Knockholt 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 below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

Sevenoaks District Sevenoaks is a local government district in west Kent, England. Its council is based in the town of Sevenoaks. The district was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of Sevenoaks Urban District, Sevenoaks Rural District and part of Dartford R ...

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 ...

, England. It is located north west of

Sevenoaks Sevenoaks is a town in Kent with a population of 29,506 situated south-east of London, England. Also classified as a civil parish, Sevenoaks is served by a commuter main line railway into London. Sevenoaks is from Charing Cross, the traditio ...

& south of

Orpington Orpington is a town and area in south east London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is 13.4 miles (21.6 km) south east of Charing Cross. On the south-eastern edge of the Greater London Built-up Area, it is south of St Ma ...

, adjacent to the Kent border with

Greater London Greater may refer to: * Greatness, the state of being great *Greater than, in inequality * ''Greater'' (film), a 2016 American film * Greater (flamingo), the oldest flamingo on record * "Greater" (song), by MercyMe, 2014 * Greater Bank, an Austra ...

. The village is mostly a

ribbon development Ribbon development refers to the building of houses along the routes of communications radiating from a human settlement. The resulting linear settlements are clearly visible on land use maps and aerial photographs, giving cities and the countrysid ...

, surrounded by fields that are a part of the

Green Belt A green belt is a policy and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which hav ...

. There is mixed arable farming. It is in a hilly, rural location, on the top of the dip slope of the North Downs, and has views over London. The village name, originally Nockholt, is one of many villages in England with a derivation from oak trees, most a strong departure from today's spelling of oak such as Aike.

History

The village's name is derived from the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a 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-Saxons happened wit ...

''āc-holt'' meaning "

oak An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ...

copse", to which the final -n of the late Old English dative definite article "ðen" ("the") was accreted. The spelling with initial K- is a relatively recent one. Knockholt was included in Orpington Urban District in 1934. When

was created in 1965, as part of Orpington UD, Knockholt was included in the

London Borough of Bromley The London Borough of Bromley () is the southeasternmost of the London boroughs that make up Greater London, bordering the ceremonial county of Kent, which most of Bromley was part of before 1965. The borough's population is an estimated 332,336 ...

. On 1 April 1969, following a concerted campaign by villagers it was removed from the Borough and returned to Kent, being included in Sevenoaks Rural District. The area of the parish is virtually unchanged since first drawn in the late medieval period. When it temporarily merged into Orpington (in 1934) and fell under Bromley Rural District, it was , 18 more than in 1848. The Ivy Farm Communications Centre at Knockholt Pound was the Radio Intercept Station for the non-Morse radio traffic, known as

Fish Fish are aquatic, craniate, gill-bearing animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Approximately 95% of liv ...

, decoded by

Bletchley Park Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire) that became the principal centre of Allies of World War II, Allied World War II cryptography, code-breaking during the Second World War. The man ...

during World War II. The importance of the station is noted in Paul Gannon's book. There are two parts to the village, Knockholt, near the

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chris ...

and school and The Pound, near the Three Horseshoes pub, The Harrow pub, the village shop and garage. St Katharine's Church, a Grade II*-

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Ir ...

, is the

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Euro ...

parish church A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities ...

. Near Knockholt Pound is the London Road

Evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "born again", in which an individual exper ...

Church, built in the late 19th century as a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a group of historically related denominations of Protestant Christianity whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's ...

chapel. Its registration on behalf of the denomination was cancelled in July 1967, and in August 1968 it was re-registered for Evangelical use. Opposite the parish church is St Katharine's Church of England Primary School.

Transport

Rail

The nearest

National Rail National Rail (NR) is the trading name licensed for use by the Rail Delivery Group, an unincorporated association whose membership consists of the passenger train operating companies (TOCs) of England, Scotland, and Wales. The TOCs run the ...

station is Knockholt, though it is located away from the village.

Buses

Knockholt is serves by

London Buses London Buses is the subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL) that manages most bus services in London, England. It was formed following the Greater London Authority Act 1999 that transferred control of London Regional Transport (LRT) bus s ...

routes R5 and R10 which provide connections to

, Cudham and

Halstead Halstead is a town and civil parish in the Braintree District of Essex, England. Its population of 11,906 in 2011List of places of worship in Sevenoaks (district)

References

External links

St Katharine's Church

Knockholt Parish

360° Panorama of Knockholt Pound

Knockholt Carnival website
{{authority control Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent