Aspects of Kentish Local History

IN the centre of the picturesque village of Lynsted stands, or rather until recently, when, by enemy action, it was struck in an air raid and the better part of it was destroyed, stood the fifteenth century timber-framed Anchor House. Why so named is not known, unless the tradition be correct which says that it was the ancient Inn of the place and bore the sign of the Anchor. The fabric of the house, however, affords no trace of any such thing. The front of the house, in accord with medieval preference, faced north, being situated immediately opposite to the south side of the churchyard of the old parish church. The plan was roughly a typical one, viz. a longish parallelogram between a wing projecting at right angles to it at each end. The doorway, situated at the eastern extremity of the parallelogram is as old as, if not indeed older than, any other in the village or neighbourhood, if one excepts the porch entrance of Pitstock Farmhouse, Rodmersham, which was similar, but is now no longer standing. The particular variety of doorway in question is formed by a pair of substantial planks, sawn from the foot of a tree and set bottom upwards, with the spread of each joined together in the middle in such a way as to produce the outline of a two-centred arch. In the case of Anchor House the design is enhanced by an embattled moulding fixed horizontally along the top of the door frame, and by two engaged

boutels, with moulded cap and base, attached one each to the end studs of the timbering above the doorhead, to carry the brackets for the overhanging eaves. It will be quite obvious to anyone looking at the principal entrance from the outside that the existing door was never made for its present position in a two-centred doorway, which indeed it does not fit, being of a later date, and of four-centred form. It is of solid panel work, the frame of which is studded with nails. There can be little doubt that it came, like a smaller door of rectangular outline, now in the Lion Inn at Lynsted, from the demolished portion of Lodge.
   On the death in 1824 of John, thirteenth Lord Teynham, the younger of two brothers, successively Lords Teynham, of whom one was Henry, twelfth Lord (obiit 1800), and of whom both died without issue, a dispute as to their sanity, and consequently as to their capacity to make a valid will, arose. The matter at last came to the decision of a law suit, in which the then owner in possession of the Lodge estate, Major Charles Harry Tyler was cited as defendant in a plea of intestacy, and the plaintiff the inheritor of the title of Baron Teynham. The case was tried in the Court of Common Pleas, at Westminster, on January 11th, 12th and 13th, 1830, and ended in the jury begging the judge to