Great Mongeham 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 Dover District of east

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 faces ...

, England, on the outskirts of

Deal A deal, or deals may refer to: Places United States * Deal, New Jersey, a borough * Deal, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * Deal Lake, New Jersey Elsewhere * Deal Island (Tasmania), Australia * Deal, Kent, a town in England * Deal, ...

. Its name is derived from Mundelingham or village of Mundel. Parts of Great Mongeham's

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 * C ...

, St Martin's, date back to the 13th century. In the 19th century it was restored by

William Butterfield William Butterfield (7 September 1814 – 23 February 1900) was a Gothic Revival architect and associated with the Oxford Movement (or Tractarian Movement). He is noted for his use of polychromy. Biography William Butterfield was born in Lon ...

. Locally produced

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as ...

and

sausage A sausage is a type of meat product usually made from ground meat—often pork, beef, or poultry—along with salt, spices and other flavourings. Other ingredients, such as grains or breadcrumbs may be included as fillers or extenders. ...

s found favour with Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, who, as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, often stayed in her nearby official residence,

Walmer Castle Walmer Castle is an artillery fort originally constructed by Henry VIII in Walmer, Kent, between 1539 and 1540. It formed part of the King's Device programme to protect against invasion from France and the Holy Roman Empire, and defended the s ...

. Significant figures who have lived in the village include Captain

Robert Maynard Robert Maynard (19 September 1684 – 4 January 1751) was a British lieutenant, and later captain, in the Royal Navy. Little is known about Maynard's early life, other than he was born in England in 1684 and then later joined the English Navy. ...

, Stephen Haggett, Proctor of Queens' College, Cambridge in the seventeenth century and

Olivia Barclay Olivia Barclay (12 December 1919 – 1 April 2001) was a British astrologer who played an important role in the revival of traditional forms of astrology in the late 20th century. Much of her focus in the latter part of her life was on the wo ...

, astrologer. Great Mongeham may have been a settlement as long ago as the

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second prin ...

. When the site for the new primary school was being dug in February 1949 the body of a man and two fragments of food vessels were found. The man was in the crouched burial position used in the Bronze Age and one of the fragments was dated to about 1000 BC. Great Mongeham is close to the Roman road which ran from Dover to

Richborough Castle Richborough Castle is a Roman Saxon Shore fort better known as Richborough Roman Fort. It is situated in Richborough near Sandwich, Kent. Substantial remains of the massive fort walls still stand to a height of several metres. It is ...

. Archaeologists have discovered Roman pottery and evidence of cremation but we do not know if there was a permanent settlement here at that time. There certainly was a settlement here in 761 AD. In that year King Eadbert of Kent gave some land to St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. This included the village, which was then called Mundelingeham. The names means "settlement of Mundel's people". By 1195 it was written as Munigeham. A possible variation may be Monyngham, seen in 1399.Plea Rolls of the Court of Common Pleas; National Archives; CP 40/555; http://aalt.law.uh.edu/H4/CP40no555/aCP40no555fronts/IMG_0279.htm; 5th entry: 'Monyngham' is mentioned on the first line, with 'Northbourn' and ' Litle Monyngham' on the second line It had become Mongeham by 1610. Being close to the sea and to the rest of Europe has affected Mongeham's history. In 1415 Henry V granted the Fogge family of Mongeham the exclusive rights to brew and ship beer to the English soldiers in Calais. Behind the local Engineering Works is a steep bank dropping down to a brook. This is all that remains of the ancient Mongeham Docks, long since silted up. Chalk and lime used in the building of Deal Castle in 1538 were quarried from a pit called Pope's Hall. At the time of the Armada in 1588 Mongeham had a signal beacon which would have been lit to raise the alarm if the Spanish landed. Later, the smugglers hid their spoils near the village. Mongeham is also known for its lesser-known history, the first wooden bike recorded to have been manufactured was created in this very town, the town is also home to a very well known truffle forager who has been foraging under the trees for many years.

A number of buildings in Mongeham have shaped

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

ends. This was a Dutch fashion which is found in several places along the east coast of Kent. The church porch, which was demolished in 1851, had fine gable ends. The village church has a complicated history. The original building probably dates from Saxon times but there are claims that it goes back to AD 470. In the sixteenth century the interior was brightly coloured but by 1665 the church was in a state of disrepair. One-third of the parishioners belonged to religious sects and did not attend service. The church was restored in 1851 by

. Inside the church is a helmet Known as "Paul-Tucker" which is claimed to have been worn at the

Battle of Hastings The Battle of Hastings nrf, Batâle dé Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson, beginning the Norman Conque ...

in 1066. There is also a poem by

Robert Bridges Robert Seymour Bridges (23 October 1844 – 21 April 1930) was an English poet who was Poet Laureate from 1913 to 1930. A doctor by training, he achieved literary fame only late in life. His poems reflect a deep Christian faith, and he is ...

, a former

Poet Laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch ...

, written as a tribute to his nurse, Catherine Ashby. She came from Mongeham and spent much of her life in service with the Bridges family who lived at St. Nicholas-at-Wade in Thanet, where Robert himself is buried. Also in the church is the finely sculpted monument to Edward Crayford, whose father-in-law was three times

Lord Mayor of London The Lord Mayor of London is the mayor of the City of London and the leader of the City of London Corporation. Within the City, the Lord Mayor is accorded precedence over all individuals except the sovereign and retains various traditional pow ...

. The Crayfords were once a prominent local family but Stone Hall, their house by the church, was demolished long ago. William Crayford led a contingent of Kent men in the

Wars of the Roses The Wars of the Roses (1455–1487), known at the time and for more than a century after as the Civil Wars, were a series of civil wars fought over control of the English throne in the mid-to-late fifteenth century. These wars were fought bet ...

on the Yorkist side. He fought in the Earl of Warwick's division at the Battle of Northampton in 1460 and was knighted by Edward IV for his services.

References

External links

Great Mongeham then and now
{{authority control Civil parishes in Kent Villages in Kent Dover District