Legends
Of
Kent
By
Mike Hanagan
Pat Cox
www.legendsofkent.co.uk
[email protected]
Introduction
Just like anyone else born in Kent, we grew up being told stories of the villages where we lived. Many were local legends, like the ghostly highwayman of Oxney Bottom, which spooked generations of children from the village.
As well the ghost stories there were fascinating legends like Grey Dolphin. Did Robert de Shurland really kill his horse on the word of a local witch? Was that church in Gravesend really visited by aliens? If you ask the locals you will get ten different versions of the story.
With Kent being the eldest county in England it’s reasonable to expect a few famous names and events to have links here, yet Kent has an abundance of them.
Names and events that when you hear them for the first time leaves you thinking “wow I didn’t know that”
Did you know about Kent’s own “Bermuda Triangle”, what about the Kentish folk who saw battle at Trafalgar or at Rorkes Drift, or even the Titanic passenger from Sittingbourne?
Throughout the generations these stories have been told and re-told thousands of times and with each telling the story grows and adapts a little bit more.
The stories we have written in this book are the versions, which we have come to know and love. How historically accurate they are could be debated forever, although the basic facts of many of the stories are 100% accurate as our research has found. We leave you to decide, fact or fiction, myth or legend or a mixture of all four.
So join us on a journey across history and through the towns and villages immortalised in Kentish folklore and see how many times you say...
“Wow I didn’t know that”
Goodwin Sands
Of course the Goodwins have their fair share of legends, starting from their origins. It is said that this sand bank was once a small island, called Lumea.
It was swept away by a fearful storm in 1099, legend has it that its last owner, an abbot in Canterbury, failed to properly maintain the sea walls resulting in the island's destruction. Saxon sailors surely knew the area well as the name demonstrates: gode wine, good friend.
Local legends hold that there are a number of ghost ships in the area: the first is an unnamed Spanish galleon from the Armada, which is said to have become shipwrecked during an attempted mutiny.
The second one is the HMS Northumberland, a frigate lost with all hands in the Goodwin Sands during the Great Storm of 1703 together with four other warships.
The most recent one is the steamer Violet, shipwrecked with the loss of the entire crew in 1857.
The most famous ghost of the Goodwin Sands is the schooner Lady Luvibond, lost at sea in 1748. Local legends link it with a tragic love story but since the ship was lost at sea with the entire crew and all the passengers nobody came back to tell what really happened.
It is believed that the Lady Luvibond appears every fifty years on the 13th of February and that it will regularly require a "sacrifice" in the form of another ship lost to the Goodwins during the first two months of year.
The last time the Lady Luvibond appeared was in 1948 and its last "victim" was a small Italian merchant in that year whose whole crew luckily escaped unharmed.
Unfortunate Princes
The ancient village of Eastry has been resident in the south eastern part of Kent since the Roman times, at the time of Ceaser's rule and probably before then. Through Eastry ran the Roman road from Woodnesborough to Dover which can still be traced.
Eastry has a place in history for Egbert, King of Kent, had a palace there (The site now occupied by Eastry Court). Egbert came to the throne in A.D. 664 upon the death of his father King Erconbert. The line was supposed to be handed to Erconbert's eldest sibling Ermenred, but he died before the King. Ermenred had two sons who were young Princes, Ethelbert and Ethelred who were cousins of the King. The line had intended to fall to them but was handed to Egbert instead.
From the start Egbert was not comfortable in his new position and looked with paranoia upon his two young cousins. Anxieties led him to seek council from his trusted adviser, or so he thought, Thunnor. Thunnor was an evil and callous man, whose evil suggestions eventually persuaded Egbert to believe that his throne was not safe all the time the Princes were alive. As his opposition to Thunnor grew weaker, Thunnor took it upon himself to murder the two Princes around AD 670 - but Egbert's never gave his explicit consent to the destruction of his cousins.
Ethlebert & Ethelred were treacherously slain and buried quietly, without prayers or honours, under the hall of the King's Palace. As the legend goes a supernatural light then shone over the concealed tomb to reveal the crime. Egbert was so filled with horror and remorse that he confessed to being half-guilty of the murder of the two Princes. He immediately ordered the removal of the bodies and buried them with full Royal honours behind the high alter of Wakering Church in Essex. Miracles were then reported in testimony of their innocence. They were later transported to Ramsey Abbey, Cambridgeshire.
Under Saxon law, it is said that King Egbert was required to pay 'Weregild', or pay 'The price of blood' in exchange for his crimes.
Kent was consolidated into one monarchy, in A.D. 827. Eastry gradually ceased to be a royal residence, and in A.D. 979 the reigning sovereign bestowed the palace and manor upon the monks of Christ Church, Canterbury.
The Old Grey Lady of Oxney Bottom
The dark, forbidding woodland with its ivy-covered trees and thick undergrowth seems to hold many secrets: a ruined church, an ancient stately home, strange trenches and rumour that it was once the site of a village. The Dover Road that winds its way through these woods with treacherous bends has been the site of many incidents.
St Nicholas’ Church at Oxney was known for being a ‘chapel of ease’ served by the abbey of West Langdon. This meant that the tiny church served the needs of the owners and workers of the estate. These places straddle the Dover to Deal road - this later became the A258.
In the late 1300s around the time of King Richard II's reign, tradition has it, the legend of the Old Grey Lady of Oxney. It is thought to be that of a servant girl, Isabella Helene who worked as a maid at the nearby Oxney Manor, a short distance from St Nicholas.
On this particular day she was sent to fetch some water from the local stream by Oxney Bridge. Dressed in a long grey cloak with a hood, Isabella is to have said to have twisted her ankle on the road leading down to the main road. She was in much pain and with her face etched with sadness, she carried on nevertheless. As she hobbled down the junction with the main road, Isabella was hit by a horse and cart travelling towards Deal and killed instantly.
Whether or not the driver of the cart saw her is unknown because some of bends in the road are severe and blind.
In 1967 a local paper reported a story from a reader, describing how the Grey Lady had apparently boarded a double-decker bus and was seen climbing the stairs to the upper deck. When the bus conductress went upstairs to collect the fare there was nobody there. The bus did not stop again until it reached its arrival in Deal so no-one could explain where she had gone.
This account could be the retelling of an earlier story from Christmas 1958, when the conductor of a double decker bus heading for Deal had a similar experience. Tom Relf recalled
‘I was inside the lower deck, when the bus stopped at Oxney Bottom. A lady dressed in dark clothes boarded the bus and went upstairs. I went up to collect the fare from this person; there was no new passenger to be seen. I commented to one of the passengers that I was sure I had seen a woman board the bus and come u
pstairs'. The male passenger said he had seen her and that she was sitting behind him. However there was nobody there at all!
On arrival in Deal, his bus driver confirmed that he had indeed made a stop to pick up a woman dressed in dark clothes at Oxney. Again, no other stop had been made in that area so there was no possible explanation for the disappearance.
Conquest House - Canterbury
Conquest House in Palace Street, Canterbury, is reputed to be the place where four knights of King Henry II waited before going out and giving Thomas Becket that fatal seeing-to. At this time the house was owned by Gilbert the Citizen.
The four knights - 28 year olds Sir Reginald Fitz Urse, Sir Hugh de Morville, 26 year old Sir William de Tracey, and Sir Richard le Breton, 29, arrived here on 29th December, 1170 and left their arms and servants.
Two of the knights broke into the Archbishop's Palace where there was a heated argument with Becket. They failed to get him to revoke the excommunication on many of the King Henry’s supporters.
The knights returned to Conquest House to get their weapons, while the monks persuaded Becket to seek sanctuary in the Cathedral. Then on the evening of the 29th, and the knights came barging into Canterbury Cathedral. They stuck three swords into Becket, and with the forth they cut off the top of his head. Le Breton, according to legend is to have broken his sword on the Archbishop's crown in the process. And, as gruesome as it is, they scattered his brains around the cathedral.
After killing him, one of the knights shouted "Let us away. He will rise no more."
After Becket's murder, Hugh and his associates at first took refuge in Knaresborough Castle; then afterwards the king sent them to obtain absolution from Pope Alexander III. It is said that all four were enjoined to go on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, but it is not known whether they made it there.
It is however to this day, unknown as to which Knight was to deliver the fatal blow.
Ghostly Cockle Picker of Ramsgate
Throughout the 13 and 1400s Child labour was used extensively in Britain, not least in Kent. One such trade was cockle picking around our coastal bays. This was a pretty dangerous occupation due to our many fast moving tides and un-predictable sand banks.
Many deaths of young pickers, some as young as 8-9 were recorded during these years but the industry considered them sad but nonetheless disposable.
One particular case came to light in 1357, 12yr old William Baly was working on the mud flats off Ramsgate, William had been cockling Ramsgate for over 3 yrs. with his older brother Charles who was 14.
The Brothers were forced to work long hours picking to keep their family alive after the death of their father 5yrs previous; their income was the only thing keeping them all out of the poorhouse.
This meant they often spent longer than most on the flats which put them at constant risk from the fast tides.
This lead to the disaster, as one day they pushed the timing too late continuing to pick long after the other pickers had retreated to the shore, they soon found themselves trapped by the tide, although Charles was a very proficient swimmer William was not so confident. As they attempted swim to shore William was swept out to sea on the tide despite Charles’s desperate attempts to save him. His body was never found.
Over the years many people have reported seeing a young boy on the flats picking long after the other pickers had gone only for him to disappear as the tide rose.
Several times between the 1970s and 1990s rescuers were called by passers-by who believed to have spotted a young boy in trouble on the flats as the tide was rising but each time when the coastguard arrived there was no sign of anyone.
Such incidents were recorded as recently as 2005 although, because of local knowledge of the "haunted" picker the reports seemed to have tailed off over recent years.
Odo - The Earl of Kent & the Norman Conquest
Odo, Earl of Kent, is one of the least popular figures in the county’s history. The son of Herluin of Conteville and Herleva of Falaise, Odo was William of Normandy’s half-brother. His exact date of birth is unknown, but was probably around 1035, meaning he was considerably underage when William made him Bishop of Bayeux in 1049 a political appointment if ever there was one, and an indication towards William’s future habit of keeping things in the family.
Odo was involved in the Norman invasion of England right from the start, as a trusted associate of William. He is said to have contributed 100 ships to the invasion fleet, and the Bayeux Tapestry, that most amazing monument to the Norman victory at Hastings in 1066, shows Odo active in battle.
In fact the Tapestry gives Odo a prominent role in the campaign - in one scene before the battle it shows William listening to Odo in council, implying Odo was the architect of the invasion. Whilst this representation is undoubtedly an exaggeration - probably due to the fact that it was Odo himself who commissioned the tapestry nevertheless, he was certainly an important figure in the conquest.
Success at the Battle of Hastings and the death of King Harold may have secured William the kingdom, but by no means were the English totally subdued - the spirit of resistance they displayed at Hastings was still very much alive, and the following years were ones of unrest and turmoil, for which Odo was partly responsible.
To deal with this simmering resentment and secure his hold on the new kingdom, William placed his most loyal and trusted associates in strategic positions across the country. In fact, he tried to keep things in the family whenever possible, often relying on his relatives to rule in his name, as other Norman dukes and princely families had done before him. And this is how Odo arrived in Kent.
Securing the kingdom
William reorganised his new kingdom, destroying some of the sprawling earldoms of his predecessor’s day, but also creating several new ones, like Kent, so that the country was surrounded by a series of protective strongholds. Then, as now, the Kent coastline was vitally important in terms of security, and so William made the loyal Odo Earl of Kent, and gave him custody of Dover castle the lock and key of England.
Odo became a huge landowner in Kent, holding 184 lordships in the county. He also held manors in 12 other counties, which gave him £3,000 a year, and the Doomsday Book shows him to be the richest tenant-in-chief in the kingdom by far.
Odo was an infamous figure in 11th Century England: ambitious, rapacious, greedy, ruthless, arrogant, tyrannical and destitute of virtue are just some of the words that have been used to describe him. He was certainly not the most popular of rulers, either in Kent or elsewhere, and was almost universally portrayed in a negative light by contemporary chroniclers. Orderic Vitalis, a chronicler monk, creates an unattractive image of Odo as a regent who abused his responsibilities, oppressing the poor and unfairly seizing England’s wealth and land.
Odo destroyed and plundered the landowners of Kent, amassing a huge fortune in both land and gold. He forcibly seized lands for his friends and family one chronicler called him a ravening wolf, and the Doomsday Book, argues historian David Bates, reveals numerous instances of apparently unjust acquisitions. In Dover, Odo confiscated homes and even the Old Guildhall for his household, and he allowed one of his tenants to build a mill at the harbour entrance in Dover, which had a devastating impact on shipping.
Odo’s tyrannical behaviour made him many enemies in Kent, and it was only a matter of months before his severity drove the county into open revolt in 1067. This revolt, the first major rising under the Normans, was focused around Dover, the centre of Odo’s oppressions. The Kentish rebels appealed to Eustace of Boulogne for help, and together they launched a failed attempt on Dover castle. Eustace had been involved in a quarrel with the citizens of Dover on a previous occasion, and so the rebels’ appeal to him suggests just how desperate they were to be liberated from Odo.
Odo’s position as Earl of Kent brought him - almost inevitably - into conflict with the Archbishop of Canterbury, another strong landholder in the area. The Archbishop Lanfranc resented Odo’s encroachments up
on his patch, and this personal feud eventually made its way into the law courts, with the two men vying for control of Kentish land at trials like that of Penenden Heath, which lasted for three days.
The feud even led to bloodshed, and the Earl Waltheof, a client of Lanfranc, was beheaded by a group of men led by Odo. Though this dispute had roots in controversies which predated the Norman invasion, it is still symptomatic of Odo’s character, and desire to eradicate competing authorities within his Earldom of Kent.
Odo certainly seems to have had a great desire for power. His main powerbase was in Kent, but as Count Palatine he possessed power over all other earls and magnates in England. He was one of William’s most trusted deputies, and in the king’s absence acted as regent, alongside William Fitz Obern until 1071 and later alone. Odo seems to have carried out his tasks with relish, creating resentment across the country. Orderic Vitalis said that Odo and Fitz Obern “oppressed all the inhabitants of high and lower degree and heaped shameful burdens upon them.
Abridged Legends of Kent Page 1