Chilham

Last updated

Chilham
Chilham Square 1.jpg
Chilham Square
Kent UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Chilham
Location within Kent
Area13.85 km2 (5.35 sq mi)
Population1,124 (Civil Parish 2011) [1]
•  Density 81/km2 (210/sq mi)
OS grid reference TR065536
Civil parish
  • Chilham
District
Shire county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town CANTERBURY
Postcode district CT4
Dialling code 01227
Police Kent
Fire Kent
Ambulance South East Coast
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Kent
51°14′38″N0°57′40″E / 51.244°N 0.961°E / 51.244; 0.961

Chilham is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Ashford in Kent, England. It sits on the north bank of the Great Stour around 5+1⁄2 miles (8.9 km) to the southwest of Canterbury and 7 miles (11 km) northeast of Ashford. It is a mostly agricultural parish, with settlement clustered around Chilham village centre, which is next to the Grade I-listed Chilham Castle. Well-preserved roads and mostly residential listed buildings in the centre have led to its use as a location in television and film. Also lying within the civil parish is the smaller linear settlement of Shottenden, which is situated 1+1⁄2 miles (2.4 km) west of Chilham.

Contents

History

The village has a number of period houses such as the former vicarage, which dates from 1742. The castle was owned by the Viscounts Massereene and Ferrard until its sale in 1997. From 2013 it was owned by Stuart Wheeler, founder of the spread-betting firm IG Index, until his death in July 2020. [2]

Geography

The village of Chilham is in the valley of the Great Stour River and beside the A28 road 6 miles (10 km) southwest of Canterbury. It is centred on a market square, where a traditional annual May Day is celebrated. [3] At each end of the square are its major buildings: Chilham Castle and the 15th-century parish church, dedicated to St Mary. It has been claimed that St Thomas Becket was buried in the churchyard, despite his ornate tomb in Canterbury Cathedral, destroyed at the Reformation. There are two other named localities in the civil parish: Shottenden and a much smaller neighbourhood, Old Wives Lees.

The Pilgrims Way passes through Chilham on the way to Canterbury, and the railway station is in a part of the village sometimes called Bagham on the line from Ashford to Canterbury.

Amenities

There are two large public houses in Chilham, the Woolpack and the White Horse, which dates from the 16th century. Other amenities include a restaurant and tea shop, post office, gift shop, bus stop, tennis club, sports centre, children's playground and 15th-century village hall which originally was the tithe barn for the castle. Most shops are also along the main through road towards Canterbury just before the entry to the network of streets having the oldest buildings in the village.

Culture and media

The Neolithic longbarrow of Julliberrie's Grave is on the Julliberrie Downs east of the river.

Chilham and the surrounding area was one of the locations for much of Powell and Pressburger's 1944 film A Canterbury Tale . In 1965 it was used for part of the filming of The Amorous Adventures of Moll Flanders starring Kim Novak, Leo McKern and Angela Lansbury, and it was also used as a location for the BBC's 2009 adaptation of Jane Austen's novel Emma. [4] The village and the castle featured heavily in a fake snow-bound episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot called Hercule Poirot's Christmas starring David Suchet. The village was made over to sunnier times for The Moving Finger , a mystery featuring Agatha Christie's other famous sleuth Miss Jane Marple, portrayed by Geraldine McEwan, and appeared as Riseholme in the 1985 LWT/Channel 4 adaptation of E.F. Benson's Mapp and Lucia , which also starred Geraldine McEwan. [5]

Notable residents

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">River Stour, Kent</span> River in England

The River Stour is a river in Kent, England that flows into the North Sea at Pegwell Bay. Above Plucks Gutter, where the Little Stour joins it, the river is normally known as the Great Stour. The upper section of the river, above its confluence with the East Stour at Ashford is sometimes known as the Upper Great Stour or West Stour. In the tidal lower reaches, the artificial Stonar Cut short cuts a large loop in the natural river.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Borough of Ashford</span> Non-metropolitan district and borough in England

The Borough of Ashford is a local government district with borough status in Kent, England. It is named after its largest town, Ashford, where the council is based. The borough also includes the town of Tenterden and an extensive surrounding rural area including numerous villages; with an area of 580 square kilometres (220 sq mi), it is the largest district in Kent. Parts of the borough lie within the designated Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty of High Weald and the Kent Downs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">A28 road</span> Trunk road in Kent and East Sussex

The A28 is a trunk road in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in south east England, connecting Margate, Canterbury, Ashford and Hastings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Westbere</span> Human settlement in England

Westbere is a small village and civil parish in Kent, England, centred 4 miles (6.4 km) north-east of Canterbury city centre along the A28 road to the Isle of Thanet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kennington, Kent</span> Suburb of Ashford, Kent, England

Kennington is a suburb of Ashford and civil parish in Kent, England. It is about a mile northeast of the town centre and north of the M20 motorway, and contains the 12th-century church, St Mary's. The main A28 Canterbury Road and A2042 Faversham Road run through the village, and the A251 Trinity Road skirts the western edge. In recent years the village has expanded with the building of new housing estates in Little Burton, Trinity Road, Conningbrook Lakes, and planned for Conningbrook Park and Eureka Park.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brook, Kent</span> Human settlement in England

Brook is a small village and civil parish in the borough of Ashford in Kent, England, centred 4.5 miles (7.2 km) east-northeast of the town of Ashford.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mersham</span> Human settlement in England

Mersham is a mostly agricultural large village and civil parish near Ashford in Kent, England. The population of the civil parish includes the area of Cheesman's Green now known as Finberry.

Ruckinge is a village and civil parish in south Kent centred 5.5 miles (8.9 km) south of Ashford on the B2067 Hamstreet to Hythe road, with two settled neighbourhoods. It is, broadly defined, a narrow, fairly large rural parish of land which is about one quarter woodland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stour Valley Walk</span> Recreational walking route in England

The Stour Valley Walk is a recreational walking route that follows the River Stour, through the Low Weald and Kent Downs, from its source at Lenham to its estuary at Pegwell Bay.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Challock</span> Human settlement in England

Challock is a mostly wooded, large village and civil parish in the Borough of Ashford, Kent, England. The village name derives from the old English 'Cealfloca' - calf enclosure. A clear nucleus of the village is centred 8 miles (13 km) south of the port of Faversham and 5 miles (8.0 km) north of Ashford. It dates from around AD823.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crundale, Kent</span> Human settlement in England

Crundale is a mostly rural village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent in southeast England. The village covers a section of one of the dual escarpments of the North Downs at this point, about halfway between Ashford and Canterbury.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Godmersham</span> Human settlement in England

Godmersham is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village straddles the Great Stour river where it cuts through the North Downs and its land is approximately one third woodland, all in the far east and west on the escarpment of the North Downs. It is six miles north-east of Ashford on the A28 road midway between Ashford and Canterbury in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty with the North Downs Way and Pilgrims' Way traversing the parish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Egerton, Kent</span> Human settlement in England

Egerton is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village is on the Greensand Ridge 9 miles (14.4 km) north of Ashford and stretches three miles south into a lower plain towards the West Stour. The parish is a relatively scattered rural one; the settlement of Stonebridge Green, adjacent to Egerton village centre, is also in the parish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great Chart</span> Human settlement in England

Great Chart is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Great Chart with Singleton, in the Ashford borough of Kent, England. The parish is split between the ancient village of Great Chart and the modern Singleton neighbourhood on the western outskirts of Ashford. The village centre of Great Chart is 2 miles (3.2 km) from the town centre. In 1961 the parish had a population of 969.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hothfield</span> Human settlement in England

Hothfield is a village and civil parish in the Ashford Borough of Kent, England and is 3 miles north-west of Ashford on the A20. It is completely split in two by Hothfield Common.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smeeth</span> Village in Kent, England

Smeeth is a mostly agricultural land use village and civil parish, centred 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Ashford in the Ashford Borough of Kent, England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wye with Hinxhill</span> Human settlement in England

Wye with Hinxhill is a hillside civil parish in the borough of Ashford northeast of Ashford, Kent itself, centred 3.7 miles NNE of the town centre. The North Downs range of hills has a high escarpment on the east and west borders of the village, flanking a gap caused by the River Great Stour in the centre of the parish.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chilham Castle</span> Grade I listed castle in the United Kingdom

Chilham Castle is a Jacobean manor house and keep in the village of Chilham, between Ashford and Canterbury in the county of Kent, England. The keep is of Norman origin and dates to 1174, although it may have been built on an older Anglo-Saxon fortification. The manor house was completed in 1616 for Sir Dudley Digges. Various renovations and improvements to the Manor House and surrounding gardens took place in the 18th and 19th centuries.

<i>Agatha Christies Marple</i> British ITV television series

Agatha Christie's Marple is a British ITV television programme loosely based on the books and short stories by British crime novelist Agatha Christie. The title character was played by Geraldine McEwan from the first to the third series, until her retirement from the role, and by Julia McKenzie from the fourth series onwards. Unlike the counterpart TV series Agatha Christie's Poirot, the show took many liberties with Christie’s works, most notably adding Miss Marple’s character to the adaptations of novels in which she never appeared. Following the conclusion of the sixth series, the BBC acquired the rights for the production of Agatha Christie adaptations, suggesting that ITV would be unable to make a seventh series of Marple.

References

  1. ↑ Key Statistics; Quick Statistics: Population Density Archived 11 February 2003 at the Wayback Machine United Kingdom Census 2011 Office for National Statistics Retrieved 10 May 2014
  2. ↑ Norman, Matthew (16 August 2013). "Don't be fooled by Stuart Wheeler's poker face". Daily Telegraph. Archived from the original on 31 July 2017. Retrieved 3 April 2018.
  3. ↑ "Chilham village in Kent". Kent Ideas. Kent Ideas Ltd. 2015. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 4 September 2015.
  4. ↑ "Emma in Chilham". BBC Kent. Archived from the original on 22 July 2009. Retrieved 17 April 2009.
  5. ↑ "Kent Film Office: Chilham". www.kentfilmoffice.co.uk. Retrieved 20 June 2024.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.