Hartlip 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

borough of Swale Swale is a local government district with borough status in Kent, England and is bounded by Medway to the west, Canterbury to the east, Ashford to the south and Maidstone to the south west. Its council is based in Sittingbourne. The distri ...

, in the county 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 population estimate was 680 in 1991, and in 2001 there were 566 registered

voter Voting is a method by which a group, such as a meeting or an electorate, can engage for the purpose of making a collective decision or expressing an opinion usually following discussions, debates or election campaigns. Democracies elect holde ...

s. At the 2011 Census the population was 746. The village covers 1420 acres (5.7 km²) and is in an agricultural region of high quality

fruit In botany, a fruit is the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering. Fruits are the means by which flowering plants (also known as angiosperms) disseminate their seeds. Edible fruits in particu ...

farming, hops and grain.

Location

Hartlip is situated between the

M2 motorway This is a list of roads designated M2: Europe * M2 motorway (Great Britain), a motorway in England * M2 expressway (Hungary), a motorway in Hungary * N2 road (Ireland)#M2 motorway, a motorway in the Republic of Ireland * M-2 highway (Monteneg ...

( Strood 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 the A2 main road from

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

to Canterbury. It is at Hartlip Hill, between Rainham and Newington on

Watling Street Watling Street is a historic route in England that crosses the River Thames at London and which was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages. It was used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main ...

, the old Roman road. It stands about 50 m above sea level. Ordnance Survey grid reference: TQ 838 642 GB.

Name

The name Hartlip derives from the

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 settlers in the mid-5th c ...

''hliep'', which meant a gate or

fence A fence is a structure that encloses an area, typically outdoors, and is usually constructed from posts that are connected by boards, wire, rails or netting. A fence differs from a wall in not having a solid foundation along its whole length. ...

. In combination with ''

heorot Heorot (Old English 'hart, stag') is a mead-hall and major point of focus in the Anglo-Saxon poem ''Beowulf''. The hall serves as a seat of rule for King Hrothgar, a legendary Danish king. After the monster Grendel slaughters the inhabitants of ...

'' (

hart Hart often refers to: * Hart (deer) Hart may also refer to: Organizations * Hart Racing Engines, a former Formula One engine manufacturer * Hart Skis, US ski manufacturer * Hart Stores, a Canadian chain of department stores * Hart's Reptile Wo ...

or stag), the name therefore means a "gate over which harts leap". The first recorded version of the name was ''Heordlyp'' in the 11th century.

Places of interest

Queendown Warren Queendown Warren is a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest south-east of Rainham in Kent. It is a Local Nature Reserve, a Nature Conservation Review site, Grade 2, and a Special Area of Conservation. It is in the Kent Downs Area of O ...

is a nature reserve in the village. The reserve covers almost 80 hectares (198 acres) and comprises several distinct sections. The original reserve was a rabbit warren in mediaeval times and forms the reserve's core. It has been open downland for many hundreds of years and has an internationally important community of grassland orchids.

Buildings

There are the remains of an extensive

Roman villa A Roman villa was typically a farmhouse or country house built in the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, sometimes reaching extravagant proportions. Typology and distribution Pliny the Elder (23–79 AD) distinguished two kinds of villas n ...

discovered in Danes Field. Hartlip

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one o ...

church, named St. Michael and All Angels, is built of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

and has a peal of 6 bells. The oldest bell, number 5, was cast by Robert Burford between 1392 and ''circa'' 1418. The church registers go back to 1538. The village also has a Cardiphonia

United Methodist The United Methodist Church (UMC) is a worldwide mainline Protestant denomination based in the United States, and a major part of Methodism. In the 19th century, its main predecessor, the Methodist Episcopal Church, was a leader in evangelic ...

church, built in 1821. Hartlip Endowed Church of England Primary School is one of the oldest establishments for primary education in North East Kent. It was endowed in 1678 by Mary Gibbon and rebuilt in 1855. It is situated next to the parish church, with an adjoining gateway. The only

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

is the Rose and Crown. It is situated at the lower end of Hollow Lane, whose name is reputed to come from a secret

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

leading to it from the church. The countryside around Hartlip held in the past, three manor houses: Yaugher, Hartlip & Grayney. From these manors remain two manor houses. Yaugher had the manor house Queendown Warren. This was built in 1560 using oak bought from Henry VIII. In 1841 the owner chose to move the house to a new site. The local wagoner and his men took down the house and moved it a few miles to its present location on Queendown Warren alongside the nature reserve. Hartlip Place was built in 1809 replacing a former one built 500 years earlier, which had fallen into disrepair.

References

External links

* http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~mrawson/dir08hart.html {{authority control Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent