Mersham is a mostly agricultural large 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 ...
near
Ashford in
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
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. The population of the civil parish includes the area of Cheesman's Green now known as
Finberry
Finberry is a housing estate located in the south-east of Ashford, Kent in England. The population of the housing estate is included in the civil parish of Mersham. The nearest existing places to the housing estate are Sevington to the north, Wil ...
.
History
In the mid 19th century,
John Marius Wilson
John Marius Wilson (c. 1805–1885) was a British writer and an editor, most notable for his gazetteers. The ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' (published 1870–72), was a substantial topographical dictionary in six volumes. It was a c ...
's ''
Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales
The ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' is a substantial topographical dictionary first published between 1870 and 1872, edited by the Reverend John Marius Wilson. It contains a detailed description of England and Wales. Its six volumes h ...
'' described Mersham in the following terms:
Until the early 20th century Mersham was for its majority a farming and orchard-tending community with close ties to the local market town of Ashford. The small village dates back to Saxon times and is mentioned 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 ...
''. The village was owned by the
Archbishops of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
for over 500 years. The Anglican church is dedicated to
St. John the Baptist and is in the highest category of
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
, at Grade I.
British listed buildings
retrieved 20 July 2013 It stands on the site of a Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
church, and is part Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
. It is thought that the village gives rise to the surname Marshman The name Marshman is a family, or surname which originated in England and either refers to an occupation - namely a person whose job it was to work the marshes or it is derived from their residency possibly of Marsham in Norfolk, or in Mersham in ...
.
The Knatchbulls
The village has been the home of the Knatchbull family since the times of 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 ...
. In 1638 Sir Norton Knatchbull founded Ashford Grammar School, to which pupils were not admitted until they could read the Bible in English, he was also the Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
for Romney.
In the early 19th century Edward Knatchbull served in the Whig government and in 1830 another Sir Edward Knatchbull became M.P. for Romney and was given responsibility under Sir Robert Peel
Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer ...
in his government of 1841.
Geography
Most of the neighbourhood of Cheesemans Green is in the parish.
The clustered village centre is in the small percentage of the parish between High Speed 1
High Speed 1 (HS1), legally the Channel Tunnel Rail Link (CTRL), is a high-speed railway linking London with the Channel Tunnel.
It is part of a line carrying international passenger traffic between the United Kingdom and mainland Europe; ...
and the M20 motorway
The M20 is a motorway in Kent, England. It follows on from the A20 at Swanley, meeting the M25, and continuing on to Folkestone, providing a link to the Channel Tunnel and the ports at Dover. It is long. Although not signposted in England, ...
.
There are two water mills on the East Stour river, one of which, Swanton, is still working.
Part of Hatch Park, a mixture of medieval deer park
In medieval and Early Modern England, Wales and Ireland, a deer park () was an enclosed area containing deer. It was bounded by a ditch and bank with a wooden park pale on top of the bank, or by a stone or brick wall. The ditch was on the ins ...
and SSSI
A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle of ...
, is in the civil parish.
See also
* Marshman The name Marshman is a family, or surname which originated in England and either refers to an occupation - namely a person whose job it was to work the marshes or it is derived from their residency possibly of Marsham in Norfolk, or in Mersham in ...
* HMS Mersham, a Ham class minesweeper
The Ham class was a class of inshore minesweepers (IMS), known as the Type 1, of the British Royal Navy. The class was designed to operate in the shallow water of rivers and estuaries. All of the ships in the class are named for British place nam ...
Notes and references
External links
VillageNet
community domain website
Statistical civil parish overview - map
{{authority control
Villages in Kent
Villages in the Borough of Ashford
Civil parishes in Ashford, Kent