The Nonington Church visitation of 1294 records that “the nuns of St. Sepulchre, Canterbury, take tithes in the parish, by what right is unknown”, these tithes were for land at Kittington. The convent held the tithes until the convent was dissolved by Henry VIII in the 1530’s, and he eventually gave much of the convent’s property, along with the Kettington tithes, to Sir James Hales, Sergeant at Law. These tithes, but not the land at Kittington, in turn had passed to the Peyton family of Knolton, or Knowlton, Court by the early 1600′s.
The visitation also records that “ the abott and convent of St Alban’s take certain tythes, by what right is unknown, and they sold the same that year at one time and in gross (simul et in summa)”. Again these tithes were for land at Kittington, which actually belonged to Archbishop of Canterbury’s Manor of Wingham. These tithes appear to have been a matter of dispute between the Abbot of St. Alban’s and the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1449, the dispute went to arbitration by senior churchmen who appear to have ruled in favour of St. Alban’s as the tithes still belonged to St. Alban’s Court, as the abbey’s estate became known in the late 15th century, in the 1620’s.
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