Wrotham, Kent
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Wrotham, Kent, England

Ford Place

Elizabeth Culpeper, daughter of Walter Culpeper9w of Calais and Wigsell, was born in Ford Hall circa 1493.

According to notes made by Culpeper historian Len Pierce and provided to Warren Culpepper, the family of Clerke (Arms: Argent, a bend engrailed azure, a cinque fiul pisined or), sold Ford Place to Mr. John Know, 1725 (Argent, a bend engrailed gules, three trefoils, slipt of the first.). Mr. Pierce noted the similarity between the arms of Clerke, Know and Culpeper (Argent, a bend engrailed, gules).

Location: About 2 miles E of Wrotham, on Ford Lane, off the A20, just south of the M26/M20 split.

National Grid Coordinates:
TQ 637 587

Ford Place, March 2000
Ford Place, March 2000
Photo taken by Warren Culpepper

Wrotham Church, March 2000St. George Church

Ancient Parish in Wrotham
Original registers from 1558.

Connection, if any to Culpepers, not currently known. Further research needed.

National Grid Coordinates
: TQ 612 592

Photo taken by Warren Culpepper in March 2000.

Wrotham, Kent

Location: Between the M26 and the M20, 16 miles NW of Goudhurst, and 11 miles WNW of Maidstone.

National Grid Coordinates: TQ 610 590

Seemingly oblivious to the M20 which passes just to the north is Wrotham (pronounced Rootum), an ancient village which once served as a staging post on the London road. It was here that Henry VIII received news of the execution of Anne Boleyn in 1536. Wrotham parish church of St George would have been more than three centuries old at the time. It is large and airy, perhaps because the village once had a palace belonging to the Archbishops of Canterbury. The heart of Wrotham, next to the church, is its compact village square which has two very old pubs, a brick manor house and the remains of the archbishop's palace.

Source: Sean Connolly, Ed.,"Wrotham", The Hidden Places of Kent, Travel Publishing, Ltd., 1998., pages 16-17.

1831 Topographical Dictionary:
WROTHAM, a parish (formerly a market town) in the hundred of WROTHAM, lathe of AYLESFORD, county of KENT, 11 miles WNW from Maidstone, and 24 miles ESE  from London, containing, with the townships of Hale, Nepicar, Plaxtol, Winfield, and Roughway, 2357 inhabitants. This is a place of very remote antiquity: that it was a town of the ancient Britons is probable from various discoveries of British coins, and fragments of brass armor and military weapons; other circumstances lead to the conclusion that it was afterwards a Roman station, and the ancient military way from Oldborough to Stane-street passed through it. The town is situated near the foot of the chalk hills, and consists principally of two streets crossing each other on the high road from London to Maidstone; in the center is the market-place... The church, dedicated to St. George, is an ancient and spacious structure, with a mixture of the various styles, from the Norman to the later English; it contains sixteen stalls. A palace for the Archbishops of Canterbury formerly stood here, of which the terrace and a few offices alone remain. Wrotham hill, immediately above the town, affords one of the finest prospects in England.
 

Also See: Old Soar, Oxen Hoath, Dukes Place, Hadlow and West Peckham

Last Revised: 02 Jan 2015

 

 
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