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Return for year "beginning 3 of October 1591."

The 30 of October (1591) was christened Rodolphe ffinche, sonn of Thomas ffinch, gent.

The first of October (1592) christened Thomas Finch, sonn of John ffinche. (The Return for 1594-5 is wanting.)

Return for year (as endorsed in modern hand) 1595-6.

The 4th of Aprill (1596) was christened Harbart ffynche,sonne of John ffynch junior, gent.

Return for year "beginning x of October 1596;" (endorsed in modern hand 1596-7.)

The 7 of October (1597) was buryed Thomas finche, sonn of Mr Jhon ffinche, gent.

(The Returns for 1600-1, 1601-2, 1602-3, and 1603-4 are wanting.)

Return for year "from 13 Oct. 1605." Burials-May the 9th (1606) Joane

Roper, widow of Thomas Roper, of
Tenham.

(The Return for 1606-7 is wanting.)
Return from "Mich. 1621 to ditto
1622."

October the 21 (1622) Mary ffynch,
daug. of Mr William.

Return from "29 Sep. 1623 to
ditto 1624."

Under Baptisms-March the 29 (1624)
Elizabeth ffynch, ye daug. of Will.,
gent.
Burials-Jvne the 20 (1624) Jone
ffynch, widdow, gent.

Return from "29 Sep. 1626 to ditto
1627."

Jone, the daughter of John ffynch,
was buried ye 24 of October 1626.
Return from "27 Sep. 1627 to ditto
1628."

William ffynche, gent., was buried
the 22 of October 1627.

William, the sonn of Mr William
ffynche, deceased, was baptized the
11 of November 1627.

ENTRIES EXTRACTED FROM THE PARISH REGISTER OF
SELLING.

Margrett ffinch was buried the xxijth
day of Maye A° Dom' 1562.

A° 1591, Mary ffinch, the doughter of William ffinch, gent., was bapt. the vjth day of June.

A° 1592, Thomas ffinch, sonne of William ffinch, gent., was bapt. the ixth of September.

A° 1594, Robert ffinch, sonne of Wil-
liam flinch, gent., was bapt. the
seconde of June.

A° 1597, Margrett ffinch, doughter of
William ffinch, gent., was bap. the
xxxth day of Juley.

PARISH REGISTER OF SHELDWICH.

Anno Domini 1571-Peter Greenestret and ffraunces ffinche* weare maried the 14 of Julie.

* According to a Pedigree in Heralds' College she was the daughter of John, not Thomas Finch of Faversham (Berry's Genealogies, Kent, p. 469). Her first husband Peter Greenstreet, gent.. owner of the Manors of Plumford and Paynters, in Ospringe, died in March 1585-86 (Chancery Inq. p.m. Ao 28 Elizab., part 1, No. 67) and in February 1586-87* she married, secondly, Dr. John Langworth, Prebendary of Canterbury, by whom she had another family. She died in 1633, and in her Will, proved in the Consistory Court at Canterbury, mentions her sons and daughters, the Greenstreets, and also some of their children, her grandchildren. By above Peter she had issue John, Simon, Elizabeth, George, Martha, and Peter (born after his father's death).

*Parish Register of Ospringe. 1586-The last day of ffebeuary was maryed John Langworth, doctor of Diuinitie, and Fraunces Grenestret, widowe.

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ROMNEY, OLD AND NEW.

THE SAXON VILLE OF ST. MARTIN.

THE various writers who have dealt with the history of Romney have failed to gather, and put before their readers, the records of New Romney's most ancient Ville of St. Martin, which was a limb of the manor of Aldington.

Aldington manor had several outlying members, and among the most important of them were Lydd, St. Martin de Northene, and Southne. Their relative antiquity, it is difficult to determine. The actual name of Lydd is not mentioned, in extant records, until King Offa, in A.D. 774, gave to Archbishop Jambert, and to Christ Church, three sulings of land, in the western part "regionis quæ dicitur Mersuuare, ubi nominatur ad Liden."* Yet we find that Lydd's nucleus, Bishopswic, and its adjunct the Ripe, are named in an earlier charter by which, in A.D. 740-1, King Ethilberht granted, to Christ Church, a fishery at the mouth of the river Liminaea, "et partem agri in qua situm oratorium Sancti Martini, cum edibus piscatorum."+

The situation of this oratory of St. Martin, at the mouth of the river Liminaea, connects it with the name of Romney as first mentioned in a charter of King Wihtraed, dated circa A.D. 700, or 715. By it, he granted to St. Mary's Basilica, at Liminge, four ploughlands, called Pleghelmestun, "juxta notissimos terminos, id est Bereueg et Meguuinespæth et Stretleg; terrule quoque partem eiusdem, di' genetrici beatæ Mariæ similiter in perpetuum possidendam perdono, cuius uocabulum est Ruminingseta, ad pastum uidelicet ouium trecentorum, ad australe' quippe fluminis quæ appellatur Liminaea;

* Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus, Cart. 122.
† Ibidem, Cart. 86 and 1003.

terminos uero huius terrule ideo non ponimus, quoniam ab accolis undique certi sunt. In the latter site, among the Ruminingseta, on the south side of the river, we probably have that member of Aldington manor which was afterwards called Southne, and Old Romney. St. Martin's oratory was on the north side of the river.

The site which was, in the seventh and eighth centuries, identified with the oratory of St. Martin, appears in later records as the Ville of St. Martin; and from it the Hundred of St. Martin derived its name.

On page 4 of the Kent portion of Domesday Book, part of the survey of Aldington, in Limowart Lath, runs thus:

"The archbishop himself holds the Ville called St. Martin's; it belongs to Estursete, and lies in that hundred; it was taxed for one suling and an half. The arable land is .... In desmesne, there are two carucates, and thirty-six borderers. To this land there belong seven burgesses in Canterbury, paying eight shillings and four pence. There are five mills of 20s., and a small wood."

"In this ville, Radulphust holds half a suling of the Archbishop, and there he has two carucates and a half. In the time of King Edward the Confessor, the half suling of St. Martin was worth £7, and the other half suling was worth £4."

"In Romenel there are [quater xx] four score and five burgesses who belong to Aldinton, the Archbishop's manor; and they were, and are now, worth to the lord £6.”

This description, of the Ville of St. Martin, occurs in the midst of the detailed survey of Aldington; after the mention of its church, its fisheries, and its wood; and before the enumeration of its burgesses in Romney, and of its limbs in Stowting (Estotinges) and Lympne (Limes, now Wilhope).

It should be remarked that Midley, and the Ville of St. Martin, at Romney, are both within one Hundred, namely the Hundred of St. Martin. The Domesday Survey does not give it that name; but, when speaking of Midley, it calls

Kemble's Codex Diplomaticus, vol. i., p. 54, Cart. 47, endorsed in later Anglo-Saxon hand, “rumening seta inn to liming mynster." The name of the town would be more correctly spelt if written Rumney.

† Probably Ralph de Curbespine, alias Crook'dthorne, whose name clung for centuries to the manor of Crowthorne, in Hope All Saints, where there was a manorial Free Chapel of St. Mary during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

this Hundred "Estrei ;"* and, when speaking of the Ville of St. Martin, the survey calls this Hundred "Estursete."

With reference to a different locality, Hasted has pointed out that a similar name was probably derived from the Latin Estuarium, an estuary. In the cases of Midley, and of Romney (St. Martin), which were situated upon an estuary, it is only needful to mention such a derivation; its fitness and probability will at once be acknowledged. This incidental matter becomes interesting, because it seems to shew that the name of the Hundred of St. Martin was not generally used until after the Norman Conquest. As there was a manor called Esture, near Chilham; a Lath and a Hundred called Estrei, near Sandwich; and a Hundred in the lath of Borowart (now St. Augustine's), then called Estursete, now named Westgate, beside Canterbury; we can understand that convenience required the substitution of a different name for this Hundred in the Lath of Limowart (now Shipway) in which Midley and Romney St. Martin were situated. Nothing could have been more appropriate than the new name which was adopted, that of St. Martin.

Hasted, being perplexed by the Domesday mention of the Ville of St. Martin, and being ignorant of the ancient foundation of St. Martin's Oratory, near the estuary at Romney, has fallen into a curious error. He has not endeavoured to identify the Ville of St. Martin, by its surroundings, in the Domesday Survey, which places it in Limowart Lath and connects it with Aldington Manor, with Estursete hundred, and with burgesses in Romenel as well as in Canterbury. Ignoring all these points, he has suggested that the entry alludes to a manor of Caldicot,† or Calcott, at the east end of Canterbury. As this manor had no connection whatever with Aldington, and as it was not in the Lath of Limo

*Land called Estretone is mentioned in the Domesday Survey as lying in Newchurch Hundred, within Limowart Lath. Its name suggests some connection with the name Estrei. Domesday says "the hundred and the burgesses of Dover, and the tenants of the Abbot of St. Augustine and Estrea Lest testify this, that the land of Estretone, which the Canons of St. Martin of Dover claimed against Hugo de Montfort, that Ulwile Wilde held it in fee simple in the time of King Edward the Confessor, and it was taxed at one yoke, and there he has one carucate in demesne, and five borderers with one carucate, and one mill of 20s. It is, and was, worth £10."

†There is an estate of this name in Lydd also.

wart, we are surprised that he should have permitted himself to be so misled. No doubt he was thrown off his guard by the statement that to this Ville, of the Archbishop of Canterbury, appertained seven burgesses in Canterbury (ad hane terram pertinent 7 burgenses in Cantuaria, reddentes 8 sol., et 4 den.). The next words, alone, might have preserved him from this error. "Ibi 5 molendina de 20 sol., et parva silva."* The manor of Calcott in Canterbury could not well have had five mills, and a little wood, in the year 1086.

At Romney, five mills are mentioned, in the town records, for the years 1390-98; three in Hope ward, and two in High Mill ward. Two other mills are, in 1408, mentioned in Hospital ward; viz: Spitlemelle and Loverotismelle. As to the little wood, in St. Martin's Ville, we know that the name of one ward in Romney was Hamersnoth, a name which must have been derived from a wood; and very strict regulations were made by the Jurats of New Romney against the unlawful cutting of trees. The district around Romney was not always so bare as it now is. In A.D. 740 King Ethilberht's charter describes "a wood called Ripp or Rhip," as bounding, on the Sussex side, a pasture near Bishopswic, in Lydd; and other records state that trees have been found buried, in the Sompe, at Old Romney. During the course of eleven centuries, the surface soil here has been entirely changed in character.

We do not find, extant, any further record of St. Martin's Ville, or Hundred, until we come to the List of Holders of Knights' Fees in Kent, in 38 Henry III, A.D. 1254. Therein, we read this description of the Lestus, or Lath, of Schipweye:-"In eodem Lesto sunt Hundreda, scilicet Oxenal, Aloluesbrugge, Hundredum de Sancto Martino, Langeport, Wurthe, Newecherche, Hamme, Strate, Aldyntone, Stutingtone, Hean, Nonyberghe, ffolke

*These particulars are omitted from a manuscript, (printed as No. XL in the Appendix to Somner's Antiquities of Canterbury, Part 1), which purports to give extracts from Domesday book. In that manuscript, this entry is both mutilated and separated from its true context. It is inserted among the details of the manor of Stursæte, instead of standing in the midst of the details of Aldington manor as it does in Domesday book. Hasted may perhaps have been misled by this manuscript, yet he has himself printed the entry correctly in his account of Aldington (Hist. of Kent, vol. viii., 318).

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