Frinsted
Frinsted | ||
---|---|---|
Shire county | ||
Region | ||
Country | England | |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom | |
Post town | Sittingbourne | |
Postcode district | ME9 | |
Dialling code | 01622 | |
Police | Kent | |
Fire | Kent | |
Ambulance | South East Coast | |
UK Parliament | ||
Frinsted or Frinstead
The parish is situated on the North Downs between Sittingbourne and Maidstone some ten miles (16 km) south of The Swale. To the West lies the village of Wormshill, to the North East the village of Milstead, the hamlet of Kingsdown and the Torry Hill estate and to the South and South East are the villages of Doddington and Newnham. The part of the parish northward of the church is in the division of East Kent, but the church itself, and the remaining part of it is in West Kent.[5]
The village is surrounded by former manor houses or "courts" being to the east Wrinsted court and to the west, Yokes Court and Madams Court.
The population is relatively unchanged in the past 200 years.
The village church is today dedicated to
History
Early history
Iron Age coins (or staters) dating back to the 1st century BC have been found in fields near the village.[11]
The parish was part of those possessions which William the Conqueror gave his half-brother Odo, bishop of Baieux, under whose name it appears in the Domesday Book:
"Hugh, the grandson of Herbert, and Adelold the chamberlain, holds of the bishop (of Baieux) Fredenestede. It was taxed at one suling. The arable land is three carucates. In demesne ... Three villeins having seven oxen. There is a church, and two acres of meadow and an half, and wood for the pannage of two hogs. It is, and was worth, separately, twenty shillings. Leunin held it of king Edward."[5]
Four years after taking the above survey, the bishop was disgraced, and the King, his brother, seized the estate and the rest of his possessions, which were confiscated to the Crown. After which, the village came into the possession of Jeffry de Peverel, forming part of the barony of Peverel, as it was then called, being assigned to him for the defence of Dover Castle.
Nicholas de Gerund later held the
During the reign of
Over the course of the following years the land moved many more times between heirs until vesting in the estate of Margaret Style (during the reign of Queen Anne) who in 1716 sold it to a Mr. Abraham Tilghman. A commissioner of the Royal Navy, and of the victualling office he died in 1729 and was interned in the southern part of the church, where there is a monument erected to his memory.[13] The manor stayed in the Tilghman family for the latter part of the 18th century.[5]
19th and 20th centuries
During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the population of Frinsted declined from 208 (1881) to 150 (1921), a trend typical of downland parishes as a consequence of agricultural depression and the mechanisation of farming practises.[14]
The village is now a typical North Downs commuter village. Described by John Marius Wilson in 1872, the village was owned principally by the Leigh-Pemberton family in the Barony of Kingsdown.[6] Descendants of the Leigh-Pemberton line still live in the village and the surrounding area.[15]
A popular spot for rural-sightseeing, day-trippers and picnic outings in the summer and game shoots in the winter, the village previously contained a sub-post office,
The nearby Milstead and Frinsted Church of England primary school opened in 1848 on land donated by the Leigh-Pemberton family who still retain a position on the school's board of governance.[15]
An early example of an aircraft shot down in a
Etymology
Frinsted has been recorded under a number of names over the years including Fredenestede, Freyhanestede, Frensted, Frethensted, Wronsted and Frinstead.[2][5] It is thought that the name means a "place of protection" and being possibly derived from the Old English frithen meaning "protection" or fyrhðen meaning "wooded place".[20][21]
References
- ^ a b "Civil Parish population 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
- ^ a b Youngs, F., Local Administrative Units: Southern England (London: Royal Historical Society, 1979), p. 271
- ^ Frinsted entry in the Domesday Book of 1086, at the NationalArchives.gov,uk
- ^ a b The Kent Hundred Rolls at KentArchaeology.org (PDF)
- ^ a b c d 'Parishes: Frinsted' from The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 5 (1798), pp. 554–561. Date accessed: 30 October 2007
- ^ a b c d Frinsted's entry at the Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870–72) by John Marius Wilson
- ^ Frinsted pages at VisionofBritain.org.uk
- ^ 2001 Census Results Archived 19 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine at Kent.gov.uk
- ^ Photograph of a watercolour dated 1807 of Frinstead [sic] Church at KentArchaeology.org.uk
- ^ a b Sittingbourne, Milton, and District Directory 1908/09 reprinted 1980 by W.J. Parrett Ltd, Sittingbourne
- ^ Treasure Annual Report 1997-1998 Archived 1 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine British coin finds
- ^ List of Kent place names from Ordnance Survey maps
- The National Archives
- ^ Tuson, D. , The Kent Downs pp61 (Tempus Publishing, 2007),
- ^ a b History of Milstead and Frinsted School Archived 20 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine on the school's website
- ^ Sittingbourne Area Pubs Archived 24 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine at the Sittingbourne Museum website
- ^ Details of incident Archived 7 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine at AeroConservancy.com
- ^ Sittingbourne Remembers description of WWI bombing raids in the Sittingbourne area
- ^ Airfields of Britain Archived 2 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine entry for Frinsted
- ^ Kent Place Names from BBC Kent
- ^ Key to English Place-names by the University of Nottingham
External links
Media related to Frinsted at Wikimedia Commons