The church building itself is of a cruciform shape with the choir or chancel at the top of the cross. On the left, or north, is the tower and on the right, or south, is the small Lady Chapel. The architecture is chiefly Early English with pointed arches and long narrow windows, but the walls are thick and show traces of Norman masonry. There are also two very small round-headed Norman windows high up on either side of the chancel. At the east end of the church are two beautiful lancet windows, so called because they are pointed like lances. Legend has it that there may be a vault. At one time the nave must have been much wider than it is now, for some years ago an interesting discovery was made. It was found that the arches in which the present south door and adjoining window are built originally formed part of a south aisle. The blocked up arch in the west wall of the Lady Chapel also formed part of this aisle. The original entrance to the church was in the west of the nave, but not evident in the stonework today.

An unusual feature of Thanington Church is the position of the tower for there are very few churches with their towers on the north side. The tower was built in the 13th century but in 1856 it had to be almost completely rebuilt. Three hundred years before it was also in a bad condition for in Archbishop Farrer's Visitation in 1573 he reported "the steple is in greate decay, and cannot be repayred without great cessment". Some repairs must have been made after this.

The chapel on the south side of the nave is named after Our Lord's Mother. On the floor is a perfect monumental brass of a soldier in full armour. It is in memory of Thomas Halle Esquire of Thanington Manor who died in 1485 *. This brass was in the nave originally. The chancel was very rich in memorial brasses and among them were two to the memory of Sir Charles Hales (1623) and his wife Anne (1617) and in the north wall is a small tablet to their memory. There were also memorials to the Kingsfords of Tonford Manor. In the south wall of the Lady Chapel is a piscina or water drain with an unusual horseshoe-shaped hood. This piscina was placed near the altar so that the priest could wash his hands and rinse the chalice and any other vessels which he had used or held after the celebration of mass. Within the niche is a stone shelf or credence table on which the sacred vessels were placed previous to their being required at the altar. There is a similar piscina on the south wall of the chancel.

The font in the nave near the door is of unusual design, the base being 13th. Century or earlier. The rest is 19th. Century restoration.

Most of the coloured glass in Thanington is modern having been made in the 19th. Century. The only piece of any antiquity is in the west window of the nave and represents the head of Our Lord and is 14th. Century. The lancet east windows were filled with painted glass in 1871 by Miss Betty Sankey in memory of her family. The small Norman windows in the chancel are filled with glass depicting royal martyrs, and are in memory of James Browne, 1855, and Jane Browne, 1846. The window in the south wall of the nave was given by Mrs. Thomas Powell of St..Dunstan's, Canterbury in memory of her brothers and sisters. In the wall opposite is another window in memory of her husband who died in 1855. The other window on the north wall depicting the Good Samaritan is in memory of Mr. Crossdill and others of the family who lie buried almost immediately beneath and was given in 1883. The windows in the Lady Chapel were given in 1934 as a memorial to the late Mrs. Lillywhite. There are two marble wall memorials of the 19th. century to the Cooper family.

It is obvious that so ancient a church as St. Nicholas has been much restored and altered over the years. Thus the tower had to be rebuilt in 1856 after restoration work carried out under the direction of the famous church architect Mr. Butterfield a few years earlier. This-restoration work included the brass lectern and oak pulpit. More extensive restoration work was necessary in 1882 at a cost of some £1,200 by Mr. John Cowell who took great care to preserve the ancient character of the building. At that time the nave and chancel were continuous, and the chapel opened without arches in the nave, but was divided from it by a wooden screen. The chapel was in such a bad condition that the roof had to be supported with wooden uprights. The restoration included the erection of the arch between the chancel and the nave, and the arcade of two arches to the chapel. The chapel was also greatly improved by the removal of an incongruous square window inserted in a previous restoration, and two lancet windows were added. The north wall of the nave was pierced by two additional windows. These and the additions throughout were in the Early English style to harmonise with the rest of the building. The heating system was installed by Mr. Lillywhite in 1940 in memory of his parents.

The Church Bells

The early church in Thanington had bells, but in common with many other churches, there were probably only three. Two of them, the tenor and the present No. 4, were recast from earlier ones by the famous Kent bellfounder Joseph Hatch of Ulcombe near Maidstone in 1623/4. Many local bells came from this foundry. The middle bell was recast in Canterbury in 1638 by John Palmar in St. Dunstan's where the West Station now stands.

In 1928 the Croydon foundry of Gillett and Johnson took the bells down, quarter-tuned them because of excessive wear, and renewed the fittings and framework entirely. These were rehung in 1929. In 1948 two more bells were added as a war memorial, this time with modern steel frames and iron fittings. The old bells were not retuned because of lack of money. In 1966 a further bell was added in memory of the late Mr. Campbell Ashenden. Although the three modern bells were perfect they did not blend with the older untuned ones. In 1979 defects had become apparent, and it was decided to take all six bells back to John Taylor & Co. of Loughborough who had cast the last bell in 1966.

While the bells were away the teak frame installed in 1928 was cleaned and tightened, and the steel frames scraped and painted. At the foundry new headstocks were provided for the three older bells; two of these retain their ancient canons or supporting loops. All the wheels were rerimmed, the clappers refaced and rebushed, and the pulleys and ball bearings overhauled. Most important of all, the bells were carefully tuned for all six to be in perfect harmony.

Description of Bells

The Graves at Thanington

The cemetery at Thanington lies mainly to the south of the church and is quite small. The famous old yew and the Victorian lych gate are described elsewhere. The old cemetery was last used in the late 1930's when it became full and an extension to the east was given by Mr. W. E. Lillywhite, a local farmer and benefactor of the church.

As the ground near the church has been used for burials for the best part of a thousand years most of the graves are unmarked and lost. Indeed, the ground must have been used many times over as grave diggers have found.

The oldest known gravestone is that of Nicholas Estes, a yeoman who died in 1651 at the age of 40. Another very old grave is that of Robert Seaman who died in 1684 and his wife Elizabeth who died four years later. The limestone has an hour glass skull and cross bones carved on top. Both these early graves lie near the south-east corner of the chancel.

Altogether there are just over 200 marked graves in the old part of the cemetery, and of the 380 or so the average age was 56. About a third lived to be over 70 but probably many babies were buried without a trace.

A very old-established local family were the Penns for they appear in the Hearth Tax return for the area in 1664. A Mehetabell Penn, wife of Philip, died in 1685. A descendant, George Penn, who died in 1852 was Clerk of the Parish for 50 years.

The Kent Family History Society has recently completed a thorough survey of the entire cemetery, and all known graves have been mapped and recorded. However, over the years, many of the inscriptions have become very worn and the stones eroded and broken.

Thomas Gray - The Poet

Thanington churchyard has literary interest concerning the poet Thomas Gray (1716-71) who wrote the famous Elegy in a Country Churchyard and is buried in Stoke Poges Churchyard, Buckinghamshire. There is doubt, however, whether he referred to Stoke Poges and there is a strong case for Thanington being the churchyard he describes.

A Miss. A. M. Lukyn, daughter of an 18th century rector of St. Michael's, Canterbury and Reculver, was 17 years old when Gray made his last recorded visit to Canterbury. Here he had numerous friends including the Rev. William Robinson, Rector of Denton and his brother Matthew Robin son, M. P. for Canterbury. Miss Lukyn lived in St. Gearge's Place and as her father was a local minister it is certain that she knew Gray and had occasion to meet him and his friends whenever he visited the city. She is known to have told her doctor that Thanington churchyard was definitely the place that gave rise to the poem as "Well acquainted with the author Mr. Gray". The doctor communicated this fact to the Rev. William Pearson, then Vicar of Thanington.

Weight is added to the belief when the poem is studied. The first line "The curfew tolls the knell of parting day" could refer to the 8 o'clock curfew rung every evening from the Bell Harry Tower of the Cathedral and easily heard in certain weather conditions in Thanington. So far as is known the curfew bell never rang across Stoke Poges churchyard. Another line says "The lowing herd wind slowly over the lea". This fact has stayed unchanged for over 200 years as cattle still graze in the same pastures below the church in the Stour valley.

It must also be remembered that in the eighteenth century the church was farther away from the road to Ashford which passed over the downs at Cockering. Visitors to the church in those days reached it along a footpath that led to the very old surviving yew tree.

Another factor is that Thomas Gray did not use poetic licence in his poetry, but wrote in his lines the impressions of what he had heard or seen.

13. Thanington Court

In the reign of William I, Godefridus Dapifer is recorded to have held one suling of land in Tenetune, valued at one hundred shillings as part of that manor. (One suling was about 200 acres). This is recorded in the Canterbury Domesday Book.

Later the manor was held by the eminent Norman families of Valynes and Septvans. In the 20th year of Edward III's reign a William Septvans of Milton paid aid for it at one knight's fee, and in the reign of Richard II was owned by William Waleys Knt. From him it passed by the marriage of his daughter to Peter Halle of Herne who left it to Thomas, his eldest son. This son, another Thomas, died unmarried in 1485 and was buried in Thanington Church (see Brass in the Lady Chapel).

Then it passed to his sister Joane and her husband Thomas Atkins. In 1526 it was held by John Hales of the Dongeon, Canterbury, who had four sons, the eldest being Sir James who committed suicide. John Hales left the manor to his second son Thomas, and from him it passed through his descendants until in 1775 Sir Philip Hales "passed it away" to George Gipps, the same man who owned New House Farm at the time and was Member of Parliament for the City of Canterbury. Hasted writes that a Court Baron was held for this manor.

The present Thanington Court is largely Georgian but the rear building is much older and partly medieval.

14. Sir James Hales

Sir James Hales was the eldest son of John Hales, of the Hales family, prominent in Kentish history, and late of the Dongeon, Canterbury, who by 1526 was in possession of Thanington Court. Sir James Hales was a Justice of Common Pleas in King Henry VIII's reign but was removed from office during Queen Mary's counter reformation. He was imprisoned in many places including the notorious Fleet prison. When he could no longer bear the treatment and tortures he lost his mind and never properly recovered. When he was released he retired to his nephew's manor at Thanington and drowned himself in the river in 1555. This is reported in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, and may have inspired Shakespeare to write the lines about suicide in the gravediggers' scene in Hamlet: "But if the water come to him and drown him he drowns not himself; he that is not guilty of his own death shortens nor his own life". There is a memorial to this tragedy on the north wall of Canterbury Cathedral. It shows the River Stour and four men carrying poles. In the foreground stands Thanington Church across the river is the ancient manor house.

His grandson died in 1589 fighting against the Spanish.

15. Tonford Manor

Tonford Manor is a most interesting house situated in Thanington Without to the north side of the River Stour, with half-ruined flint and brick walls, round flanking towers, a timbered roof and carved corbels of the 15th century. There is a fine Tudor gateway. Records reveal the existence of a dwelling on the same site since the time of Henry III. Some of the original flint walls, bastions and mullioned windows dating from 1449, together with the timbered roof constructed in the same century, still exist. Sir Thomas Browne, the lord of the manor, was given permission to crenelate the walls in 1449 by King Henry VI. The present house is half 15th century and half Queen Anne, the later part is built of warm red bricks and a Kentish tiled roof. It contains a charming white panelled room of the period. The older part of the house is all that remains of the original building and it is believed that the rest of the structure was destroyed by fire in the 17th century, possibly during the Civil War. One tower has interesting remain of a medieval drainage system into the moat, which was not filled in until the last century.

The owners of the manor can be traced back to a certain John be Toinford who lived towards the end of the reign of Henry III. A later John de Toniford alienated Tonford to Sir Thomas Fogge (see Milton) about 1377. His son, Sir John Fogge, was the Keeper of the Wardrobe to Henry VI, and founder of Ashford College, the last collegiate church in England before the Reformation.

It is briefly recorded in the Chamberlian's accounts of the City of Canterbury for 1512-1513 that Henry VIII "when he made his way into France with his army royale was entertained together with his wife, Katherine of Aragon, and a retinue of nobles in a tent in the Blean of Harbledown, paid a visit to Tonford at which manor the King changed himself….". Henry VIII and his party were given a gun salute from the tower as they arrived. Also "a dozen cheesys and six white cuppes were sent with a quantity of wine, costing the City 11s. 2d." Another item runs "for wine had thither and given to the King and his lords, for which the City had great thank". He had been on the throne for three years. He enjoyed the falconry in the marshy area nearby. King Henry VIII and his large party of courtiers and retinue only stayed for three nights, doubtless to the great relief of the lord of the manor.

In 1799, when Hasted wrote about it, the estate consisted of 229 acres, but the two centuries have seen it diminish to its present six acres. Up to recently the manor was the home of the well-known writer Christopher Hassall after whome a local road is named. He died in 1963.

16. The Hearth Tax Return for Thanington

The Hearth Tax Return for Thanington in the Kent Archives in Maidstone is under the "Borough of Cockering" which is most interesting. This unpopular tax lasted from 1662 to about 1691, and lists householders together with their hearths. On the assumption that the richer the person the more hearths he possessed a rough idea of the spread of wealth may be obtained. Generally speaking houses with only one hearth may be regarded as an indication of humbler inhabitants, and those with seven or more hearths may be taken as affluent. However, some houses with a large number of hearths were inns, poorhouses etc. In addition sizes of population may be estimated by allowing four or five persons per household. With some thirty entries Thanington's population three hundred years ago was about 150 or so.

The constable's work was to deal with law and order, taxes etc. and was abolished in 1872. Constables, churchwardens, surveyors of roads, borsholders (a petty constable) were unpaid local officials, elected by the villagers, all of whom had to share the duties in turn.

17. Electoral Rolls - Poll Books

Before 1832 very few men had the vote, and these were usually men of property and/or freemen. This right was extended by the Reform Acts of 1867 and 1884, and by the end of the century most men had the vote. Women gained the vote after the First Great War.

18. Thanington 1836 from the Tithe Maps

Tithe Maps of the parish of Thanington are in the Canterbury Cathedral Library and show the area in detail in 1837 and 1838. These maps show Thanington to have been a small rural community with few houses apart from farms and workers' cottages. The river meandered through the marshy valleys with fords for the far animals. The railways had not yet been built. A toll gate still existed in Wincheap (where Ada Road joins Wincheap) but few houses apart from a few on the north side of the street.

The growing of hops is clearly marked on the map in several areas to supply the local breweries in Canterbury, and to be sent to London. The moat at Tonford Manor had not yet been filled in on the south and east side. The only house marked on the map beyond the church is Reed Cottage on the banks of the river.

The payment of tithes, that is one-tenth of farm produce for the upkeep of the church and the parson's stipend, goes back to Anglo-Saxon times. It was very much disliked.

May parishes had a tithe barn near the church for the storage of the produce. No such barn has been recorded in Thanington (see Milton Church).

In 1836 an Act was passed whereby payment in kind ceased and was replaced by cash. Later, further Acts made the landlord of the land responsible for payment and not the tenant. In modern times the payment of tithes has ceased.

19. Thanington roads

The prehistoric track (known as the Pilgrims Way) crosses the northern edge of Thanington, keeping to the high ground above the river valley and following the contours on its way to Canterbury. Later, in Roman times, the roads of East Kent met at Canterbury and several pass through the area. The road from Lympne (Lemanis) followed the line of the present Iffin and Hollow Lanes whilst the road to Ashford avoided the low ground of the river at Shalmsford Street. Up to Georgian times the roads were neglected although local people were expected to work several days of the year on their roads, and by 1700 many parishes were levying a rate for road repairs.

The Ashford road over the downs was turnpiked by 1780 and there was a toll gate near Ada Road in Wincheap which was unpopular with local residents. It is said that a certain doctor who objected to paying the toll used to crawl under or through the toll gate to visit the Hop Poles for his drink. (Although the present Hop Poles Inn is fairly modern (c. 1930) the licence goes back a very long time). The present Ashford Road (A28) was not in use until it was improved by French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic wars. The Hanging Banks, near the old two mile stone gets its name from the public executions which took place there, the last one being in 1800 for sheep stealing.

In 1912 the British Automobile Traction Company began a motor bus service from Canterbury to Ashford. Their vehicles were painted dark green. This company was absorbed by the East Kent Road Car Company in 1916. By the First World War a bus service had been started to Ashford passing through Thanington and Miltop, one of the first in East Kent. In 1981 the new Canterbury by-pass was opened, much of it passing through the north-east corner of the parish. This by-pass is now the eastern boundary of the revised civil parish. New bridges have been built to carry the road over the river, the railway lines and the roads at various places in the area and many council houses have had to be demolished and farms divided.

20. Thanington railways

The first railway line passing through the parishes was completed in 1846 from Ashford to Canterbury by the South Eastern Railway Company. The line followed the flat river valley to the Canterbury West Station and on to Thanet. Crossings were built at Tonford and Milton, mainly for the use of farmers. By 1860 another line had been built in the area carrying trains from Faversham to Canterbury East Station and Dover by the East Kent Railway Company, later the South Eastern and Chatham. The two lines crossed at Whitehall.

A railway disaster took place at Milton in 1896 when a wagon-load of hop pickers was struck and seven people were killed. Most of the victims were buried in the Nonconformist cemetery in Wincheap.

In 1889 the Elham Valley Railway line was opened and was later joined to the Ashford line by a link across the north-west corner of Thanington, crossing Wincheap by a bridge at the junction of Hollow Lane. This line was last used in 1947 and the bridge has now been demolished and the embankment removed. Steam locomotives had disappeared by 1962 when a full electric service was in operation.

21. Larkey Valley Wood

On 18th May 1932 the Mayor of Canterbury, Alderman Frank Hooker, a local miller, presented 107 acres of woodland known as Larkey Valley Wood in the Parish of Thanington Without to the people of the city in order "that it should be reserved to the public for ever". Since that time the importance of the wood as a refuge for wild life has become increasingly apparent and it has been declared a Site of Special Scientific Interest. In 1976 following the initiative of the Kent Trust for Nature Conservation and with the help of the Canterbury Society, local naturalists and Wye College, a working party was formed which has prepared a management policy for the wood. Larkey Valley Wood is a relic of a forest which has been in existence continuously since the end of the last Ice Age, and once formed part of a much larger forested area. The wood has never been under any other land use although some parts of it have been replanted from time to time to produce the familiar "Standards - with coppice" which could be cropped for timber. Most of the trees are native species, an exception being the Sweet Chestnut which was probably brought to this country by the Romans.

The wood occupies a small valley in the Upper Chalk on the south eastern side of the high road to Chartham. On the east and west sides the soil is thin and chalky, but towards the bottom of the valley the chalk is overlain with deep deposits of heavier, more acid soils.

Tremendous damage to the Larkey Valley Wood was done in the great gale of 1987 when a large number - perhaps two-thirds - of the mature trees were blown down.

22. The River Stour and ford

The river has played a very important part in the history of the area from earliest times. The first settlers needed water and light soils for their farming and they came up the river valley from the coast. The Iron Age fort at Bigbury - the second largest in Kent - overlooked the valley and the ford at Tonford. No navigation was possible on the river above Fordwich, but the ford was an ideal place for a settlement. Most local place names are derived from the Anglo-Saxon, but the river's name is even older, being Celtic for "water".

The Stour is Kent's second longest river and flows through Milton and Thanington for several miles. It is a well known chalk stream famous for its trout fishing, and which Isaak Walton wrote about three hundred years ago. The river not only provided fish but worked mills, and there seems to have been a mill at Milton in the Middle Ages or earlier. A map of 1726 shows that the river once flowed nearer to Howfield Manor and perhaps this was changed when the road along the river banks was made during the Napoleonic wars. The river bed is rich in gravel and these deposits have been excavated recently, leaving shallow lakes in the water meadows along the valley.

Below Milton the river passes close to the Hanging Banks at the two milestone where the last execution took place in 1800 for sheep stealing. The ford at Tonford was used by farmers until recently, and was much favoured by Sydney Cooper R.A. for his famous paintings of cattle. The nearby footbridge offers a fine view of the Cathedral towers in the distance, a prospect which delighted Christopher Hassall, the poet and writer, who once lived at the nearby Tonford Manor. It was near here that Sir James Hales committed suicide in 1555 during Queen Mary's troubled reign. The footbridge over the River Stour was washed away during the great gale of October 1987. This footbridge was rebuilt in 1988 on the old site at Tonford.

23. Two World Wars

The Great War of 1914-1918 had little physical effect on the Thanington area for there was little serial activity. The railways however were busy with troop and ambulance trains to and from the coast. Most young men from Thanington joined the armed services, and twenty names of those who died are on the war memorial tablet in the church. There was a large army camp on the farm land beyond the water works (now a housing estate) and the Hop Poles did a good trade.

In the World War of 1939-1945 civilians were in as much danger as those in the services, and throughout the war the skies above Thanington were alive with fighters and bombers. Much of the Battle of Britain in 1940 was fought over East Kent. Masses of German bombers and fighters were attacked by our Spitfires and Hurricanes. Many local men not in the services were in the Civil Defence Organisations or in the Local Defence Volunteers, later called the Home Guard, who met nightly at New House Farm in case of German invasion. At night the streets were patrolled by wardens to ensure the blackout was efficient. The air raid siren was on the roof of the water works and could be heard for miles around. During a night raid in September 1941 bombs landed on the junction of Ashford Road and Tonford Lane and there were many casualties. Several buildings were damaged. Altogether during the war ten bombs landed in different parts of the parish, and a flying bomb fell in the hop garden near the Cockering Road. A plaque in the church porch records the dead of the armed services of the area during the war and two bells were hung in the tower as a war memorial.

War Memorial Tablets

24. Health and Education

Health

Just over a hundred and twenty years ago the death rate in the area was 22 per thousand, which gave an average life expectancy of about 50. Many young people died of infectious diseases caused by polluted water and lack of proper sanitation. People in the Wincheap area and on the higher round lived longer than those nearer the river, for much of the sewage found its way into the river which was the main water supply for most people.

In 1867 the water works at Thanington was opened and took its water from deep safe wells in the chalk. A proper sewerage system was begun but most houses in the outlying districts had cess pits until well after World War II. The water works was extended in 1924 to meet the rising demand from the new housing estates. At one time the chalk deposits from the water works were being exported to America and elsewhere for use in cosmetics and tooth paste.

Education

Up to the 19th century very few parishioners had any education except for the priests and gentry. However, a small school was started in May 1858 and stood where No. 73 stands on the Ashford Road opposite the playing fields. This was pulled down during the road widening in 1964.

A former pupil could remember the school, and that there were about 30 pupils. The place was so confined that to pass up from Standard One to Two a child had to crawl under the tables! There was no compulsory education until 1876, and then only to twelve years of age, and consisted mainly of the three "R's": reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic. This school was closed in 1903 and it and the adjoining house were turned into farm workers' cottages.

25. Development in the area

The early maps of the area and Hearth Tax returns of 300 years ago show every few dwellings in the area west of Canterbury except for the church, the manors, the Tudor and Reed Cottages. The farm labourers' cottages must have been near the manors.

The limekiln cottages were built about 200 years ago when the chalk pit was worked. The low land near the river was very swampy.

After the First World War the city spread out quickly and a large council estate was built on the old hop field site of a World War I army camp - near the waterworks.

In the 1930's ribbon development took place along the main Ashford Road (A28), and an estate was built on the apple orchards to the south of the road, and Tonford Lane was also developed. Housing development also took place on the east side of New House Road.

Since the last war a daughter church of the parish church, St. Faith's, has been built at Newhouse Road. This hall also serves as a community centre for the area.

In 1946 a private social club has been built near the main Ashford Road out of old army huts on land bought from Mr. Ashenden. This club offers a large variety of social and sporting activities.

In 1987 the Thanington Tenants' Association built a community centre with the aid of a local government grant. It stands near the lay-by bridge close to the Thanington sports field.

During the years since the Second World War infilling has taken place and the council estate has been extended beyond Strangers Lane. New estates have been built in Gray's Way, around the cemetery and on the Cockering Road. This last estate has been called after the nearby manor.

26. Agriculture and Industry

There are no major industries in the parish apart from agriculture, which is mainly of sheep and fruit. Hops, introduced into Britain about 400 years ago from the Low Countries, were once extensively grown. The remaining oasts are used for general farming use (one makes cider) or converted into housing.

The chalk pit and lime kiln was closed many years ago and is now used for the storage of furniture in large warehouses. The nearby medical workshop is very small.

Gravel excavations took place along the valley of the river for some years but have now ceased, and most of the lakes have been restored to farming. Several remain and are very attractive after landscaping and planting. A riverside footpath is planned into the city.

There is one village shop/Post Office, the other one in New House Lane having closed some years ago. The nearest Public House, the Hop Poles, is outside the parish boundaries!

27. Sources and Bibliography