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Small Hythe

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Coordinates: 51°02′29″N 0°41′58″E / 51.0414°N 0.6994°E / 51.0414; 0.6994
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Small Hythe
St John's Church
Small Hythe is located in Kent
Small Hythe
Small Hythe
Location within Kent
District
Shire county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townTenterden
Postcode districtTN30
PoliceKent
FireKent
AmbulanceSouth East Coast
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Kent
51°02′29″N 0°41′58″E / 51.0414°N 0.6994°E / 51.0414; 0.6994

Small Hythe (or Smallhythe) is a hamlet near Tenterden in Kent, England. The population is included in Tenterden.

It stood on a branch of the Rother estuary and was a busy shipbuilding port in the 15th century, before the silting up and draining of the Romney Marshes. Small Hythe's quays and warehouses were destroyed in a fire in 1514 and were never rebuilt.[1]

History

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The area of Small Hythe was still on the coast in Roman times. At that time (1st to 3rd Century AD[2]) there was already an important port from which timber and iron were supposedly shipped to the continent, and a small settlement, as evidenced by finds of Roman bricks and an earthen figurine of Mercury that were excavated there.[3]

This broad expanse of farmland was once an estuary and the location of an important ferry crossing to the Isle of Oxney (the rising land in the background)[4]

Small Hythe was within the medieval hundred of Tenterden, which does not appear to have existed at the time of the Domesday Book. It is first mentioned in about 1300 and received a charter in 1449 from Henry VI.[5]

Small Hythe lay on a branch of the River Rother. The settlement was made accessible to seagoing craft in the 1330s when the Knelle dam—an earthen bank at Wittersham Levels in the lower Rother valley (grid reference TQ 852 269[6]) constructed to deflect floodwater from the holdings of local landowner Geoffrey de Knelle—diverted the main course of the river around the north of Oxney island.[7] Large sea-going warships were built on the river banks from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries, with associated ship-breaking for reuse of fittings and timber. The ready supply of timber from the Weald made this isolated community one of the most important shipbuilding centres, other than the major ports, in the country.[8][9]

The town of Tenterden was given the status of a Limb of the Cinque Ports, with its consequent relief from taxation, in acknowledgement of providing royal warships built in Small Hythe.[10] A storm of 1636 carried away the dam and the river returned to its former course. Small craft were still able to reach Small Hythe until gradual silting put an end to this, early in the twentieth century.[11]

Small Hythe appears as "Smalide" in the legal dispute about land in Tenterden and Small Hythe in 1460, and as "Smallitt" in the eighteenth century.[12][13]

Notable residents

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Robert Brigandyne (or Brickenden), Keeper of the King's Ships to both Henry VII and Henry VIII, the supervisor of the construction of Mary Rose, Peter Pomegranate and Great Harry, lived and worked at the Priest's House, Small Hythe.[14][15] Actress Ellen Terry lived at Smallhythe Place between 1899 and her death in 1928. It is now managed by the National Trust and houses her collection of theatrical memorabilia and a small theatre.[16]

  • Priest's House
    Priest's House
  • Smallhythe Place
    Smallhythe Place

References

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  1. ^ Maxwell, Donald (1921). Unknown Kent. London: John Lane. p. 53. OCLC 563664569.
  2. ^ Stuart Maisner: Smallhythe Place: Rare Roman head of Mercury found during dig, bbc.com, February 23rd, 2024
  3. ^ Esther Addley: ‘Very rare’ clay figurine of Mercury discovered at Roman site in Kent, theguardian.com, February 23rd, 2024
  4. ^ Dickens, Naomi (2013). "Smallhythe ferry crossing". Tenterden through time. Stroud: Amberley. ISBN 9781445621197.
  5. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Tenterden" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 635–636.
  6. ^ Kent LXXIX.14 (Map). 1:2500. 25-inch England and Wales. Ordnance Survey. 1898.
  7. ^ Sweetinburgh, Sheila (2010). Later medieval Kent, 1220-1540. Woodbridge, England: Boydell Press. p. 74. ISBN 9780851155845.
  8. ^ Rose, Susan (2013). England's medieval Navy, 1066-1509 : ships, men & warfare. Montreal, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press. pp. 81–82. ISBN 9780773543225.
  9. ^ Gardiner, Mark (2007). Blair, John (ed.). Waterways and canal-building in medieval England. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 94–96. ISBN 9780199217151.
  10. ^ Gibson, James M., ed. (2002). Records of early English Drama: Kent : Diocese of Canterbury. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. p. xlvi. ISBN 9780802087263.
  11. ^ "Shipbuilding at Smallhythe Place". National Trust. Retrieved 5 July 2022.
  12. ^ Plea Rolls of the Court of Common Pleas; year: 1460; CP40/788; image seen on: http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT1/H6/CP40no799/bCP40no799dorses/IMG_1721.htm ; second line of the entry, with "kanc" in the margin
  13. ^ "The hundred, town and parish of Tenterden". British History Online. Retrieved 11 February 2010.
  14. ^ "The port community of Smallhythe │ Kent". National Trust. Retrieved 1 January 2024.
  15. ^ Hewerdine, Anita (2020). The Yeomen of the Guard and the Early Tudors. I. B. Tauris. p. 156. ISBN 9781350162228.
  16. ^ "National Trust – Smallhythe Place". www.nationaltrust.org.uk. Retrieved 1 November 2018.
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Media related to Small Hythe at Wikimedia Commons


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