Ulcombe

Last updated

Ulcombe, Kent
All Saints' Church, Ulcombe - geograph.org.uk - 74189.jpg
Kent UK location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Ulcombe, Kent
Location within Kent
Population890 (2011 Civil Parish including Chegworth) [1]
OS grid reference TQ846497
Shire county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town Maidstone
Postcode district ME17
Dialling code 01622
Police Kent
Fire Kent
Ambulance South East Coast
UK Parliament
List of places
UK
England
Kent
51°13′01″N0°38′33″E / 51.21708°N 0.64257°E / 51.21708; 0.64257

Ulcombe is a village near the town of Maidstone in Kent, England. The name is recorded in the Domesday Book and is thought to derive from 'Owl-coomb': [2] 'coomb' (pronounced 'coo-m') meaning 'a deep little wooded valley; a hollow in a hill side' (Chambers Dictionary) in Old English. The original deserted Medieval village site lies to the east of the parish church in a valley. There is also a water-mill below this site, probably of early origins. It stands below the Greensand Way.

Contents

There is much evidence from recent archaeological fieldwork, undertaken under the direction of Neil Aldridge, for prehistoric and later occupation. A number of Palaeolithic hand-axes have been found to the east of Great Tong Bank, and are the result of solifluction over the last 70,000 years from an earlier river system. Lithic implements from the Mesolithic, Bronze Age and Neolithic periods show that the landscape was being used by early settlers. The Iron Age is the period when the local deposits of iron ore were being smelted and this continued into the Roman occupation of the 1st-3rd century AD. Near Jubilee Corner an Iron Age cremation cemetery was excavated along with an iron smelting site. A later Roman occupation site lay to the north, when excavated, two timber buildings, one of sill-beam construction, were recorded. [3]

The old village hall was dismantled and re-erected at the Museum of Kent Life, Sandling, having been made redundant by the construction of a new building. [4]

The manor of Ulcombe belonged to the St Leger family.

All Saints Church is a 12th-century Grade I listed building. It includes monuments of the St. Leger family, the Marquess and Marchioness of Ormonde, and Lady Sarah Wandesford, daughter of the Earl of Carrick.

In the 16th and 17th centuries Ulcombe was the location of a bell foundry run by three generations of the Hatch family, whose output included the bell known as "Bell Harry", after which the central tower of Canterbury Cathedral is known. [5]

In 2012, Hill House (a private house) won the Minor Residential category of the Kent Design Awards. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Great and Little Kimble cum Marsh</span> Human settlement in England

Great and Little Kimble cum Marsh is a civil parish in central Buckinghamshire, England. It is located 5 miles (8 km) to the south of Aylesbury. The civil parish altogether holds the ancient ecclesiastical villages of Great Kimble, Little Kimble, Kimblewick and Marsh, and an area within Great Kimble called Smokey Row. The two separate parishes with the same name were amalgamated in 1885, but kept their separate churches, St Nicholas for Great Kimble on one part of the hillside and All Saints for Little Kimble on other side at the foot of the hill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Headcorn</span> Human settlement in England

Headcorn is a village and civil parish in the borough of Maidstone in Kent, England. The parish is on the floodplain of the River Beult south east of Maidstone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hellidon</span> Village in Northamptonshire, England

Hellidon is a village and civil parish about 5 miles (8 km) south-west of Daventry in Northamptonshire, England. The parish area is about 1,600 acres (650 ha). It lies 520 feet (160 m) – 590 feet (180 m) above sea level on the north face of an ironstone ridge, its highest point, 670 feet (200 m) at Windmill Hill, being 0.5 miles (800 m) south-east of the village. The Leam and tributaries rise in the parish. The 2011 Census gave a population of 256, estimated at 286 in 2019. The long-distance Jurassic Way footpath linking Banbury, Oxfordshire, and Stamford, Lincolnshire, passes through. The origin of the name is unclear. "Holy Valley", "Haegla's Valley" and "Unstable valley" have been suggested, with the Old English "dun", meaning hill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bodiam</span> Village in East Sussex, England

Bodiam is a small village and civil parish in the Rother District of East Sussex, England. It lies in the valley of the River Rother, near to the villages of Sandhurst and Ewhurst Green.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shutford</span> Human settlement in England

Shutford is a village and civil parish in the Cherwell district, in Oxfordshire, England, about 4.5 miles (7.2 km) west of Banbury. The village is about 475 feet (145 m) above sea level. In 2011 the parish had a population of 476. In 1870–72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Shutford like this:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Badlesmere, Kent</span> Human settlement in England

Badlesmere is a village and civil parish in the Swale district of Kent, England, about five miles south of Faversham and eight miles north of Ashford on the A251.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bartlow</span> Human settlement in England

Bartlow is a small village and civil parish in the South Cambridgeshire district of Cambridgeshire, England, about 12 miles (19 km) south-east of Cambridge and 7 miles (11 km) west of Haverhill in Suffolk. The River Granta runs through the village. In 2021 the parish had a population of 101.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berwick St John</span> Village in Wiltshire, England

Berwick St John is a village and civil parish in southwest Wiltshire, England, about 5 miles (8 km) east of Shaftesbury in Dorset. The parish includes the Ashcombe Park estate, part of the Ferne Park estate, and most of Rushmore Park.

Broomfield is a village in the Maidstone District of Kent, England, and forms part of the civil parish of Broomfield and Kingswood. It lies 6 miles (10 km) to the east of Maidstone. The village is located just upstream of Leeds Castle on the River Len, one of the tributaries of the River Medway.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Finmere</span> Human settlement in England

Finmere is a village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, south of the River Great Ouse. It is on the county boundary with Buckinghamshire, almost 4 miles (6 km) west of Buckingham and just over 4 miles (6 km) east of Brackley in Northamptonshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 466.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Smarden</span> Human settlement in England

Smarden is a civil parish and village, west of Ashford in Kent, South East England.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chastleton</span> Human settlement in England

Chastleton is a village and civil parish in the Cotswold Hills in Oxfordshire, England, about 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Stow-on-the-Wold. Chastleton is in the extreme northwest of Oxfordshire, on the boundaries with both Gloucestershire and Warwickshire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 153.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Longbridge Deverill</span> Human settlement in England

Longbridge Deverill is a village and civil parish about 2.5 miles (4.0 km) south of Warminster in Wiltshire, England. It is on the A350 primary route which connects the M4 motorway and west Wiltshire with Poole, Dorset.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">River Len</span> River in Kent, England

The River Len is a river in Kent, England. It rises at a spring in Bluebell Woods to the southeast of the village centre of Lenham 0.6 miles (0.97 km) from the source of the River Great Stour; both rise on the Greensand Ridge. Its length is c10 miles (16 km). It enters the River Medway at Maidstone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steep, Hampshire</span> Village and parish in Hampshire, England

Steep is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. Its nearest town is Petersfield, which lies 1.4 miles (2.3 km) south of the village, just off the A3 road. The nearest railway station is Petersfield, at 1.6 miles (2.6 km) south of the village. It has two public houses, The Harrow and the Cricketers Inn, with the former being an 18th-century Grade II listed building. According to the 2011 census, it had a population of 1,391.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Langford, Oxfordshire</span> Village in Oxfordshire, England

Langford is a village and civil parish in West Oxfordshire, about 3 miles (5 km) northeast of Lechlade in neighbouring Gloucestershire. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 349.

Leeds Priory, also known as Leeds Abbey, was a priory in Leeds, Kent, England, that was founded in 1119 and dissolved in 1539. A mansion was later built on the site of the priory; it was demolished in the late 18th century. The site of the former priory is a scheduled monument.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">All Saints Church, Ulcombe</span> Church in Kent, England

All Saints is a parish church in Ulcombe, Kent. It was begun in the 12th century and is a Grade I listed building.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hatch bell foundry</span> English manufacturer of large bells, c.1581–1664

The Hatch bell foundry at Ulcombe, near Maidstone, in Kent, England, was operated by three generations of the Hatch family from 1581 or earlier until 1664. The bellfounders were based at nearby Broomfield from about 1587 until at least 1639. Joseph Hatch, bellfounder from 1602 to 1639, cast at least 155 bells, including "Bell Harry", after which the central tower of Canterbury Cathedral is named. Most Hatch bells were used in churches east of the River Medway in East Kent.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leopard's Kopje</span> Archaeological site in Zimbabwe

Leopard's Kopje is an archaeological site, the type site of the associated region or culture that marked the Middle Iron Age in Zimbabwe. The ceramics from the Leopard's Kopje type site have been classified as part of phase II of the Leopard's Kopje culture. For information on the region of Leopard's Kopje, see the "Associated sites" section of this article.

References

  1. ↑ "Civil Parish 2011". Neighbourhood Statistics. Office for National Statistics. Retrieved 15 September 2016.
  2. ↑ Warren, Michael J (12 December 2022). "Home and the birdsong". Aeon . Retrieved 17 December 2022.
  3. ↑ Archaeeologia Cantiana CXXV, 2005, pp 173-184, and KCC Heritage Database
  4. ↑ "Kent Life Weddings" (pdf). kentlife.org.uk. 2014. p. 8. Retrieved 27 May 2014.
  5. ↑ Stahlschmidt 1887 , pp. xiii, 74, 192, 195; Goodsall 1970 , pp. 20–38.
  6. ↑ "Hill House, Kent - 2012 RIBA Award Winner". www.workingmetals.co.uk. 2012. Archived from the original on 13 August 2013. Retrieved 23 December 2013.

Bibliography

Other sources

Commons-logo.svg Media related to Ulcombe at Wikimedia Commons


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.