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Bicknor was one of the importnat parishes in Our Kentish Genealogy.
Hasted described Bicknor, which borders Stockbury and Bredgar, as "an obscure remote place" in the the woods, consisting of the church of St James, Bicknor, and "only five or six houses." The population was 52 in 1801, and declined to 37 by 1921.
To which Arthur Mee added that the church "may have been there since the Conqueror" and "it is one of the most primitive of all the churches in Kent, for it is built of chalk. The walls are built of chalk blocks; the capitals of the great piers are carved in chalk; it is chalk almost everywhere." ( Arthur Mee, KENT, Hodder & Stoughton edition of 1966, p 43) Bicknor's name is Old English and translated as "slope beyond the pointed hill." Like the neighbouring parish of Stockbury, Bickbury is divided so that the eastern part is in the hundred of Milton and the West in Eyhorne.
The Manor of Bicknor
The earliest reference I can find of the manor dates back to the reign of Edward I, when Sir John de Bicknor held it for half a knight's fee. Roger Crocket talks about his son Thomas in an article about the neighbouring manor of Bredhurst:
"Thomas de Bikenore had been one of the falconers, or hawkers, in the service of Edward I as early as 1272 1. He held Bredhurst manor at least by the end of the century; also the manor of Portbrege, alias Bykenores, in Dartford . His father and his elder brother, both named John, were successively marshals of the king’s hawkers and they trained their birds in their own mews at their manor of Bicknor, only 4½ miles from Bredhurst . Thomas de Bikenore was "beyond seas with the king" in 1286 and he was knighted in 1297-98 . In 1300 Sir Thomas de Bikenore, with his brother John, accompanied Edward I to the seige of Carlaverock in Scotland.
Late in the reign of Edward I, Sir Thomas granted his manor of Bredhurst to Henry Nasard a citizen of London, probably to raise a mortgage18. The grant noted that the manor included a house, courtyard, garden, lands, meadows, pastures, woods and enclosures, ditches and the use of a mill. Tenure was liable to performance of services for the chief lord. Clearly Bikenore did not hold the manor directly from the King, but from the Canterbury monks – or more likely, the Northwoods. We must note that John de Northwood Juniore, the fourth of the Northwood line, was a witness.
Men like Sir Thomas, in frequent attendance on the king, could often be in debt: a Chancery certificate of 1289 shows that he owed £16-14s to Gascon merchants in London. In 1290 he had a debt of £5, to be levied, in default of payment, of his lands and chattels in Kent. In 1305 he owed £10 to the Dean of York. A certificate of 1309 shows a debt of £25 to an alderman of London. In 1310 he owed £50 to a merchant of London. In his later years he married Joan, one of the two daughters and co-heiresses of Hugh de Mortuo Mari and he also acquired a manor in Hereford, held directly from the king 25. However by June 1316, he had died."
Bickner passed through a series of owners (which you can read about here) before King Edward III granted it to St. Mary Graces, on Tower-hill, around 1377.
After the dissolution of St Mary Graces, in 1538, King Henry VIII granted the manor to Christopher Sampson, from whence it passed to Sir Thomas Wyatt the younger in 1548. Wyatt was soldier, who had raised a regiment at his own expense to fight in France. He distinguished himself in at the sieges of Landrecies (1544) and Boulogne (1545). He returned to England in 1550 and henceforth lived at Allington castle, outside Maidstone. Wyatt took it as a slight upon England's honour, when Queen Mary announced her decision to marry King Phillip of Spain in 1554. Only the names of 533 of the 3,000 men he led off to London have been recorded, as a result of subsequent pardons. Though none of them were from Bicknor, there were men from the surrounding parishes of Milton, Borden, Sittingbourne, Hollingbourne, and Stockbury. They might have succeeded, had Queen Mary not been so resolute in her defence of London.
Hasted writes that after Wyatt's defeat Bicknor was given to "Thomas Reader, of Bredgar, yeoman, who about the latter end of Queen Elizabeth's reign conveyed it to William Terry, and he in the reign of James I. partly by sale, and partly on account of alliance, settled the property of it on William Aldersey, descended of an ancient family of that name, settled at Aldersey, in Cheshire. His son, Thomas Aldersey, esq. of Bredgar, gave this manor by his will to his second son Farnham Aldersey, of Maidstone, and he died possessed of it in 1686. His son, of the same name, alienated it, about the year 1718, to Charles Finch, esq. of Chatham, whose daughter and heir Rebecca carried it in marriage to Mr. Thomas Cromp, of Newnham, in Gloucestershire, who was succeeded in it by his only son, the Rev. Pierrepont Cromp, of Frinsted, and he, in 1764, sold it to Abraham Chambers, esq. of Totteridge, in Hertfordshire, who resided here for some time. He died in 1782 ..."
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