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Tenterden (St. Mildred)

TENTERDEN (St. Mildred), a market-town and parish, within the cinque-port liberties, having separate jurisdiction, and forming the head of a union, locally in the hundred of Tenterden, Lower division of ihe lathe of Scray, W. division of Kent, 18 miles (S. E. by S.) from Maidstone, and 53 (S. E. by E.) from London; containing 3620 inhabitants. This town, the name of which appears to be a corruption of Theinwarden, or the ward of Thanes, that is, "the guard in the valley," was one of the places where the woollen manufacture was established in the reign of Edward III. It became a scene of opposition to the Church of Rome, at a period prior to the Reformation, in the time of Archbishop Warham, when 48 inhabitants of the town and its vicinity were publicly accused of heresy, and five of them condemned to be burned. The town stands upon a pleasant eminence, surrounded by some fine plantations of hops; the houses are well built, and of respectable appearance. The streets are paved, and lighted with gas, under the provisions of a general act by which the place has been much improved; and the trade, consisting chiefly in supplying the grazing district of which it is the centre, has greatly increased. The present town-hall was built in 1792, the former having been destroyed by fire. The market, principally for corn, is held on Friday. There is a fair for horses, cattle, and pedlery, on the first Monday in May; and a stock-market, established on the 9.8th of June, 1839, takes place on the Fridays before the first and third Tuesdays in each month. The inhabitants were incorporated as "The Bayliffe and Commoualtie of the Town and Hundred of Tenterden," and the place annexed as a member to the port of Rye, by Henry VI. The corporation now consists of a mayor, four aldermen, and twelve councillors, under the act 5th and 6th of William IV., cap. 76; the mayor and late mayor are justices of the peace, and the total number of magistrates is six. The powers of the county debt-court of Tenterden, established in 1847, extend over the registration-districts of Tenterden and Cranbrook. The recorder holds a court of quarter-sessions, with power to try for all offences not capital. The parish comprises 8300 acres, of which 1740 are in wood.

The living is a vicarage, valued in the king's books at £33. 12. 11.; patrons and appropriators, the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury: the great tithes have been commuted for £822, and the small for £450. The church is spacious and handsome, with a lofty tower at the west end, to which a beacon was formerly attached. At Smallhythe, in the parish, is a chapel, erected about 1509, and licensed by faculty from Archbishop Warham; it is maintained out of lands in this parish and that of Wittersham. It appears that, at the time of its erection, the sea came up to Smallhythe, power being then given to inter in the chapelyard the bodies of shipwrecked persons cast on shore. There are places of worship for Baptists, Wesleyans, and Unitarians. A free grammar school, founded at an early period by an ancestor of the late Sir Peter Hayman, was endowed in 1521, by William Marshall, with a rent-charge of £10, and in 1702, by John Mantel, with the sum of £200, which was laid out in land; the income is £52, and is now appropriated to a national school. Dr. Edward Curteis, in 1797, left property now producing £101 per annum, for the clothing and instruction of 10 girls, for the distribution of bread to the poor, and other charitable uses. The union of Tenterden comprises 11 parishes or places, and contains a population of 10,999. Hoole, the translator of Tasso, resided here. The place confers the title of Baron on the family of Abbot; Sir Charles, lord chief justice of the court of king's bench, having been raised to the peerage by that title, on the 30th of April, 1827.


Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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