Newnham, Kent
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Newnham is a small picturesque village in the Syndale valley in Kent, England, in the administrative borough of Swale. Its closest town is the medieval market town of Faversham. Even till the 2nd World war, most of its inhabitants were born, worked, lived and died in the valley, many of the men working on the hop farms and in the apple and cherry orchards or the wood industries that dominated the local economy, while their womenfolk did domestic service in some of the big houses, most of them set in park-lands on surrounding hills (e.g. Sharsted Court, Doddington House, Bellmont, Champion Court). Though it has changed enormously over the past 250 years, it retains the feel of an archetypal southern English village, even though few farm workers still live there. Instead, it is now popular with commuters to London and with retired people who are attracted by its quiet charm - and by its position between two fast motorways on either side of the North Downs. Fast railway connections to London and the continent of Europe add to the appeal with jobs in Ashford, Canterbury, Maidstone and Medway towns being within easy reach especially since the M20, M2, M26 and M25 were completed between the mid 1960sn and early 1990s.
Though not the site of any of the great battles or events that feature in Britain's history books, Newnham has existed as a community of dwellings and contemporary work-units for at least 1000 years. Though it had a lord of the manor and the church of St. Peter and St. Paul at the beginning of the 12th century, it could be said that nothing of importance ever happened there; yet in it took place centuries of everyday social history and a history of domestic and economic life of generations of English people.
Originally little more than a grouping of farmhouses and farm-workers cottages clustered around a church and pub, both over 600 years old, the village featured blacksmiths, a draper, a butcher, a baker and several other shops and pubs by the early 20th century. The police house was sold off as a private residence in the 1990s and the last shop and post office closed in 2002. But two pub-restaurants remain: opposite the church is the old 'George Inn', now no longer mainly a drinking house for locals and instead attracting families and groups of business people and walkers for meals. Most of them arrive by car. It features 16th century rafters, inglenook fireplaces and locally-brewed beer and a garden that looks up the charming 'hilly field', appropriately-named and popular for walkers (and sheep) year-round and sledders in winter. Above the field, stands, the 12th century manor house, Champion Court, still an apple farm though emplying few people now and an abundance of modern science, overlooking the valley. The other pub-restaurant is much newer but has the air of a barn converted from use on the Syndale vineyard. From its garden there is another striking view across the village past the oast house, now converted from drying hops for beer into a private dwelling.
The church's glebe lands, near the centre of the village, provided the space for a post-war housing development on the Homes fit for heroes model. Most of the other houses in the village front onto 'The Street' and include tudor dwellings, Victorian terraced cottages, many now joined together into larger homes, and a collection of infilled recently-built houses sqeezed into former orchards and fields that abutted 'The Street' and which provided the only late 20th century development land (which has to be within the "village envelope" according to planning restricions). Much of the village is a conservation area and several buildings are individually listed while the village is within the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (Kent Downs AONB), where building, especially in the beautiful open countryside, is tightly restricted, whereas "rural pursuits", horse-riding and walking are encouraged. A notable listed house is 'Calico House', new in the early 17th century, but some of the homes of poorer people, who till the last two centuries rarely ventured far from the valley, are no less rich in the history of working families struggling to make a living and bring up families in rural Kent. Another sizeable house was the 19th century Vicarage, no longer used as such. It was built in 1860 by a vicar who also rebuilt the crumbling church, largely at his own expense; it till then succumbed to the relative poverty of the parish and most of its parishioners. But the tiny congregationalist chapel also stands, disused, to remind us that the Church of England and the local sqirearchy did encounter some resistance to their assumptions and values once preachers from non-conformist sects were able to attract support, especially among hard-working rural poor, after the arrival of threshing machines made their winter work less secure in the early 19th century (and after the railways and factory work meant that the tide towards the cities and even the "New World" had begun). The valley road was a highway in Norman times, linking the Roman Watling Steet (Dover and Canterbury to London, the A2) to the Pilgrims' Way on the other side of the Downs. However it was almost impassable in winter and Newnham was substantially self-sufficient until the 19th century. Indded the shops that residents whose closure the older residents bemoan probably did not begin till the 1840 when passing tradesmen and deliveries became it possible to open a draper's and grocery shop.
The old farmhouses in the village, including the old 'Parsonage Farm' whose farmhouse now stands in only 1/2 an acre of land next to the church on The Street, yielded most of their farm-lands to provide space to accommodate incomers in the past 30 years. There is now considereable turnover in population whereas only 25 years ago most inhabitants had lived in the valley for years and knew each other, not least by working together or meeting in the local shops. Newcomers could feel like outsiders for 20 years unless they joined in activities like going to church, and everyone had too participate in village events like the annual fete. The fete still remains but open gardens on show each summer attract even more interest and the local pub and church no longer is much of a centre-point for the life of villagers. The church now shares a vicar with half a dozen other local parishes and the issues that unite people are things like traffic calming as too many other commuters and passers-by race through the village. The village no longer has a school of its own (indeed it lost it as early as 1877 when the Board School opened in Doddington, the next (and only other) village in the valley. Doddington retains its primary school and also still has a butcher's shop and that successor of the village blacksmith, a garage and petrol station as well as its pub and church. It also has a hostel for walkers to complement the Bed and Breakfast accommodation on offer to visitors to the area. Both villages, about 2 miles apart, have a village hall, now used for keep fit classes and occasional auctions and flower shows, and they share a war memorial to those killed in two world wars. Neither village in the valley has street lights or mains drainage and there is liitle demand for such services. Broadband internet access, mobile phone connection and satellite TV signals matter as much to many current villagers, especially to home-workers and children, as the mains water and gas supplies. The valley is chalky downland and is atop a plentiful aquifer which provides water to the growing nearby urban communities. The pumping station in the valley stands beside a unique (recently purchased for conversion to residential use) 1937 experimental building, which was designed to soften the hard lime-scaling water which it pumps from the ground. The water softening plant was built for the Kent Water Board and is probably one of very few remaining if not the last of its kind. The Twentieth Century Society has proposed the concrete structures for listing citing their "tremendous sculptural qualities". The plant has recently changed owners and its future is uncertain. If listed, the plant will join a range of more traditional buildings including several thatched houses.
The population of Newnham numbered 24 householders in 1569. In the first national census in 1801, there were 262 residents reaching what may have been a peak of 451 in 88 houses in 1841 just before out-migration began in earnest. In 1931, there were 258 people in 92 dwellings and there are now about 350 people in 145 houses.
[edit] External links
- Newnham & Doddington villages: shared site
- Kent Downs AONB
- Swale borough tourism site
- water softening plant ar C20th Society site
|
with its suburbs, villages, towns and parishes: |
|
|---|---|
|
Bapchild • Badlesmere • Bobbing • Borden • Boughton under Blean • Bredgar • Brogdale • Buckland • Chestnut Street • Conyer • Doddington • Dunkirk • Eastchurch • Eastling • Elmley • Faversham • Faversham Without • Goodnestone • Graveney • Hartlip • Harty • Hearts Delight • Hernhill • Isle of Sheppey • Iwade • Kemsley • Leaveland • Leysdown • Leysdown on Sea • Lower Halstow • Lynsted • Milstead • Milton Regis • Minster-in-Sheppey • Murston • Newington • Newnham • Norton • Oad Street • Oare • Ospringe • Queenborough • Queenborough-in-Sheppey • Rodmersham • Rushenden • Selling • Sheldwich • Sheerness • Sittingbourne • Sittingbourne and Milton • Stalisfield • Stone • Teynham • Throwley • Tonge • Tunstall • Warden |
|
| The Borough of Swale List of places in Kent |
|
