Frittenden is a 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells (formerly, until 1909, and still commonly Tunbridge Wells) is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone ...

District of

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, England. The parish is located on the flood plain of one of the tributaries of the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, West Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

, 15 miles (24 km) to the east of Tunbridge Wells: the village is three miles (4.8 km) south of Headcorn. It is in a very rural part of Kent. The parish church is dedicated to St Mary.

History

Roman remains have been found near an old Jutish track which ran through the area, along which pigs were driven into the forest of Andreadsweald. The village itself is named in a charter of 804, and the '' Anglo Saxon Chronicle'' of 839 relate that King Ethelwulf of Wessex gave the village land to St Augustines in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell (; – 28 July 1540) was an English statesman and lawyer who served as List of English chief ministers, chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false cha ...

was given land in the village during the reign of King

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

. Frittenden Church underwent extensive renovation in 1848 following a fire in the Church in 1790 when lightning struck the Church steeple. Rumours of the Frittenden Treacle Mines were started by locals in the 1930s at the expense of gullible Londoners who would tour the area in their newly acquired motor cars, eager to visit the source of much of the world's

treacle Treacle () is any uncrystallised syrup made during the refining of sugar.Oxford Dictionary The most common forms of treacle are golden syrup, a pale variety, and black treacle, a darker variety similar to molasses. Black treacle has a distinctiv ...

. Frittenden Historical Society keeps a record of the history of the village and its inhabitants. It meets regularly in the Memorial Hall.

Notable people

The rector of the parish church from 1900 to 1916 was Rupert Edward Inglis who was a former England rugby international. He was killed at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. His letters home to his wife from the front were published by his widow after the war. He is commemorated on the war memorial, and the

lychgate A lychgate (from Old English ''līc'', corpse) or resurrection gate is a covered gateway found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style churchyard. Examples also exist outside the British Isles in places such as Newfoundland, the ...

at St Mary's church is dedicated to him. Admiral Sir Arthur Moore (1847–1934), the son of another rector of the parish, Edward Moore, was born at Frittenden in 1847 and was buried in the churchyard.

References

* (source of History section) * *

External links

Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent {{Kent-geo-stub