Lathe of Sutton-at-Hone
The Lathe of Sutton-at-Hone is one of the five Lathes of Kent, encompassing much of the western parts of Kent, including those area swallowed with the metropolitan conurbation. It is named after the village and parish of Sutton at Hone in the Darent valley.
The village of Sutton at Hone is about two miles from Dartford, one of only four royal manors in Kent at the time of the Domesday Book.[1] At that time, Sutton was ranked as a "Half Lathe", as was Milton, to which it was not connected. Alongside these two Half Lathes were five (full) Lathes: Aylesford, Borough, Eastry, Lympne (later renamed Shepway) and Wye. By 1295 Sutton had been promoted to a full lathe, while alongside it were only four other lathes, as Borough and Eastry had merged into the Lathe of St Augustine, while Milton and Wye had merged to form the Lathe of Scray.[2]
The Lathe of Sutton is the most populous lathe in Kent, because of the dense urnban development in the county's north-western corner. It contains the following hundreds:
- Blackheath
- Bromley and Beckenham
- Ruxley
- Little and Lesnes
- Dartford and Wilmington
- Axstane
- Codsheath
- Westerham and Edenbridge
- Somerden
The lathe was the most westerly of the lathes into which Kent was divided. The first four hundreds in the above list now collectively form the London boroughs of Greenwich, Bexley and Bromley, except for Penge which was not originally in the county of Kent.
The Lathe of Sutton has an area of 173,440 acres (271 sq. miles or 702 km2).[3]
References
- ↑ Dartford Country - The Story Of The Hundred Of Axstane by G. Porteus (page 22)
- ↑ The Hidation of Kent by J. E. A. Jolliffe, in The English Historical Review Vol. 44, No. 176 (Oct., 1929, OUP), pp. 612-618. See http://www.jstor.org/stable/552921/10.2307/552921
- ↑ The Hidation of Kent by J. E. A. Jolliffe and Census 1832