Sutton-at-Hone is a village in the

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 ...

Sutton-at-Hone and Hawley Sutton-at-Hone and Hawley is a civil parish within the Borough of Dartford in Kent, England. It lies to the south of the urban part of the Borough, and consists of the two settlements named, both to the west of the River Darent, one of the paris ...

in the Borough of Dartford in

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 England is a 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 separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is located 3.5 miles south of Dartford & 3.6 miles north east of

Swanley Swanley is a town and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England, southeast of central London, adjacent to the Greater London boundary and within the M25 motorway periphery. The population at the 2011 census was 16,226. History ...

History

The place-name 'Sutton-at-Hone' is first attested in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...

of 1086, where it appears as ''Sudtone''. The place is called ''Suttone atte hone'' in a charter of 1281 at one time 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 docum ...

. The name means 'southern town or settlement near a stone', probably a boundary stone, from the

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

''hān'' meaning 'stone'. Sutton-at-Hone has a long history. A

commandery In the Middle Ages, a commandery (rarely commandry) was the smallest administrative division of the European landed properties of a military order. It was also the name of the house where the knights of the commandery lived.Anthony Luttrell and G ...

of the Knights Hospitallers of the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem was established in Sutton-at-Hone in 1199, and is now the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

property St John's Jerusalem. The property is partly open to the public (on Wednesday afternoons, April–October), including the 13th-century chapel of the Knights Hospitallers and a garden moated by the

River Darent The Darent is a Kentish tributary of the River Thames and takes the waters of the River Cray as a tributary in the tidal portion of the Darent near Crayford, as illustrated by the adjacent photograph, snapped at high tide. 'Darenth' is frequen ...

. The church of St John the Baptist was in existence by 1077. It was rebuilt in the 14th century, and substantially rebuilt after a fire in 1615, reputedly caused by a gun being fired at a bird. The parish of Sutton at Hone belonged to Axstane Hundred and its successor

Dartford Rural District Dartford Rural District was a rural district with an area of in the county of Kent, England. In 1971 it had a population of 64,561 and an electorate of 43,911. At dissolution it was the most populous rural district council in Kent, but had o ...

. The chapelry of Swanley in the parish was formed into a separate parish of Swanley in 1955.

Sport

Sutton Athletic F.C. is an association football team based in Sutton-at-Hone, that competes in the

Southern Counties East Football League The Southern Counties East Football League is an English football league established in 1966, which has teams based in Kent and Southeast London. Until 2013, it was known as the Kent League. There was a previous Kent League, that existed from ...

and play at The London Hire Stadium, Lower road.Sutton Athletic official website – History
Retrieved 13 January 2012. Sutton-at-Hone Primary school, also has a very successful girls football team, who were crowned Kent schools champions in 2021, winning the tournament with an unbeaten record, they will also be competing in the southern counties cup in 2022, representing Dartford.

Lathe of Sutton at Hone

The Lathe of Sutton-at-Hone included a large part of Kent and a lot of present-day South East

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

including the present-day boroughs of Dartford,

Bexley Bexley is an area of south-eastern Greater London, England and part of the London Borough of Bexley. It is sometimes known as Bexley Village or Old Bexley to differentiate the area from the wider borough. It is located east-southeast of Ch ...

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

Bromley Bromley is a large town in Greater London, England, within the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross, and had an estimated population of 87,889 as of 2011. Originally part of Kent, Bromley became a market town, c ...

Lewisham Lewisham () is an area of southeast London, England, south of Charing Cross. It is the principal area of the London Borough of Lewisham, and was within the historic county of Kent until 1889. It is identified in the London Plan as one of ...

, and

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 ...

. The Lathe of Sutton consisted of the following Hundreds:See The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 1, author:Edward Hasted, publ. 1797 * Blackheath * Bromley And Beckenham *

Ruxley Ruxley is a small settlement in southeast London, England, with no present formal boundaries. It is located southeast by east of Charing Cross,Nicholson Greater London Street Atlas Comprehensive Edition p.186 (2003) shows borough district b ...

* Little And Lesnes * Dartford and Wilmington * Axstane * Codsheath * Westerham and Edenbridge * Somerden The village of Sutton at Hone is in Axstane Hundred. The lathe was the most westerly of the lathes into which Kent was divided. The former boundary of the Lathe with the rest of Kent is now, with minor deviations, the boundaries of Dartford and Sevenoaks with the rest of Kent. Although not formally abolished, hundreds and lathes had fallen out of use by the end of the 19th century, although the Lathe of Sutton was mentioned in the '' London Gazette'' as late as 1899.

Transport

Rail

Sutton-at-Hone is served by

Farningham Road railway station Farningham Road railway station is on the Chatham Main Line in England, serving the villages of Farningham, Sutton-at-Hone, Horton Kirby and South Darenth, Kent. It is down the line from and is situated between and . The station and all trai ...

with

Southeastern The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each se ...

services to

London Victoria Victoria station, also known as London Victoria, is a central London railway terminus and connected London Underground station in Victoria, in the City of Westminster, managed by Network Rail. Named after the nearby Victoria Street (not the Q ...

via Bromley South and to

Dover Priory The Priory of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Martin of the New Work, or Newark, commonly called Dover Priory, was a priory at Dover in southeast England. It was variously independent in rule, then occupied by canons regular of the Augustinian r ...

via

Chatham Chatham may refer to: Places and jurisdictions Canada * Chatham Islands (British Columbia) * Chatham Sound, British Columbia * Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi * Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...

& Canterbury East.Farningham Road
National Rail

Buses

Sutton-at-Hone is served by

Arriva Kent Thameside Arriva Kent Thameside is a bus operator based in North-West Kent, England. It is a subsidiary of Arriva. The company operates services in Northfleet, Gravesend & Dartford as part of the Arriva Southern Counties division from their Northfleet ...

route 414, connecting it with Dartford. The Sutton Dynamo team bus can also be spotted at Parsonage Lane, when their under 16's side park the bus on a 6–0 score line at half time, using all their tactical nous to snatch defeat from the jaws of defeat.

Notes

External links

Parish Council websiteSt. John's Jerusalem page on the National Trust website
{{authority control Villages in Kent Borough of Dartford