Aspects of Kentish Local History

It must have stood very near, or actually upon, the road from the port to Canterbury. As we shall see presently, this port dealt in herrings—an important article of diet for the monks and people of Canterbury to whom Fridays were fish days. There was also the salt, equally needed at Canterbury and elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Herrings could, no doubt, be dealt with in the open, but salt would seem to call for some cover from the weather. In this way a small town would soon be formed, for temporary cover would quickly become a permanent shed, and regular occupation of particular market sites by individual salesmen would develop into fenced-in holdings, in which the salesmen could park their pack horses and store their goods.
   It is likely that a town had already developed by the time of Domesday Book. We must not be surprised that it is not mentioned therein because towns are not usually specified unless they were more or less independent units with special rights. The average town was merely a collection of houses in some manor. These houses paid rent to the manor and their value—from the Conqueror's point of view—was merely a part of the total sum for which the manor could be made responsible. But the absence of Harwich and Northwood from Domesday Book is not so easy to explain, since Seasalter is duly described. We may say at once that Harwich had, so far as our records can tell, already been absorbed by the manor of Northwood. It is the apparent absence of this Northwood manor which needs explanation. It is not

really absent but is entered under its old name of Doddanham—Dodda's home, corrupted in D.B. to Dodeham. This statement has not hitherto been put forward (except by the writer in the Whitstable Times of April 27th, 1940) and must therefore be supported by such proof as is possible.

   DODEHAM.—Domesday Book tells us five important things about Dodeham, that is, important for its identification. They are (1) that it was in Faversham Hundred, (2) that it belonged to Fulbert, of Douvre in the Bessin, usually but wrongly known as Fulbert of Dover, (3) that it had a church, (4) that it had half a fishery of 300 herrings and (5), lastly, that it included five town houses or enclosures in Canterbury which paid 7s. 10d. a year to the manor. We will take these points one after another.
   The likelihood that the Hundred of Faversham extended over the Whitstable area has already been discussed. If Dodeham was certainly the same as Northwood there is no more to be said about it, for Dodeham is entered as in that Hundred. It follows that the truth or otherwise of the suggestion that saltpans "at Faversham" were in this part of the county will depend for demonstration on what we make out of Dodeham in Domesday Book. It is in any case significant that we have two separate indications of the likelihood that Whitstable was once "in