Crayford, Kent

Description
Crayford, a village and a parish in Kent. The village stands on the rivulet Cray, with a station on the S.E.R., 14 miles from London, and 1 1/4 mile W by N of Dartford, and has a post, money order, and telegraph office (S.O.) Acreage of the civil parish, 2457 of land, and 173 of tidal water and foreshore; population, 5268 ; of the ecclesiastical, 4266. It was once a market-town, and it still has a fair on 24 August. It is the Creccanford of the Saxon Chronicle, and was the scene of the battle in 457 between Hengist and Vortigern. The parish includes also the hamlets of North-end and Slade-Green. The manor belonged at Domesday to the see of Canterbury. May Place, which is a building partly of the time of James I., was the seat of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel. Numerous caverns of great depth, with narrow mouths but ample vaulted interior, exist in chalk rocks in Bexley parish and the neighbouring heaths, and are thought by many persons to have been formed by the ancient Britons for retreat in the time of war. Some large establishments for silk manufacture and tanning are on the rivulet near the village. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Canterbury; value, £510. The church, dedicated to St Paulinus, is ancient, but has been restored. There are Baptist and Roman Catholic chapels, some almshouses, and a village hall.