Littlebourne 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 ...

east 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 ...

History

The significant Howletts Anglo-Saxon cemetery is in the parish. It is regarded as " Jutish"; finds are in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and elsewhere, and include two of the very rare quoit brooches. The manor of Littlebourne belonged to St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury and the abbot maintained a vineyard there according to Canterbury MP and antiquarian

John Twyne John Twyne (c.1505–1581) was an English schoolmaster, scholar and author, and also Member of Parliament for Canterbury. Life He was born about 1501 at Bullington, Hampshire, the son of William Twyne. He was educated, according to Anthony Wo ...

in his ''De Rebus Albionicis''. The

viticultural Viticulture (from the Latin word for ''vine'') or winegrowing (wine growing) is the cultivation and harvesting of grapes. It is a branch of the science of horticulture. While the native territory of ''Vitis vinifera'', the common grape vine, ran ...

theme is reflected in the parish church's unusual dedication to St Vincent of Saragossa,

patron saint A patron saint, patroness saint, patron hallow or heavenly protector is a saint who in Catholicism, Anglicanism, or Eastern Orthodoxy is regarded as the heavenly advocate of a nation, place, craft, activity, class, clan, family, or perso ...

winemakers A winemaker or vintner is a person engaged in winemaking. They are generally employed by wineries or wine companies, where their work includes: *Cooperating with viticulturists *Monitoring the maturity of grapes to ensure their quality and to dete ...

. The church is in all regards consistent to have been founded by the

monk A monk (, from el, μοναχός, ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a person who practices religious asceticism by monastic living, either alone or with any number of other monks. A monk may be a person who decides to dedica ...

s of St Augustine's, which oral history attests, in the 13th century and contains a medieval wall painting depicting Saint Christopher, patron saint of travellers.

References

External links

Littlebourne Parish Church

history of the manor and church Villages in Kent City of Canterbury Civil parishes in Kent {{Kent-geo-stub