Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/123

This page has been validated.
NOTES TO KENT.
87

end a square-headed two-light Perp. window has been inserted. The church retains a little coloured glass. Kilburne states, that a church was founded here by Robert of Chichester, fifty-first abbot of St. Augustin's, Canterbury, about A.D. 1270 (Rob. de Chichester was abbot from 1253 to 1272, Hasted), and the most ancient part of the existing building may agree with that date.

184. Kingsdown near Wrotham.—Church very small, comprehending only chancel, nave, south porch (of brick), and a small square tower with a tiled cap on the outside of the southwest angle of the chancel. The windows retain several small portions of coloured glass; that on the north side of the chancel has fishes. The stained glass here is described by Mr. Chas. Winston as belonging to the later half of the fourteenth century. (Archæol. Journ. II, 188.) Kingsdown church has some Dec. windows; the wall however is probably earlier, the upper part being thinner in places than the lower; but there are no distinctive marks of the date. The font is a cylinder, with a basin hollowed out in the top; possibly E.E., altered at a later period.—That of Kingsdown is styled a parish church, "ecclesia parochialis," in a deed directing the augmentation of the vicarage by Thomas, Bp. of Rochester, dated 9th Aug. 1436; yet in another document, without date, of Benedict, "by divine compassion the humble minister" of the church of Rochester (he was bishop), it is called a chapel of the church of Sutton. (Monast. I, 182, 184.)—In this parish are the sites of other two churches, Maplescomb and Woodland, respecting which see the Notes below.

185. Kingsnoth.—This church contains a figure, of what material is not said, of Sir Will. Parker, kn., 1421. (Hasted.)

186. Lamberhurst.—Is partly in Sussex, under which county see also the Note. The church stands in Kent.—In this parish are the remains of Bayham Abbey and of Scotney Castle. Of the former, founded, temp. K. Richard II, by Æla de Dene (Kilburne), about A.D. 1200 (Hasted), little now exists, though sufficient to show that the church must have been a fine building, the east end terminating in a semi-hexagon. According to another authority, the individual, who, about A.D. 1200, removed hither the religious establishment first placed at Otham, was Robert, nephew of Mich. de Turnham, Ralph de Dene having been the founder of Otham. Brockley in Deptford was the place first proposed for the new monastery, which finally was