Charing 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 authorit ...

in the Ashford 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 ...

, in south-east England. It includes the settlements of Charing Heath and Westwell Leacon. It is located at the foot of the

North Downs The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent. Much of the North Downs comprises two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs): the Surrey Hills a ...

and reaches up to the

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...

. The

Pilgrims' Way The Pilgrims' Way (also Pilgrim's Way or Pilgrims Way) is the historical route supposedly taken by pilgrims from Winchester in Hampshire, England, to the shrine of Thomas Becket at Canterbury in Kent. This name, of comparatively recent coinage ...

, the M20 motorway and

Charing railway station Charing railway station serves the village of Charing in Kent, England. It is down the line from . The station, and all trains serving it, is operated by Southeastern (train operating company), Southeastern. The ticket office is staffed only ...

(between London Victoria and Ashford International via

Maidstone Maidstone is the largest town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies 32 miles (51 km) east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, linking it wi ...

) serve the parish.

History

The name Charing first appears in 799 as ''Ciorrincg''. The name probably comes from the Anglo-Saxon word ''cerring'', which means a bend in the road, or it may be from ''Ceorra-ingas'', which is Anglo-Saxon, meaning ''people of Ceorra''. The village is sited on the

from London to

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

, and is one day's walk from

. There are a number of old manors located around the village, such as Newlands (now a horse stud) and Pett Place. The village had a market recorded in 1285, and a fair recorded in the fifteenth century. The Church of St Peter and St Paul, Charing, the parish church of Charing, is situated next to the remains of the Archbishop's Palace, just off the High Street. The church's west tower was built in the 14th century, though most of the rest of the building was reconstructed following a catastrophic fire in the 16th century. The church contains a number of memorials to the Dering family, a branch of the Dering family of Surrenden Dering,

Pluckley Pluckley is a village and civil parish in the Ashford district of Kent, England. The civil parish includes the adjacent hamlet of Pluckley Thorne. Geography The landscape of the area itself is the edge of a well-drained plain, with the lowest ...

, Kent.

Mills

Charing has had four mills over the centuries, serving the needs of the villagers. There were two

watermill A watermill or water mill is a mill that uses hydropower. It is a structure that uses a water wheel or water turbine to drive a mechanical process such as milling (grinding), rolling, or hammering. Such processes are needed in the production of ...

s on the Upper Great Stour and two

windmill A windmill is a structure that converts wind power into rotational energy using vanes called sails or blades, specifically to mill grain (gristmills), but the term is also extended to windpumps, wind turbines, and other applications, in some ...

s. ;Watermills *''Burnt Mill'', a corn mill working until the 1950s, now derelict. *''Field Mill'', a corn mill, the building of which survives retaining its waterwheel. ;Windmills *'' Charing Mill'', also known as ''Field Mill'' on the Downs above the village is a

smock mill The smock mill is a type of windmill that consists of a sloping, horizontally weatherboarded, thatched, or shingled tower, usually with six or eight sides. It is topped with a roof or cap that rotates to bring the sails into the wind. This typ ...

which was built in the early nineteenth century and last worked in 1891. It stands today as a house conversion. *''Charing Heath Mill'' was a smock mill that was demolished c.1878. Millers include William Missing in 1845 and Robert Millgate 1862 – 1878

Places of interest

Its most famous building is the Archbishop's Palace, which lies by the church and was an ancient possession of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The palace was an important building in the

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associa ...

of Canterbury, and counted amongst its guests King Henry VIII, who took it for himself. It has been a farmhouse for the last 300 years. In 2004, the palace was an unsuccessful contestant in the

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...

History

Mills

Places of interest

Amenities

Community

Demography

Transport

References

External links