Westerham, Kent

Historical Description

Westerham, a small town and a parish in Kent. The town stands on a gentle acclivity, with a station on the S.E.R., 25 miles from London, and 5½ W of Sevenoaks, and a post, money order, and telegraph office. It was the birthplace of the martyr Frith, Bishop Hoadley, General Wolfe, and Dean Coomber, is a pleasant place, and has a hotel, a public hall and corn market built in 1866, a fine large church, a Congregational chapel, a suite of twelve almshonses erected in 1874, a weekly market on Wednesday, and a fair on 3 May. The parish includes Crockham hamlet. Acreage, 5804; population of the civil parish, 2631; of the ecclesiastical, 2061. The manor was given by Edward I. to Westminster Abbey, passed to the Greshams and the Wardes, and, with Squerryes Court, belongs now to the Warde family. Valence and Dunsdale are handsome residences in the neighbourhood. Landslips occurred in the greensand hills here in 1596 and 1756. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury; net value, £225 with residence. The church is a building of stone in the Perpendicular style, contains numerous brasses and memorials, and has been restored at a cost of £5000. The vicarage of Crockham is a separate benefice.

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.

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 Westerham from the following:

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

Maps

Online maps of Westerham 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.