Farnborough (Kent) Parish History
Reproduced from 'The
Church Guide Book' - to be updated 2003
FARNBOROUGH, Kent, to be
distinguished from the better known Farnborough in Hampshire and from places of
the same name in Berkshire and Warwickshire, is a village on the high road to
Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Hastings, 14 miles from London, and about 350 feet
above sea level. It lies on the northern slope of the North Downs, partly on the
chalk and partly on the edge of the Thames basin. Bones of the mammoth have been
found in the flint pit on Green-Street-Green, and palaeolithic flint implements
are plentifully scattered over the fields. A small piece of common is known as
Leach's Green from the family of the same name, still resident, whose house
adjoining the common was only pulled down when the present Board School was
built. The name does not appear in the register before 1775.
In an Anglo-Saxon Charter of AD 862,
Ethelbert, King of Wessex gave to his
minister, Dryhtwald, ten hides of land, about 1200 acres, in Fearn Biorg,
The ‘The Domesday Monachorum’ is an
ancient book in the archives of Canterbury Cathedral. It was compiled on the
orders of Archbishop Lanfranc when he came into office in 1070. This book
contains a list of churches which paid a ‘Chrisom Fee’ to their
diocesan bishop for the ‘consecrated oil’ he supplied for use during
Christenings. Christening had to take place in the church of the parish in
which one was born - even today you need your parish priest's permission to be
baptised elsewhere - and the size of the fee reflected the value of the parish.
Parishes with a resident priest were listed as Churches and those without a
priest were listed as Chapels to the parish where the priest resided. ‘Faernberga’
paid 6d as ‘Chrisome fee’ as a Chapel to Chelsfield. Research has
shown that the list in the Domesday Monachorum is a Saxon list, hurriedly found
and copied out to meet the instructions of the Archbishop. (Many churches known
to have existed in 1070 are missing). Farnborough Church existed before 1070,
perhaps as a wooden structure (like Greenstead Ongar, in Essex), which had
either fallen down or was considered of no value when the Domesday Survey was
made in 1085.
Bishop Gundulf became Bishop of Rochester in 1077
and he recorded in his Chronicle that he received the Tithes from both
Chelsfield and Farnborough. He also recorded that Tithes had been bestowed on
the Bishoprick by Arnulf of Chelsfield, who appears in the Domesday Book of 1085
as Arnulf of Hesdin, Lord of the Manors of Chelsfield and Farnborough. In 1085,
the income of the Manor of Chelsfield was some twenty times larger than that of
the Manor of Farnborough, so Arnulf would have made his headquarters at
Chelsfield with his Priest residing there. Neither Chelsfield nor Farnborough
are recorded as having a church in Domesday times.
It is recorded in Bishop Courteneye’s register of 1385 that John de
Dountone was Rector of Farnborough only, an occurrence which did not happen
again until John Montague was ‘put in [as Rector of Farnborough] by
parliament’ during the Commonwealth period in 1650.
1538 saw the introduction of the Parish Register and each Parish had to
provide One Book into which all the Baptisms, Marriages and Burials that took
place in the Parish were to be entered. The top of the first page of the
Farnborough Register reads:
‘ Matrimonia Baptismata et Septurae in Farnbro
Tempore
Regis Henrici 80 incoat 30 A0 ejus
Regni et AO Dm. 1538 '
The second line states that it was the 80th order issued in the 30th year of
the reign of King Henry the VIII in the year of Our Lord, 1538.
King Henry’s introduction of Parish Registers caused alarm at first as
people thought it was being done to produce a Taxation Register, but it was his
son Edward VI who ordered an inventory of the goods in each parish to be made
every three years. In 1552, the Churchwardens, John Lambe & John Marshall,
‘of the parishe Church of Farneborowe’
showed to the King's inspectors, one Communion Cup, a Brass Cross, two Copes, two
altar frontals, a large Bible and a book of Erasmus. They also showed them three
bells in the steeple. The inspectors gave them a clean sheet, certified that
they had no ‘Popish’ items in their charge and that they had not illegally
disposed of any of the church’s property. The local Rural Dean carries on this
type of survey annually to this day.
Farnborough’s original paper Register in which, apart from the required
entries, information was recorded of the change of Kings and Rectors and other
interesting facts, is still in existence. The first entry of this kind is a
change of Rector, recorded in 1576:
‘ Septembris 18, 1576, Gulielmo Gybbins,
sepulto, Rector ecclesiae Chelsfield et Farnborough,
cur. Successit Georgeius Smith, Artium Mr.
Collegii Alsol. Oxon, socius 300 Aetatis
do caturiae natus’.
This states, in Latin, that in 1576 William Gibbins, the previous Rector had
died and had been succeeded by George Smith, Master of Arts of All Souls,
Oxford, aged 30 years. At this time, Farnborough Parish and Chelsfield Parish
constituted a Combined Benefice, a long-standing arrangement which continued
almost to the end of the 19th century. This meant that the revenues of both
parishes were paid to the same priest, who was Rector of both Parishes, each
having its own Registers, Churchwardens and Parish Officers. George Smith, named
here in the Register, was the first of three generations to be Rector of both
parishes, being succeeded by his son, George Smith II, and by his grandson,
George Smith III, who died in 1650 during the time of the Commonwealth
(1640-1660). On his death, Parliament installed John Montague as Rector of
Farnborough and Robert Miller as Rector of Chelsfield. On Charles II’s
Accession in 1660, all the Acts of the Commonwealth Parliaments were declared
non existent and the two parishes once more became a combined benefice, with its
previous patron, and Robert Miller became the Rector of both parishes.
As Farnborough was the poorer of the two parishes, the Rectors spent most of
their time in Chelsfield, some having left not even a signature in the Parish
Registers, the parish work being left to the Curate they had appointed. Thus it
reveals that Robert Jegon, who was Curate for many years in the 18th century,
recorded in the Parish Register that he had paid the Duty up to date to Thomas
Jones, the official collector. This Duty was a Tax which in 1694, was 2
shillings for every birth registered, 4 shillings for each funeral and 2
shillings and 6 pence for each wedding, plus annual tax of 1 shilling on each
bachelor and widow living in the parish. The Tax was simplified in 1794, with a
charge of 3 pence for every entry in the Church Register.
Lord Hardwick’s Act of 1753 saw the introduction of an official book of
marriage forms. Farnborough partially complied with the act but the existing
Marriage Register was ruled up in the same way as the official forms, and
continued to be used. The official book was obtained somewhat later than
officially required.
The Rector at this time was Charles Meetkirke who had been presented to the
bishop by his cousin Adolphus Meetkirke, who had obtained the Avowson (the right
to present a new Rector to the parish when the living became vacant) from Thomas
Norton, Lord of the Manor of Chelsfield. The Avowson had been held with the
Lordship of the Manor of Chelsfield since the time of the Norman Conquest.
Charles Meetkirke was invested in 1751 and succeeded by Adolphus who, soon after,
disposed of the right of presentation to All Soul’s College, Oxford, who were to
provide future incumbents for some time. On his death in 1774, Charles Meetkirke
chose to be buried in Farnborough rather than Chelsfield and he lies today in
front of the Altar, facing his parishioners. His ledger stone reads:
‘Here lies Inter’d the Body of Charles
Meet Keske, LL.B., rector of Chelsfield
with Farnborough, and Died Lamented. The
11 day of February, 1774. In the
64th year of his age. Also the
body of Ann, his wife, Daughter of
William Mant, Gent., who Died the 25th
Day of Novr., 1773, Aged 51 years.’
John Edward Tarleton became Rector in 1834, and in 1840 a
tithe survey was
carried out. The income from the Tithes amounted to about £30 and the area of
the Parish was the same as that given to Dryhtwald in 862 by the King of Wessex.
This income was by 1849, when Folliot Baugh became Rector, judged sufficient to
support an incumbent, so on his retirement the Benefice was divided and each
parish has had its own Rector from that date.
George William Hingston became Rector in 1876 and over the next few years
many changes were to take place. The Parish Vestry consisting of the Rector,
Churchwardens and Overseers, who had had to carry out all civil duties in the
parish, such as raising local taxes, looking after the poor and repairing the
roads, was replaced by an Act of Parliament in 1894, by an elected, (Civil)
Parish Council, whose area of administration was the same as the Ecclesiastical
Parish.
In the case of Farnborough, this Civil Parish became combined with other
Civil Parishes to form Orpington Urban District Council, later to become part of
the London Borough of Bromley.
In 1938, the part of the Parish to the south of Shire Lane was detached to
form, along with part of the Parishes of Chelsfield and Knockholt, the new
Parish of Green Street Green. This was probably the first change in the
boundaries of the Parish since it came into being.
After the Second World War, the Parish began to grow in numbers. New housing
developments were established and by the 1950s it was recognized that an
additional place of worship was needed to serve the increasing number of
parishioners now resident on ‘the other side of the Parish’, cut off by the
bypass. On Sunday 22nd June, 1958 ‘The New Hall Church’, situated in
Leamington Avenue, was opened and dedicated.
Ten years later the Hall was re-named St. Nicholas’ Church Hall.
Please see St. Nicholas' History.
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