Brenzett 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 authority ...

in the Folkestone and Hythe District of

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. The village lies on the

Romney Marsh Romney Marsh is a sparsely populated wetland area in the counties of Kent and East Sussex in the south-east of England. It covers about . The Marsh has been in use for centuries, though its inhabitants commonly suffered from malaria until the ...

, three miles (4.8 km) west of

New Romney New Romney is a market town in Kent, England, on the edge of Romney Marsh, an area of flat, rich agricultural land reclaimed from the sea after the harbour began to silt up. New Romney, one of the original Cinque Ports, was once a sea port, w ...

. The population of the civil parish includes the hamlet of

Snave Snave is a very small hamlet on Romney Marsh in Kent, England centred close to the A2070 road south of Ashford. Its buildings are a few houses, barns and store sheds and the church of St Augustine which holds one service per year at harvest fest ...

. The place-name 'Brenzett' 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 manusc ...

of 1086, where it appears as ''Brensete''. The name is thought to mean 'burnt house' in

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 ...

.Eilert Ekwall, ''The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names'', p.63. It is the home to the Romney Marsh Wartime Collection incorporating the Brenzett Aeronautical Museum Trust, which as well as exhibiting the remains of various World War II combat aircraft that have been excavated from the surrounding Romney Marsh, marshland also includes a de Havilland Vampire T.11 and an English Electric Canberra B.2 on display in the museum grounds. Brenzett was also the site of a Royal Air Force Advanced Landing Ground (ALG) airfield during the Second World War, RAF Brenzett, at one time operating P-51 Mustangs. Whilst Brenzett is a busy transport hub, it has surrendered its public house (Fleur de Lis), Little Chef restaurant and Post Office, but retains a petrol station and school. St Eanswith's Church, Brenzett, The parish church of St Eanswythe is located on the road to Brenzett Green, a remnant of the original A2070 to Hamstreet and Ashford, Kent, Ashford, which was rebuilt entirely in the 1990s.

In Literature

Brenzett was the setting for E. Nesbit's ghost story "Man-size in Marble" from the ''Grim Tales'' collection of 1893 in literature, 1893. Rudyard Kipling mentions Brenzett in his poem, ''A three part song''. In the 1981 BBC television comedy drama ''Private Schulz'' – which dramatised the genuine but unrealised Second World War plot by the Germans (Operation Bernhard) to print and distribute millions of fake British pound notes – several million pounds' worth of fake pound notes were buried near Brenzett by the character of Private Schulz after he parachuted into Kent, in preparation for their dispersal throughout the British economy. Vampire Canberra Brenzett Aeronautical Museum

Vampire Canberra Brenzett Aeronautical Museum

References

External links

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Brenzett Parish Council
Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent Folkestone and Hythe District {{kent-geo-stub