In the early 1800′s Jane Austen was a frequent visitor to Fredville. She often stayed with her brother Edward and his wife Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Brooke Bridges, at Rowling House on the Bridges estate in neighbouring Goodnestone parish. In 1797 Edward inherited Godmersham Park from some childless relatives who had adopted him […]
Category: Farms and manors
Essewelle and the Barony of Maminot, later the Barony of de Say-revised 15.3.13
After Odo’s downfall his holdings were reclaimed by the crown, and were thereafter held directly from the Crown. Ralph, ‘a noted despoiler of women’, was the brother of Gilbert Maminot, the Bishop of Lisieux and King William’s personal chaplain and doctor as well as being a large landowner in his own right, and Ralph’s and […]
Early windmills in Nonington: Soles, 1227 and Ackholt, 1309
The earliest windmills in Europe had a post-mill structure where the main structure sits on a post, usually a wooden post, that allowed the entire structure to be turned turn to face the wind by a long beam attached horizontally to the body of the mill. The mills usually sat upon a tripod made of […]
Cookys or Cooks Hill-updated.
Cookys or Cooks. The Cookys farm house was the present Holt Street Cottage, which is just above the Holt Street cross-roads, and the accompanying land seems to have originally been some 14 or so acres to the rear of the house, and some 14 or more acres of the large field across the Snowdown Road, which is […]
Estretling, now Old Court
A few hundred yards further east of Ratling Court is the apparent site of Estretling manor house, the present Old Court Farm. There are still records of the manorial courts that were held into the 19th. The windows of the present Old Court farmhouse and some brick work with blue headers indicate a date of construction of […]
The Quadryng family of Fredville
John de Say, fourth and last Baron Say, died in 1382 aged about 12 years old without a male heir, subsequently for the next two decades the manor, as part of the Barony of de Say, passed by a complicated chain of inheritance to various surviving sisters of the third baron and their heirs. The […]
Aylesham
1367 Elisham; 1405 Eylsham; 1418 Aylsham; 1445 Haylesham; 1604 Aylesham. The name is said to derive from O.E. Aegeles ham; Aegel’s homestead. Aylesham now refers to the actual mining village, but before the village was built there were references to Aylesham, or variations thereof, corner, wood and farm. Aylesham was part of the manor of Ackholt, […]
