Aspects of Kentish Local History

the taxation of Pope Nicholas IV of 1291 the church was worth £5. The importance of the building as a meeting place both to the town and in the eyes of the barons of Sandwich is shown from the following extract relating to the liberties and privileges claimed by the barons in Stonar.¹  The Barons when they pass over to Stonore with the Mayor and jurats are to command by proclamation the commonalty to assemble before the Mayor and jurats in Stonore church. In 1384 the church of Stonar paid 5s. to the King, being the half of one-tenth of its assessment. This was little more than the least paid by the poorest of all those belonging to St. Augustines.²
   The sad end of the church may be visaged in this final record. On June 22nd, 1558, at the sale of Stonar with the patronage of the rectory (A.C., LIV (1941), 54) the church seems to have been disused and derelict as from the sale were excepted the bells, the lead on the roof and in the guttering, and the windows.
   In A.C., VI (1864-5), 1, it is recorded that Mr. E. F. S. 

Reader had traced out the foundations of the church which, with adjacent buildings, stood in the middle of a clump of trees. The latest note on the site comes from Captain C. F. Newington of Sandling who has recorded that in October 1911, men, supervised by the present Major Gwillym Lloyd George, were excavating on the site of the church and had exposed foundations, a few tiles, and skeletons.

THE RECTORS OF ST. NICHOLAS, STONAR.

   The following list, with some additions by the late Mr. Arthur Hussey, was compiled from the Registers of the Archbishops at Lambeth Palace Library by the late Rev. T. S. Frampton. His original notes are in the Canterbury Cathedral Library. He lists thirty-one rectors to the Reformation.
   ¹  The Custumal of Sandwich, 14th C. Cf. Boys, 1792, p. 547.
    ²  Thorne's Chronicle, p. 635.