The Lost Dens of Little Chart

THE LOST DENS OF LITTLE CHART 3 been south of Iddenden. Still another holding is at the " Stinckinge Pittes". I should not be able to identify this place were it not for the assistance of the late Halford Mills of Smarden, an enthusiastic local historian, who left many manuscript notes including one to the effect that the unpleasant pits had acquired the compensatory name of " Rosemary Lane", which appears on the 6 inch map. Another tenancy, called High Cross Fields, was certainly adjacent to the existing High Cross Wood through which a railway now runs. I think there can be no doubt that the Chilham den of Marden lay all along the west and north-west side of Smarden and that it joined other Chilham dens, of Hay south of the river and Kingsden to the north. But this den, thus defined, did not belong to Little Chart. Possibly it was sold to Chilham between 843 and 1680. It may even be that the two names erased in the charter ought to tell us of transactions by which dens might be alienated from their parent manors and that Marden was parted with in the ninth century. However that may have been, I think that Little Chart did probably retain part of the den of Marden and that Furley was right in saying that it did. This part was probably the den which appears in the M.R. under the name of Little Biddenden. This Little Biddenden is represented on the 6 inch map by its own proper name, and by the names Biddenden Green and Bull Land Cottage, and it is necessary now to show that it really did adjoin the part of Marden den in the hands of Chilham. That this was so appears from the fact that, in the 1680 rental of Chilham, Marden is found to have a tenancy which abuts to the lands of Widow Newenden, while the Little Chart M.R. show that John Newenden had recently died. Moreover, the Chilham rental records John Austen as another owner whose lands abutted to those of Marden, and the M.R. tell us that it was John Austen who purchased some of the Widow Newenden's land, which was doubtless the Newenden Farm which is on the 6 inch map, and which we must also place in the Little Chart part of the den of Marden. There is no definite evidence, other than is quoted above, for identifying the Little Biddenden of the M.R. with any place named in the 843 charter but the balance of probability seems to be with the theory set out. UDDANHOM. This is the next den in order and occurs regularly in the M.R. as Odenham in Smarden. But there is nothing in the M.R. to show whereabouts in Smarden it is to be found, indeed, there is httle about the place except its name. There comes to our help a small deed of 1673 in the writer's hands. This reports the conveyance of one acre "near a certain place there called High Cross between a place called Hag Hill and Uddenham Green". The owner is a certain Thomas Drayner