Chilham, Kent

Description
Chilham, a village and a parish in Kent. The village stands near the river Stour, 6 1/4 miles SW by S of Canterbury; is the Cilleham of the Saxons; was once a market-town; has a station on the S.E.R., 64 miles from London; and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Canterbury. The parish comprises 4398 acres; population, 1377. The manor belonged to the Saxon kings of Kent; was given by the Conqueror to Fulbert, who assumed the name of De Dover; passed to the Badlesmeres and others ; went in the time of Edward VI. to Sir Thomas Cheney; went again at the beginning of the 17th century to Sir Dudley Digges; passed to the Colebrooks, the Herons, and the Wildmans; and was bought in 1862 by the Hardy family. A Roman castrum was here, and is said to have been the residence of Lucius the Brito-Roman king; a castle of the Saxon kings succeeded the castrum, was renovated after the Conquest, and underwent demolition by Sir Thomas Cheney; and a mansion in lien of this was built by Sir W. Digges, is still standing, and forms a fine specimen of Jacobean architecture. The castle was surrounded by a deep fosse enclosing about 8 acres, and the remains of it include a Late Norman octagonal three-storey keep. Many Roman relics of various kinds have been found here, and a great barrow or artificial mound, popularly called Julaber's Grave, the subject of much dispute among antiquaries, is immediately above the railway station. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury; value, £800 with residence. The church is Decorated English with a Later clerestory; was rebuilt, in the E part, in 1863; belonged anciently to Throwleigh priory, afterwards to Sion monastery; and contains monuments of the Diggeses, the Colebrooks, and the Wildmans. There are Wesleyan and Primitive Methodist chapels.