WICKHAMBREAUX

Once one of the estates of the Fair Maid of Kent, Joan Plantagenet who was born in 1328, daughter of Edmund, Earl of Kent and grand-daughter of Edward I.

She was married whilst young to Sir Thomas Holland, without the Royal consent of her grand-father.  He annulled the marriage and married her off to Montagu, Earl of Salisbury. Normally, Holland would have faced execution for daring to marry a royal without permission, but Joan pleaded for his life and Edward pardoned him.

Meanwhile the Pope ruled that her marriage to Holland was valid, and that to Montagu was not. Thomas and Joan had a son, who succeeded to the Earldom of Kent in 1361.  When Sir Thomas died, Joan was wooed by Edward, the Black Prince, and they were married in 1361 at Windsor. Joan had two more sons, the youngest of which became Richard II.

Joan was very much the power behind the throne, and well-respected. So much so, that as she returned from a pilgrimage to Canterbury in 1381, and when she reached Blackheath, she found her way barred by Wat Tyler’s rebels, they saluted her and formed a safe escort for her for the rest of her journey to London.

Joan died in 1385, and was buried alongside her first husband, Sir Thomas Holland in Stamford, Lincolnshire.  Her second husband, Edward, the Black Prince, built a chantry for her in the crypt of Canterbury Cathedral .

Rose Inn. On the Green, the "Rose Inn" dates back to 1302 just after the first Prince of Wales was created and recorded as a farmhouse in the Domesday Book of 1086.

The "Rose Inn" is said to have derived from Fair Rosamund Clifford, the beautiful mistress of Henry II. The first rector of St Andrew's Church was reputedly a grandson of this union, and certainly the Clifford family owned the Manor of Wickham during the twelfth century. 

More info as usual, can be found on the Pub Archive here:

The Rose

St. Andrew’s  church. St Andrew's dates from the 14th century when the Earls of Kent were Lords of the Manor.

The small war memorial which stands in the churchyard.

The church is entered by this lovely bucolic porchway.

The whole of the chancel and baptistry is lined with dark brown encaustic tiles. 

The church features beautiful medieval glass in the west window of the south aisle depicting the beheading of St John the Baptist and is thought to be original to the building.

A sumptuous Art Nouveau east window was donated by Count James Gallatin of New York in 1896. It is supposedly the first work by an American glass painter in Europe and is signed Arild Rosenkrantz (1870-1964).

Above the window are stencilled paintings of angels ascending, which can also be seen in the nave, whilst the roof there has a charming star-spangled sky. the refitting of the chancel was paid for by Mary Young. Her monument in the chancel records that 'infirm from her youth she protracted life to the 68th year of her age'. She left £100 for wainscotting and ornamenting the chancel.

More beautiful encaustic tiles, the colours of which are echoed in the decoration of the organ pipes. Note the delicate brasswork of the altar rail.

The unusual filigree wrought-iron pulpit.

As to the rest of the village.................

The village originally boasted a working water mill on the Little Stour river. The mill is now residencies, but the wheel is still in place, and this is the leat.

Three types of stone, limestone, ragstone and flint were used by skilled medieval masons, to create the intricate chequerboard design of the Old Stone House in Wickhambreaux. One of the oldest inhabited buildings in Kent, it is said to have once been home to Joan Plantagenet, the wife of Edward, the Black Prince. (see notes at top of page). It was formerly listed as The Post Office and is Grade II listed.

There are buildings of all eras, and they all seem to be very well cared for

Wickham Court