Boughton under Blean 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 ...

between

Faversham Faversham is a market town in Kent, England, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2, which follows an ancient Briti ...

and

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 ...

in south-east

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 ...

. "Boughton under Blean" technically refers only to the hamlet at the top of Boughton Hill; the main village at the foot of the hill is named Boughton Street, but the whole is referred to as "Boughton under Blean" or more commonly as just "Boughton". The Blean refers to the Forest of Blean, an area of long-standing Kent woodland covering over 11 square miles (28.5 sq. km). It had a population of 1,917 according to the 2011 Census. The parish includes the hamlet of Crouch.

Chaucer

Before the opening of the A2 Boughton bypass in 1976, Boughton lay on the main route between London and Canterbury. Having passed through the village and climbed Boughton Hill, it is the first place from which the towers of Canterbury Cathedral can be seen when travelling from the direction of

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 ...

. This gains a mention in

Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

's ''

Canterbury Tales ''The Canterbury Tales'' ( enm, Tales of Caunterbury) is a collection of twenty-four stories that runs to over 17,000 lines written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer between 1387 and 1400. It is widely regarded as Chaucer's ''magnum opus ...

'', in ' The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue'. Boughton under Blean is also mentioned in the context of Chaucer in Frank Herbert's ''

Children of Dune ''Children of Dune'' is a 1976 science fiction novel by Frank Herbert, the third in his ''Dune'' series of six novels. It was originally serialized in ''Analog Science Fiction and Fact'' in 1976, and was the last ''Dune'' novel to be serialize ...

'': "For a time he amused himself by reviewing Chaucer's route from London to Canterbury, listing the places from Southwark: two miles to the watering-place of St Thomas, five miles to

Deptford Deptford is an area on the south bank of the River Thames in southeast London, within the London Borough of Lewisham. It is named after a Ford (crossing), ford of the River Ravensbourne. From the mid 16th century to the late 19th it was home ...

, six miles to

Greenwich Greenwich ( , ,) is a town in south-east London, England, within the ceremonial county of Greater London. It is situated east-southeast of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich ...

, thirty miles to

Rochester Rochester may refer to: Places Australia * Rochester, Victoria Canada * Rochester, Alberta United Kingdom *Rochester, Kent ** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area ** History of Rochester, Kent ** HM Prison ...

, forty miles to

Sittingbourne Sittingbourne is an industrial town in Kent, south-east England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient British trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and next to the Swale, a strip of sea separa ...

, fifty-five miles to Boughton under Blean, fifty-eight miles to Harbledown, and sixty miles to Canterbury. It gave him a sense of timeless buoyancy to know that few in his universe would recall Chaucer or know any London except the village on Gansireed."

Sir Thomas Hawkins

The poet and translator Sir Thomas Hawkins was baptised on 20 July 1575 at Boughton under Blean, as the eldest son of Sir Thomas Hawkins (1548/9–1617) of Nash Court, Boughton, and his wife, Ann (1552–1616), daughter of Cyriac Pettyt of Colkyns, also in Boughton. His 1625 translation ''The Odes of Horace the Best of Lyrick Poets'' was republished in 1631, 1635 and 1638, and plagiarized in 1652. He died in the parish of St Sepulchre's,

, probably in late 1640. The family remained

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

until well into the 18th century. Nash Court was attacked by a Protestant crowd during the 1715 Jacobean uprising, and Hawkins's valuable library destroyed. The church of St Peter and St Paul contains a monument to Hawkins which is the work of

Epiphanius Evesham Epiphanius Evesham ( fl. 1570 – c. 1623) was a British sculptor. He was born in Wellington, Herefordshire, a twin, and the youngest of fourteen siblings. His parents were William Evesham of Burghope Hall and his wife, Jane Haworthe, daughter ...

Governance

Working Oast House on South Street, Boughton under Blean, Kent - geograph

The member of parliament for the Faversham & Mid Kent constituency, which includes Boughton under Blean, since the

2015 UK general election The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first and only general election held at the end of a Parliament under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Local ...

Helen Whately Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (''née'' Lightwood; born 23 June 1976) is a British politician serving as Minister of State for Social Care since October 2022, and previously from 2020 to 2021. She also served as Exchequer Secretary to the Treas ...

of the

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

party. Boughton under Blean is part of the electoral ward called Boughton and Courtenay. This parish had a population of 5,626 at the 2011 Census.

Notable people

* William Shilling (1848–1939), New Zealand mariner and pilot, born in Boughton

References

External links

Village web siteBored In Swale - an information site listing activities for the youth in Swale
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boughton under Blean Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent