struggling back was common as was that of large flotillas of bombers and fighter escorts going outward. Dogfights were also frequent, sometimes leaving cartridges on the main road. A rear gun turret apparently came down near Iffin Lane and a Spitfire crashed at the entrance to New House Farm. V2 trails were also spotted on occasion. All this aerial activity outshone the fact that, shortly before D Day, Canadian troops briefly camped at the top of New House Lane near Hands Wood. With rationing, the war also presented the population with economic challenges. Hop production declined further and many vacant plots on New House Lane were turned into

58 allotments. This shows that food was in short supply. Down on the Ashfiord Road some people started keeping chickens and rabbits in their gardens, dashing out to feed them before the afternoon air raids started. And carrying on social life cannot have been easy either given that large numbers of men must have been called up. Unfortunately, as before, we do not know how many men actually served. Certainly, the war again brought human losses. Indeed, the St Nicholas War Memorial shows that slightly more people died in the Second World war than the First. This unusual since most memorials suggest that losses in 1939-45 were only 30-40% of those in 1914-18. The victims also included civilians, such as Harold Spillet the ARP warden who was killed in the bombing of Athelstan Road, and a woman. The latter was Erica Masters, a WAAF who died in October 1945 from injuries suffered in an air raid. And the casualties were spread out through the war years and not concentrated as they were in the previous conflict. Many victims seem to have been married even though most were in their 20s. The victims also seem to have come from a wider area than before, including people from Tonford Lane, Hollow Lane and Bramley Avenue. They continued to come from the lower classes with fathers who were farm labourers, roadmen and legal clerks. What stands out very clearly is that half the sample were serving in the RAF when they were killed, often having started out in the RAF Volunteer Reserve. These included a Flying Officer and a Flight Sergeant shot down over Belgium and France. This emphasizes how much this was an aerial war. Of the rest, three were had been in the Navy and eight in the army. They included three gunners in the Royal Artillery, an Engineer and privates in the Buffs, the West Kents and the East Surreys. The victims served in all theatres of war, some being buried in the Gambia, Greece, Singapore, El Alamein and off Sicily. Six of them were eventually laid to rest in St Nicholas Churchyard. In all, Canterbury lost 115 people along with 296 buildings and this as a result of 731 bombs. As before all this was a major problem for the local population who flocked to the lists of casualties displayed at the Beaney. But this did not dampen community spirit, which was given a new impetus as victory approached. Thus we have a report of a VE Day party for the whole of New House Road, held in the Red Road, with ice cream supplied by Jack Short, manager of Jackson's scrap metal merchants in Canterbury. Indeed, the way people suffered in the war but still pulled together was to have long lasting effects on local society. It helped to produce an unusual crop of voluntary societies, some of which still exist.

13. Post War Development: 1945-1990

The ending of the war gave a large boost to social activity in the Thanington area which soon began to spawn communal organizations in the north and the south sides. Further social groups emerged in later years. However, society began to change quite markedly and the dynamics of the immediate post war years were soon eclipsed by the development of a new consumer society with different interests and possibilities. Hence building development also continued, increasing Thanington's size and complexity. By 1980 it counted 3,500 inhabitants. Increasingly Thanington became a residential area, still lacking shops and other facilities, although it helped to accommodate the emerging Wincheap retail park. And the agricultural element in local society became increasingly marginal. Nonetheless, in 1945 the area remained surprisingly rural, full of orchards and fields while almond trees were also growing up in the new estate. And the small pockets of population, centred on New House Lane and the Ashford Road, were still somewhat cut off from Canterbury. Services were limited with only one phone box on Ashford Road and one on the estate although there were regular bus services running through the city to Sturry and Blean. This distance encouraged locals to build on the sense of community engendered by the victory celebrations to develop new bodies to provide an on the spot entertainment centre for these distinctive and somewhat cut off groups. In 1945, in other words, there seems to have been a general desire to build on the spirit of victory. Hence, in both the north and the south of the parish, victory celebrations led to the creation of two new social organizations, each with their own buildings. To the north this led to the emergence of the strictly regimented Ashford Road Social Club which erected two ex-government huts on a field first rented from, and then sold to them, by H.W. Ashenden of Cockering Farm. The initial impetus came from VE and VJ day street party celebrations on Ashford Road and Tonford Lane. The happiness these engendered made those involved want to keep the community spirit then shown going. So, led by a bus inspector, a meeting was held in the Church Vestry in September 1945 which seems to have committed the community to procuring land and erecting a hut on it. The purchase was duly achieved and planning permission was obtained on 19 July. A contract with Ashenden was then agreed and a start made on putting up the building. This proved a bit problematic as it blew down at one stage

but by December the building was up and running, with a very detailed constitution which made it very clear that this was a members’ only club, devoted to providing entertainment and social activity for the local population. By 1950 the debts on the building had been paid off, a further hut had been bought and the Club was circulating 250 copies of its Bulletin. Regular and successful fetes were also being held. The impetus of post war enthusiasm continued with a desire 'to do something for the womenfolk' which led to the formation of a branch of the Women's Institute. The authorities were a bit dubious at first because Thanington was so close to the city - which means that the Townswomen's Guild would have been more appropriate - but such was the local enthusiasm that they gave way and the branch was duly established in July 1948. This was another sign of the uncertainty over the identity of Thanington. The church also seems to have shared in this new drive. It may have failed to build a new hall opposite Bramley Avenue and had to let the Hollow Lane mission go but it was, as we shall see, involved in the New House Lane project. Its hall was actively used and there was still a flourishing choir and other voluntary bodies. In the 1960s the third of its patronage not controlled by Archbishop was returned to him. The Church also moved its vicarage twiceEsso , once from what is now the garage to a new house on the western edge of Thanington Court Farm land and, ultimately in 1977, to its present site. To the south things were somewhat different. At a Harvest Supper in 1936 there had been talk of providing religious services in the area since, in the absence of cars, St Nicholas was 'so far away.' The Church was also involved and may have been considering a Mission Hall in the area, even though there was already one in Hollow Lane. This was reinforced in 1940 when open air services were held. A VJ party in August 1945 gave this a new impetus and so, in mid October of that year, some 24 residents met in 'Homewood' . They decided to build a hut for "social gatherings and religious services". This was to go on a piece of land off New House Road which had been sold by Legge to Victor Austen for £40 in 1944 and then sold on to the PCC and the Diocesan Board of Finance in 1946 for £100. However, more money was needed and the next few years were devoted to money raising even though the residue of ARP funds was made available to the community. So it was not until the early 1950s that a breeze block hall, dedicated to St Faith on whose name day it was dedicated, was erected by local residents. This was used for regular Church services and a Sunday school. It also gave rise to a social club, later known as Hilltop.

However, the appearance of the area was beginning to change. Thus one of the main changes that came just as the war was ending was the erection of prefabs at the end of Strangers Lane and next to the housing estate. These were planned in 1944 and started going up in early 1945 after the Corporation had bought two parcels of land off the west of Strangers Lane from Ashenden, just inside the new city boundary. There were some 30 prefabs, of 'uni- seco' type and erected in part by prisoners of war. The little roads connecting them were given names remembering the key battles of the war: Alamein, Anzio, Ardennes, Dunkirk, Normandy and Taranto. The two parcels of land were separated by a plot recently purchased by the PCC which, from 1936 had been putting money aside to build a new hall to serve the expanding community. It may have used money realized by the sale of a small plot in Denstroude, which was sold off in 1930 because it was too heavily taxed, may have been used to start the fund. A little later, in 1954, the PCC approached the city to see if it would swop land opposite Bramley Avenue for the church's own plot but it refused to do so. And, in the end, the Hall project was never followed through and it may be that the money went on the new bells installed in 1948. This may have been because of the initial success of the secular community hall arising on Ashford Road. But the idea is another example, at least potentially, of the enhanced community spirit generated by the war. Once the prefabs went, which was probably in the 1950s, other residential developments followed Thus in the south of the area the number of houses doubled between 1950 and 1970. Throughout this period new houses were continually being built, both council flats and private residences, some of the former being built on the land previously occupied by the prefabs. These expansions also included Grays Way, Tonford Lane and New House Close. Later came Manor Close and Stuppington Court. This meant that basic services were at last installed. Thus the High Lanes finally got electricity and a phone box in 1948. Mains sewage followed in the 1960s and, eventually, gas. Thanington High Lanes people also helped to build a high level path to enable local children to walk safely to Wincheap school. Street lighting - which came to Ashford Road in 1970 - proved more problematic in New House Lane,' though elsewhere in the area this was welcome.. Some street lights were installed at the end of the 1970s but the Parish Council' later proposal to install a large number in New House Lane was resisted by the many residents of the Lane who claimed 'they had come to live in the country ' so did not want lights. In the event lights were decided on for New House Lane in

1978 so the Annual Assembly was told. This was despite a petition from H. Lee of 24 New House Close and 24 other objectors. This came in late and did not take account of the fact that a contract had already been signed and the Parish had the power to do it anyway. Nonetheless this caused a lot of bad feeling and, in the end, because of the controversy, only four lights were installed. To the north, the growing use of the main road meant that lighting and other services had been installed earlier. Before this, demolition had made a major change in the appearance of Wincheap when, in 1955, the old Elham Valley railway bridge at the junction of Hollow Lane and Cow Lane disappeared. Contractors removed it eight years after services on the line - which had been used for a 18 inch mounted gun called 'Boche Buster' during the war - came to an end. The line had been handed back by the army to the Southern Railway in October 1946 which decided in June 1947 to close the line. Despite local protests this went ahead very rapidly, though demolishing some of the bridges proved difficult. However, today the only remaining trace locally is the bridge in Stuppington Lane. With the railway gone, life must have been a bit quieter. It would certainly have made Wincheap lighter. However, the rising volume of road traffic may have made up for this, especially as it was accompanied by new roads. From there was an explosion in car use from the 1950s. With all the bombed site car parking in the city getting in must have been easy then. It was no doubt helped by the fact that, in the early 1960s No 1 Wincheap and The Cedars were demolished to make way for Wincheap Roundabout. The road under the railway bridge was then lowered to allow double decker buses to navigate it. In 1960 Ashford Road was widened. Then, a few years later the new A2 Canterbury bypass was completed in 1981, imposing a new bridge over Hollow Lane and providing both an underpass and a new junction on Thanington Road. Slip roads from and to the north were not, however, included. The creation of the new A2 also changed both the appearance and the location of Thanington, creating what was to be seized on as a new boundary with the city. At the same time, business enterprises also began to leave the area as the works in the Lime Kiln did in the 1960s. Finns engineering withdrew from Seymour Place in 1960. Even pubs went when the Sportsman in Wincheap became a café in 1969. The Wioodman's Arms also folded. Bretts then began a move out to a new HQ in Milton where, in 1959, the old Manor House was then pulled down after it was hit by the death watch beetle problem and, four years later, a new one was built higher up the hill. Milton Church was used decreasingly frequently, running summer time evening services until the beginning of the 1980s when even these

63 ceased. And the wholesale greengrocers, called Fridays, which had set up shop near the Wincheap Roundabout, gave way to Telephone House. Similarly the little shop in New House Lane closed by the late 1970s and the surgical appliance workshop in the Ashford Road went a little later, making room for retirement homes. Even the local Post Office and grocery shop on Ashford Road found the going hard, despite the rising numbers around. Thanington. Conversely the eastern part of our area became much more retail oriented with the creation of the Wincheap 'industrial' Estate. In 1982 the Council considered extending this into the Recreation ground from where Canterbury City FC had long since retreated . They left, in fact, in 1958. All this made the western part of Thanington an increasingly a residential dormitory for the city. It retained some green space with the trees from the old Dane John being replanted in the recreation Ground. Generally, however, the area began to look less rural. There were fewer farms with much of Wincheap Farm being built over (and its implements sold off in 1986), as the Howlands replaced the Lillywhites as owners while themselves retreating to Iffin Farm. This had earlier been bought by the Kings but had then been sold off for family reasons. Some of the Wincheap farm land was ultimately bought by Paul Tory with funds obtained by selling his land near Folkestone to the Channel Tunnel. He had early plans to build a big house for his daughter on the site of an old hop processing unit in a dip above Cockering Road. This was turned down by Canterbury City Council which later gave approval for the land as a whole to be used as a golf course by Tory's development company, Pentland Homes. To the north Tonford Manorhad also been bought by the noted dramatist Christopher Hassell in 1958. His tenure is now commemorated both in the name of the new development below Tonford Lane and in a small stained glass insert in the church. In Hollow Lane while the Howlands have been commemorated in a street name in the new development which finished off the remains of Wincheap farmland, the Lillywhites have not, despite having been there for longer and having played a more influential role over the years. The farm house itself subsequently turned into a Care Home. Elsewhere, there was continuing building. In the late 1960s came the New House Close development (built by a man called Kelk). This led in the 1960s to the changing of names, the old Lane become the Close and the Road becoming New House Lane. This left a legacy of eccentric numbering but there was no enthusiasm for changing it. Then, in the 1970s there was new building north of the Ashford Road and in the 1980s there were two new projects, The largest was the Manor Close complex off the Cockering Road. Then in 1983 John Knight

Builders produced a smaller but architectural interesting development of the eighteenth century farmhouse at Stuppington with the barns etc following in 1988. However, Stuppington Hill; Farm, on the other side of the lane fell into dereliction. What farming there was, also changed. From being essentially a grain and cattle area at the end of the war, Thanington became increasingly a fruit growing area. This was especially so in the High Lanes farming was increasingly dominated by fruit, grown commercially - picked for cash by locals - and latterly for 'Pick Your Own'. Cherries were also grown in a new fruit farm which emerged between Iffin and New House Lanes. This was not always appreciated by the locals who objected to the necessary use of bird- scarers to preserve the crop, leading the farmer to pull up a swathe of trees backing on to the houses. Bridge-Blean had also successfully objected to the building of a new house on New House Lane for the Farm but the City Council eventually proved more obliging. The land destined for a golf course remained as farmland, with contractors growing a variety of crops including oil seed rape at times. For many years, hops predominated near Stuppington. Hop pickers were still coming to Tyler Hall in the 1960s and this may also have been true of Thanington. After all, a knife grinder was still doing the rounds in the mid-1980s. Upper Horton was taken over by Highland Court as a 'pick your own' rival to New House Farm and was doing strawberries in the early 1980s.iHowever, this was given up on the death of its then tenant. It was home to a greyhound stud for several years before being briefly bought by the Co-Op, shortly before the society went into free fall. The land then passed to the Wellcome Trust. There were also allotments between Ashford Road and Tonford Road Such changes had an impact on local society and its supporting structures. With the development of TV, other new entertainments and the availability of cars, the kind of activities offered by the new voluntary organizations began to lose some of their appeal. Thus, after a solid start, the Ashford Road Social Club began to run out of steam a little as society changed and people began to look for new, and not necessarily local, entertainments. By 1957 it was appealing for new members and leaders, some of the initial officers being forced to stay on when they wanted to take a well-earned rest from organizing events and dealing with unceasing maintenance problems. But attendance at Annual General Meetings was poor. And trying to run a Youth Club - or a Teen Club - also proved problematic. The late 1970, in fact, proved to be a very difficult period for ARC. Its buildings posed a continuing problem and it rather seemed at the end of the 80s that both club and huts were coming to the end of their shelf life. It was also forced to move away from its traditional role,

despite trying to launch new events for local residents and debating its future. Chairman Arthur Palmer promised a report into its prospects but this never seems to have materialized. Nor would the Women's Institute or St Nicholas Church step in to take it over. However, its facilities were still of use to others, so, as time went on its main income came from lettings to outside bodies. It also looked to the Local lottery for funding. But by the late 1980s it was in a very bad way. This was also largely true of Hilltop for, while from May 1958, its hall was used for voting (along with ARC) to increase turnout, and the Annual Parish Assembly was held there alternately from 1959, it too had its problems. Thus a Social and Sports Club with a membership fee was set up in 1952 but it lasted only about three years. And, from the beginning there were problems including the considerable noise of children playing and the disturbances at the end of entertainments. There was briefly a Sunday School but this too encountered difficulties. It had to be non- denominational and a search for Free Church preachers was reported in 1955, apparently without much success. The task eventually passed to Doris Boughton. A little later problems with the visiting library service had also emerged. The building itself also posed problems. It was redecorated in the 1960s and new heating was donated by Mr King of New House Farm replacing the original fireplaces. The roof had to be repaired in 1955 while the heating would be renewed in the 1980s. Nonetheless, Hilltop celebrated its 25th anniversary in 1978 but, generally, in the 1970s it lost its way somewhat though regular church services continued. Hence, by April 1986 it had to issue a circular inviting people to its AGM and asking them to fill in questionnaire about their interests, since fewer people were using it. This produced something of a revival and a social life carried on into the new era. And Annual Assemblies, thanks to more active leafleting, attracted over 50 people as compared to the two recorded in the early 1980s. The fate of the Hollow Lane Mission Hall/Room, however, was less happy. Situated on a site between two allotments and opposite the entrance to Hollowmede also ran into difficulties. It was not a Nissen hut but a small building like St Faith's with side kitchen and a stage. But, with the building of ARC it was less used from the 1950s because it was further from the vicarage, once that had moved to its present location. A Youth Club operated there for a while but was closed down due to vandalism and lack of control in 1978. And, while a play group was reported as being there in 1979, the hall finally closed in May 1979 on safety grounds, there having been a long litany of complaints about the state of the building. Unfortunately demolishing it proved

66 difficult and there were queries about whether its deeds meant that the land should revert to George Bowdler Gipps' heirs, he having gifted the land in 1905. This proved not to be the vase and eventually the land went for housing in the late 1980s and 1990s. To an extent this loss was replaced by the building of the Jubilee Hall on the corner of Wincheap and Cow Lane. It is a lightly constructed building, much used by bodies like the Wincheap Society, it apparently owes its origins to the City Council who allowed a Canterbury wide senior citizens club to use the land as a quid pro quo for accepting the development of the new retail estate. An independent Councillor called Ben Bennett played a large part in this. It was started in about 1976 but was called Jubilee hall because it opened in the Jubilee of 1978. So it would be wrong to see its creation as primarily a means of contributing to the nationwide celebrations of the Queen's 25th anniversary. It did seem to garner many locals n its memberships despite its pan Canterbury origins. Unfortunately, the generation which founded it has not really been replaced. And the land still belongs to the Council. Neither this new foundation, nor the problems experienced by existing Clubs seems to have discouraged others from setting up their own voluntary associations. Thus in the mid- 1980s a group of people on the Council estate came together, possibly encouraged by Kent Social Services, to create the Thanington Within Tenants Association. The name seems to have been chosen to mark it off from the Parish Council and ARC as it did not equate with the old civil parish of the early 20th century. By 1987 the Association had, with the aid of a local government grant, built a community centre close to the lay-by just east of the Thanington sports field. It seems to have served less as a vehicle for defending tenants' rights and more as a social club. Hence it was to lead a somewhat chequered career thanks to a series of defaulting treasurers. And it was in 1987 that Larkey Valley Woods was decimated by the tornado of that year. Politically, the Civil Parish slowly evolved in line with the new developments. Thus in 1947 it was formally split into two wards, the large northern one and the smaller southern one. The latter had two councillors and the former seven. None of these were ever formally tied to specific political parties although generally the Wincheap Ward was a Liberal Democrat stronghold. And in 1972 as a result of the Local Government Act the whole area was transferred from the old Bridge-Blean Rural District to the new Canterbury District which replaced the old county borough. This was to have a significant impact on Thanington. In the first instance it moved closer to the city in the sense that the Parish Council now reported to the City. Moreover, its Chairman, Arthur Palmer served on the Council and even did a term as Sheriff. In the longer term, however, other developments produced more boundary changes which, to an extent,

67 pushed Thanington somewhat out of city life. And it was this which really brought the post war period to an end and opened a new era in the history of the Parish and its surrounding area.

14. The Thanington of Today, or Since the Boundary Changes of 1989

The structures of Thanington changed drastically in the early 1990s, politically, physically and socially. Thus, in 1989, the District Council changed the boundaries of Thanington civil parish, bringing them more into line with the new situation created by the building of the A2 Bypass. The latter was one of a number of major changes in the physical layout of the area, something which linked to a series of major proposals for new building, on an unprecedented scale. Such changes helped to encourage new social developments, with most voluntary associations being forced to modernize and some residents beginning to feel that they had to mobilize to protect those things in Thanington which they felt needed preserving. All this has opened a new, and ongoing, period of change and uncertainty. The crucial change in all this was the District Council's decision to realign boundaries to fit in with the new A2. The western side of this was made the new boundary of the city, thrusting the council estate into the parish thereby making the latter one of the largest in the District. The Parish also had to acquiesce in the transfer of a deep strip of farmland abutting the Downs Road from it to Chartham. Hence the present dividing line between the two parishes is now the footpath immediately to the south of New House Farm cottages. To the Civil Parish Council this was unwelcome news. It protested, to no avail, and then sought to have the estate made a separate ward. This too was rejected and so amalgamation went ahead although it proved hard to get people in the estate interested in the Parish. And it proved hard to integrate the estate into the other structures of Thanington although the Parish Council did not push very hard. And, when in 1995 it was suggested nationally that Parish Councils should be given enhanced powers, the Parish Council's view was that it wanted no new responsibilities. The District Council also refused the Parish Council's request to have its name changed, back to plain Thanington. No doubt romantic notions, and perhaps a realization that the inaccurate name said something about the close relationship between the area and the city, explain this silly decision. However, it rather seems as though the Council leadership, and the Local Government Boundary Commission for England did not actually understand where

Thanington Without actually was. In 2013 the Council misled the Commission into declaring that the High Lanes Area was Thanington Without and the area along the Ashford Road was just plain Thanington. This closeness to the city also helps to explain why so much of the next twenty years was to be dominated by development and planning questions related to the District and its ambitions. The first major development in our area was between Hollow Lane and the furniture stores on the site of the old Water Works, one of which had to be rebuilt in the old style after a bad fire in the 1990s. The key to this was a new road called Homersham originally designed to be the main access point for traffic going into Canterbury from the High Lanes after Hollow Lane was blocked off, probably at the Wincheap end. After much dithering it was decided not to proceed with this. In the end this did not happen. The name is an odd one, very out of line with the names given to side roads. It may have signified a water meadow. Or it could be a memorial to James Homersham, a wool stapler in the mid nineteenth century who seems to have owned property in the area. Equally, it could have been another member of family which seems to have been well ensconced in Canterbury and property ownership round about in the recent past.. The development was supposed to come with new facilities and green space, but in the end only houses were built by the developers. The Jehovah's Witnesses then built a church between the houses and the commercial development. This was built by volunteers from all over the south-east and now serves a wider area than just Thanington. It does not seem to have contributed to encouraging community feeling. This was mainly due to the fact that so much of the property was rented out and changed hands very rapidly. Hence the population looked towards the city and not to the rest of the parish and did not respond to suggestions that they should form a residents' association. The City Council showed itself patently uninterested in the failures to provide facilities or to develop any kind of community spirit. The Manor Close Residents' Association emerged but had a somewhat up and down existence. To the south, there was mainly limited in-filling. However, the land between new House lane and Strangers Lane was ear marked for different kinds of development. At first the idea had been, as noted, to have a golf course and this was approved, on appeal, on 26 June 1991. Then, although the land dedicated to this was later extended, no attempt was made to create the course, probably because economic conditions were against it. Renewals of planning consent followed until the land was re-designated as potentially apt for residential development. And, in the early 2000s this nearly came to pass as the District Council's Local Development Framework singled out land along the Ashford Road and between Strangers Lane and New

House Lane as one of two preferred sites for the large scale development it, wrongly, thought were needed in Canterbury. The fact that the latter threatened both to obliterate the view over the cathedral and the city and to set aside all the hard work which had been put into producing a Hilltop Village Design Statement. This element of community revival had come from planning concern leading, in the first instance, to the drawing up in 2004-5 of a Village Design Statement in 2004-5. A VDS is a document detailing the nature of a community and its desires for future development, meant to serve as supplementary guidelines for planning applications affecting the community. Producing one for the High Lanes began with discussions with Canterbury City Council. Following a workshop in July 2004 it was then drafted by a volunteer team of residents. It was then developed as a result of suggestions both from the City and from the generality of residents to whom was submitted along with a questionnaire. This had been aimed at ensuring that new building fitted in with local needs and aspirations. However, in the event, the Council took precious little notice of the Satement. Threats from the large scale development proposals in the Local Development Framework mobilized residents in the High Lanes on a massive scale. Residents staged a major campaign of lobbying to encourage the City Council not to develop on its open fields. This seemed to have helped push the Council in other directions. And, in 2012, to prevent further threats a new body the Hilltop, Iffin, Merton and New House Lanes' Action Group [HIMN], with its own website and committee, was set up to monitor planning developments. Not being a charitable organization as Hilltop was, HIMN was able to lobby on more political matters. It was then instrumental in developing coordination of opposition to overlarge development across first South Canterbury and then across the city as a whole. For a while the Parish Council was involved in southern Canterbury activities but it then chose to withdraw. In any case, the LDF proposals lapsed with the election of the Coalition Government in 2010. However, although the draft Local Plan which replaced the LDF opted to concentrate new housing not in Thanington but between the present hospital and the Dover Road Park and Ride, concern continued. This was partly because of likely traffic spill over effects of the South Canterbury development, especially if the fourth A2 slip road at Wincheap was built, the third having been added in the early years of the new century. Concern was also aroused because Pentland, the landowners, continued to push for much of the New House Fields site to be developed as 'New Thanington'.

Nonetheless, residential development continued, mainly through infilling. There were other kinds of change with the final withdrawal of Bretts, who moved to Milton in 1996, and the replacement of the allotments and the old Bretts sports ground by a new retail park (based on, after 1995 Safeway (now Morrisons) together with a Park and Ride, initially established in 1994 In the fullness of time a new service station was added to the supermarket. To the south there was for several years a pine furniture enterprise using the Wincheap Oasts but this close in about 2012. However one remained on the western extremity of Wincheap where the Hop Poles also went under, being transformed into the Café Solo. And, in New House Lane, a Montessori nursery school was opened in the early 1990s, despite local unease about traffic, unease justified by the disturbance so often caused by poorly parked ‘Chelsea tractors'. All this meant that much of Thanington became increasingly suburbanized. At the same time the old voluntary organizations also underwent enforced modernization. Most notable, perhaps, was the collapse of the newest one, the Tenants’ Association. After a series of contretemps, the enterprise finally folded and its buildings were taken over by a drama club with no specific ties to the area. In time this had to move out. Hence the club house was demolished around 2010 to allow for the new northern bound slip road to the A2. Before then, the continuing problems on the estate led to the creation of a new Resource Centre. In the 1990s, conditions on the estate deteriorated greatly. Despite having a population of over 1800 people, many of them under 24It was denuded of services such as youth clubs, parent/toddler groups or leisure activities. It was plagued with highly publicized youth centred crime and violence, involving joyriding, arson, graffiti and thefts. It got so bad that public services refused to go there. Equally there was a stand-off with the police. As a result it became known as 'little Beirut', that being then the stage for a violent civil war. This may have helped to explain the Parish Council's reluctance to take over democratic responsibility for the estate. A more positive response came from other parts of the state. Thus Canterbury City Council set up a multi-agency and mixed stakeholder Steering Group which successfully bid for a Single Regeneration budget of £3 million. The Group undertook wide community consultation which pointed to the need for a community focal point, especially for the young. This led to the building in 2000 of a Neighbourhood Resource Centre west of the new slip road. There was also an outside sports facilities, a skate park and a children's playground. This came with limited funding to cover the first year's running costs. The new centre proved an immediate success in two ways. On the one hand it set up a whole series of facilities for the estate: baby groups, health facilities, training, youth activities

and computer instruction amongst them. The centre works to help ;people improve their skills, avoid homelessness and over-come generational differences. There are also many parties, outings and other leisure activities. The centres facilities and services are heavily used. On the other hand, the new provision helped to provide an outlet for youth energy so that crime was soon cut in half and has remained low. The fact that the Centre attracts many volunteers from the estate has also helped encourage new attitudes, notably a new sense of 'ownership'. And all this allowed it both to win funding its day to day running expenses and then to win substantial lottery funds in 2010 enabling it to build an extension comprising rooms which can be rented out and facilities or a youth club. Then, in 2014, it changed its structure to become a charitable Incorporated Institution. Before this the two oldest community associations had to change their status in line with new legislation, becoming community associations, subject to the Charity Commissioners. ARCA which was finding it hard to find a committee to run its events called in outside advice which said that it was a viable operation but it needed new hands on the wheel and a better structure. Luckily a new committee was found and, with help from the Kent Rural Community Council, it was agreed to disband the old Social Club and re-found it as a Community Association in line with new legislation. The Parish Council agreed to become its Permanent Guardian Trustee. Although all this was not popular with all, it went through in 1989. As a community organization ARCA was able to start on the long task of seeking funds to allow it to replace is failing premises. Although it got £30,000 this was not enough. So a large number of applications for large scale funding had therefore to be made. KCC had no money and applications to the National Lottery and the 21st Century Halls fund were initially unsuccessful. Then, in mid November 1998, the National Lottery Charities Board suddenly granted ARCA £200,000. This was a remarkable achievement and made the whole project realistic. It was the real breakthrough moment and as not only did it mean that the majority of the funding was assured but it probably also encouraged both new local efforts and more outside donations. In the end the new building, costing £350,000 and built by Abbotts, opened in 2001. In the High Lanes area, the community was faced with a problem when the Church architect declared that the St Faiths building was at the end of its useful life. With the numbers of people from the Lanes attending services were falling so the Church was unlikely to be able to sustain the hall. So a further initiative was undertaken. Following a public meeting on 19 October 2000, a new body, the Hilltop Community Association [HCA], was set up. This drew on

the impetus of the Social Club and inherited its name, though because of the imprecision of the term 'Hilltop', Canterbury has been added to its official title. Run by an elected executive committee and a Board of Trustees HCA sets as its objectives the continuation of a vibrant local community; the retention of the 'village hall'; the maintenance, management and refurbishment of the hall; the provision of non-denominational services; and the development of recreational activities for the under 12s. Through its various working groups, has done a great deal of remedial and upkeep work on the Hall. And, taking the Social Club under its wing, it has also provided recreational facilities for many residents as well as the young, including quiz evenings, Tai Chi and a lending library of fiction. It also started new fund raising activities including barbecues, themed evenings and a 100 Club fund raising scheme. Moreover, a website has also been created and a new storage unit placed behind the hall which has now been redeveloped for social use. The Association became an officially recognised charity as the Hilltop Community Association (Canterbury) in 2003. It then entered into what proved to be difficult negotiations with the Church over the possibility of taking over the hall. Consideration was therefore given to entering on an 'Albermarle' scheme for leasing and running the hall. Thought has also been given to the possibility of rebuilding the hall. This would be financially and legally challenging. However, after a long drawn out negotiation with the Diocese, Hilltop obtained a long lease in 2013, despite the Charity Commission losing the relevant papers. Rebuilding, however, was not really on the cards. In 2014 the Hall was rebranded as the Hilltop Community Hall and extensions and renovations put in hand. The local community also sought to maintain a modicum of public transport in the South Ward. While attempts to interest commercial providers continued to fail, the area did have a daily Post Bus service. This arrived from Petham just before 10am and came back from Canterbury, about 2pm. This was withdrawn, despite local protests, around 2004. It was eventually, and very partially replaced, by a once weekly taxi service. This too petered out with time. Obviously, such problems did not help to remedy some other defects of the area. These led one adolescent in 2010 to say on social media that Thanington was still without a pub (since the Hop Poles became a café about this time), a shop, basic parenting skills and, indeed, hope...’ And in 2012 one wit called it 'Thanington Without the Olympics' because the torch procession refused to go along Thanington Road, preferring to disappear down the new slip road and out of the city. In other words, such gentrification as there had been, obviously did not

73 impress or work for everybody. Nor did the development of new roads and shopping precincts on the fringes of the area really help it as a community. Increasingly it was a cross between a dormitory and he anti-chamber to shop, whether locally or in the city centre.

15. Looking Back and Forwards.

All this reinforces the fact that Thanington's history is still on-going. Even the name is still a matter of debate. So, at no time has the past been preserved in aspic. Its history has been one of continuous change, speeding up in more recent times. Indeed, it is arguable that there is more change now than there ever was in the past. Indeed, the future for Thanington is likely to be more building, though we do not know where, hence there is great uncertainty about what kind of change there will be. Over the years the name, nature and centre of gravity have changed, and continued to do so. Its evolution has been shaped not only by the doings of its own residents, especially land owning ones, but by many other factors. Geography, agriculture, feudalism, religious conflict, social hierarchy have all affected its developments. And very often Thanington has been on the fringes of national politics. Throughout its history though. It has rarely been prosperous. Its only continuing institution has been the Church of St Nicholas. Its development has gone through clear phases. Lightly affected by prehistory, it was probably only a little more affected by Rome. Its real take off period came in later Anglo-Saxon times. These produced a name, a settlement and well farmed land. This was also the thing which was taken over by the Normans. From then until the early 20th century it has been dominated by well to do landlords. It was also affected by religious and social conflict. Modernization has then been a continuing process, one which does not seem to have come to an end. In other words, whatever happens to the Draft Local Plan it is more than likely that change will come as a spin off through development elsewhere in Canterbury. However, the fact that the DLP left Thanington out did not please some developers who relaunched the idea of what they laughingly called first 'New Thanington' and then ‘Thanington Park’, a plan for hundreds of houses south of Cockering Road, allegedly embellished with new facilities, notwithstanding the evidence of the Homersham debacle. The developers started by trying to suborn local organizations to support this idea, no doubt hoping to persuade the Inspector that

their proposal has more support than that of the Council, as well as more merit. However, they were forced by a coalition of local organizations to meet the public and proved not to have thought their ideas through. Hence initial responses from the public and the media were hostile. However, once the existential threat of new building on New House Fields was lifted, the level of mobilization began to tail off. The Council, interestingly, had tried to persuade locals that the decision to focus new development in South Canterbury is a deliberate ploy to preserve the Thanington area, which has been ruled out on landscape and access grounds. This ignores the fact that other forces have directed the Council's planning. It also overlooks the fact that a South Canterbury 'garden city' will have traffic and other implications for our area, especially if the fourth slip road from the A2 on to Wincheap is built. While this was favoured by people in Harbledown, it was very unpopular in Thanington and Wincheap. Nonetheless, at the time the Inspector started his hearings, the developers came back with a refined scheme called Thanington Park including, as a much contested inducement, a new site for the Canterbury Hospice. As before the developers publicized it in other parts pf the city and the surrounding villages, together with a poorly attended exhibition at the cricket ground. Most of the comments made as a result, along with the majority of letters in the press and on line responses on the Council website were critical. And many of those supporting the scheme on the latter merely stated their support for the hospice and neither commented on its precise location nor entered into the detail of the plan's fallible traffic and, especially, road plans. Its chances of success have been heightened by the fact that the Inspector had to suspend the Examination because the Council could not demonstrate that it had the legally required five-year supply of land for building. The Council have been sent away to rethink their plans. They have been told to consider three sites, one of which is Thanington, so as to over- come the shortfall. The Council did as it was told and came back with a proposal for a 1150 house development in Thanington, to the west of Pentland’s proposed development. It coupled this with approval of a fourth slip road for the A2 but adequate infrastructural provision in Wincheap. However, the Council gave no details of any of this and proceeded to approve Thanington Park even though the extension rendered obsolete most of the statistics and financing of the scheme. If this goes ahead, then the next fifteen years will see almost continuous development in our area, not to mention vastly increased traffic congestion. As a result, the size, social balance and community dynamics of Thanington will be dramatically changed. Thus, for instance, the

Developers suggest that the city boundaries should be extended to include the new development. This would have a dire effect on the Parish. So too would the creation of new communal facilities in the centre of Thanington Park on the existing facilities, And this history suggests that the development is likely to spawn social division and not integration. The whole history of Thanington could thus be stood on its head. It would be ironic given that a similar change has just been defeated. In 2013 the Local Government Boundary Commission for England, in its initial proposals for new wards to reflect the ill-judged decision to reduce the size of the Council, suggested moving the High Lanes Area - which it (following Tory submissions) mistakenly called both 'rural' and Thanington Without - as opposed to urban Thanington proper. This was opposed by the Parish Council and HIMN and, unusually, the LGBCE listened to them and accepted the case that the High Lanes were integrally linked to Canterbury and Wincheap, not to the rural hinterland. So the Commission moved the area out of a ludicrously badly designed new Chartham & Stone Street Ward back into the new Wincheap ward. This meant that the South Ward did not lose its second parish councillor as had been threatened. Nonetheless, the likelihood of large scale development and political boundary change remains. This, as said, could wholly change the appearance and nature of the area. What effect it would have on social problems like smashing bins and resolving clashes over litter and garden maintenance is also hard to say. This is probably also true of any redevelopment of the Wiincheap Industrial Estate, the likelihood of which has raised a question mark over the future of the Jubilee Hall. None of this is likely to make the area's identity any less fragmented. This would provide a perverse form of continuity with the past. And this will raise new questions which historians will have to answered. In other words, Thanington is still a question of being within, without or wherever. CHC 16 xii 2014 / 26 xii 2015

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