Nurstead (or Nursted) is a locality, ecclesiastical parish and former civil parish situated 3 miles south of

Gravesend Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles (35 km) east-southeast of Charing Cross (central London) on the Bank (geography), south bank of the River Thames and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Ro ...

and ½ a mile north of

Meopham Meopham is a large linear village and civil parish in the Borough of Gravesham in Kent, England, lying to the south of Gravesend. The parish covers , and comprises two villages and two smaller settlements; it has a population of 6,427 increasi ...

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 was in the

Hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

Toltingtrough Toltingtrough (or Toltingtrow) was a hundred in the Lathe of Aylesford in the county of Kent, England. This hundred is called, in some ancient writings, Toltetern and Tollentr, and in Domesday, Tollentru. In the return made of the several knigh ...

in the

Lathe A lathe () is a machine tool that rotates a workpiece about an axis of rotation to perform various operations such as cutting, sanding, knurling, drilling, deformation, facing, and turning, with tools that are applied to the workpiece to c ...

Aylesford Aylesford is a village and civil parish on the River Medway in Kent, England, northwest of Maidstone. Originally a small riverside settlement, the old village comprises around 60 houses, many of which were formerly shops. Two pubs, a village s ...

in the county of Kent. It has an area of 522 acres. The name of the parish was "Notestede" 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 ...

, but by the 18th century although formally spelled "Nutsted" it was at this time commonly called Nursted. It is at present in the civil parish of

, which is divided into three wards, one of which bears the name "Hook Green and Nurstead". Nurstead has a small 14th-century church, dedicated to

Saint Mildred Saint Mildrith, also Mildthryth, Mildryth and Mildred, ( ang, Mildþrȳð) (born c. 660, died after 732), was a 7th and 8th-century Anglo-Saxon abbess of the Abbey at Minster-in-Thanet, Kent. She was declared a saint after her death, and later h ...

and this is still the church of the parish, although the benefice is united with Meopham. St Mildred's church is a

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 ...

with walls of oblong flints. A quarter of a mile north of the church is Nurstead Court, one of the most famous small medieval houses in the country. Map of the Parish of Nurstead, Kent

The civil parish was abolished in 1935 when it was united with Cobham and in 1963 it was transferred to Meopham. A minor exception was Zimmermans a private bungalow built between 1928 and 1930 on 3/4 acre of land purchased from Nurstead Court Estate. This land was next to the border with Cobham and was not transferred into Meopham in 1963,Ordnance Survey sheet TQ66NE 6in.to 1 mile, publ. 1966; available from https://maps.nls.uk/ and elsewhere as indicated in 2000 when a boundary marker was erected on White Post Lane. The Sallows Shaw area south of that road also remained in Cobham. Nurstead is a small parish, being not quite a mile in extent each way. It lies most of it on high ground, and has a great variety of soils, having in it arable, orchard, and hop ground, and some woodland towards the north boundary of it, next to Northfleet (formerly a parish and then an

Urban District Urban district may refer to: * District * Urban area * Quarter (urban subdivision) * Neighbourhood Specific subdivisions in some countries: * Urban districts of Denmark * Urban districts of Germany * Urban district (Great Britain and Ireland) (hist ...

; it joins to Meopham southward. In 1797 there were but five houses in it, i.e.. Nurstead Court, Nurstead Hill Farm at the west end of the parish, and Copthall, at the east end, plus two cottages. Nurstead has a thriving village team in the grounds on Nurstead Court. In the following century and up until the abolition of the civil parish, the population remained low, as follows:

Notable people

* James Edmeades (1843–1917), cricketer and British Army officer

Notes

{{authority control Gravesham Villages in Kent