Westwell - The Establishment of a Village

175 Westwell – the Establishment of a Village mary adams T he energetic Henry Eastry, who became prior in 1285, reformed the management and updated the buildings of the Christ Church Priory manors and it is more or less from the date of his accession that the bedel rolls, which are housed in Canterbury Cathedral archives, begin their impressive records. From this source comes striking evidence to show that the village of Westwell, as it exists today, has grown up around the demesne farm which was moved to this site at the end of the thirteenth century. T his paper examines the evidence given for this development in the Welles bedel rolls and in Prior Eastry’s Memorandum Book. It attempts to discover the original site of the manor, and to this end considers the evidence offered by the churches, mills and other topographical features; it also examines the contribution made by the archaeological dig undertaken in 1999. Westwell, or Welles as it was called in medieval times, is an area that claims a long history. It appears to have been the centre of an early Anglo-Saxon estate1 and was the site of a church which is recorded in the Domesday Monachorum. This was a church which Sheila Sweetinburgh defines as belonging to a secondary group of mother churches and so, as was the case with the primary mother churches, it is most likely that it was built in the early settled part of the estate.2 The estate or manor was given to Christ Church Priory by Archbishop Aelfric of Canterbury in 10053 and ‘in the division made by Archbishop Lanfranc of the revenues of it, this manor was allotted to the share of the monks and was … appointed … for the use of their refectory’.4 H owever, Westwell is a long way from Canterbury and owners in such cases engaged in ‘a widely prevalent practice of leasing out their manors to farmers for agreed annual payments’,5 although the farmers were obliged to cater for their ecclesiastical lords when visiting their locality. It seems likely that the Westwell manor was leased out in this way for many years. T here is certainly a record of one tenant, the unfortunate Peter de Bending, who was in financial difficulties in around 1224, and who, for a sum of £171 17s., and the grant of Little Chart manor, ‘acknowledged’ Westwell manor to the prior and canons of Christ Church. The rent for MA RY ADAMS 176 M ap 1. Sketch map of part of Westwell parish showing locations mentioned in the text together with modern communications routes. WEST WELL - THE ESTABLISHMENTestablishment OF A VILLAGE 177 L ittle Chart was ten marks (£5 13s. 4d.) per annum and it seems that Peter’s pecuniary troubles were not over, for in January 1234 he was five marks in arrears over his rent for Little Chart. He promised to pay ten marks and was excused a further debt of eight marks, which apparently he still owed for the manor of Westwell, by relinquishing all his rights to that manor.6 (Eventually, having dug himself deeper and deeper into the red by borrowing, he was obliged to ‘sell’ Little Chart back to Christ Church to clear his debts to the Jewish money lenders.) T he lease of the property appears to have caused confusion concerning its rightful ownership. Peter de Bending’s widow, Burga, initially attempted to claim half the manor as her dower in gavelkind. However, a plea by the prior to the justices itinerant in 1240 resulted in their accepting that the manor was a gift to the priory by the king’s predecessors ‘in pure and perpetual alms’,7 and that it was not held in gavelkind. Burga had to be satisfied with a corody, or pension. I t seems most likely that after this the demesne farm was managed by monks from Christ Church, a common practice at this time. There is a memorandum for 1268 regarding the exchange of three acres of demesne land with three acres of land belonging to Ripple, a subsidiary manor in Westwell parish.8 This business was executed by the ‘Custodian of Westwell Manor’ and the term may imply that the monks had already taken over the farming of the demesne farm. E astry replaced the monks, whose agricultural skills were often limited, by laymen – serjeants – who were experienced in such matters, and he maintained strict control from headquarters by the employment of monk wardens who visited the manors twice yearly. The bedel was the official who collected rents and the fines imposed at court and these figures, of somewhat limited interest, form a small part of the accounts listed in a bedel roll, which goes on with a statement of the serjeant’s income and expenses. The management of Christ Church Priory was notoriously tight-fisted, and every farthing earned or spent had to be justified. The result is accounts that are detailed and extremely accurate. Just as today, most human activities in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries seemed related in some way to the getting and spending of money and so many facts about life on the manor can be deduced from these rolls. E stablishing a new barton (demesne farm) 1291-2 T oday, Court Lodge stands in the centre of the village, close to the church. The name Court Lodge implies that this is the site of the dwelling where the manorial court was held in medieval times. There is no doubt that this was once the demesne farmhouse (or manor house)9 at the centre of the demesne farm and that the village of today has grown up around it. MA RY ADAMS 178 The words that really define the foundation of the village are found in a sentence in the Westwell bedel roll for 19-20 Edward I (1291-1292).10 The sentence reads: In magn’ Grang’ p[ro]st’nand’ & portand’ ad novam Berthona’ v s. Translated, this says that the great barn was taken down and carried to a new demesne farm at a cost of 5s. The meaning of the expression nova berthona is quite unmistakable – this was a new site for the demesne farm and for the ensuing village. The new site was on sloping ground, for an old ditch had to be filled in and the ground levelled before the great barn could be re-erected. This cost 4s. 6d. and another 5s. 6d. was spent on filling in a further ditch and levelling the ground before a new ox-house was built on it. This barn and the new ox-house were large, high status buildings and the carpenter was paid over £14 for making them, something which would have included raising and making repairs to the frame of the barn, and making a new frame for the ox-house. Some timber was felled near ‘Brethebrook’ at a cost of 2s., but most seems to have come from Bilsington, for £4 6s. was paid for this timber and another 4s. for carrying it to Westwell. The ox-house had 200 chev’n or pairs of rafters bought for it, which suggests that it was a very large building, and both barn and ox-house were roofed with tiles made in Westwell itself. The total cost of these buildings was over £49 – a substantial sum in the thirteenth century. T oday, just south of Court Lodge, a very large, modern brick barn, now converted to dwellings, is all that remains of the farm buildings which were in use here until the latter part of the twentieth century. There can be little doubt that this farmyard stood on the ground levelled at the end of the thirteenth century to make the curia of the demesne farm. A gateway led into the farm. It does not appear to have had a gatehouse, but the gate must have been set on a sill, for 12d. were spent on underpinning it. Today there is nothing to show the position of this gate. T he amount of building work listed in this bedel roll is remarkable. An old ox-house together with another old barn had been de-roofed and pulled down and a stable and a ‘press’ – probably a wine press – were moved. Each was put ‘in a new place’ and another building, a domus of unknown purpose, was erected close to the stable. It seems likely that this was also close to the hall since the item giving the cost of plastering these walls mentions walls ‘next to the hall’. Similar domi were built in the park and at Ripple. That these were small buildings is indicated by the low cost of their construction. However, it is possible that these were not the full costs for the Priory did make big contributions to manors where a great deal of building was being done. The final item on this part of the serjeant’s expense sheet gives a sum of 31s. 3d. spent on a new vineyard. A copy of the expenses listed in the relevant section of the bedel roll and their translation are given in the Appendix 1. WEST WELL - THE ESTABLISHMENTestablishment OF A VILLAGE 179 T he Warden, the priory monk who supervised the farms, could not give permission for alterations or repairs costing more than two pounds; more expensive work had to be authorised by the prior.11 Prior Eastry’s Memorandum Book12 gives a record of work done on the Christ Church manors for which he authorised payment and since it includes the years 1286 to 1294 it is useful in assessing the work done at Westwell during the last years of the thirteenth century, for there is only one bedel roll surviving from the period covered by it. Since the serjeant’s accounts would have given much more detailed information about the work being done, their loss is a matter of great regret. T he Memorandum is headed with the title: New work in the manors in the time of H Prior, and continues on the following line with the words: For buildings and mills built and repaired in diverse manors for 37 years in the time of Henry Prior. The buildings listed are mostly preceded with either New or Repairs but occasionally an entry consists just of the type of building on which money is being spent, in which case it is safe to assume that this refers to new building. The first two entries for Westwell in the Memorandum Book state: 1286 – Repairs to the park and the vineyard in the same - £16 5s 10d 1287 & 8 – Repairs to the lower chamber, by the chapel new gate in the park and [?]great vineyard [construction obscure] - £29 17s ½d B etween 1290 and 1294 new work is listed for every year: 1290 – Solar with two stables - £8 11s 8d 1291 – Enlargement of the park, new building at the park [parkarium?], new roof covering to hall, new kitchen, repairs to stable, new gate with new bridge - £33 9s 2½d 1292 – New stable, house in park, ox-house at Ripple, new ox-house with barton, and new mill - £67 5s 9d 1293 – New granary, new garden, with new path and enclosure - £21 13s 4d 1294 – New dovecote, new granary - £18 6s 0½d The first action taken by Henry Eastry in the year following his accession concerned the park and the vineyard and was obviously aimed at improving the profitability of the farm. Five years later the park was enlarged and a house built in it, probably to accommodate a park keeper. The park keeper was important, for the 1397-1398 bedel’s account13 shows that the park keeper’s wages were then a halfpenny a week higher than those of the bedel himself. T he ox-house at Ripple raises a question: did the name Ripple merely refer to location, perhaps the land transfer referred to in 1268, or to the manor? Hasted is of the opinion that around 1300 the manor was held of the archbishop by knight’s service,14 but Ripple is not among the MA RY ADAMS 180 freelands which belonged to the archbishop15 so, assuming that it was held by knight’s service, it seems more likely that it was the property of Christ Church priory. However, the bedel roll refers to a building near Ripple, so the ox-house was probably built on the newly acquired three acres (see above). Since, according to the bedel roll, the cost of its erection was only 11s. 5½d. it appears to have been a small building, perhaps little more than a field shelter. I n both 1293 and 1294 there are references to new granaries. It is possible that they refer to the same building but this is unlikely as the pattern of entries is meticulous in recording exactly the nature of the work undertaken. B y the end of the century it appears that the establishment of the farm had been completed, for the next bedel roll, dated 1299-1300,16 records no new work on the farm. The Aule or Hall T he destruction and the removal of some farm buildings and the construction of new ones, are certainly in keeping with the removal of the demesne farm to a new site, but there is no record of the building of a new aule and the cost of this would have been so great that it would certainly have been recorded in the Memorandum Book. In fact there is, of course, no problem with the site of the new demesne farmhouse, for the oldest part of Court Lodge appears to be contemporary with the thirteenth-century church, which stands just behind it, and so there was an existing house which was taken over as the new hall. Since the Memorandum book is principally a list of new building work, and repair work when undertaken is specified as such, the solar of 1290 was almost certainly an addition to the existing house. Over the years the house has been subject to such a great variety of additions and alterations that today it is very difficult to be certain of the pattern of its development. Work on Prior Eastry’s new kitchen of 1291 continued in 1292; it appears to have had two separate rooms, for two chambers had to be plastered and two ovens were made. It must have been a detached kitchen, as was common at this time, for between 1299 and 1300 a tresantia or passage was built between the hall and the kitchen.17 The new garden with its path and ‘enclosure’ was another improvement to the new farmhouse, and one of the new granaries may also have been part of the dwelling, for it is not uncommon for a store room in a hall to be described as a granary. T he Location of the Original Barton I t is obvious that in moving the great barn to its new farmyard, it was taken from an existing one. The movement of timber framed buildings WEST WELL - THE ESTABLISHMENTestablishment OF A VILLAGE 181 from one site to another was not uncommon at this time. The oak frames, held together by pegs, were similar to frame tents in that they could be taken apart and the component pieces re-erected, and this was far quicker and cheaper than cutting down oak trees and making new beams and posts. Bedel rolls from several villages record such movements, but invariably they give the name of the manor from which the building has been taken. In this case no other manor is quoted and there is no record of any cost of transporting the frame, so it is safe to assume that the barn came from an original manor farm in Westwell. The question is: where was this manor? The Archaeological Investigation of the moated site at Parsonage Farm B efore the high speed rail link was built archaeological investigations took place across a large swathe of countryside where various anomalies were deemed to need such investigation before their secrets were lost forever. One such anomaly lay in a field close to Parsonage Farm, at one time called the Old Rectory, a dwelling just over a mile from Westwell village in a south-westerly direction. Initially the findings of the MoLAS,18 who undertook the work, suggested that the old manor house had been found. T he excavation revealed some traces of late Iron Age or Roman occupation and a late Anglo-Saxon or early Norman vessel was found in a ditch which was thought to be a mill leat or mill stream carrying water to or from an undiscovered mill. (This would agree with the record of a mill in the Domesday Book.) This ditch had been filled in and timber-framed buildings together with a masonry-founded solar had been erected on the site in the late twelfth or early thirteenth centuries. The initial reports suggested that the site had been abandoned around 1300 and that all the buildings had been taken down and removed rather than left to fall into ruin. These actions apparently corresponded with those reported in the 1292 bedel roll, and so they seemed to indicate clearly that this was the manor from which the great barn had come. However, further work and analysis of the findings produced a rather different picture. The final report19 divides the medieval development into three phases. The first was marked by the construction of the straight ditch suggesting the presence of a mill in the locality, and a contemporary wooden structure. While the pottery finds did not yield firm dates, they suggest that there was considerable activity here in the early part of the twelfth century. This first phase appears to have ended around the close of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century after which, during the second phase, the ditch was filled in and a timber hall constructed on the site. This hall possibly boasted a stone-built solar and was surrounded with a number of ancillary buildings of a domestic nature, probably including a kitchen. The third phase dates from 1250, or MA RY ADAMS 182 possibly a little later, when the old hall was replaced by a larger, aisled building. Considerable reconstruction of the solar took place including the rebuilding of an annexe to it, and bigger ancillary buildings were erected. It was at this time that the moat was completed; previously it appears that there had merely been streams running along the south and the east sides of the site. Thus a much finer dwelling was established, and there is evidence to show that it was occupied until around the end of the fourteenth century when it was demolished and the materials removed from the site, presumably for use elsewhere. A somewhat surprising discovery was the large number of broken roofing tiles that had been left littering the site. T he work on this house in around 1250, including the completion of the moat, took place soon after the ownership of the manor was confirmed to Christ Church Priory. In view of Peter de Bending’s financial straits (see above) it is possible that he had allowed the manor buildings to fall into a poor state of repair, and that the relatively wealthy priory undertook their restoration. However, the improvements to this dwelling and its continued use until the end of the fourteenth century do not accord well with Prior Eastry’s establishment of the new demesne farm at the end of the previous century. A lthough this building has been called a moated manor house the description ignores one significant point, namely that Parsonage Farm had been known in the past as the Old Rectory. In 1884 the Ecclesiastic Commissioners sold Parsonage Farm to Lord Hothfield who had been renting it from them. With the sale documents is a copy of the farm map, which shows the moated site set in the middle of the parcel of land constituting the main part of the farm.20 As a rectory or glebe farm it would have been more or less sacrosanct and have changed very little with the passing of time, so that the Rectoria which is mentioned in the bedel roll for 1402 to 140321 and which was subsequently leased out as a separate holding, would have been substantially the same farm as that bought by Lord Hothfield. The inference is that the house on the moated site was the rectory rather than the manor. There is a problem in that the house built after 1250, with its fine stone solar, was a large and important dwelling and artefacts found on the site indicate that at some period its inhabitants were wealthy, something that seems more indicative of a manor house than a rectory. However, the survey of medieval rectories or parsonage houses carried out by RCHMEhme (now English Heritage) between 1986 and 1992 reveals the fact that a number of them had been substantial houses. At Elham there is a vaulted stone undercroft concealed in Parsonage Farmhouse22 and this suggests that the original rectory was a fine house, while The Rectory House at Cliffe-at-Hoo23 was a splendid, stone-built dwelling. This belonged to a large, well-to-do parish where the rectors had been ‘active in national WEST WELL - THE ESTABLISHMENTestablishment OF A VILLAGE 183 ecclesiastical affairs’ something not unlike the situation at Westwell, which was also a large parish containing a number of wealthy manorial holdings. In 1237 Henry de Welles, ‘de Welles’ possibly indicating that he held the Westwell living, was serving as clerk to Edmund, Archbishop of Canterbury.24 Maybe it was this association with archiepiscopal splendour that led to the demand for more stylish accommodation for incumbent and visitors and so to the rebuilding of the rectory. T he house that was demolished was not a humble dwelling, but its size may have been governed by the constitution, made by Archbishop Langton in the early thirteenth century. This provided three or four priests to every church with a large parish.25 Westwell was certainly a large parish and so it may be that the first rectory building on the site had to provide accommodation for more than one priest together with some form of domestic staff. E arly in the thirteenth century benefactors endowed monasteries with new church livings. In many cases, instead of using the living for the support of a parish priest the monastery assumed the position of rector thus retaining the tithe to swell its own coffers and left the parish to the mercy of a wandering priest. In 1215 Stephen Langton, aware of this situation, gave orders that where there was no resident rector in a parish, provision including such things as a dwelling and the small tithe, should be made for a vicar.26 It was not until 1293, when Geoffrey de Ykham was introduced as vicar,27 that such provision was made in Westwell, implying that the rector was still living in the parish and, presumably, in his rectory until this time. H owever, by 1328 the rector was no longer resident in the parish.28 The rectory, which would have been seen as a gentry house when occupied by the well-to-do rector, would have been reduced to the status of a humble farmhouse. It might have been occupied by the farmer or it might have been abandoned altogether but, too large and expensive for proper maintenance under these conditions, it would have become more and more dilapidated. It seems likely enough that this was the fate of the old rectory and accounts for its demolition at the end of the fourteenth century. Despite some uncertainty about the advowson of the Westwell living, it appears to have been in the gift of the priory until 1397. At this time the church was appropriated to Christ Church and the prior became rector of Westwell and recipient of the great tithe thus coming into possession of the rectory. Between 1402 and 140329 Thomas Aldemed was renting the demesne farm on a six-year term at the cost of £24 per annum, and seems to have had access to the Rectory and its glebeland, for his accounts include the following expenses: I n 34 cartloads of old timber carried from Westwell Rectory to the manor, 11s 4d, per load 4d MA RY ADAMS 184 I n one carter hired for 6 days carrying timber from Brethesbroke and the Rectory wood, 8s per carter per day 16d In carrying 11,000 flat tiles from the said Rectory to the manor, 7s 6d, 8d per 1,000 plus, in all, 2d I n 12,000 tiles taken from the old building in the outer courtyard, 3s 3d per 1,000 T he tiler was paid ten shillings as part of his salary and was given 8d., which appears to be a kind of bonus, for depositing tiles at the Rectory, probably those from the building in the outer courtyard. This old building may well have been the original tithe barn and possibly it was the remainder of these tiles that the archaeologists found littering the excavation site. In the following year 13,000 tiles were used for the roof of a new building on the manor. T his removal of timber and tiles from the Rectoria in 1402 or 1403 agrees well with the archaeological evidence for abandonment of the moated area at the end of the fourteenth century and the subsequent removal of its building materials and so serves to confirm the impression that this was indeed the site of the rectory from around the end of the twelfth century. The topography of the earliest settlement at Westwell The Mills Because the high-speed railway line was to be built above the area of Parsonage Farm where the excavation was taking place, the depth to which the archaeologists could penetrate was strictly limited so that the early occupation levels of the site could not be investigated fully. The discovery of the straight ditch, apparently made to serve a watermill still existing around the year 1100, and the signs of a significant amount of human activity in the locality, suggest that the mill mentioned in the Domesday Book was situated somewhere in this region. H owever, in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century the ditch was filled in so it seems probable that by now this mill near Parsonage Farm had been demolished. Why the mill was taken down will probably always remain a mystery, but it is possible that changes in the water table resulting in a reduced flow to the mill may have been a contributory factor. A mill was important to the community and perhaps even more important as a source of manorial income and so it is likely that it was replaced either before or very soon after its demise. Mills needed constant repair and the bedel rolls give details of these virtually every year. Today there are two mills in the parish, one in the village and one near Potter’s Corner on its southern edge. The bedel rolls mention two mills, which they describe as the upper and the lower mill, and since the village mill stands on distinctly higher ground this is undoubtedly the WEST WELL - THE ESTABLISHMENTestablishment OF A VILLAGE 185 upper one. There can be no doubt that this is the mill built by Prior Eastry around the end of the thirteenth century when he was busy establishing the new demesne farm nearby, and therefore the mill near Potter’s Corner must be the one that replaced the Domesday mill. A mill had, of course, to be built where conditions were appropriate, but as a valuable adjunct to the manor it was usually set as near to the demesne farm as possible. This suggests that the early settlement was in the southern part of the parish. T oday neither mill is operational. The lower mill became a thriving business; the mill-pond is silted up but a four-storey mill and separate living accommodation remain. The upper mill is very different. House and mill, although obviously rebuilt, are under one roof. This was a small, overshot mill and water still trickles down on to the upper edge of the mill wheel. The buckets fill. Suddenly the wheel starts to move and as the buckets empty there is a gentle splash of water, a sound that must have been heard here for over seven hundred years. The Churches The pre-Conquest church would have been an important feature of this settlement. The priest who received the great tithe would have become known as the rector and his home as the rectory. He would have looked upon himself as the priest of the people and the dispenser of the sacraments. Seven times a day, beginning in the early morning, he would say the prayers of the Canonical Hours in the church; he would say the lesser orders of the Blessed Virgin Mary and would probably also say mass.30 Other duties would frequently take him into the church, and it is inconceivable that his house would be built over a mile from it. Yet, assuming that the rectory has stood on the moated site from early times, as appears to be the case, that is the distance separating it from the thirteenth-century church which is situated on the upper edge of the village and close to Court Lodge. It is, therefore, almost impossible to believe that the existing parish church was built on the site of the earlier one. T his belief is supported by the opinion of John Newman who found no trace of Saxon work in the existing church which he considered to be ‘built all at once in the thirteenth century’.31 He goes on to say that the tower arch could not be earlier than 1250, although he concedes that it might have been an insertion. I n the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the parish church, or ecclesia, was of great importance to both State and Church because of the revenue obtained by both king and pope from the enormous taxes levied on it. To meet these commitments every resident in the parish was compelled to go to the parish church, Sunday after Sunday, to hear mass and to make the obligatory offerings. There was therefore only one ecclesia in any parish and any other church or place of worship was termed a chapel or capella. MA RY ADAMS 186 T here is one reference to the ecclesia in the bedel rolls. After the approp-riation of the church in 1397, the Prior became the rector and therefore responsible for the upkeep of the chancel, the actual work falling to the serjeant, James Fox, who was in charge of the demesne farm. Between 1411 and 141232 twenty cartloads of timber, six cartloads of sand, twenty-three quarters of quicklime and 5,000 laths were taken to the ecclesia, and used to repair the chancel (although some of the quicklime may have gone to the renovation of the bread oven in the kitchen!). I n the bedel rolls and in Prior Eastry’s Memorandum Book there are several references to a capella although there is no suggestion that a private oratory was built for the new demesne farm, and such a building would certainly have been recorded in the Memorandum Book. There is, of course, the possibility that this was a private chapel attached to the old manor. However, Arthur Hussey who listed the ‘chapels in Kent that were not Parish Churches but Free Chapels, Chantry Chapels , and those belonging to manor houses, hermitages and hospitals’,33 found no reference to such a chapel at Westwell. So the possibility arises that the capella mentioned in these documents was the Saxon church, replaced by the thirteenth-century one and relegated to the status of a chapel. If this were the case it would, like the chapel in Appledore which was removed from one site and established on a new one,34 have been a highly esteemed building and carefully maintained. T his could explain why Adam atte Gater, the serjeant, lists the purchase between 1299 and 130035 of door boards and laths, and the cost of four days spent tiling and plastering a chapel and of making two doors for it. Moreover, the provision of two new doors for the capella seems more indicative of a church building than of a domestic oratory. Prior Eastry, in his entry for 1287 and 1288 in the Memorandum Book, makes a slightly confusing statement which appears to indicate the provision of a new gate in the park by the chapel. This seems to correlate with the reference to a chapel which was mentioned by Jacob Ryman, who was farming the Rectory between 1481 and 1482.36 As he was renting this farm from the Priory he was entitled to claim for certain expenses concerned with the maintenance of important buildings. Amongst such claims he wrote: A nd payment for 1 latch and 1 catch for the gate of the park near the street - 3d A nd for making said gate and a door for the chapel there - 8d The Park extended to the boundary of the Rectory fields and the ‘street’ was probably the road now called Watery Lane (or Station Road), for the roads around Westwell do not appear to have altered significantly since maps of Kent were published in the late eighteenth century, by which time these highways were long established. Both accounts locate a chapel near WEST WELL - THE ESTABLISHMENTestablishment OF A VILLAGE 187 a gate into the park and, since Jacob Ryman was claiming for expenses related to the Rectory, this gate must have been near the Rectory land. In this case it seems probable that the site of the early church is lost under the welter of roads and railways crossing the parish in this area – but there is another possibility. Parsonage Farm is situated opposite to the moated site, and is a pretty, sixteenth-century half-timbered building. It is not a large, important house and the most striking feature is its site – it stands close to the edge of a piece of land which has been artificially levelled and it leaves a flat, open space between the building and a trackway which runs upward from the road past the dwelling. It is close to Watery Lane and the junction of the rectory farm and park, thus satisfying the criteria for the site of the chapel mentioned in Jacob Ryman’s account. Therefore is it possible that the levelling was done much earlier to provide a site for a building that was of great importance – namely the Saxon church? Certainly if this were the location of the pre-conquest church it would have provided quick and easy access to the church for the priests when they were living in the rectory. I f this were the case the church would have remained here and been well cared for until the Dissolution of the Monasteries resulted in its abandonment and in due time the new house would have replaced it. Jacob Ryman was renting the rectory in around 1481 when the old rectory house was long gone and the sixteenth-century Parsonage house had not been built so that there appears to have been no dwelling on the Rectory Farm at this time. However, as Jacob was also renting the demesne farm he was probably living in Court Lodge. T he continued existence of the Saxon church and its situation on the Parsonage Farm site are, of course, purely hypothetical; but if the early church was still in existence at the end of the fifteenth century the building of the new church could not be attributed solely to the decrepit state of the pre-conquest one. Assuming that there is some truth in the foregoing theory, the question arises: why was the new church built in that particular spot? Simon Jenkins describes the location of Westwell church in the following terms: ‘A pilgrim’s church nestles under the Downs’.37 Incorporated in Court Lodge and close to the church is the remnant of a house built of the same fabric as the church and still containing one stone-framed lancet window similar to the church windows (although the external appearance of this window has now been altered). The purpose of this house, which was undoubtedly built at the same time as the church, is unknown. It is too grand to be a mere stonemason’s lodge. In view of the distance of the rectory from the new church, was it intended for a priest’s house, either for a rector or a vicar? L ocal tradition attributes it to a monastery, and such legends should never be completely ignored as they usually contain a seed of truth MA RY ADAMS 188 despite being vastly distorted by the opinions of later generations, who always interpret facts in the light of their own experience. So was it run by monks as a hostelry for travellers on the so-called Pilgrims’ Way which ran from Winchester to Canterbury? Did the proximity of this track have any bearing on the siting of the new church? Certainly there are sunken ways leading from this track down into the village. There are many questions and many possibilities but any attempt at an answer can be no more than pure speculation! Tile works Tile making started early at Westwell but had ended by around 1310.38 While it has left no trace it is possible that the later brickworks, which have left copious signs of activity beside the lane leading up to Beechbrook House, were set up in a similar location. This is in the area where brickearth is found, and is close to Beechbrook Wood, which could probably have provided faggots for the tile furnace, although between 1290 and 1291 these came from the park. A gain – this is a matter of speculation, probably with little hope of further proof. Other Candidates for the Old Demesne Farm T he question remains: where was Peter de Bending’s old manor house – always presuming that he had lived in Westwell when he owned the manor? When the farm buildings were moved to the new farm the old manor house was left behind and there is no record of its destruction. This was, in any case, most unlikely as houses were of enormous value, and it is far more likely that it was rented to a well-heeled party who, probably, already held land in the vicinity and were looking for a desirable residence where they could establish their own farm. T here are a number of farms and important holdings in Westwell today, and it is possible that one of these has developed on the site of the old manor. The original house, which might well have been in a poor state of repair in 1292, would have been replaced, perhaps more than once and there is little left to show where it was. Elvey Farm, which was called Castle House in the eighteenth century, is just one example of the kind of establishment that might have evolved from the old demesne farm. It must be remembered that many of the manorial holdings were priory freelands held by differing forms of tenure since early times and these would not have developed from the forsaken demesne farm. It is not clear whether Nash, which appears to have paid a monetary rent, was one of these. T he pre-conquest church was not a manorial establishment, but nevertheless it is likely to have been built in the vicinity of the manor as it existed at that time. South of the Old Rectory is a region of the WEST WELL - THE ESTABLISHMENTestablishment OF A VILLAGE 189 parish that does appear to have been occupied for a very long time. At the Parsonage, which was called Parsonage Farm during a period when the house bearing that name today was termed Parsonage Farm Cottages, the garden to the north of the house reveals the remains of extensive building work just beneath the surface, and the great depth of top soil in another part of the garden suggests that this was perhaps a yard where farm animals were kept for many years. A short distance away is Harven, a particularly fine central lobby house of the late sixteenth or early seventeenth century. The fields attached to the property are criss-crossed with dry ditches and a stone wall in the garden contains one chamfered stone with a half-round moulding and another with thirteenth-century claw dressing, both clearly from a high status building. It may be that these are further examples of the stone remnants found on the moated site, but equally they may have come from another source. Could the Tudor house have replaced a residence similar to the rectory, in fact, Peter de Bending’s house? This is another case of pure speculation which would need a considerable amount of archaeological investigation to confirm or disprove. Conclusion T he amassing of a collection of observations and from them deducing a hypothesis, which can be used as a starting point for further experiments, is sound scientific practice. For the middle ages, when firm evidence is often in very short supply, it seems not unreasonable to use a similar approach to problems for which there is no complete solution, provided that it is clear that the hypothesis is only a trigger for further investigation. Working on this principle a number of speculative theories have been offered. T he late thirteenth-century transfer of the demesne farm into the local-ity, which today forms the village of Westwell, is well documented and is supported by the topography of the village. It can be taken as an established fact. The archaeological exploration of the anomaly close by Parsonage Farm also gives reasonably firm grounds for believing that this was a rectory associated with the pre-conquest church and therefore, the distance between the rectory and the now existing church being so great, the new church could not have been constructed on the foundations of the earlier one. However, the actual site of the Saxon church and the length of time it remained in existence; the reason for building the new one in the thirteenth century, and for choosing its particular location – these are only matters for conjecture. In the same way the precise topography of the original settlement of Westwell and the whereabouts of the original manor house can only be surmised. Comprehensive archaeological investigation would be necessary to substantiate such speculation. Sadly, the two railway lines and the motorway have cut through such a large MA RY ADAMS 190 swathe of the parish that it is probable that a great deal of information has been permanently lost. B y making use of such sparse evidence as is available, tentative answers to some of these questions have been made. Taking into consideration all the evidence now available, it seems most likely that the original settlement with church and priest’s house and demesne farm and mill, and perhaps the tile works too, were situated in this southern part of the parish and served by the road which became the A20 in modern times. M any reasons can be propounded to explain Prior Eastry’s decision to move the demesne farm to its new site. Did he want the farm to be near the new church, an important matter for a monastic property; did he wish it to be nearer to the Pilgrims’ Way, running along higher ground so avoiding the clay that made winter travel to and from Canterbury so difficult; did he need it to be in a better position to oversee and exploit the potential of the park and vineyards; or had changes in the climate and level of the water table made the old manor into an uncomfortable place to live? Whatever his reasons, the result is the village of Westwell which, under his direction, came into being on the site where it stands today. S ome details of subsequent developments at Westwell gleaned from the bedel rolls are set out briefly in Appendix 2. acknowledgements T he writer’s thanks go to Julian Munby for the updated archaeological report, to Mark Bateson at Canterbury Cathedral Archives for his kind help, to Mr Bayley and to Mrs Canney for allowing her to visit their properties, to Brian Crook for a first proof-reading, and to Terry Lawson for his time and trouble and expert help with the final version. App aPP endix 1 c opyPY of part of the bedel roll for welles (1290-1, Translation) I n moving, mending and putting the apple mill in another place 2s Sum as shown Works S table In the salary of carpenters for removing the stable and putting it in another place * with making a new porch on it & in removing one fence between the hall and the press* with a lean-to for a manger beside the gate [porch?] 41s I i n door nails for the same 3s I i n 500 nails 7½d I i n 6,000 pegs for the same 3s 10d WEST WELL - THE ESTABLISHMENTestablishment OF A VILLAGE 191 I i n plastering the walls with work under the sills 3s 9d I i n making 18,000 tiles for the same 19s 6d I i n 250 corner tiles 2s 8½d I i n tiling said stable 13s 4d A a lso for tiling the gate in the park 17½d I i n sawing timber for the same 2s 1d Sum £4 11s 3½d I i n hinge rings and pins bought for the door under the great gate 4½d Sum as shown Building next to the stable I i n sawing timber for the building next to the stable 2s I i n making laths for the same building 14d I i n doornails for the same 12d I i n 2,500 pegs for the same 16d I i n hinge rings and pins 10d In the salary of one roofer for roofing* this building 4s 6d In plastering this building with the wall next to the hall 9s I i n the salary of the carpenter for making this building 12s Sum 31s 10d Building in the park I i n the salary of carpenters for the carpentry of the new building in the park 3s 6d I i n nails for the same 12½d In roofing the same 3s I i n enclosing the walls of the same with an enclosure 10d I i n making laths for the same 14d Sum 9s 6½d Building near Ripple I i n the salary of carpenters for the carpentry of a new building in Ripple 20d I i n nails for same 22½d I i n hauling thatching straw to the same 7d I i n making laths for the same 14d In roofing the same 5s I i n plastering the walls of the same 14d Sum 11s 5½d I i n hinge rings and pins for the kitchen shutters and for the door of the food chamber (pantry?) 9d I i n nails for them 4¾ d I i n plastering 2 chambers in the kitchen 6d I i n making 2 ovens 20d I i n 2 locks for the same 5d Sum 3s 8¾d MA RY ADAMS 192 Barn and Ox-house I i n taking the roof of f an old barn and ox-house 16d I i n taking down the great barn and carrying it to a new demesne farm 5s A a lso for taking down the other barn and ox-house 16d In filling in an old ditch and levelling the place in the location where the great barn will be built 4s 6d In filling in a ditch and levelling the place in the location where the new ox-house is being made 5s 6d I i n making 3,000 laths for the walls *3s 8d *In 3,000 door nails 10s price per 1,000 40d I i n 4,800 door nails bought 12s 8d price per 1,000 2s 7d I i n 7,500 sharp nails and nails 10s 10d I i n 93,000 pegs 62s 10d price per 1,000 8d* *10d extra I i n 500 rineles of iron with boturs for said work 19d I i n 1 1 pairs of hinge rings and pins for the doors of the ox-house 4s 4d I i n hinge rings and pins for the door of the barn 3s I i n hinge rings and pins for the gate of the demesne farm 8d I i n 200 pairs of rafters bought for the ox-house 27s 6d I i n timber felled near B rechebroc 2s I i n carrying timber outside the demesne farm 3d I i n the salary of the carpenters for making said barn and ox-house £14 10s 2d A a lso in making pairs of rafters for the said ox-house 4s 6d I i n sawing timber for the said work 24s by tally and 3s 10½d over it I i n the salary of the stone mason for work under the sills of the barn and ox-house 33s 4d A a lso for work under the sill of the demesne farm gate 12d I i n plastering the walls of the ox-house 14s 6d I i n battens made for this 6s 9d I i n 200,000 tiles made with laying them £16 13s 4d I i n burning lime for this 13s 4d I i n extracting old lime from the pit 6d I i n 1,700 faggots made for this in the park 10s 6d I i n making of T alwood 2s 1d I i n the expense of carpenters for carrying timber from B ilsington 4s I i n 5 locks bought for said building 16d I i n timber bought near B ilsington £4 6s Sum £49 6s 2½d Vineyard I i n making a vineyard in the demesne farm 31s 3d * Indicates an insertion written between the lines at the starred point. WEST WELL - THE ESTABLISHMENTestablishment OF A VILLAGE 193 App aPP endix 2 later developments at westwell as revealed by the bedel rolls T he surviving bedel rolls covering the fourteenth century tend to be dirty and difficult to read even with ultra-violet light. Nevertheless it is possible to get some indication of life on the farm. There is a record of bringing two millstones to Westwell between 1301 and 1302.39 They cost £2 16s. and were brought by boat from Sandwich to Fordwich where they were ‘dragged’ away from the boat and carried by cart to Westwell, undoubtedly to Prior Eastry’s new mill there. Carrying them from Fordwich to Westwell cost 8s., four times the cost of the transport by boat. T here were alterations to the house. A store room was inserted in the Great Chamber, there were repairs to the chimney of the Prior’s Chamber and a new garderobe was built into the chamber of the armiger who, in this context, may have been the serjeant. A new building to house the ‘press’, which probably meant the winepress, was built between 1311 and 1312 at a cost of seven pounds.40 In the same year the dovecote was given a new roof amongst numerous other repairs, and six pairs of doves were bought to stock it, a pair of doves costing 7d. I n fact it was the roofs that were the serjeant’s greatest problem for they needed constant renovation. Tile making41 in Westwell itself came to an end around 1310 leading to the purchase of tiles from Great Chart between 1314 and 1315.42 After this it was quite common for old tiles to be taken off a roof and the new roof made with a mixture of old and new tiles. Between 1317 and 131843 two tilers with their two ‘boys’ spent eight weeks at one time and a further two weeks at another working on the roofs of the hall, the great barn and the granary stairs. After this tiles were bought from Hollingbourne and later, between 1397 and 1398,44 from Naccolt. A t some time between 1318 to 1326 an important new building was erected, but part of the relevant roll45 is missing so there is little to indicate the nature of this construction except for a reference to a new chamber, which suggests that it was a dwelling, perhaps it was an extension to the hall. However, the next-but-one roll46 is complete and records the acquisition and rebuilding of a second-hand granary from Quenstede. B y the end of the century the demesne farm was rented out ‘at farm’ on a series of short-term leases although the priory retained the park and the majority of the land which had been leased out on various forms of tenure from the earliest times. B etween 1413 and 141447 the Rectory was held by John Breche at a rent MA RY ADAMS 194 of thirty pounds per annum. John was purchasing tiles to repair the roofs of sundry buildings and since the archaeologists found no artefacts to show that buildings were erected on the moated site after around 1400, these buildings must have been put up elsewhere on the farm. During the fifteenth century the rents and the terms of leases varied, but the rent for the Rectory was always slightly greater than the one demanded for the demesne farm. Although by this time the Priory was tending to rent out whole manors as distinct from the home farm, this did not happen at Westwell where the bedel continued to receive rents and to pay the wage of the park keeper. endnotes 1 I i. Riddler, ‘Anglo-Saxon Kent: Early Development c.450-c.800’, in An Historical Atlas of Kent, T. Lawson and D. Killingray (eds), 2004, p. 26. 2 S s. Sweetinburgh, ‘Territorial Organisation of the Church’, in An Historical Atlas of Kent, T. Lawson and D. Killingray (eds), 2004, p. 40. 3 A archbishop Aelfric’s will is published in the Cottonian Library. Furley, History of the Weald of Kent, John Russell Smith, London (1871), p. 195. 4 E e. Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, VIIii (1798), p. 413. 5 K. Witney, The Survey of Archbishop Pecham’s Kentish Manors 1283-85, Kent Archaeological Society, 2000, p. ix. 6 L l.B. Larking, ‘On the Alienation of the Manors of Westwell and Little Chart by Peter de Bending, and the Tenure of the Former Manor’, Archaeologia Cantiana, vi (1886), 306-318. 7 H hasted, op. cit. (see note 4), p. 414. 8 CCA/DCc/register K f. 225r. 9 T the term ‘manor’ can refer to the whole parish including lands rented out on various forms of tenure. The ‘demesne farm’ was the land and buildings actually held and farmed by the owners of the manor, and has a meaning similar to ‘home farm’. In the bedel rolls the demesne farm is often referred to as the ‘manor’. 10 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/2. See Appendix 1 for translation of building expenses from this roll. 11 R.A.L. Smith, Canterbury Cathedral Priory, Cambridge University Press (1969), p. 108. 12 R. Willis, ‘Monastery of Christ Church in Canterbury, Archaeologia Cantiana, vii (1887), 187. Gives a reference to Prior Eastry’s Memorandum Book recorded in CCA/DCc/register I xi f.212. 13 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/38. 14 H hasted, op. cit. (see note 4), p. 416. 15 F freeland was land on which the owner did not have to pay the customary manorial dues and services and usually was held by knight’s fees. These are listed in K. Witney, The Survey of Archbishop Pecham’s Kentish Manors 1283-1285, KASas, 2000. 16 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/3. 17 Ibid. 18 H h.J. Glass, ‘Archaeology of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxix (1999), 213-214. WEST WELL - THE ESTABLISHMENTestablishment OF A VILLAGE 195 19 J. Hill, ‘The Medieval Moated Site at Parsonage Farm, Westwell, Kent. First Draft’, CTRL Integrated Site Report Series, Jan 2006. 20 CKS U991 T99. 21 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/41. 22 RCHMEhme, Gazetteer of Medieval Houses in Kent (HMSOhmso, 1994), p. 59. 23 Ibid., p. 40. 24 CCA/DCc/ChAnt/C/257. 25 H h.O. Wakeman, An Introduction to the History of the Church of England, Rivingtons (1947), p. 157. 26 Ibid., p. 158. 27 CCA/DCc/ChAnt/W/48. 28 CCA/DCc/VR/5. 29 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/41. 30 Wakeman, op. cit. (see note 25), p. 159. 31 J. Newman, North East and East Kent (1969), p. 475. 32 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/49. 33 A a. Hussey, ‘Chapels in Kent’, Archaeologia Cantiana, xxix (1911), 217-258. 34 M m. Adams, ‘History of the Demesne Farm at Appledore from Contemporary Building Records’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxii (1993), 292-3. 35 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/3. 36 CCA/DCc/MAma 6/ f. 120r. 37 S s. Jenkins, England’s Thousand Best Churches, The Penguin Press (2000), p. 336. 38 M m. Adams, ‘The development of roof-tiling and tile-making on some mid-Kent manors of Christ Church Priory in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries’, Archaeologia Cantiana, cxvi (1996), 35-59. 39 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/4. 40 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/10. 41 A adams, op. cit. (see note 38), 43. 42 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/12. 43 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/16. 44 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/38. 45 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/17. 46 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/19. 47 CCA/DCc/BR/WESTestWell/50.