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Archaeologia Cantiana -  Vol. 14  1882  page 40

The Early History of Tenterden by Robert Furley, F.S.A.

by drof-ways, and watched over by drof-men or forest herdsmen, to whom portions were sometimes allotted for their services. These drovers soon made the Weald their permanent abode, while more enterprising men, anxious to till the soil, joined them, and paid rent for permission to grub and plough portions of them, known as danger or lefsilver. The boundaries at length became more clearly defined, and gates were set up. This state of things must have existed long anterior to the Norman Conquest, which we are now approaching.
   Tenterden, from its position, must have been, at this time, a place of some importance, yet, strange to say, we find no mention of it even in the eleventh century, nor of Tunbridge or Cranbrook. Its nomenclature affords conclusive evidence of its existence before the Conquest. Philipot, who has been followed by other writers, says it was originally written "Theinwarden," being the Thane's ward or guard in the wood or valley. Edmunds is also of opinion that it is of Anglo-Saxon origin, from "thegn" and "dene," "the nobleman's hollow." I find Tenterden first written as in the present

day about the end of the sixteenth century, sometimes with the addition "alias Tentwarden."
   In the Survey of Domesday there is no mention of many of the hundreds now in the centre of the Weald, and only eight places are referred to, four of which are returned with churches. Now it should be remembered that this Survey was compiled twenty years after the arrival of the Conqueror, that he might know, amongst other things, the names of his landowners, and the situation of their possessions. How then, it may be asked, does it happen that we fail to find Tenterden and Cranbrook in it? I will endeavour to give a reason. The Survey returns forty-five entire denes (some of them containing perhaps 500 acres each according to Spelman), also nine small ones and two halves, and no names are given to any of them. In this Survey the Norman term "manor" is substituted for prędium or possession; but in the Weald the denes represented the manors. The ecclesiastics, religious houses, and laity, who held no less than seventy manors under a newly created feudal system, held the right

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