The Churchyard and old Church Green

Post date: Jan 01, 2012 4:4:25 PM

The following article was written by The Rev.Grevile Mairis Livett in the Wateringbury Parish Magazine of November 1913. He was vicar for 27 years from 1895 to 1922. The photo below is taken in the Church vestry at Wateringbury and commemorates his work at Rochester Cathedral.

Adverting to the description of the churchyard which was given in the September Parish Magazine it may be well to put on record an agreement subsequently reached whereby Mr. Brocklebank acknowledges the liability of the owner of Wateringbury Place to keep in repair the western boundary wall, while the churchwardens acknowledge themselves responsible for the upkeep of the northern, eastern and southern walls.

Mr. Henry Harris remembers the taking of the Pound into the churchyard, and connects it with the necessity of providing additional grave-space at the time of the cholera epidemic. This is interesting, but it must not be forgotten that influenza also exacted its toll of lives about the same time. The years of the cholera epidemic in England were 1849 and 1854. Influenza raged in 1848 and continued for about a decade with a severe epidemic in 1855, in which year there were 35 deaths in Wateringbury. The average number of deaths for the nine years ending 1856 was 28, and in 1857 the number dropped to 19, the average for the next eight years being only 20. (At the present time the average is 18.) These figures speak for themselves; but they do not help us to fix the exact date of the southward extension of the churchyard and the building of the present wall, which in the September Magazine I ventured to put at about 1853.

The problem seems to be complicated by the fact that along the west side of the pathway and in the added portion of the churchyard there are five flat slabs to the memory of Knowles King and his children, three of which bear date earlier than 1853. There is no difficulty with regard to the slab of Knowles King himself, which lies nearest to the old boundary line and records his death in 1871 and that of his wife Carey Elizabeth in 1892. This slab must have been placed where it is in or after 1871: its lettering is worn as if by the feet of people constantly passing over it to enter the church, and I am inclined to think that its original resting-place may have been in or near the porch, where there are memorials of other members of the family. The four children's slabs are dated 1848, 1844, 1849, and 1854 in the order here quoted, the last-named (1854) being next to that of the parents. Three of them are identical in size, rather smaller than the father's, while the fourth (1848), which is next to the boundary wall, is similar in character but still smaller in size. The lettering on all four is practically identical, it is deeply cut, and remains clear and sharp, not worn by footsteps. The inference is that they were all made at or about the same time, and placed here by the widow after the death of the father. The fact that the one next to the wall is smaller than the others and bears a date that comes between two of them suggests that in the original order for the making of the slabs the record of this child was unintentionally omitted, and that the omission was made good soon after the other slabs had been made and placed in position. The date of these slabs, therefore, is not inconsistent with the conclusion that the churchyard was enlarged in or about the year 1853.

In the rate books of that period the situation of the house now called The Beck is noted as "Church Green"; and in the Schedule attached to the Apportionment of the, Rent-charges in lieu of Tithes, made in 1840, there are two entries, first that of the "house and lawn" owned by M. P. Lucas and occupied by G. T. Langridge, and then that of the plot of land to the south of it, which appears in the column headed Name and description of Lands and Premises as "Church Green", and the column headed State of Cultivation as " Garden."

There can be little doubt that in olden days the road ran past the Church, without bounding hedge or ditch, through a village green which adjoined the churchyard to the north and on south included the site of the house and its lawn and garden, being bounded on the east and south east by the brook or beck which now runs through .the garden,, but which formerly (as the 1828 map shows) separated it from " Mill Meadow", a strip of which has been taken into the garden.

I do not know when the house was built, and I may be mistaken in drawing from these facts the inference that some Lord of the Manor in the olden days quietly appropriated the southern part of Church Green. Judging from the map of 1828 and the Tithe Apportionment I fancy that the site of the house, with the lawn to the north and east of it, was first appropriated, and that the site of the ‘Garden’ to the south was left an open green for a considerable period. This idea is confirmed by the wall bounding the east side of the "house and lawn", in that it runs only a short distance down the lane, and then ceases; and it would account for the Garden retaining the traditional name of Church Green at the time of the Apportionment.

In 1828 the road that now leads from the highway down to Upper Mill Farm was closed by a gate at its upper end, and ran, as it does now, between wall and railing for about 45 yards from the highroad and then opened on to Mill Meadow, through which it followed its present line, but without hedge on either side, down to the Mill Pond. The gate stood about ten yards from the highway. A large stone on which apparently it hung or closed still remains just behind the iron railings in the garden of "Thatched Cottage"(successively called "Swiss Cottage" and "Grace Dieu").

Mr. Jer. Harris and others have drawn my attention to the site of the Westbury Manor Pound, which stands by the side of Old Road on the left of the entrance to Manor Farm. The Pound was a small square enclosure, measuring only 18 feet each way. Remains of the wooden palings still exist. It is said to have been used for the last time about thirty years ago.

For more information about the Tithe Survey and map referred to in the above see Wateringbury Tithe Survey.