Benenden is a village and
civil parish in the
borough of Tunbridge Wells in
Kent, England. The parish is located on the
Weald, to the west of
Tenterden. In addition to the main village,
Iden Green
Iden Green is a small village, near Benenden, in the county of Kent. It belongs to the civil parish of Benenden and the Tunbridge Wells Borough District of Kent, in the South East of England.
In Old English 'Iden' refers to a 'pasture by the yew ...
, East End, Dingleden and Standen Street settlements are included in the parish.
The parish church is dedicated to St George, and is a 19th-century building on the site of a medieval building destroyed in a fire.
Benenden School, a private girls boarding school is located to the north of the village.
Origin of name
The place name of Benenden (pronounced Ben-en-den) derives from
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 settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
meaning Bynna's wooded pasture. ''Bynning denn'' became Benindene (1086) Binnigdaenne, Bennedene (c1100) Bynindenne (1253) then the current spelling from 1610.
History
:''A more detailed history can be found in the pdf file as part of a Conservation Appraisal carried out by
Tunbridge Wells District in April 2005''
The
Wealden iron industry existed in the area from before the
Roman period, but evidence of two
Roman roads built to take the iron from the Weald have been discovered, as well as other finds from the period such as a Roman settlement at Hemsted, now Benenden School. The evidence of one road, that between
Maidstone and
Bodiam at Iden Green, is in the form of a paved
ford.
The
Domesday Book surveyors remarked that ''Benindene'' was one of only four places in the Weald to have a church; although like most of the other such, the buildings of the settlement were scattered. From the 14th century places such as Benenden became of industrial importance. The Wealden ironmasters continued what the Romans had done; and the other major industry,
cloth-making, also helped to make the village prosperous. By the late 18th century, however, both industries had moved to the industrial nort