Lenham Village in Kent, hometown look around
Lenham is a market village and civil parish in the Maidstone district, in Kent, England, situated on the southern edge of the North Downs, 9 miles (14 km) east of Maidstone.[2] The picturesque square in the village has two public houses (one of which is a hotel), a couple of restaurants, and a tea-room. The parish has a population of 3,370 according to the 2011 Census.[3]
Lenham railway station is on the Maidstone East Line.
The village is at the main source of the Great Stour and the Stour Valley Walk starts here, heading to Ashford and on to Canterbury and the English Channel near Sandwich. It is also the source of the River Len, which flows in a westerly direction to join the River Medway at Maidstone.
History
In 850, Æthelwulf, King of Wessex, granted Ealhhere, ealdorman of Kent, a large estate of forty hides at Lenham.[4][5]
Mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, Lenham market dates back to 1088, when the village was an important crossroad settlement. The manor of Lenham belonged to St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, until the dissolution of the monasteries when it reverted to the Crown. Queen Elizabeth I awarded the manor to her chief courtier, William Cecil, Lord Burleigh. It then passed through ownership of the Wilford, Montagu, Hamilton and Best families.[6]
Technically the fact that Lenham is allowed a market, makes it a town but the community have always desired to maintain its village status.
The High Street has a number of listed buildings.[7]
Mary Honywood was born in Lenham. When she died in Essex at the age of 93, she had 367 living descendants.
The Pilgrims' Way/North Downs Way passes along the downland ridge to the north of Lenham. Between this ridge and the village lies a 200-foot (61 m) chalk cross carved into the scarp slope. First constructed in 1922, to remember those who fell in the Great War, and fully restored in 1994, the Lenham Cross now commemorates the dead of both world wars. To avoid its use as a navigation aid by the Luftwaffe, the cross was filled in between 1939 and May 1945.
On 27 August 1950, Lenham, along with the village of Harvel, was one of the signal relay points (between Calais and London) of the first-ever live television pictures from the continent.
