Hayes, Kent

Historical Description

Hayes, a village and a parish in Kent. The village stands 2 miles S of Bromley and 2½ E of the boundary with Surrey, and has a station on the S.E.E. 13 miles from London, and a post, money order, and telegraph office, under Beckenham. The parish comprises 1282 acres; population, 804. Hayes Place, adjacent to the church, was the seat of the Earl of Chatham and the birthplace of his son, William Pitt. Hayes Common, of 220 acres, is a piece of land S of the village, and Pickhurst and Langley Park are half a mile W; Rerton Common is a prolongation of Hayes Common, where there are remains of an extensive encampment, long known as Caesar's Camp, but is now generally held to mark the Roman station of Noviomagus, and where many Roman remains, foundations of buildings, tiles, broken pottery, and coins have been found. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Canterbury; value, £320 with residence. Patron, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church is Early English, was restored in 1856, with replacement of a spire in 1862, at a cost of £2500; was enlarged in 1878, and contains several ancient brasses and a few monuments.

Administration

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

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

Church Records

Findmypast have the following online for Hayes, St Mary the Virgin: marriages 1541-1810, burials 1813-1851

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Hayes from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Hayes (St. Mary))

Maps

Online maps of Hayes 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:

• Kent & Sussex Courier
• Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald
• Dover Express
• Kentish Gazette
• Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate & Cheriton Herald
• Kentish Chronicle
• Maidstone Telegraph

Visitations Heraldic

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