Petham is a rural 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

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 ...

, five miles south of

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 ...

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 ...

South East England South East England is one of the nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. It consists of the counties of Buckinghamshire, East Sussex, Hampshire, the Isle of Wight, Kent, Oxfordshire, Berkshi ...

. The village church is All Saints, Petham and is Grade I listed. It was built in the 13th century but suffered from a fire in 1922 and had to be reconstructed. The village hall was rebuilt in the early 21st century next to Marble pond on relatively low meadows deemed unsuitable for housing and insurance. Petham has rolling hills within its bounds, including ancient forested slopes and thatched medieval and

Tudor period The Tudor period occurred between 1485 and 1603 in England and Wales and includes the Elizabethan period during the reign of Elizabeth I until 1603. The Tudor period coincides with the dynasty of the House of Tudor in England that began wit ...

cottages. It now incorporates Swarling to the north, which had "33.5" households 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 manus ...

, and is one of the

type site In archaeology, a type site is the site used to define a particular archaeological culture or other typological unit, which is often named after it. For example, discoveries at La Tène and Hallstatt led scholars to divide the European Iron A ...

s for British Iron Age

Aylesford-Swarling pottery Aylesford-Swarling pottery is part of a tradition of wheel-thrown pottery distributed around Kent, Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire and named after two cemeteries in Kent dating to the 1st century BC. The tradition reached Britain with the so- ...

. The excavation, by J. P. Bushe-Fox, to publication took place in 1921–1925.

History

Similar to other comparable villages, Petham once featured multiple facilities such as a baker, cobbler, post office and garage. Today, none of these facilities remains and the only public buildings are the Petham Pint, a small tavern that was opened during COVID times to try and increase morale, and the All Saints church and graveyard. This decline began in the 1940s and can be attributed to increasing household car ownership (in the early 1940s 90% of households did not own a car). Increasing car ownership allowed easier travel between Petham and Canterbury, enabling residents to access services in the city.

Gallery

File:Petham village hall, Kent, UK.jpg, Petham Village Hall on Church Lane File:Petham graveyard - geograph.org.uk - 341144.jpg, All Saints Petham Graveyard

References

External links

Civil parishes in Kent Villages in Kent City of Canterbury {{Kent-geo-stub