CRANBROOK
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CRANBROOK
The earliest record of the name is in the Domesday Monochorum of 1070 as Cranebroca. Named after St. Dunstan, champion of monastic reform, education, law and order, and craft skills. Archbishop of Canterbury from 960 to 988.
A small church was established in the late 11th century, and the present sandstone church was started in the mid-13th century.
By 1290 the town was large enough to be granted a charter by Archbishop Peckham, allowing it to hold a market in the High Street. The market was held twice a week, with a fair twice a year, for nearly 600 years.
Cranbrook is derived from Cran meaning crane or heron and Broc meaning a stream or marshy place. The town was granted a market charter in 1290.
Sea covered what is now the south east of England until some 20 million years ago. When it retreated it left a dome of chalk above what is today's Weald. Today only the edges of the chalk covering remain: the North and South Downs. Under the Romans, the invaders had been attracted by Wealden iron. Their efficient charcoal furnaces much increased the output for both military and domestic use. One Roman Road passing by Cranbrook enabled iron transportation northwards to Rochester and southwards to the ports. Another road branched eastwards from it and led to both Canterbury and Lympne. The Romans left britain in 410 AD and in 449, Hengest and Horsa arrive to help defend Britain against Picts. Hengest founds Kingdom of Kent. The new Jutish invaders of Kent made little or no use of Roman Roads or iron workings. The Weald was used each autumn for a few weeks' swine passage. Herds were driven into the forest from settlements to the north and east. Swine pasturage or "dens" became regularly used and homesteads began to be set up within the Kentish King's forest. Charters from the 9th century show how kings granted most of the dens to monastic foundations or individual owners who took over the dues and services. A manorial system was developing.
Cranbrook lies some 15 miles south of Maidstone, the County Town of Kent. In 1381 a few of the local peasants took part in the Kentish Rebellion of the Hundred Years War and the Black Death of 1348 - 1353 under Wat Tyler. The first contact brought by the Black Death was from a spice ship having landed in Weymouth of Dorset.
In the summer of 1450 the men of Kent and Sussex led by Jack Cade, rebelled and marched on London including the rector of Mayfield and even the Prior of St Pancras in Lewes from the 1264 Battle of the Lewes. It would seem that as the town was a weaving centre and not an agricultural one. In the 1630's a number of the children of the Vicar of Cranbrook, William Eddye sailed to the New England colonies together with Doctor Comfort Starr. Cranbrook's tradition of vigorous independence in religious beliefs goes back at least to the Lollards who criticized church abuses in the 14th and 15th centuries. Radical protestants from Cranbrook troubled successive Tudor governments. In the early 17th century there was a strong Puritan influence in Cranbrook, which supported Parliament in the Civil War. Baptists, Quakers, Presbyterians and other nonconformist groups continued to thrive after the Restoration of 1660. Chart Mills were part of the Home Works, Faversham's first gunpowder factory and one of the first in Britain. It was established probably circa 1560 but the Chart Mills were rebuilt when the Government took control some 200 years later.
St. Dunstans Cranbrook, Kent. Cranbrook, in the midst of Culpeper country, was not actually a seate of the Culpepers, but two Culpeper spouses married into Cranbrook families. Cranbrook is an old town which sprang into prominence in the 15th century when it became the center of the weaving industry, anciently called Crane-broke, derives its name from its situation upon a brook called the Crane. The clock mechanism was the prototype for Big Ben. The room is reputed to have been used later, in Queen Mary's reign, for the confinement of protestant martyrs. The parish church, St. Dunstan's, was built in the 15th century and is known locally as "the Cathedral of the Weald," with a square embattled tower.
Witchcraft came to Cranbrook in 1652, when Anne Ashby, Ann Martyn, Mary Brown, Mildred Wright and Ann Wilson were convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death at Maidstone assizes. 1655 George Fox the founder of Quakerism visited the town and made a number of conversions. Once the commonwealth was overthrown in 1660 and Charles II regained the thrown things became more difficult for the puritans, William Watcher a quaker from the town was accused of holding a meeting in the town, was sent to prison at Maidstone where he died 10 weeks later.
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Bodiam Castle In 1385 Sir Edward Dalyngrigge, a royal councillor and veteran of the wars with France, received permission from the King to build a castle on his manor at Bodiam and was besieged on two occasions, during the Wars of the Roses and the Civil War. |
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In earlier times nearby Tenterden was known as 'Tenet-ware-den', meaning, 'pig-pasture of the men of Thanet'. However it was sheep that made the area prosperous on the border of the dense woodlands of the Weald, and the flatter farmlands of the Rother Levels, that run down to the Romney Marshes. At the heart of Tenterden can be found the beautiful old church of St Mildred, whose records date from 1180. It has a finely carved wooden ceiling which dates from the 15th Century, and a tower made of Bethersden marble. The nearest large town is Ashford about 14 miles north east through Hastings- the Domesday kingdom in East Sussex.
Iron ore is found at the base of the Wadhurst clay deposits in the Weald like the Roman settlements in Northampton. The charcoal was readily available within this area due to the number of woods and forests. The 1743 winter drought coined the phrase "treadmill" when the workers from the 3 furnaces affected had to tread the water mill to keep the bellows in action. The legend has it that the first cannon cast in east sussex was in 1543 at a furnace in Buxted by Ralf Hogge (Huggett). The Fuller family from Brightling were a major cannon manufacturer in the local area, and produced a wide range of models.
Cranbrook Deanery is part of the Diocese of Canterbury and is situated in the Weald of Kent - the Garden of England. The Deanery comprises the parishes of:- Cranbrook, Goudhurst with Kilndown, Hawkhurst, Headcorn, Marden, Sissinghurst with Frittenden, Staplehurst. The Village of Dunkirk can be found half way between Canterbury and Faversham. The village of Hernhill , together with its many hamlets, lies about 3 miles to the north east of Faversham at the edge of the North Kent Marshes (weald). Scenically, Hernhill is the epitome of Kent. From harsh east winds it is sheltered by the commanding ridge of The Blean. To the south of Faversham and stretching across the whole of the southern part of the Faversham area are the beautiful Kent Downs.
The Kent Downs are the eastern half of the North Downs covering nearly a quarter of Kent, stretching from the White Cliffs at Dover up to the Surrey and London borders through the Torridge Valley, Cranbrook, Dymchurch...
