Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/72

40 in the sixteenth year of K. Richard II. There is a house near the church still called "the chantry house" as well as lands in the parish, known as "chantry lands," which are held under lease from the archbishop of Canterbury. In (Val. Eccl.) the chantry is asserted to pay twenty-two pence to the parish church for rent: but that document mentions two chantries.

48. .—A very small church, though with more population than might have been expected, in a remote situation, among or on the border of the woods, which extend from near the tops of Debtling and Boxley hills to within a short distance of Chatham northwards, and almost to the Medway westward. On the south side of the chancel is a small chapel, of very good E. E. workmanship. It is separated from the church, and the door kept locked, but the windows are open to the birds and the weather. The windows appear not to have been intended to receive glass, but to have had shutters on the interior.—Bred hurst is a curacy, in the gift of the rector of Hollingbourne.—"Almost adjoining to the churchyard eastward there is a wood, where the inhabitants have a report there was once a village, called 'Bredhurst Town.' Several wells are yet remaining in it." (Hasted.)—Brass : William Norwood, in armour, and four sons. (Harris.)

49. .—There can be little, if any, doubt (see below, from Hasted), that here was one of the two churches described in (D. B.) as at "Hallinges" (Yalding), though it might stand at Bockinfield, not on the site of the present parish church. The free chapel of Bokenfeld is mentioned in (Val. Eccl.) as deriving its revenue partly from the benefice of Brenchley. (Reg. Roff.) notices, that a chapel was founded at Bockinfield, in Brenchley, without stating the date, except that it was in the time of Hamon de Crevecœur (K. Henry III), and that it was named 21st of K. Edward I, about A.D. 1293.—Bokinfold was a large estate, in old records called in this parish, though nearly, if not quite, the whole of the existing manor of that name is considered to be in other parishes. The only house upon it is in Yalding. The chapel was desecrated at the general dissolution of religious houses. Richard de Clare gave Yalding Church, with this chapel, to his recently founded priory at Tonbridge. (Hasted.) With this statement compare that from (Reg. Roff.) in the Note on Yalding. That document seems to be Hasted's authority, but it will be perceived that he has not quoted it correctly; neither have I discovered in Reg. Roff.