ALDINGTON

 Aldington is the next village along from where I grew up. 

Not being on a major road, it has managed to retain its quiet aspect, and has a very good community spirit.  The wide-reaching views are stunning.

The village revolves around Reynold's Field, the Village Hall and the Walnut Tree Inn opposite. The village school and a couple of local shops are visibly within reach too.

The “Walnut Tree Inn” was built during the reign of Richard II (1377-1399) in the year of the crusades. 

The pub has retained its historic interior and the food is worthy of the surroundings.

During the Napoleonic wars Aldington was the stronghold of the Aldington Gang, an infamous band of smugglers that roamed the marshes and shores of Kent plying their nefarious trade. The gang’s prolific leaders, Cephas Quested and George Ransley, both natives of Aldington, made the “Walnut Tree” their headquarters and drop point for their illicit contraband. High up on the southern side of the inn is a small window through which the gang would shine a signal light to their confederates up to Aldington Knoll.

After the death of their leader, the gang was taken over by one George Ransley, members of whose family still live in the area. Ransley and several others were eventually captured and tried for murder. They were sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to transportation to Tasmania for life. Sadly, one of them was an ancestor of mine (Thomas Gillham)

The “Walnut Tree’s” association with lawlessness did not end with the demise of the smugglers for as late as 1904 the inn was centre of the cock fighting contests.

Opposite the pub, lies Reynolds Field. A large expanse given in perpetuity to the youth of Aldington, by Captain Jack Wells Reynolds in remembrance of his son. If you enlarge the photo above, you can read all the details. I don't need to reprint it here.

As teenagers, we played football out here - our village (Lympne) youth club against Aldington Youth Club. The village hall, just out of shot to the right of the field, was one of three village halls, together with Lympne and Sellindge, where Saturday night dances were held on consecutive weeks. And of course, it simply wasn't true that if you were under age you could get served beer out of a small window round the back of the Walnut Tree. Someone made that story up - honest! The local police officer, Danny, would maintain control by boxing your ears and threatening to tell your Dad, who, if he did, would then repeat the punishment on the basis that if Danny had done it, we must have earned it!

Ford Maddox Ford, who lived in Aldington for a while, wrote a poem called 'Aldington Knoll', The Knoll is a grassy mound just outside the village, and the poem tells how the landowner wanted to level it, but nobody would do it because of a local legend that anyone who disturbed it would meet a sticky end.

Eventually, a man from outside the village did it, and he dug up a skeleton and a sword before he died. 

Aldington Knoll

by Ford Madox Ford

THE OLD SMUGGLER SPEAKS

A L'INGTON Knoll it stands up high,

Guidin' the sailors sailin' by,

Stands up high fer all to see

Cater the marsh and crost the sea.

Al'ington Knoll's a mound a top,

With a dick all round and it's bound to stop,

For them as made it in them old days

Sees to it well that theer it stays,

For that ol' Knoll is watched so well

By drownded men let outen Hell;

They watches well and keeps it whole

For a sailor's mark — the goodly Knoll.

Farmer Finn as farms the ground

Tried to level that goodly mound,

But not a chap from Lydd to Lym'

Thought that job were meant for him.

Finn 'e fetched a chap fro' th' Sheeres,

One o' yer spunky devil-may-keeres,

Giv him a shovel and pick and spade,

Promised him double what we was paid.

He digged till ten, and he muddled on

Till he'd digged up a sword and a skillington —

A grit old sword as long as me,

An' grit ol' bones as you could see.

He digged and digged the livelong day,

Till the sun went down in Fairlight Bay;

He digged and digged, and behind his back

The lamps shone out and the marsh went black,

And the sky in the west went black from red,

An' the wood went black — an' the man was dead.

But wheer he'd digged the chark shone white

Out to sea like Calais light.

Al'ington Knoll it stands up high,

Guidin' the sailors sailin' by,

Stands up high for all to see

Cater the marsh and crost the sea.

H.G. Wells, who based several of his books in this part of Kent, had a different take on Aldington Knoll. In his fantasy story, Mr. Skelmersdale in Fairyland, he reveals that the Knoll is the home of elves!

It is said that from the top of the Knoll, you can see the towers of 36 churches.

The history of Aldington has not always been good. Even ignoring the Ransley gang of smugglers, it has a far darker point of history. 

Down a little path from the top of Knoll Hill, lies the ruin of a small chapel and hermitage. It is hard to get to, as it lies at the foot of a steep bank. And indeed, when you reach it, there is little to see - just a few broken down stone walls, and the remains of a well. There are several other footpaths down to it, but the shortest one is on private land.

This was the home of Elizabeth Barton, the servant girl from Tudor times, who became known as the Holy Maid of Kent.

History now shows that she was probably a pawn in the political shenanigans of the reign of Henry VIII, but at the time she was revered by common folk as someone who saw visions during 'ecstasies'. These were more probably something like catatonic attacks, or epileptic 'absences'.

She spoke out against Henry's divorce from Catherina of Aragon and subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn. She urged Henry to mend his ways, or suffer the loss of his kingdom. 

As her reputation grew, she was arrested and incarcerated in the Tower of London. Some of her followers admitted (probably under torture), that they had controlled her and her visions, and in 1533, they were all executed at Tyburn

St. Martin's church lies quite a distance from the village centre, down a quiet lane, and at the back of a farmyard, behind a very old barn. Probably yet another example of 'village drift' caused by the Black Death. It's quite an imposing building, but I have yet to find it open.

Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536)

Dutch philosopher and Christian humanist, considered to have been one of the greatest scholars of the northern Renaissance

Desiderius Erasmus was born on 27 October 1466 in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.  He was the second son of Roger Gerard, a priest, and Margaret, a physician’s daughter.  After his schooling in the Netherlands, Erasmus joined the monasteries and in April 1492, he was ordained a priest before moving to Paris to further study theology.

From 1499 Erasmus became an independent scholar, moving from city to city tutoring, lecturing and corresponding with thinkers all over Europe.  In Italy, in 1506, Erasmus received his doctorate in theology before teaching Greek at Cambridge University.  In 1511, Archbishop William Warham appointed Erasmus as Rector of St Martin’s Church in Aldington.  There he lived in the vicarage next to the church, but since he spoke only Latin and Dutch, he could not fulfil his pastoral duties in English.  After only one year, Erasmus resigned his office.

Erasmus commuted for several years between England, Burgundy and Basel.  He worked at the Court of Burgundy in Leuven as a tutor of Prince Charles, who later became the l Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.  In 1517, Erasmus helped found the Collegium Trilingue that taught Latin, Hebrew and Greek – the first institute of its kind in Europe.

Erasmus began writing around 1500, on both theological and secular issues.  Many of his works attacked corruption within the church.  He also translated and edited many classical and early Christian works and published a critical edition of the Greek New Testament, with a new Latin translation and commentary.  His New Testament was the first available complete printed Greek text of the New Testament.  It was used by the translators of the King James Bible as well as Martin Luther as the source for his German Bible translation.

Through his writings, Erasmus entered a great debate with Luther in the 1510s and 1520s.  The Protestant Reformation erupted with the publication of Martin Luther’s ‘Ninety-five Thesis’ in 1517.  Noting Luther’s criticism of the Catholic Church, Erasmus described Luther as “a mighty trumpet of gospel truth” while agreeing, “It is clear that many reforms for which Luther calls are urgently needed.”  Although Erasmus supported the Protestant ideals, he was against the radicalism of some of its leaders.  Erasmus tried to find a middle ground from the beginning of Martin Luther’s challenge to papal authority.  This led to some critiques of Erasmus blaming him for inspiring Luther, and some of Luther’s supporters believed that Luther was merely proclaiming what Erasmus had been hinting.  Though Erasmus supported Protestant principles, he ultimately believed in the unity of the church and in 1523 he condemned Luther’s methods in his work ‘De libero arbitrio’. 

On 12 July 1536, while preparing to move to the Netherlands, Erasmus fell ill and died from dysentery in Basel, Switzerland.  The high regard in which he was held meant that he was buried as a Catholic priest in a cathedral that had since become Protestant.

Throughout Erasmus’ life, he was a prolific author having written about 150 books and more than 2,000 letters.  It is estimated he wrote about 1,000 words a day.  In the generations that followed his death, while peacemakers on both sides had an opportunity to pursue meaningful discussions between Catholics and Lutherans, there were few willing to make themselves heirs of Erasmus’ struggle for the middle ground.

The main door has what were once, some really attractive carvings above and to the sides, and, unusually, a holy water stoup built into the wall. There is a niche above the door, but no statue in it.