shillings for the two moieties of the manor of Fawkham, which between them owed one and a half knights. As manors went in the locality, Scotgrove was not of major importance, but Ash manors generally appear to have been rather odd fish.
   Scotgrove was described in the Book of Aid as the fourth part of one fee which John de Gatewyk held in Ash at Scotegroue from Roger Moubray, and he from the King. The earlier occasion to which Kentish assessments for this aid refer back seems, in most instances, to have been that of the aid raised by Edward I in 1305-6 for the knighting of his eldest son, Edward of Carnarvon. Such was evidently the ease with Scotgrove and the John de Gatewyk who at that time held the fee was no doubt he whose subsequent death triggered off the family dispute over gavelkind. By the time of Edward I’s aid, Mabel de Torpel (Mabel's ?IPM 1276)

had disappeared from the scene and Scotgrove had apparently climbed one rung of the feudal ladder. John held directly from the tenant in chief, Roger de Mowbray, descendant of the Roger from whom Mabel had held her Ash fee.¹²
   Whether or not William de Wauere was living at his Scotgrove manor at the time of Edward III’s aid, or indeed ever had lived there, Adam atte Welle was still officiating at the Scotgrove chantry. In July 1347, he was one of the executors who proved the will of John Pewcompe of Ridley and was then described as chaplain of Scotgrove.¹³  It may well be that he was the last to serve that office.
   Black Death seems first to have hit the diocese of Rochester in December 1348 and to have continued its dire toll for at least eleven months