CHILHAM

 The village of Chilham (Cilla's settlement) is in the valley of the Great Stour River and beside the A28 road 6 miles (10 km) southwest of Canterbury. It is centred around what is probably, the most perfect market square in Kent, where until recently, a traditional annual May Day celebration took place.  It has been much used by film companies over the years. At each end of the square are its major buildings: Chilham Castle and the 15th-century parish church, dedicated to St Mary. It is believed that Thomas Becket was buried in the churchyard. The village has a number of period houses such as the former vicarage, which dates from 1742. The castle was owned by the Viscounts Massereene and Ferrard until its sale in 1997. As of 2013 it is owned by Stuart Wheeler, founder of the spread-betting firm IG Index.

As you can see, the residents of Chilham all park in the centre square, but you can still find a space occasionally, if you are lucky. Which led to a very strange conversation:

I found a space for the bike, and was taking my helmet off, when this gorgeous car pulled in next to me. Middle-aged guy, nearly as gorgeous as his car, gets out.

Him: "I'm sorry"

Me (puzzled) "sorry, why?"

Him: "I only bought this yesterday, and didn't realise how noisy it is"

Me: (looking at my motorcycle) : "And you're apologising to me?"

The Pilgrims Way originally passed through the square on its' journey from Winchester and London to Canterbury, and today, its' 20th. century successor runs through the churchyard.

The White Horse pub (below) dates to the 16th. century. 

As regards the White Horse pub, during alterations in 1956, two complete and perfectly preserved male skeletons were found under the kitchen floor - at a depth of two feet. General supposition is that they were either soldiers who fell in the battle at Chilham during the Wat Tyler rebellion, or the much older remains of men buried in the pre-Christain era.

The skeletons now rest in the churchyard of St. Mary's, Chilham, where they were given a Christian burial by the vicar after the coroner's inquest had pronounced them to be Ancient Bones and not the result of undetected crime!

The statue above represents pilgrims walking the Pilgrim Way to Canterbury

There has been a castle at the site of Chilham, on the edge of a wood, in the heart of Kent, since the late 7th century, when Wihtred, King of Kent, signed a treaty here. Of that early fortresses little is known. There was a stone-built castle here at the time of the Norman invasion, and a much larger castle centred on a stone keep was built in 1171 by Fulbert de Dover, who used Henry II's royal mason as his architect. The keep is remarkably complete, missing only its parapets. 

King John gave Chilham to his illegitimate son Richard, who married a Dover girl.
It has changed hands many times, having been home to a host of colourful and sometimes eccentric families.  

The castle was briefly occupied by the Dauphin of France in 1216 as part of an abortive attempt by rebellious British nobles to place him on the throne. It then passed through several owners including the Earl of Atholl and the Roose family.

The keep is all that remains of the original castle, tucked in behind the house created by Sir Dudley Digges in 1616. The destruction of so much of the medieval fortifications was not due to war, but the actions of Sir Thomas Cheney, Treasurer to the King's Household under Henry VIII, who pulled down much of the medieval castle and carted away the stones to rebuild his other house.
The house was remodelled several times, making it into a rather intriguing mix of architectural styles, ranging from Regency to Victorian Gothic, to a peculiar Victorian interpretation of the original Jacobean style

It is sometimes claimed that the 18th-century parkland at Chilham was landscaped by Capability Brown. This is not strictly true; Brown was employed at Gatton Park in Surrey, then owned by the brother of Chilham's owner, Robert Colebrooke.It seems likely that Robert Colebrooke used ideas he saw at Gatton Park, for when a later owner finally did persuade Brown to come to Chilham in 1777 the famous landscape designer said there was little to do here. Presumably, his style had already been implemented.

Apparently, the gateway to the park was designed by Inigo Jones.

The church of St Mary, Chilham, was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 but has a history going back perhaps as far as the 7th century. In the 12th century, the church was owned by the French abbey of St Bertin, a Benedictine monastery at St Omer. It later passed into the hands of Syon Abbey, based at Isleworth in Middlesex.

The church is famous as the last known resting place of the shrine of St Augustine. When the Abbey of St Augustine in Canterbury was destroyed during the English Reformation, the gilded shrine containing the saint's body was removed from the abbey and brought to Chilham church. Here it stayed until 1541 when it disappeared. Several attempts to determine what happened to the shrine have proved unsuccessful, and its whereabouts remain a great historical mystery.

The interior of St Mary's is notable for some very fine memorials, many to members of the Digges family of Chilham Castle. The finest of these is the very grand monument to Mary Kemp, Lady Digges, who died in 1631. She was the wife of Sir Dudley Digges, who had the current Chilham Castle built beside the old Norman keep above the Stour.

The Lady Digges memorial depicts four seated muses, representing the four cardinal virtues of Patience, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude. The virtues are seated about a tall classical column that rises to 11 feet in height.

In the north aisle is a poignant memorial depicting two children of the Hardy family, who owned the castle from 1861-1918. The unusual feature of this memorial is that there is a carved battledore and shuttlecock at the children's feet, making this the only known example in England of a church monument depicting children's toys. Originally made to stand in the castle it was presented to the church in 1919. 

There is also an interesting carved and painted memorial to Lady Margaret Palmer, sister of Sir Dudley Digges. Lady Margaret died in 1619 and her flowery epitaph is worth reading

The Digges family memorial, with the family vault beneath, is located in the south-east chancel aisle. At the west end of the church is another family memorial, to the Dick family. On a wall tablet nearby is a memorial to Frederick Dick, with the intriguing inscription that he was 'shot by an unseen hand'.

Within the nave is a very worn table. This comes from the village school, which used to be located in a small chamber above the south porch. The table is much scored with the graffiti of generations of schoolboys; one carving bears the date 1733.

In the north-east corner of the church is a rough sarcophagus of Purbeck Marble. This sarcophagus, of unknown date, was discovered underneath the north transept. It was hoped that it might prove to contain the lost shrine of St Augustine, but when it was opened in 1948 it was found to be empty.

James Beckford Wildman was an English landowner and Tory politician who served as a Member of Parliament for Colchester from 1818 to 1826. His properties included plantations in Jamaica and Chilham Castle, England, which he sold in 1861.