Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/128

92 different, statement is, that Elthrude, niece of K. Alfred, bestowed this manor upon the abbey of St. Peter at Ghent, "upon which it (Lewisham) became a cell of Benedictine monks to that house." After his suppression of alien priories, K. Henry V gave this cell to his recently-erected priory at Shene (or Richmond), in Surrey, A.D. 1414. (Monast. VI, 987.)—It may be observed, that the charter above quoted and a donation of land at Waltham with the church to Chertsey Abbey in Surrey, are the only examples I have noticed, though several may have been overlooked, in the first five volumes of the Codex Diplomaticus of churches being named in connection with the places forming the subjects of the documents.

196. .—On the northern side of the north aisle of this church is a curious niche, much ornamented. It has a quatrefoil in the head, below which are two trefoiled arches divided by a shaft.

197. .—An ancient endowed chapelry in the parish of Gillingham, to which church it is annexed.

198. .—(A.D. 1291) "Ecclia de Limmingg cum capella;" and it is named in (Val. Eccl.) with the chapels of Stanford and Paddlesworth; which connection still subsists. The latter place has a church assigned to it in (D. B.) but as Stanford has not, to that very possibly may have belonged one of the three churches mentioned in (D.B.) under "Leminge."—The earliest notice discovered of this church is in a charter of Uuihtraed, king of Kent, A.D. 697: "basilicæ beatæ mariæ genitricis domini quæ sita est in loco qui dicitur limingæ: of the church of the blessed Mary, the Lord's mother, which is situated in the place called Liminge." (Cod. Dipl., I, 50.) It is repeatedly named in subsequent records in that collection. Liminge church is said to be dedicated to St. Mary and St. Eadburgh. (Kilburne.)—A Benedictine monastery was founded here by Eadburgh (or Ædilberga, Bede), sister of King Eadbald, and widow of Edwin, king of Northumberland (Kilburne); at some period after A.D. 633, when her husband was killed. (Bed. Hist. Eccl., 1. 2, c. 20.)—Somner gives a deed from Caenulf, king of Mercia, and his brother Cuthred, king of Kent, A.D. 804, granting to the abbess of St. Mary, Limming, "ubi pausat corpus beatæ Eadburgæ" (where rests the body of St. Eadburga) "land belonging to the church of St. Mary then standing in the western part of the city, in occidentali parte civitatis," namely, Canterbury. The charter is also in (Cod. Dipl., I, 230.)