Bobbing 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the Swale district of

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, England, about a mile north-west of

Sittingbourne Sittingbourne is an industrial town in the Swale district of Kent, southeast England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons. The town stands next to th ...

, and forming part of its

urban area An urban area is a human settlement with a high population density and an infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas originate through urbanization, and researchers categorize them as cities, towns, conurbations or suburbs. In urbani ...

. The hamlet of Howt Green and village of Keycol are included within the parish. According to the 2011 census Bobbing parish had a population of 1,969. The parish of Bobbing, according to

Edward Hasted Edward Hasted (20 December 1732 OS (31 December 1732 NS) – 14 January 1812) was an English antiquarian and pioneering historian of his ancestral home county of Kent. As such, he was the author of a major county history, ''The History and ...

in 1800, contains about seven hundred and eighty acres of land, of which forty were wood. The

mediaeval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and t ...

manor house of Bobbing Court, now a

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

ruin, was built by the Savage family; it passed to Henry Clifford, Esq., who ceded it to the distinguished soldier Sir Conyers Clifford, and then by marriage into the St. Leger family. The village church, St Bartholomew, is a grade I listed building. It is within the diocese of

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

and deanery of

. According to Edward Hasted in 1798, the church consisted of two small aisles and two chancels, having a tall spire steeple at the west end of it, in which are five bells. The strange career of

Titus Oates Titus Oates (15 September 1649 – 12/13 July 1705) was an English priest who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II. Early life Titus Oates was born at Oakham in Rutland. His father was the Baptis ...

, inventor of the

Popish Plot The Popish Plot was a fictitious conspiracy invented by Titus Oates that between 1678 and 1681 gripped the kingdoms of England and Scotland in anti-Catholic hysteria. Oates alleged that there was an extensive Catholic conspiracy to assassinat ...

, included a brief period as Vicar of Bobbing. He was presented with the living by the local squire, Sir George Moore (who had recently purchased Bobbing Court) in 1673, but his drunkenness and blasphemy so horrified his parishioners that they ejected him before the end of the year. In 2003, the

Cremation Society of Great Britain The Cremation Society of Great Britain (now known as The Cremation Society) was founded in 1874 to promote the use of cremation as an alternative means of dealing with the bodies of the dead instead of burial which until then was the only option. T ...

opened the "Garden of England Crematorium" on the outskirts of the village.

Transportation

The village is located beside the

A249 road The A249 is a road in Kent, England, running from Maidstone to Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey. It mainly functions as a link between the M2 motorway (Great Britain), M2 and M20 motorway, M20 motorways, and for goods vehicle traffic to the ...

. The

Chatham Main Line The Chatham Main Line is a railway line in England that links London VictoriaQuail Map 5 – England South ages 2–13Sept 2002 (Retrieved 14 December 2011) and Dover Priory / Ramsgate, travelling via Medway (of which the town of Chatham is ...

passes the village but there is no railway station.

References

External links

Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent Borough of Swale {{Kent-geo-stub