Crundale is a mostly rural village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the Ashford District of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it fac ...

in southeast

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separa ...

. The village covers a section of one of the dual escarpments of the

North Downs The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent. Much of the North Downs comprises two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs): the Surrey Hills ...

at this point, about halfway between Ashford and Canterbury.

Geography

About a quarter of the village is woodland, and barring its western side which slopes steeply to the Great Stour, which is at 92 feet (28 metres) above sea level, most of the rest of its land is at more than 260 feet (80 metres) above Ordnance Datum.

Amenities

The community living in the civil parish is relatively small - many of its activities are shared with the neighbouring parish of

Godmersham Godmersham is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village straddles the Great Stour river where it cuts through the North Downs and its land is approximately one third woodland, all in the far east and west ...

History

An early

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

gold

buckle The buckle or clasp is a device used for fastening two loose ends, with one end attached to it and the other held by a catch in a secure but adjustable manner. Often taken for granted, the invention of the buckle was indispensable in securing tw ...

and other princely items from a grave dating from the mid-7th century were found in the Crundale Downs in 1861 and are now in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docu ...

. The intricately designed object is notable for the representation of a three dimensional

appliqué Appliqué is ornamental needlework in which pieces or patches of fabric in different shapes and patterns are sewn or stuck onto a larger piece to form a picture or pattern. It is commonly used as decoration, especially on garments. The technique ...

fish. The early Norman parish church is dedicated to St Mary the Blessed Virgin and is a building listed in the highest category of the national system, at Grade I. It is on the escarpment of the Crundale Downs, a less eroded top layer of the escarpment, making it higher, about half a mile southeast of the village mainstay which is made up of dual clusters very close to each other and connected by road and by separate footpath.Outline civil parish map
Neighbourhood Statistics. The Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 12 May 2013. The tombs of Juliana Hervey and Reverend Francis Paine are separately listed.

Recreation

A national trail footpath runs north-south through the civil parish, linking to

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of the ...

and to Ashford.

References

External links

Crundale Church
at John E. Vigar's Kent Churches {{authority control Villages in Kent Villages in the Borough of Ashford Civil parishes in Ashford, Kent