Village History

The History of Egerton Village

Egerton is Parish with just under 1000 inhabitants today, mostly concentrated in the village centre on the Greensand Ridge or in Egerton Forstal down on The Weald. Almost every type of domestic architecture is evident in the village, from Medieval Hall Houses, Yeoman Houses and Kentish Barns to modern bungalows, detached houses, and semi-detached houses. Despite this diversity of styles and ages, and some relatively large scale housing development in recent decades, the predominant style remains red brick with plain tile, hipped roofing.

The oldest surviving houses in the village date from about the Fifteenth Century, but the presence of the Church with Medieval origins clearly indicates that the settlement is older than it appears. Research by the Egerton Local History Group identifies a farmstead called Eegheard’s dating from before the Twelfth Century and then a community called Eardington. The use of the ‘ton’ ending is a common Saxon reference to a hill top settlement.

Many of our Churches occupy pre-Christian sites, and the prominence of this particular site suggests that a hill top farming community could have been established here for much longer. Evidence of a Second Century Roman burial site with pottery sherds was discovered at Coldharbour Farm to the West of the village. However, the oldest structure must be the round barrow in the field to the east of the village, which is a scheduled Ancient Monument, and thought to be of Bronze Age origin (2500-701BC). However, even older archaeological finds include a Neolitithic (4000- 2201 BC) adze near Field Mill to the north of the village, a Neolithic axe at Munday Bois to the south of the village and a Late Mesolithic (10,000- 4001BC) pick at Kingsland Farm, also to the south.

The oldest surviving houses are surprisingly not all clustered in the centre of the village around the Church, but actually spread out along other roads and often some distance away. Link House to the west of the village is a Kentish Yeoman’s hall house dating from at least the Fifteenth Century. Such scattering indicates the importance of farming in the Parish with homesteads built where the land was worked. Damp pasture would be available on the Wealden clays south of the village and richer soils would support arable farming on the better drained soils on the Greensand Ridge. This pattern is broadly unchanged today, with orchards and crops on the high ground and largely livestock grazing on the lower fields.

The supply of water is also a crucial factor and many of the original houses occupy sites where spring water emerged from the ragstone bedrock. For example, Spring Cottage in Rock Hill Road is one of the oldest houses in the village itself, although some of the remote farmhouses in the Parish date from similar times. Also, evidence has been found at Field Mill by the Great Stour of some (probably ecclesiastical) Post Medieval buildings. Wind power would also have been important in the past and the there are remains of a Post Medieval smock mill, currently off Stone Hill, which once stood near the Parish Church.

Overall there are 80 Listed Buildings (or structures) in the Parish of Architectural and/or Historic Interest, and although there is a concentration of them in the village centre, most of them interestingly are outside the village itself.

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