Ightham
| Ightham | |
| Kent | |
|---|---|
 Ightham | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | TQ595565 |
| Location: | 51°17’6"N, -0°17’17"E |
| Data | |
| Population: | 2,084 (2011) |
| Post town: | Sevenoaks |
| Postcode: | TN15 |
| Dialling code: | 01732 88 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Tonbridge and Malling |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
Tonbridge and Malling |
Ightham is a village in Kent, some four miles east of Sevenoaks and six miles north of Tonbridge. The parish includes the hamlet of Ivy Hatch.
Ightham is famous for the nearby mediæval manor of Ightham Mote, now in the care of the National Trust, although the village itself is of greater antiquity.
Parish church
The parish church, St Peter's, dates from the 12th century, though it might have been built on an earlier church site.
The church is first recorded in the early 12th century and some early Norman features survive: two little blocked windows high in the east wall and remarkably thick chancel walls. The church though was almost entirely rebuilt at the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and its current form reflects that rebuilding. The north aisle though was rebuilt in mellowed brick in 1639.[1]
History
Ightham is not mentioned in the Domesday Book, but place-name evidence implies the name is derived from the Saxon 'Ehtaham'. 'Ehta' is a Jutish personal name. The source of the River Bourne is within the parish.
in 1336 Edward II granted a request for permission to hold an annual fair in the village.
Ightham was famous for growing Kentish cob nuts. These seem to have been cultivated first by James Usherwood, who lived at Cob Tree Cottage. There was a public house nearby called the Cob Tree Inn, which has now reverted to a private house. There are still a number of cob trees in and around the village, but the work of pruning them and picking the nuts is labour-intensive, and the industry has fallen into decline.
Sport
- Football: Ightham FC
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Ightham) |