The formation of the manor in Anglo-Saxon times
The Manor of Wingham was given to Christ Church in 836 by Athelstan, King of Kent, and was lord of the manor over much of the land in the present parishes of Ash, Goodnestone, Nonington, Wingham, and Womenswold. It was recorded as Winganham in 946 and Wingehame in the Domesday Book.
In what became the old parish of Nonington the Manor of Wingham held Ackholt; Kittington; Oxenden, later Oxney; North and South Nonington (centred around the present hamlet of Nonington, Ratling Court, and Old Court); a small part of Soles manor; and the woodland at Crudeswood, later Curleswood Park.
Other manors and a small vill’, namely the manors of Eswalt, Essewelle, the greater part of the manor of Soles and the small vill’ of Mounton, were not part of the Manor of Wingham. Mounton, also Monkton, a small vill’ of some twenty-five acres or so around the present Gooseberry Hall Farm, was a detached part of the nearby Christ Church held Manor of Adisham.
Christ Church lost possession of Wingham, then known as Winganham, along with many of its other holdings during the troubles of the Heptarchy in the ninth and tenth centuries. Some restitution was made in 941 when Edmund I, the Magnificent, king of a unified England, “restored to the Church of Christ, which is in Canterbury, those lands which his forefathers had unjustly taken away from the Church of God, and those that belonged to that church”, mainly Twiccanham (Twickenham, Middlesex, given in 793), Preostantun (Preston-next- Faversham, given in 822), Winganham, (Wingham, presumably the Manor of Wingham of which Nunningitun [Nonington] was a part), Swyrdlingan, (Swarling-in-Petham, given in 805), Bosingtun, (Bossington near Adisham?) , Gravenea, (Graveney, given in 811), and Ulacumb, (Ulcomb).
The Domesday Survey of 1086 and after.
In late 1085 William I, the Conquerer, (1 The Domesday Survey of 1086 and after. 066-1087) ordered a survey to record who then held the land in England, and parts of Wales, and who had held it during the time of King Edward the Confessor. Nonington is not mentioned in the Domesday Survey as it was included in the entry for the Manor of Wingham, but a survey of churches made for Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury made soon after his ordination in 1070, and so roughly contemporary to Domesday, records “Nunningitun” as a subsiduary church to the mother church “ad Wingeham”.
On August 2nd 1282 Archbishop John Peckham founded the College of Wingham, a college of secular canons consisting of a provost and six canons, divided into four parishes as follows: Wingham; Esse (Ash); Godwyneston with the hamlets of Bonnington, Offington (Uffington), Rolling, Newenham, underdone together with parts of Tuicham (Twitham) and Chileden (Chillenden) and, lastly, the church of Nonington with the chapel of Wymelingewelde (Womenswold) and the hamlets of Rittlynge (Ratling), Freydeville (Holt Street), Hesol (Esole), Suthnonington ( South Nonington) Hakeholt (Acholt), Catehampton (Kittington), Attedane (Oxenden?), Wolshethe (Woolege), and Vike (Wick).
In 1283 to 1285 had a survey made of the Manor of Wingham and in Nonington the survey recorded all or a part of the manors of Ackholt; Kittington; Oxenden; North and South Nonington; Ratling Court; Old Court; a small part of Soles manor; and the woodland at Crudeswood, later Curleswood Park.
After the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII
The Manor of Wingham remained in the possession of the Church until 1538 when Archbishop Cranmer exchanged the manor and attached lands with King Henry VIII for other property. The manor then remained in the possession of the Crown.
Around 1800 Edward Hasted in his history of Kent recorded that the manor itself “with the royalties, profits of courts, &c. remained still in the crown. Since which, the bailiwic of it, containing the rents and pro fits of the courts, with the fines, amerciaments, reliess, &c. and the privilege of holding the courts of it, by the bailiff of it, have been granted to the family of Oxenden, and Sir Henry Oxenden, bart. of Brome, is now in possession of the bailiwic of it. A court leet and court baron is held for this manor.”
In his Chronicles of Wingham [page 37] published in 1896 Arthur Hussey writes that:
” The Archbishop of Canterbury ceased to be lord of the manor, and lost his residence here in 1538, when Edward Cranmer exchanged away the manor house and lands, with Henry VIII. , for other land, which the king failed to give. So it continued in the hand of the crown until Charles I., in 1630, granted the site called Wingham Court, with the lands belonging to it, unto trustees for the use of the City of London, at the yearly fee farm rent of £27 6s. 8d., and at the end of this same reign it was conveyed to Sir William Cowper. But the manor itself, with the royalties, profits of courts, etc. remained with the crown, and in 1650 were valued at £134 4s.7d.; since which time the right to hold the courts,receive the fines, reliefs, &c. and the privilege of holding the manor courts, has belonged to the Oxenden family, who hold the ” manor court at the present day-(Hasted III).
“Sir Henry Palmer, Baronet (the eldest son of Sir Thomas Palmer, and great grandson of the Sir Henry Palmer who bought the college in 1553) had in the year 1665 been appointed steward of the Manor of Wingham and in July, 1702 petitioned Queen Anne that his grant might be renewed.”
The Oxenden family retained the Lordship of the manor of Wingham into the 20th century, and may well still do so.
