note, cum capella." Harris states that the original parish church was St. Faith's; while Hasted[1] calls the latter only a free chapel, adding in a note, "Part of this is now a dwelling-house, and the rest of it has been converted into an assembly-room." (It is no longer applied to the latter purpose.) In (Val. Eccl.) St. Faith's appears as a chapel annexed to the rectory of the parish church, under the valuation of Maidstone College. It is also mentioned under the same circumstances in the accounts of the "Ministers" (i.e. the receivers for the crown of the rents of the dissolved religious houses) for the third year of K. Edward VI, A.D. 1549; but the existence of a churchyard of St. Faith's, as there declared, implying a right of burial, proves a higher character than that of a mere chapel-of-ease. What is now termed St. Faith's churchyard consists of three acres and a quarter of land, where very many interments have been disturbed. The remaining building is about 110 feet long by 35 broad. If the most ancient church would be found in the most ancient quarter of the town, that may be represented by St. Faith's, in which neighbourhood Roman relics have been more frequently discovered than elsewhere. (Poste's Hist, of Maidstone College, 41, 42, 103, 145.)
The existing parish church of Maidstone is very large, entirely in the Perp. style, though containing one Dec. window, which apparently was in such good preservation that it was replaced from an earlier building. The stalls, designed for the members of the college to which the church was attached, still remain in the chancel.—A monastery of Grey Friars was founded here by K. Edward III. (Tann. Notit. Monast. Kent, XXXVIII, 2, in Monast. VI, 1513.) The site of the monastery is said to have been in the angle between King-street and Gabriel's Hill. (Poste, utsup. 136.) The college was erected by Archb. Boniface, A.D. 1260, when it was styled a hospital; it was pulled down by Archb. Will. Courtenay, and rebuilt A.D. 1395, as a college of secular priests. (Lambarde.) For a fuller description of the parish church, as well as of the college, consult the (History of the College of All Saints, Maidstone, by Beale Poste, Lond. 1847.) This work corrects Lambarde's loose statement by distinguishing between Archb. Boniface's foundation of the hospital of Newark at the entrance of the town from Wrotham and that of Archb. Courtenay in 1395, with which Newark was incorporated. The chapel belonging to the latter, after having been
- ↑ It seems to me, that Hasted is a very unsafe authority for such matters, and that he is too apt to make incorrect assertions merely upon his own supposition.
