Wittersham

Last updated

Wittersham
Stocks Mill.jpg
Stocks Mill
Kent UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Wittersham
Location within Kent
Area14.66 km2 (5.66 sq mi)
Population1,173 (Civil Parish 2021) [1]
•  Density 80/km2 (210/sq mi)
OS grid reference TQ899274
Civil parish
  • Wittersham
District
Shire county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town TENTERDEN
Postcode district TN30
Dialling code 01797
Police Kent
Fire Kent
Ambulance South East Coast
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Kent
51°00′54″N0°42′22″E / 51.0151°N 0.706°E / 51.0151; 0.706

Wittersham is a small village and civil parish in the borough of Ashford in Kent, England. It is part of the Isle of Oxney.

Contents

History

The Domesday Book of 1086 does not mention Wittersham, but it does assign the manor of Palstre to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. Palstre was only one of four places in the Weald, apparently, that had a church. The Domesday Book entry reads:- "In Oxenai hundred, Osbern Paisforiere holds Palestrei, from the Bishop. It is taxed at three yokes. Arable land for two ploughs. In demesne, nine smallholders have half a plough. There is a church, 2 servants, 10 acres (40,000 m2) of meadow, 5 fisheries at twelve pence, woodland for the pannage of 10 hogs. In the time of Edward the Confessor, it was worth forty shillings, now sixty shillings. Edwy the priest held it for King Edward."

An early variation of the village name may be Wyghtresham. [2]

Manor

Early in the 18th century, the manor came into the ownership of Thomas Brodnax or May of Godmersham Park, Kent. May changed his name to Knight after inheriting estates from the Knight family in 1738 and, on his death in 1781, Owley passed to his son Thomas. The younger Thomas Knight died childless in 1794, and Owley passed to his widow Catherine, later of White Friars, Canterbury. Mrs Knight was lady of the manor in 1799, when Hasted wrote. When she died in 1812, her husband's estates passed to his adopted son, Edward Austen Knight, brother of novelist Jane Austen, and owner of Chawton House in Hampshire.

Some time later, Edward Knight appears to have sold Owley to William Levett of Bodiam. When he died in 1842, Levett owned both the manors of Palstre (where he lived) and Owley. He left Paltre to his elder daughter Sabina and Owley to his younger daughter Emily. His Will devised to Emily "my freeholds, messuages, buildings, farm lands, containing altogether, by estimation, one hundred and seventy-two acres, more or less, situate lying and being in the Parish of Wittersham aforesaid, commonly called or known by the name of Owley Farm, with the apportionments thereto belonging". Emily Levett married Samuel Rutley, and the Rutley family continued to own the manor until the end of the 19th century.

At the turn of the 20th century, by which time holding the manor had ceased to be equivalent with ownership of most land and property, the Body family held Wittersham, Colonel Heyworth held Palstre, and Mrs Samuel Rutley owned Owley. [3]

Amenities

The village has a Public House, The Swan, and a restored white weatherboarded post mill, Stocks Mill.

Wittersham housed a key listening post for downed pilots over the channel during the Second World War; all that is left now is a small concrete house and a few craters dotted around from attacks by the Luftwaffe and several doodlebug (V1) strikes.

Wittersham Parish Council has its own dedicated website www.wittershampc.org

Notable residents (past and present)

Related Research Articles

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

Bretby is a village and civil parish in the south of Derbyshire, England, north of Swadlincote and east of Burton upon Trent, on the border between Derbyshire and Staffordshire. The population of the civil parish as of the 2011 census was 893. The name means "dwelling place of Britons". On the A511 road, there is a secondary settlement, Stanhope Bretby, which was the site of Bretby Colliery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bodiam</span> Village in East Sussex, England

Bodiam is a small village and civil parish in the Rother District of East Sussex, England. It lies in the valley of the River Rother, near to the villages of Sandhurst and Ewhurst Green.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Donald Sinden</span> English actor (1923–2014)

Sir Donald Alfred Sinden was a British actor.

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

Aspley Guise is a village and civil parish in the west of Central Bedfordshire, England. In addition to the village of Aspley Guise itself, the civil parish also includes part of the town of Woburn Sands, the rest of which is in the City of Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. Together with Woburn Sands and Aspley Heath, it forms part of the Milton Keynes urban area. It is centred 6 miles (9.7 km) east southeast of Central Milton Keynes and 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the M1 junction 13. It has its own railway station on the Marston Vale Line, and an historic centre with 29 listed buildings.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steventon, Hampshire</span> Village and parish in Hampshire, England

Steventon is a village and a civil parish with a population of about 250 in north Hampshire, England. Situated 7 miles south-west of the town of Basingstoke, between the villages of Overton, Oakley and North Waltham, it is close to Junction 7 of the M3 motorway.

Leybourne is a small village and civil parish in Kent, England situated off Junction 4 of the M20 Motorway. Leybourne is adjacent to New Hythe, Larkfield and West Malling. As of 2020 Leybourne Parish had a population of 4,372.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Warbleton</span> Village in East Sussex, England

Warbleton is a village and civil parish in the Wealden district of East Sussex, England. Within its bounds are three other settlements. It is located south-east of Heathfield on the slopes of the Weald.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breamore House</span>

Breamore House is an Elizabethan manor house noted for its fine collection of paintings and furniture and situated NW of Breamore village, north of Fordingbridge, Hampshire, England. Though it remains in private hands, it is open to visitors from April to October.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stone-cum-Ebony</span> Civil parish in Kent, England

Stone-cum-Ebony is a large mostly rural and marshland civil parish centred 7 miles (11 km) SSW of Ashford, in the Ashford district, in Kent, England. It includes the village of Stone in Oxney and tiny community of Ebony. In 2011 it had a population of 460.

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

Ebony is a hamlet in the civil parish of Stone-cum-Ebony, in the Ashford district, in the county of Kent, England. It is on the Isle of Oxney, south of Ashford. EBONY, is a parish, in the union of Tenterden, partly in the hundred of Tenterden, Lower division of the lathe of Scray, W. division, but chiefly in the hundred of Oxney, lathe of Shepway, E. division, of Kent, 4 miles from Tenterden. [1]

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

Wickhambreaux is a village and civil parish in the Canterbury district, in the county of Kent, England. The village is just off the A257 Sandwich Road, four miles east of the city of Canterbury. Since Roman times the village has had connections to the Church and the Crown, including being owned by Joan of Kent in the 14th century. The 13th-century parish church of St Andrew stands around a medieval village green along with other historic buildings.

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

Stalisfield is a village in the borough of Swale in Kent, England, located on a secondary road about 1½ miles (2.4 km) north of Charing and 5 miles south west of Faversham. The parish includes the hamlet of Stalisfield Green.

Tunstall is a linear village and civil parish in Swale in Kent, England. It is about 2 km to the southwest of the centre of Sittingbourne, on a road towards Bredgar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sutton on the Hill</span> Civil parish in Derbyshire, England

Sutton-on-the-Hill is a parish in south Derbyshire, eight miles (13 km) west of Derby. The population of the civil parish taken at the 2011 Census was 123. The village is widely spread out and contains both a church and a chapel. It was described as "a parish, with two townships and a hamlet" in the 1870s. Now it has no shop or post office and limited public transport links. Sutton on the Hill is primarily an agricultural area with former dairy farms at either end of the village, along with the Sutton Estate Farm. The village school has been converted into a village hall and has a nursery school for the local villages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arnold Savage</span> Member of the Parliament of England

Sir Arnold Savage of Bobbing, Kent was the English Speaker of the House of Commons from 1400 to 1402 and then again from 1403 to 1404 and a Knight of the Shire of Kent who was referred to as "the great comprehensive symbol of the English people".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">West Dean, West Sussex</span> Village and parish in West Sussex, England

West Dean is a village, Anglican parish and civil parish in the District of Chichester in West Sussex, England 5 miles (8 km) north of Chichester on the A286 road just west of Singleton. The parishes include the hamlets of Binderton and Chilgrove.

Sir Thomas Browne was a Member of Parliament and Chancellor of the Exchequer. Browne's tenure as Chancellor occurred during the Great Bullion Famine and the Great Slump in England. He was executed for treason on 20 July 1460.

George Digweed MBE, is a multi-World and European English sport shooter clay-shooting champion.

Sir Nicholas Haute, of Wadden Hall (Wadenhall) in Petham and Waltham, with manors extending into Lower Hardres, Elmsted and Bishopsbourne, in the county of Kent, was an English knight, landowner and politician.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Austen Knight</span> Brother of Jane Austen

Edward Austen Knight was the third eldest brother of Jane Austen, and provided her with the use of a cottage in Chawton where she lived for the last years of her life. He was also High Sheriff of Kent in 1801.

References

  1. ↑ Key Statistics; Quick Statistics: Population Density United Kingdom Census 2021 Office for National Statistics
  2. ↑ "AALT Page". Aalt.law.uh.edu. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
  3. ↑ Archived 18 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  4. 1 2 Debrett's Distinguished People of Today[ verification needed ] (2007) ISBN   978-1-870520-90-4 [ page needed ]
  5. ↑ "George Digweed Sporting Agency | Clay Pigeon Shooting". Georgedigweed.com. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
  6. ↑ "Obituary: Norman Hackforth". The Independent. London. 18 December 1996.
  7. ↑ "New Year Honours: Paul Hutchinson". The News. Portsmouth. 31 December 2013.
  8. ↑ "Sir Donald Sinden - People - Kent". Kent.greatbritishlife.co.uk. 24 August 2009. Retrieved 5 December 2013.
  9. ↑ "Marc Sinden: former Mrs McCartney is 'the most misquoted lady I've ever met'". Liverpool Daily Post. 6 March 2009. Retrieved 7 March 2009.
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.