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included in a list of churches and chapels paying
chrism fees to St Andrew’s. The list is believed to have been compiled
about the year 1115 or to have been transcribed then from an earlier
record. It is thought that all the churches which it mentions were of
Saxon origin.1
Since in Kent, as elsewhere, the roots of the local administrative
system went back before the Conquest, it may not be out of place to
mention now the tithings or ‘boroughs’ of Ash, which at some uncertain
time, perhaps pre-dating the parochial system, became part of the Hundred
of Axton or Axtane in the lathe of Sutton-at- Hone. The boroughs sent
representatives to the Hundred Courts and, long after those Courts ceased
to be of importance, continued in use for fiscal purposes. Some late
evidence of the Ash boroughs is provided by entries made in the parish
registers during the first few years of the eighteenth century; at that
time there were two such, known respectively as ‘the borough of Ash’
and 'the borough of Holiwell’. The provenance of the |
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latter name is medieval, but it may
have had a Saxon predecessor.
In the twilight of the Saxon era Ash was held from King
Edward the Confessor by one Godric. After the Conquest, it became part of
the vast possessions of the Conqueror’s half-brother, Odo of Baieux. In
1086, the time of Domesday, it was held from that not very worthy Bishop
by one Hugh de Port and assessed at three sulungs. The sulung, a unit of
assessment peculiar to Kent, was about twice the usual one hundred acre
hide, so that de Port seems, effectively, to have held about six hundred
acres. The whole manor was valued at seven pounds, as it had been in the
days of the Confessor.
On the demesne was one plough and there were twelve villeins,
with eight more lowly bordars, who had three ploughs. In addition, a
certain anonymous knight had eight serfs and bondwomen and land for one
plough. There |