Small Hythe (or Smallhythe) is a hamlet near

Tenterden Tenterden is a town and civil parish in the Borough of Ashford in Kent, England. The 2021 census published the population of the parish to be 8,186. Geography Tenterden is connected to Kent's county town of Maidstone by the A262 road an ...

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. The population is included in Tenterden. It stood on a branch of the Rother estuary and was a busy shipbuilding port in the 15th century, before the silting up and draining of the Romney Marshes. Small Hythe's quays and warehouses were destroyed in a fire in 1514 and were never rebuilt.

History

The area of Small Hythe was still on the coast in Roman times. At that time (1st to 3rd Century AD) there was already an important port from which timber and iron were supposedly shipped to the continent, and a small settlement, as evidenced by finds of Roman bricks and an earthen

figurine A figurine (a diminutive form of the word ''figure'') or statuette is a small, three-dimensional sculpture that represents a human, deity or animal, or, in practice, a pair or small group of them. Figurines have been made in many media, with cla ...

of Mercury that were excavated there. Small Hythe was within the medieval

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101. In mathematics 100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...

, which does not appear to have existed at the time of 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

. It is first mentioned in about 1300 and received a

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

in 1449 from Henry VI. Small Hythe lay on a branch of the River Rother. The settlement was made accessible to seagoing craft in the 1330s when the Knelle dam—an earthen bank at Wittersham Levels in the lower Rother valley () constructed to deflect floodwater from the holdings of local landowner Geoffrey de Knelle—diverted the main course of the river around the north of Oxney island. Large sea-going warships were built on the river banks from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, with associated ship-breaking for reuse of fittings and timber. The ready supply of timber from the

Weald The Weald () is an area of South East England between the parallel chalk escarpments of the North and the South Downs. It crosses the counties of Hampshire, Surrey, West Sussex, East Sussex, and Kent. It has three parts, the sandstone "High W ...

made this isolated community one of the most important shipbuilding centres, other than the major ports, in the country. The town of Tenterden was given the status of a Limb of the Cinque Ports, with its consequent relief from

taxation A tax is a mandatory financial charge or levy imposed on an individual or legal person, legal entity by a governmental organization to support government spending and public expenditures collectively or to Pigouvian tax, regulate and reduce nega ...

, in acknowledgement of providing royal warships built in Small Hythe. A storm of 1636 carried away the dam and the river returned to its former course. Small craft were still able to reach Small Hythe until gradual

silting Siltation is water pollution caused by particulate Terrestrial ecoregion, terrestrial Clastic rock, clastic material, with a particle size dominated by silt or clay. It refers both to the increased concentration of suspended sediments and to the i ...

put an end to this, early in the twentieth century. Small Hythe appears as "Smalide" in the legal dispute about land in Tenterden and Small Hythe in 1460, and as "Smallitt" in the eighteenth century.

Notable residents

Robert Brigandyne (or Brickenden), Keeper of the King's Ships to both Henry VII and

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

, was the supervisor of the construction of ''

Mary Rose The ''Mary Rose'' was a carrack in the English Tudor navy of Henry VIII of England, King Henry VIII. She was launched in 1511 and served for 34 years in several wars against France, Scotland, and Brittany. After being substantially rebuilt in ...

Peter Pomegranate ''Peter Pomegranate'' was a warship of the English Tudor navy, built in 1510. Her name most likely was in honour of Saint Peter and the badge of Queen Catherine of Aragon, a pomegranate. History She had a tonnage of 400 or 450 when first bu ...

'' and '' Great Harry''. He lived and worked at the Priest's House, Small Hythe. Actress

Ellen Terry Dame Alice Ellen Terry (27 February 184721 July 1928) was a leading English actress of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into a family of actors, Terry began performing as a child, acting in Shakespeare plays in London, and toured ...

lived at Smallhythe Place between 1899 and her death in 1928. It is now managed by the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

and houses her collection of theatrical memorabilia and a small theatre.

References

External links

* * ''

Time Team ''Time Team'' is a British television programme that originally aired on Channel 4, Channel 4 from 16 January 1994 to 7 September 2014. It returned in 2022 on online platforms YouTube and Patreon. Created by television produce ...

'' Season 6 Episode 6: account of brief archaeological exploration of the shipbuilding areas * * Hamlets in Kent Tenterden Shipyards of England {{Kent-geo-stub