West Malling, Kent

Historical Description

Malling, West, a town and a parish in Kent. The town stands adjacent to Mailing station on the L.C. & D.R., 5¼ miles NW by W of Maidstone. It occupies the site of the Saxon mark of the Mallingas, and was itself anciently called Mealingetes or Little Mailing, East Mailing being Mealinges; but when the fairs and markets were given to the abbey it received the name of Great or Town Mailing. It is a seat of petty sessions, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Maidstone, several inns, and a fair on 17 Nov. Acreage of parish, 1379; population, 2254. The parish council, under the Local Government Act (1894), consists of eleven members. A ville called Mailing was given to the Church of Christ by Egbert in 827, but the manor was granted by Edmund between 941 and 946 to the bishops of Rochester. It was seized by Odo, Bishop of Baieux, who had to restore it at Penenden Heath to Bishop Gundulph, who then built Mall-ing Abbey and endowed it with the manor. Mailing House, St Leonard's House, Broughton House, and Brook House are chief residences. A Benedictine nunnery, known as Mailing Abbey, was founded here in 1090 by Bishop Gundulph, went at the dissolution to Archbishop Cranmer, passed to the Honeywoods and the Akerses, and is now represented by interesting remains, of dates from Norman to Late Perpendicular. The great gateway has a facing of Later English, evidently over older work; a chapel attached to the gateway has Decorated English windows and Later English S door, and has been restored; the W front of the church is Norman, with ornamented pilasters and slender turrets similar to those of the W front of Rochester Cathedral; and the cloisters, now included in a modern mansion, are late Early English, with very fine broad trefoiled arches. A cell of the abbey, with a chapel, stood at St Leonard's, but has disappeared. A large, square, ancient tower stands there, and is one of the earliest Norman keeps in existence. A belt of woods and heaths, called Mailing Woods, conjoined with others called Mereworth and Great Comp Woods, lies along the S of both West Mailing and East Mailing parishes. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury; net value, £280 with residence. The church has a modern nave, a chancel containing both Norman and Early English work, and a Norman tower; was extensively restored in 1866. There are brasses of 1497 and 1532, also one of Henry VIII.'s reign, partly remaining, to Elizabeth Pierrepoint, daughter of Sir Anthony Babington, with a coat of arms; also a stately altar-tomb to Sir E. and Lady Brett. The body of the church fell down, and was rebuilt hi 1779 to 1781; hence a local saying- Proud Town Mailing, poor people, They built a church to their steeple.

There are a Baptist chapel, a private lunatic asylum, and the Mailing district workhouse, where a handsome chapel was built in 1872. The Kent Nursing Institution have two establishments in the neighbourhood.

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.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for West Malling from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Malling, West, or Town-Malling (St. Mary))

Maps

Online maps of West Malling 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.