Plaxtol 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 ...

in the borough of

Tonbridge and Malling Tonbridge and Malling is a local government district with borough status in Kent, England. Tonbridge is the largest settlement but the authority is based in the modern development of Kings Hill. Geography Tonbridge and Malling Borough cover ...

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 village is located around north of

Tonbridge Tonbridge ( ) is a market town in Kent, England, on the River Medway, north of Royal Tunbridge Wells, south west of Maidstone and south east of London. In the administrative borough of Tonbridge and Malling, it had an estimated populat ...

and the same distance east of

Sevenoaks Sevenoaks is a town in Kent with a population of 29,506 situated south-east of London, England. Also classified as a civil parish, Sevenoaks is served by a commuter main line railway into London. Sevenoaks is from Charing Cross, the traditio ...

. In the 2011 Census, the parish had a population of 1,117. The name Plaxtol is believed to be derived from

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

words meaning "play area"; there used to be a large green in the middle of the village where children would play after attending church on a Sunday. The River Bourne flows through the parish, and formerly powered three watermills in Plaxtol – Winfield Mill (corn), Longmill (corn) and Roughway Paper Mill. The village has a

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

, a

Cromwellian Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in History of England, English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 ...

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

, a village shop, a pottery school and a

pub A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and was ...

; it also once had a

bakery A bakery is an establishment that produces and sells flour-based food baked in an oven such as bread, cookies, cakes, donuts, pastries, and pies. Some retail bakeries are also categorized as cafés, serving coffee and tea to customers who w ...

and a

butcher A butcher is a person who may slaughter animals, dress their flesh, sell their meat, or participate within any combination of these three tasks. They may prepare standard cuts of meat and poultry for sale in retail or wholesale food establishm ...

. The 1,000-acre Fairlawne Estate adjoining the village of Shipbourne was owned by Sir

Henry Vane the Elder Sir Henry Vane, the elder (18 February 15891655) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1614 and 1654. He served King Charles in many posts including secretary of state, but on the outbreak of the En ...

, in the 17th century, and was owned by the Cazalet family in the 19th century. Major Peter Cazalet was a trainer of horses owned by Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother who was an occasional guest. The estate is currently owned by the Saudi Arabian horse-breeder Prince

Khalid ibn Abdullah Khalid (variants include Khaled and Kalid; Arabic: خالد) is a popular Arabic male given name meaning "eternal, everlasting, immortal", and it also appears as a surname.

."The billionaires"
, Fortune magazine, 10 September 1990. Retrieved 11 October 2012.

Notable residents

Walter Monckton, 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley Walter Turner Monckton, 1st Viscount Monckton of Brenchley, (17 January 1891 – 9 January 1965) was a British lawyer and politician. Early years Monckton was born in the village of Plaxtol in north Kent. He was the eldest child of paper m ...

was born in Plaxtol in 1891. His father was a paper manufacturer in the village. *The teacher and theatre director Richard Tomlinson lived in the village in the 1990s. *Air Chief Marshal Sir

Lewis Hodges Lewis may refer to: Names * Lewis (given name), including a list of people with the given name * Lewis (surname), including a list of people with the surname Music * Lewis (musician), Canadian singer * "Lewis (Mistreated)", a song by Radiohead ...

died in Plaxtol in 2007.Lawrence Goldman, ‘Hodges, Sir Lewis Macdonald ob(1918–2007)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Jan 201
accessed 8 July 2013
/ref> *The Broad family have also frequented the area since the 1700s, most notably Lord Lawrence Broad 1st (1712-1789) who is reported to have owned the largest poultry farm in West Kent of that time up until his death where his widow Lady Alison (1723-1803); sold the estate onto the Attwood family. *Lady Natalie Attwood (1951- ), although no longer living in the village, still visits occasionally and in 2004 financed the renovation of the local church's clock tower. The church's cemetery contains her ancestors.

References

External links

Plaxtol village website
{{authority control Villages in Kent