Frittenden 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

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells is a town in Kent, England, southeast of central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the Weald, High Weald, whose sandstone geology is exemplified by the rock formation High Roc ...

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 parish is located on the flood plain of one of the tributaries of the

River Medway The River Medway is a river in South East England. It rises in the High Weald AONB, High Weald, East Sussex and flows through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway conurbation in Kent, before emptying into the Thames Estuary near Sheerness, a to ...

, 15 miles (24 km) to the east of Tunbridge Wells: the village is three miles (4.8 km) south of

Headcorn Headcorn is a village and civil parish in the borough of Maidstone in Kent, England. The parish is on the floodplain of the River Beult south east of Maidstone. The village is 8 mi (13 km) southeast of Maidstone, on the A274 road to T ...

. It is in a very rural part of Kent. The parish church is dedicated to St Mary.

History

Roman remains have been found near an old Jutish track which ran through the area, along which pigs were driven into the forest of Andreadsweald. The village itself is named in a charter of 804, and the ''

Anglo Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of Alfr ...

'' of 839 relate that King Ethelwulf of Wessex gave the village land to St Augustines in

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, 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, Kent, River Stour. ...

Thomas Cromwell Thomas Cromwell (; 1485 – 28 July 1540), briefly Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false charge ...

was given land in the village during the reign of King

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...

. Frittenden Church underwent extensive renovation in 1848 following a fire in the Church in 1790 when lightning struck the Church steeple. Rumours of the Frittenden

Treacle Mines Treacle mining is a joke about mining black treacle (also known as molasses) in a raw form similar to coal. The subject purports to be serious but is an attempt to test credulity. Thick black treacle makes the deception plausible. The topic has ...

were started by locals in the 1930s at the expense of gullible Londoners who would tour the area in their newly acquired motor cars, eager to visit the source of much of the world's

treacle Treacle () is any uncrystallised syrup made during the refining of sugar.Oxford Dictionary The most common forms of treacle are golden syrup, a pale variety, and a darker variety known as black treacle, similar to molasses. Black treacle has a ...

. Frittenden Historical Society keeps a record of the history of the village and its inhabitants. It meets regularly in the Memorial Hall.

Notable people

The

Rector Rector (Latin for the member of a vessel's crew who steers) may refer to: Style or title *Rector (ecclesiastical), a cleric who functions as an administrative leader in some Christian denominations *Rector (academia), a senior official in an edu ...

of the parish church from 1900 to 1916 was

Rupert Edward Inglis Rupert Edward Inglis (17 May 1863 – 18 September 1916) was an England international rugby football, rugby player who later became a Church of England rector. During the First World War, Inglis was a Military Chaplain, chaplain to the British Ar ...

who was a former England rugby international. He was killed at the Battle of the Somme in 1916. His letters home to his wife from the front were published by his widow after the war. He is commemorated on the war memorial, and the

lychgate A lychgate, also spelled lichgate, lycugate, lyke-gate or as two separate words lych gate, (from Old English ''lic'', corpse), also ''wych gate'', is a gateway covered with a roof found at the entrance to a traditional English or English-style ch ...

at St Mary's church is dedicated to him. Admiral Sir Arthur Moore (1847–1934), the son of another rector of the parish, Edward Moore, was born at Frittenden in 1847 and was buried in the churchyard.

References

* (source of History section) * *

External links

Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent {{Kent-geo-stub