Parishes: Charlton

CHARLTON

LIES next to Buckland eastward. It is written in in Domesday, Carlentone, and usually at present Charlton by Dover, to distinguish it from Charlton near Greenwich. This parish lies only part of it in the hundred of Bewsborough, in which the church is situated, and the residue of it in Charlton ward, within the jurisdiction of the cinque ports, and of the corporation of the town and port of Dover.

The borsholder, chosen at the manor of Dudmanscombe, in Buckland, has jurisdiction over that part of this parish within the hundred of Bewsborough.

CHARLTON is situated in the same vale as Buckland, but of a much more pleasant and chearful aspect. The village, with the church, is situated in the valley, about two fields on the left hand of the London road, very near the entrance of the town of Dover; and it extends southward on the other side, and joins Hougham up the Black-horse valley, as it does northward to Guston.

The river Dour, an account of which has already been given before, runs through it eastward, and having turned a corn-mill here, formerly belonging to the priory of Dover, but now to the archbishop, and leased to Mr. Thomas Horne, continues its course on towards Dover harbour. Above the village, which is pleasantly situated in a level of meadow ground, the hills rise northward very high. In the vale beyond which, still further northward of Dover castle, is a wide deep space, called Knights bottom, from the knights belonging to the castle having continually made use of it in former times to exercise their seats of chivalry in. From its situation, and the description of it in ancient writers, somewhere about this place seems to have bid fair for having been the Portus Dubris of the Romans, which is corroborated by the anchors and planks of ships having been dug up near this village, not many years since.

THERE IS AT PRESENT no manor distinguished particularly by the name of the manor of Charlton; the manor of Dover priory claiming over great part of it without the jurisdiction of the cinque ports. But that there was in antient times such a manor, is very certain; for it appears, that THE MANOR OF CHARLTON, at the time of taking the survey of Domesday, was part of the possessions of the canons of St. Martin's priory, in Dover, under the general title of whose lands it is thus entered in it:

In Beusberg hundred. Ralph de S. Sansone holds one manor as a prebend, called Cerlentone, and it is taxed for one suling. There he has three villeins, and four borderers, with one carucate. In the whole it is worth seventy shillings. In the time of king Edward the Confessor, one hundred shillings. Leuuin held it as a prebend.

In the same parish, William the son of Orgerius holds one suling, and there he has one villein, and seven borderers, with half a carucate, and one mill of forty shillings. There a certain Frenchman has one carucate. The Same William holds one church in Dovere of the bishop (of Baieux), and it pays him eleven shillings. The canons dispute it. The whole of this is worth six pounds. In the time of king Edward the Confessor twelve pounds. Sired held it.

This manor, with the rest of the possessions abovedescribed, continued afterwards with the priory of St. Martin, till the general dissolution of it in the 27th year of king Henry VIII. when they were granted with the scite of the priory and other estates of it, in exchange, to the archbishop, part of whose possessions this manor continues at this time. But it has long since lost even the reputation of having been one; and the manor of Dudmanscombe, the scite of which is in the adjoining parish of Buckland, which was formerly part of the possessions of the priory, and was after tho suppression granted as before-mentioned to the archbishop, who claims over a part of this parish, and the waste within it.

The hospital of St. Mary, usually called the Maison Dieu, in Dover, adjoining to the southern bounds of this parish, was possessed of much land in it, which at the suppression of it in king Henry VIII.'s reign, came into the hands of the crown, where these lands remained at the death of king Charles I. when they consisted of three hundred and fifty-one acres, of the improved rent of 1561. per annum, but the whole had been for some time enjoyed by the lieutenant of Dover castle, at the yearly rent of 12l. 10s. 8d. Besides which, the hospital was possessed of other lands in this parish; the particulars of which will be mentioned hereafter, under the account of the hospital, in Dover.

There are no parochial charities.

CHARLTON is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the diocese of Canterbury, and deanry of Dover.

The church, which is a rectory, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, is a very small building, consisting of a body, a high chancel, and a smaller one on the south side. It has a low pointed steeple at the west end, in which there is one small bell. This church has been for many years the burial-place of the family of Monins, the patrons of it. There is a monument for Peter Monins, of Dover, merchant and jurat, obt. 1738. He left a daughter Mary, married to the Rev. Wm. Battely; she died in 1778. Another monument for Richard Monins, A.M. who was patron of this church and of Ringwold thirteen years, master of the king's school, in Canterbury, rector of Rattlesden and Drinkston, in Suffolk, and prebendary of Bristol.

The rectory of this church was formerly accounted a manor and an appendage to the barony of Chilham, and as such, had in earlier times the same possessors. In the reign of king Edward II. Bartholomew de Badlesmere, that great and powerful baron, of Ledescastle, having obtained a grant of the above barony, possessed this church likewise, among others appurtenant to it, and in the 13th year of that reign, having procured the king's licence to found a house of canons regular at Badlesmere, settled this church, as part of its endowment; but by reason of the troubles which quickly afterwards followed, and the lord Badlesmere being attainted and executed, nothing further was done in it, and the design of carrying it forward fell to the ground. After which this church was restored to his son Giles de Badlesmere, among the rest of his father's possessions, in the 7th year of that reign; upon whose death s. p. it came to Maud, his eldest sister and coheir, who entitled her husband John de Vere, earl of Oxford, to it. How long this church continued in this family I have not found; but it appears by the escheat rolls, that Ralph, baron of Graystock, died possessed of it in the 6th year of king Henry V. as did Elizabeth, wife of Ralph Boteler, of Sudeley, in the 2d year of king Edward IV. from which time till the reign of Henry VIII. (fn. 1) I can give no further account of it; only that John Monins, esq. lieutenant of Dover castle, possessed it at the latter end of that reign, who was the second son of John Monins, of Swanton, in Liddon, whose eldest son was of Waldershare, where a further account of his descendants, and of the early part of this family may be seen. He died possessed of it in 1554, in whose descendants, who bore the same arms as those of Waldershare, Gules, three crescents, or, the advowson of it has continued down to John Monins, esq. late of Woodford, in Essex, but now of Canterbury, the present patron of this church, and the only heir male of this antient family, (fn. 2) who married Sarah, the daughter of Mr. John Trice, of Ashford, by whom he has four sons and two daughters.

It is not valued in the king's books. In 1578 it was valued at fifteen pounds. In 1640 at thirty pounds, communicants twenty-four. It is now a discharged living, of about the clear yearly value of thirty-two pounds.

The rector of this parish has only a part of the great tithes arising within it; the remainder being part of the possessions of the archbishop, who demises the same, with lands in this parish, on a beneficial lease, to James Gunmrn, esq. of Dover.

Church of Charton.