Chartham, Kent

Description
Chartham, a village and a parish in Kent. The village stands on the river Stour and S.E.R., 66 miles from London, and 3 1/4 SW of Canterbury, under which it has a post, money order, and telegraph office. It was known at Domesday as Certeham ; it occupies a low site round a green, and it contains a house built by Dr Delangle, a French refugee who became rector here, and marked by a bust of Charles II. The parish includes Hortou, the hamlets of Chartham-Hatch and Shalmsford Street. Acreage, 4569 ; population, 2641. The manor was given in 1871 to Christ Church, Canterbury, belongs now to the Chapter there, and is still called the Deanery. Chartham Downs, above the village, have remains of a number of tumuli, called Danes' Banks, and are marked by lines of ancient entrenchments. One of the earliest discoveries of great fossil bones, giving rise to the modern science of palaeontology, was made in 1668 at Chartham, in the sinking of a well. The East Kent Lunatic Asylum was erected in 1875 on Chartham Downs, and will hold 900' patients. A large paper mill is at the back of the village. The living is a rectory, with the chapelry of Horton annexed, in the diocese of Canterbury ; net value, o£501 with residence. Patron, the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church is cruciform, variously Early and Decorated English, has rare and very beautiful tracery in the windows, and an embattled tower at the west end, and contains brasses, monumental slabs, a monument of Dr Delangle, and an elaborate monument by Eysbrack of Sir William Young. There are Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels.