Detling, Debtling, or Deptling, Kent

Historical Description

Detling, Debtling, or Deptling, a parish in Kent, 2½ miles NE of Maidstone, and 1¾ mile from Bearstead station on the L.C. & D.R. It has a post and money order office under Maidstone; telegraph office, Bearsted. Acreage, 1589; population, 331. The manor belonged to the Dettelings and the Polhills. There is a lime quarry. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury; value, £198. Patron, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church was renovated in 1861, and an old wooden bell-tower was then replaced by a stone tower and a shingled spire. A north aisle was built in 1887, and a handsome oak reredos presented in 1892. The church has a far-famed carved oak lectern of the 14th century, an object of general interest to antiquaries.

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 County	Kent
Ecclesiastical parish	Debtling St. Martin,
Hundred	Maidstone
Lathe	Aylesford
Poor Law union	Hollingbourn

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

Church Records

The register of baptisms dates from the year 1558; marriages, 1563; burials, 1571.

Findmypast have the following online for Detling, St Martin: baptisms 1558-1919, marriages 1566-1919, burials 1571-1916

Churches

Church of England

St. Martin (parish church)

The church of St. Martin is of rough flints in the Early English and later styles, and has a tower of Portland stone, with spire, containing one bell: there is a monument to the Foote family, 1788, a very richly carved lectern of the Decorated period, an ancient poor's box cut out of the solid wood, and the upper part of a stone coffin slab, bearing the effigy of a tonsured priest, probably of the 13th century: the church affords 160 sittings.

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Detling, Debtling, or Deptling from the following:

Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Debtling (St. Martin,))

Maps

Online maps of Detling, Debtling, or Deptling are available from a number of sites:

Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
Google Streetview.
National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
OpenStreetMap.
old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

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.