St Mary, Chilham, Kent
There not many churches in east Kent that I have not been into.
I thought I had been into St Mary before, but looking at my shots from a visit some six years ago, I just reported that the church was locked and I posted no shots of the church.
This I found out once I was back home.
Anyway.
St Mary sits at the east end of the picturesque village square, partially hidden behind the White Horse, a wide path leads to the west door in the base of the tower.
It was unlocked on Saturday, so passing through the inner and outer door, into the vast and airy space of the nave and large side aisles, I was first stuck by the many large and extravagant memorials in both the side chapels and aisles.
At the west end of the village square sits Chilham "Castle", still a private residence, and the former owners of that house now rest for eternity in the church, under tombs of marble.
Lots of great details; medieval glass fragments, corbel stones.
A very fine church indeed.
------------------------------------------
This large sombre church stands just off the picturesque village square. Dating mainly from the fifteenth century, its interior was much restored in the Victorian period. The visitor today should spend time studying the stained glass and monuments which all commemorate the families associated with the village. In the north aisle is an excellent polished memorial to Sir Dudley Digges who lived in Chilham Castle in the early seventeenth century. It is made of Bethersden marble, and is similar in workmanship to many fireplaces in the castle. In the north chapel is a memorial to the Hardy children who died in 1858. It shows them reading a book with their toys around them. Originally made to stand in the castle it was presented to the church in 1919. The fine examples of stained glass in the north and south windows are also memorials to the Hardy family, designed by C.E. Kempe and Co. Ltd in 1914.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Chilham
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CHILHAM
LIES upon the river Stour, about six miles southward from Canterbury. It is called in Domesday, Cilleham; in Saxon, Cyleham; which signifies the cold place; and some think this place was antiently called Julham, or Juliham, i. e. the village or dwelling of Julius, in regard to Julius Cæsar, the Roman emperor, who had several conflicts with the Britons in and near it.
The Parish of Chilham is situated exceedingly pleasant, in a fine healthy part of the county, about six miles southward from Canterbury, and nine from Ashford, the high road leading through it, a little below which the river Stour runs along the eastern part of the parish, on which there is a corn mill, long known by the name of French Mill, belonging to Mr. Wildman, and on the height above it the noted mount of earth, usually called Julliberries grave. On an eminence, almost adjoining to the opposite or west side of the road, is the village, built mostly on the summit of the hill, round a small forstal, having the church and vicarage, a neat modern built house, on the north side of it, and the antient castle, with the stately mansion and park of Chilham. On the opposite side from which there is a most beautiful view over the spacious Ashford vale, through which the river Stour directs its course; a vale which comprehends within it a most beautiful scene, ornamented with seats, parks, towns, and churches, in the various parts of it, bounded by the majestic tower of Ashford church in front, the fine down hills, the summits of which are well cloathed with soliage on one side, and the extended range of Wye and Braborne downs on the other, all together forming a most rich and luxuriant prospect.
The parish is nearly circular, between three and four miles across. The ground in it is very unequal and hilly, the soil of the hills being mostly chalk, and the vales clay. There is some coppice wood in the south west part of it towards Molash, where it becomes, among the hills, which are bold and romantic, a barren and slinty country. About a mile northward from Chilham church is the common, or small heath, called Old Wives lees, over which the branch of the turnpike road goes which leads for the Ashford road abovementioned to Faversham. Near the lees is Lower Emsin, and adjoining the Blean woods. There are about one hundred and twenty houses, and seven hundred and twenty inhabitants in this parish.
The market mentioned to be granted below, has been disused time out of mind, and the fair on the Assumption has likewise been long disused, but there is one held here yearly on Nov. 8, for cattle, &c.
THE MANOR OF SELGRAVE in Faversham, having fallen to Sir Dudley Diggs, by escheat, and being also purchased by him of the heir of Sir Christopher Cleve, he, by a codicil to his will in 1638, devised it to charitable uses, ordering that it should be let to some tenant, who should pay over and above the quit-rents, twenty pounds per annum; and so soon as that sum should be raised, then that the lord of Faversham, or in his absence, the mayor, with the advice of four of the jurats, and the lord of Chilham, or in his absence, the vicar of Chilham, with the advice of four of the best freeholders, should chuse a young man, and a young maiden, of good conversation, between the ages of sixteen and twenty four; and these two young men and two young maidens, on the 19th of May yearly, should run a tye at Chilham, and the young man and young maid who should prevail, should each of them have ten pounds.
This running is still kept up; several young men and maids run at Old Wives-lees, in this parish, yearly on the first of May, and several others at Sheldwichlees on the Monday following, by way of trial; and the two which prevail at each of those places run for the above-mentioned ten pounds on Old Wives-lees, on the 19th of May, among a great concourse of the neighbouring gentry and inhabitants, who constantly assemble there on this occasion. (fn. 1) The late Mr. Heron, as lord of Chilham, endeavoured to put an end to this diversion, but found it out of his power.
¶CAMDEN says, it was the current opinion among the inhabitants, that Julius Cæsar encamped here in his second expedition against the Britons, and that thence this parish acquired its name of Julham, i e. Julius's station, or house; and if he mistook not, they had truth on their side. (fn. 2) Meaning this to be the place where Cæsar, in his Commentaries, says, that having marched about twelve miles he discovered the Britons, who were advanced to the banks of a river, and begin from a rising ground to oppose the Romans and give them battle; but being repulsed, they retired to a place fortisied both by art and nature in an extraordinary manner. Camden surely seems to be mistaken here; for this place is full sixteen statute miles in a direct line from Deal, which is nearly seventeen miles and a quarter by the Roman estimation; too great a difference, we must suppose, for Cæsar to be mistaken in. It is more probable, that this was the place where the Britons, the next day after the attack, which they under the command of Cassivelaun, had made on the Romans, immediately after Cæsar's return from fortifying his camp, had posted themselves, on the hills at some distance from the Roman camp, and harassed from thence their cavalry and attacked their foragers under C. Trebonius, rushing on them so suddenly from all parts, as even to fall in with the legions and their standards. If their post for this purpose was here, the spot of it must have been at Shillingheld wood, where there are large and extensive remains of strong fortifications and entrenchments, and where the Romans afterwards, from the works already made there, and the eligibility of its situation, placed one of their castra stativa, or more lasting encampments, to which probably the scite, where the antient castle of Chilham stands, might be an exploratory fort.
CHILHAM was of eminent account in the earliest times, and from its situation was most probably, in the time of the antient Britons, fortified, and held by them as a place of strength against the Romans, who had several encounters in and near it with them; and afterwards, when that nation had gained a more permanent footing in this island, was more strongly fortified by them, and made use of as one of their castra stativa, or more lasting encampments; and many Roman remains have been from time to time discovered in it, in the spot where the present mansion of the castle now stands, with the plain appearance of a much more antient building under the foundations of it. This appeared when Sir Dudley Digges pulled down the old mansion of Chilham, and dug the foundations deeper for the present house, when the basis of a much more antient building was discovered, and many culinary vessels of the Romans were found at a considerable depth. After the Romans had deserted Britain, the Saxon chiefs seem to have kept possession of it, and to have had a fortress or castle on or just by the scite of the present one; and in the time of the heptarchy, Widred, king of Kent, who reigned at the latter end of the 7th century, resided at it, and made it a place of much greater strength and defence; and Bede notices that the villæ regiæ of the Saxons were mostly placed upon or near the places where the Romans had before made their stations and principal fortified encampments. After which, as this kingdom made but an inconsiderable figure, historians have made little mention of the several princes who reigned, or their transactions in it, so that there is no following account of this place till the invasion of the Danes, who in one of their in cursions, probably in either the year 838 or 851, in both which they took and plundered Canterbury, sacked and demolished this castle, which seems after this to have remained desolate till the time of the Conqueror; though the scite and domains belonging to it appear by the record of Domesday to have been, in the reign of king Edward the Consessor, in the possession of Sired de Cilleham, a noble Saxon, who had large possessions in different parts of this county, and was in the battle of Hastings, on the side of king Harold, by which he forfeited this estate to the Conqueror, who soon afterwards granted it to his half-brother Odo, bishop of Baieux, under the general title of whose lands it is thus entered in the book of Domesday:
In Feleberge hundred, Fulbert holds of the bishop, Cilleham. It was taxed at five at five sulings. The arable land is twenty carucates. In demesue there are two carucats, and thirty eight villeins, with twelve corttages having twelve carucates. There is a church, and six mills and an half, of six pounds and eight shillings, and two fisheries of seventeen pence, and pasture of eighteen shillings and seven pance.
In Canterbury, city there are thirteen houses belonging to this manor, paying fifteen shillings, and nine acres of meadow. Wood sufficient for the pannage of twenty hogs.
In the time of king Edward the Confessor it was valued at forty pounds, and afterwards at thirty pounds and forty shillings. Sired held it of king Edward.
CHILHAM is within the Ecclesiastical Ju risdiction of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.
The church, which is dedicated to St. Mary, is a handsome building, consisting of a body and two isles, all covered with lead, and a high chancel, with two chaples, one of which is dedicated to St. Anne, on the south side; there was a chantry on the north side, now pulled down, with a transept, all covered with tile. It has a tower steeple at the west end, on one corner of which is a beacon turret, which till of late was covered with a small spire. There are six bells and a clock in it. The steeple was built about the year 1534, as appears by a legacy towards the building of it. In the chancel is a monument for Margaret, sister of Sir D. Digges, wife of Sir Anthony Palmer, K. B. obt. 1619. He lies buried here, within the altar-rails, obt. 1630. A memorial for Anne St. Leger, mother of Sir D. Diggs, obt. 1636, and several memorials for the Fogges. In the body of the church are memorials for the Cumberlands, Paynes, Cobbes, Belkes, and Bates; in the north transept, for Masters, Petits, Spracklyns, and Cobbe; and in the south one for Dixon. There were formerly in the windows the arms of Ensing and Thawyts, as has been already mentioned, and of Ross and Honywood. In the chapel on the south side of the chancel, probably that of St. Anne, is the burial vault built by Sir Dudley Diggs, for himself and family, and referred to by his will, in it many of this family lie buried; and in the chapel is a monument for Mary Kempe, lady Digges, wife of Sir Dudley, with her genealogy and that of Digges, and another for Sir D. Digges himself, 1638; and on the north side, probably where the old chantry above-mentioned was, is a circular mausoleum, with a cupola at top, built by the Colebrooke family for their use.
The church of Chilham was antiently an appendage appurtenant to the honor and manor of Chilham; but so early as the reign of king Stephen it was separated from it, and in the possession of William de Ipre, who in 1153 gave it to the priory of Throwley, which was confirmed by king Stephen that year. (fn. 18)
This religious house was an alien priory, established as a cell to the Benedictine abbey of St. Bertin, the capital of Artois, in Flanders, from whence a certain number of monks, who were mostly foreigners, and removeable at pleasure, were sent over, with a prior at their head, who were little more than stewards to their superior abbey, to which they returned the revenues of their possessions annually; for which reason, during the wars with France, as their revenues went to support the king's enemies, these kind of houses were generally seized, and restored again upon the return of peace.
¶In the 8th year of king Richard II. this church of Chilham was valued at forty pounds, at which time it was become appropriated to this cell, and a vicarage was endowed in it. In which situation both parsonage and vicarage remained till the general suppression of the alien priories throughout England, in the 2d year of Henry V. when this of Throwley was, among others, suppressed, and it seems to have remained in the hands of the crown till king Henry VI. in his 22nd year, settled it on the monastery of Sion, founded by his father. With which this church and vicarage continued till the general suppression of religious houses, this of Sion being one of those greater monasteries dissolved by the act of 31 Henry VIII. by which all such, together with their possessions, were given to the king. This parsonage and vicarage thus coming into the hands of the crown, the king in his 32d year, granted the rectory of Chilham, together with the chapel of Molash, and the advowson of the vicarage of the church of Chilham, with all their appurtenances, together with the manor of Chilham, to Sir Thomas Chene, in manner as has been already mentioned; (fn. 19) whose only son and heir Henry, lord Cheney, of Tuddington, in the 3d year of queen Elizabeth levied a fine of all his lands, and soon afterwards seems to have alienated a moiety of the parsonage of Chilham, with all the tithes and emoluments belonging to it, arising on the east of the high road leading from Godmersham, through Chilham town to Faversham; and they are now the property of the Rev. Sir John Fagg, bart. The great tithes of the chapel and parish of Molash seem to have been alienated by him at the same time, as will be further mentioned hereafter; but the other moiety and remainder of the parsonage of Chilham, with all the tithes arising in the parish, on the other or west side of the above-mentioned high road, together with the advowson of the vicarage of Chilham, with the appendant chapel of Molash, was alienated by him, together with the honor and castle, in the 10th year of queen Elizabeth, to Sir Thomas Kempe, since which they have passed together in manner as has been more fully mentioned before, in a like succession of ownership down to Thomas Wildman, esq. the present possessor of this part of the parsonage, and parton likewise of the advowson of the church of Chilham.
The vicarage of Chilham, with the chapel of Molash, is valued in the king's books at 13l. 6s. 8d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 6s. 8d. In 1578 here were communications three hundred and fifty nine. In 1640 it was valued at eighty-nine pounds. Communicants three hundred and seventy-seven. It is now worth two hundred pounds per annum.
IT HAS BEEN mentioned, that there was A CHANTRY on the north side of this church. It was endowed with twenty-two acres of land, as appears by the roll in the Augmentation-office, of 30 Henry VIII. This chantry was dissolved by the act of the 1st year of king Edward VI. The last incumbent of it, John Castelyn, was living anno 1553, and had then a pension of six pounds. (fn. 20)
By the survey of chantries in the above office, taken in the 2d year of king Edward VI. it appears that Robert Pell gave a house and garden in Chilhæn, on condition that the stipendiary priest there should live in it.
There was in 1349 A CHAPEL in the castle of Chilliam, called the free chapel of the blessed Virgin Mary, of which Margery, lady Roos, daughter of Bartholomew, lord Badlesmere, and widow of William, lord Roos de Hamlake, was patroness, and accordingly that year, at her presentation, the see of Canterbury being then vacant, one Osbertus was admitted by the prior and chapter of Christ-church, personally to serve as a perpetual chaplain in it.
St Mary, Chilham, Kent
There not many churches in east Kent that I have not been into.
I thought I had been into St Mary before, but looking at my shots from a visit some six years ago, I just reported that the church was locked and I posted no shots of the church.
This I found out once I was back home.
Anyway.
St Mary sits at the east end of the picturesque village square, partially hidden behind the White Horse, a wide path leads to the west door in the base of the tower.
It was unlocked on Saturday, so passing through the inner and outer door, into the vast and airy space of the nave and large side aisles, I was first stuck by the many large and extravagant memorials in both the side chapels and aisles.
At the west end of the village square sits Chilham "Castle", still a private residence, and the former owners of that house now rest for eternity in the church, under tombs of marble.
Lots of great details; medieval glass fragments, corbel stones.
A very fine church indeed.
------------------------------------------
This large sombre church stands just off the picturesque village square. Dating mainly from the fifteenth century, its interior was much restored in the Victorian period. The visitor today should spend time studying the stained glass and monuments which all commemorate the families associated with the village. In the north aisle is an excellent polished memorial to Sir Dudley Digges who lived in Chilham Castle in the early seventeenth century. It is made of Bethersden marble, and is similar in workmanship to many fireplaces in the castle. In the north chapel is a memorial to the Hardy children who died in 1858. It shows them reading a book with their toys around them. Originally made to stand in the castle it was presented to the church in 1919. The fine examples of stained glass in the north and south windows are also memorials to the Hardy family, designed by C.E. Kempe and Co. Ltd in 1914.
www.kentchurches.info/church.asp?p=Chilham
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CHILHAM
LIES upon the river Stour, about six miles southward from Canterbury. It is called in Domesday, Cilleham; in Saxon, Cyleham; which signifies the cold place; and some think this place was antiently called Julham, or Juliham, i. e. the village or dwelling of Julius, in regard to Julius Cæsar, the Roman emperor, who had several conflicts with the Britons in and near it.
The Parish of Chilham is situated exceedingly pleasant, in a fine healthy part of the county, about six miles southward from Canterbury, and nine from Ashford, the high road leading through it, a little below which the river Stour runs along the eastern part of the parish, on which there is a corn mill, long known by the name of French Mill, belonging to Mr. Wildman, and on the height above it the noted mount of earth, usually called Julliberries grave. On an eminence, almost adjoining to the opposite or west side of the road, is the village, built mostly on the summit of the hill, round a small forstal, having the church and vicarage, a neat modern built house, on the north side of it, and the antient castle, with the stately mansion and park of Chilham. On the opposite side from which there is a most beautiful view over the spacious Ashford vale, through which the river Stour directs its course; a vale which comprehends within it a most beautiful scene, ornamented with seats, parks, towns, and churches, in the various parts of it, bounded by the majestic tower of Ashford church in front, the fine down hills, the summits of which are well cloathed with soliage on one side, and the extended range of Wye and Braborne downs on the other, all together forming a most rich and luxuriant prospect.
The parish is nearly circular, between three and four miles across. The ground in it is very unequal and hilly, the soil of the hills being mostly chalk, and the vales clay. There is some coppice wood in the south west part of it towards Molash, where it becomes, among the hills, which are bold and romantic, a barren and slinty country. About a mile northward from Chilham church is the common, or small heath, called Old Wives lees, over which the branch of the turnpike road goes which leads for the Ashford road abovementioned to Faversham. Near the lees is Lower Emsin, and adjoining the Blean woods. There are about one hundred and twenty houses, and seven hundred and twenty inhabitants in this parish.
The market mentioned to be granted below, has been disused time out of mind, and the fair on the Assumption has likewise been long disused, but there is one held here yearly on Nov. 8, for cattle, &c.
THE MANOR OF SELGRAVE in Faversham, having fallen to Sir Dudley Diggs, by escheat, and being also purchased by him of the heir of Sir Christopher Cleve, he, by a codicil to his will in 1638, devised it to charitable uses, ordering that it should be let to some tenant, who should pay over and above the quit-rents, twenty pounds per annum; and so soon as that sum should be raised, then that the lord of Faversham, or in his absence, the mayor, with the advice of four of the jurats, and the lord of Chilham, or in his absence, the vicar of Chilham, with the advice of four of the best freeholders, should chuse a young man, and a young maiden, of good conversation, between the ages of sixteen and twenty four; and these two young men and two young maidens, on the 19th of May yearly, should run a tye at Chilham, and the young man and young maid who should prevail, should each of them have ten pounds.
This running is still kept up; several young men and maids run at Old Wives-lees, in this parish, yearly on the first of May, and several others at Sheldwichlees on the Monday following, by way of trial; and the two which prevail at each of those places run for the above-mentioned ten pounds on Old Wives-lees, on the 19th of May, among a great concourse of the neighbouring gentry and inhabitants, who constantly assemble there on this occasion. (fn. 1) The late Mr. Heron, as lord of Chilham, endeavoured to put an end to this diversion, but found it out of his power.
¶CAMDEN says, it was the current opinion among the inhabitants, that Julius Cæsar encamped here in his second expedition against the Britons, and that thence this parish acquired its name of Julham, i e. Julius's station, or house; and if he mistook not, they had truth on their side. (fn. 2) Meaning this to be the place where Cæsar, in his Commentaries, says, that having marched about twelve miles he discovered the Britons, who were advanced to the banks of a river, and begin from a rising ground to oppose the Romans and give them battle; but being repulsed, they retired to a place fortisied both by art and nature in an extraordinary manner. Camden surely seems to be mistaken here; for this place is full sixteen statute miles in a direct line from Deal, which is nearly seventeen miles and a quarter by the Roman estimation; too great a difference, we must suppose, for Cæsar to be mistaken in. It is more probable, that this was the place where the Britons, the next day after the attack, which they under the command of Cassivelaun, had made on the Romans, immediately after Cæsar's return from fortifying his camp, had posted themselves, on the hills at some distance from the Roman camp, and harassed from thence their cavalry and attacked their foragers under C. Trebonius, rushing on them so suddenly from all parts, as even to fall in with the legions and their standards. If their post for this purpose was here, the spot of it must have been at Shillingheld wood, where there are large and extensive remains of strong fortifications and entrenchments, and where the Romans afterwards, from the works already made there, and the eligibility of its situation, placed one of their castra stativa, or more lasting encampments, to which probably the scite, where the antient castle of Chilham stands, might be an exploratory fort.
CHILHAM was of eminent account in the earliest times, and from its situation was most probably, in the time of the antient Britons, fortified, and held by them as a place of strength against the Romans, who had several encounters in and near it with them; and afterwards, when that nation had gained a more permanent footing in this island, was more strongly fortified by them, and made use of as one of their castra stativa, or more lasting encampments; and many Roman remains have been from time to time discovered in it, in the spot where the present mansion of the castle now stands, with the plain appearance of a much more antient building under the foundations of it. This appeared when Sir Dudley Digges pulled down the old mansion of Chilham, and dug the foundations deeper for the present house, when the basis of a much more antient building was discovered, and many culinary vessels of the Romans were found at a considerable depth. After the Romans had deserted Britain, the Saxon chiefs seem to have kept possession of it, and to have had a fortress or castle on or just by the scite of the present one; and in the time of the heptarchy, Widred, king of Kent, who reigned at the latter end of the 7th century, resided at it, and made it a place of much greater strength and defence; and Bede notices that the villæ regiæ of the Saxons were mostly placed upon or near the places where the Romans had before made their stations and principal fortified encampments. After which, as this kingdom made but an inconsiderable figure, historians have made little mention of the several princes who reigned, or their transactions in it, so that there is no following account of this place till the invasion of the Danes, who in one of their in cursions, probably in either the year 838 or 851, in both which they took and plundered Canterbury, sacked and demolished this castle, which seems after this to have remained desolate till the time of the Conqueror; though the scite and domains belonging to it appear by the record of Domesday to have been, in the reign of king Edward the Consessor, in the possession of Sired de Cilleham, a noble Saxon, who had large possessions in different parts of this county, and was in the battle of Hastings, on the side of king Harold, by which he forfeited this estate to the Conqueror, who soon afterwards granted it to his half-brother Odo, bishop of Baieux, under the general title of whose lands it is thus entered in the book of Domesday:
In Feleberge hundred, Fulbert holds of the bishop, Cilleham. It was taxed at five at five sulings. The arable land is twenty carucates. In demesue there are two carucats, and thirty eight villeins, with twelve corttages having twelve carucates. There is a church, and six mills and an half, of six pounds and eight shillings, and two fisheries of seventeen pence, and pasture of eighteen shillings and seven pance.
In Canterbury, city there are thirteen houses belonging to this manor, paying fifteen shillings, and nine acres of meadow. Wood sufficient for the pannage of twenty hogs.
In the time of king Edward the Confessor it was valued at forty pounds, and afterwards at thirty pounds and forty shillings. Sired held it of king Edward.
CHILHAM is within the Ecclesiastical Ju risdiction of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Bridge.
The church, which is dedicated to St. Mary, is a handsome building, consisting of a body and two isles, all covered with lead, and a high chancel, with two chaples, one of which is dedicated to St. Anne, on the south side; there was a chantry on the north side, now pulled down, with a transept, all covered with tile. It has a tower steeple at the west end, on one corner of which is a beacon turret, which till of late was covered with a small spire. There are six bells and a clock in it. The steeple was built about the year 1534, as appears by a legacy towards the building of it. In the chancel is a monument for Margaret, sister of Sir D. Digges, wife of Sir Anthony Palmer, K. B. obt. 1619. He lies buried here, within the altar-rails, obt. 1630. A memorial for Anne St. Leger, mother of Sir D. Diggs, obt. 1636, and several memorials for the Fogges. In the body of the church are memorials for the Cumberlands, Paynes, Cobbes, Belkes, and Bates; in the north transept, for Masters, Petits, Spracklyns, and Cobbe; and in the south one for Dixon. There were formerly in the windows the arms of Ensing and Thawyts, as has been already mentioned, and of Ross and Honywood. In the chapel on the south side of the chancel, probably that of St. Anne, is the burial vault built by Sir Dudley Diggs, for himself and family, and referred to by his will, in it many of this family lie buried; and in the chapel is a monument for Mary Kempe, lady Digges, wife of Sir Dudley, with her genealogy and that of Digges, and another for Sir D. Digges himself, 1638; and on the north side, probably where the old chantry above-mentioned was, is a circular mausoleum, with a cupola at top, built by the Colebrooke family for their use.
The church of Chilham was antiently an appendage appurtenant to the honor and manor of Chilham; but so early as the reign of king Stephen it was separated from it, and in the possession of William de Ipre, who in 1153 gave it to the priory of Throwley, which was confirmed by king Stephen that year. (fn. 18)
This religious house was an alien priory, established as a cell to the Benedictine abbey of St. Bertin, the capital of Artois, in Flanders, from whence a certain number of monks, who were mostly foreigners, and removeable at pleasure, were sent over, with a prior at their head, who were little more than stewards to their superior abbey, to which they returned the revenues of their possessions annually; for which reason, during the wars with France, as their revenues went to support the king's enemies, these kind of houses were generally seized, and restored again upon the return of peace.
¶In the 8th year of king Richard II. this church of Chilham was valued at forty pounds, at which time it was become appropriated to this cell, and a vicarage was endowed in it. In which situation both parsonage and vicarage remained till the general suppression of the alien priories throughout England, in the 2d year of Henry V. when this of Throwley was, among others, suppressed, and it seems to have remained in the hands of the crown till king Henry VI. in his 22nd year, settled it on the monastery of Sion, founded by his father. With which this church and vicarage continued till the general suppression of religious houses, this of Sion being one of those greater monasteries dissolved by the act of 31 Henry VIII. by which all such, together with their possessions, were given to the king. This parsonage and vicarage thus coming into the hands of the crown, the king in his 32d year, granted the rectory of Chilham, together with the chapel of Molash, and the advowson of the vicarage of the church of Chilham, with all their appurtenances, together with the manor of Chilham, to Sir Thomas Chene, in manner as has been already mentioned; (fn. 19) whose only son and heir Henry, lord Cheney, of Tuddington, in the 3d year of queen Elizabeth levied a fine of all his lands, and soon afterwards seems to have alienated a moiety of the parsonage of Chilham, with all the tithes and emoluments belonging to it, arising on the east of the high road leading from Godmersham, through Chilham town to Faversham; and they are now the property of the Rev. Sir John Fagg, bart. The great tithes of the chapel and parish of Molash seem to have been alienated by him at the same time, as will be further mentioned hereafter; but the other moiety and remainder of the parsonage of Chilham, with all the tithes arising in the parish, on the other or west side of the above-mentioned high road, together with the advowson of the vicarage of Chilham, with the appendant chapel of Molash, was alienated by him, together with the honor and castle, in the 10th year of queen Elizabeth, to Sir Thomas Kempe, since which they have passed together in manner as has been more fully mentioned before, in a like succession of ownership down to Thomas Wildman, esq. the present possessor of this part of the parsonage, and parton likewise of the advowson of the church of Chilham.
The vicarage of Chilham, with the chapel of Molash, is valued in the king's books at 13l. 6s. 8d. and the yearly tenths at 1l. 6s. 8d. In 1578 here were communications three hundred and fifty nine. In 1640 it was valued at eighty-nine pounds. Communicants three hundred and seventy-seven. It is now worth two hundred pounds per annum.
IT HAS BEEN mentioned, that there was A CHANTRY on the north side of this church. It was endowed with twenty-two acres of land, as appears by the roll in the Augmentation-office, of 30 Henry VIII. This chantry was dissolved by the act of the 1st year of king Edward VI. The last incumbent of it, John Castelyn, was living anno 1553, and had then a pension of six pounds. (fn. 20)
By the survey of chantries in the above office, taken in the 2d year of king Edward VI. it appears that Robert Pell gave a house and garden in Chilhæn, on condition that the stipendiary priest there should live in it.
There was in 1349 A CHAPEL in the castle of Chilliam, called the free chapel of the blessed Virgin Mary, of which Margery, lady Roos, daughter of Bartholomew, lord Badlesmere, and widow of William, lord Roos de Hamlake, was patroness, and accordingly that year, at her presentation, the see of Canterbury being then vacant, one Osbertus was admitted by the prior and chapter of Christ-church, personally to serve as a perpetual chaplain in it.