UK Genealogy Archives logo
DISCLOSURE: This page may contain affiliate links, meaning when you click the links and make a purchase, we may receive a commission.

Lympne, Kent

Historical Description

Lympne, a village and a parish in Kent. The village stands on a scarp of hills, overlooking Romney Marsh, at the end of Stane Street, near the Royal Military Canal, 2 miles SSW of Westenhanger station on the S.E.R., 1½ mile NW of the coast at Fort Moncrief, and 3 miles W of Hythe, took its name from the river Limene, Lemanis, or Lymne, which anciently ran close to it; was the Portns Lemanis or Portus Lemainanus of the Romans; was known at Domesday as Limes, and is now a very small place. It has a post office under Hythe; money order office, Hythe; telegraph office, Stanford. Acreage of the civil parish, 2916; population, 493; of the ecclesiastical, 685. The river Limene greatly changed its course, and is believed to be the Pother, which now enters the sea at Rye. A harbour was on it close to the site of the village in the time of the Romans, and hence the name Portns Lemanis. A Roman station stood adjacent to the harbour, covered or inclosed about 10 acres, continued long to be a place of great strength, suffered much injury from landslips and other physical agencies which changed the course of the river; suffered injury also by the removal of stones from it as building material for the church; took eventually the name of Studfall, signifying " a fallen place;" and is now represented by fragments large enough to show the great thickness of its walls, and including the stump of a tower 10 feet high and 45 in circumference. The station is thought to have been a reconstruction by the Romans, as the remains of it include many stones which appear to have belonged to earlier buildings. Excavations were made in 1850, and coins of several emperors, tiles, pottery, glass, and keys were then found. A spot called Shepway Cross, about half a mile from the village at the top of the hill toward West Hythe, was long the place where the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports was sworn in, and where his courts were held. The neighbourhood of the village commands a very fine seaward view. The parish contains also the hamlet of Court-at-Street The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarage of West Hythe, in the diocese of Canterbury; value, £273 with residence. Patron, the Archdeacon of Canterbury. The church has Norman portions, includes stones taken from the Roman station, has a tower, and was restored at a great expense in 1877-78. A castellated house adjoins the church, is said to have been erected by Archbishop Lanfranc, really shows characters of the Edwardian period, and was probably a watch-tower built in lieu of the fallen towers of the Roman fortress. An ancient chapel stood near Court-at-Street, was visited by the pilgrims from Canterbury in the time of A'Becket, and is now a ruin.

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Ancient CountyKent 
Ecclesiastical parishLympne St. Stephen 
HundredStreet 
LatheShepway 
LibertyRomney Marsh 
Poor Law unionElham 

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.


Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Lympne from the following:


Maps

Online maps of Lympne are available from a number of sites:


Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Kent newspapers online:


Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of Kent, 1619 is available on the Heraldry page, as is also The Visitation of Kent, 1663-68.

DistrictShepway
CountyKent
RegionSouth East
CountryEngland
Postal districtCT21
Post TownHythe

Advertisement

Advertisement