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SALTWOOD 800
A short book entitled ‘A
SALTWOOD MISCELLANY’ has been produced
to commemorate this 800-year period in the Village and Parish of
Saltwood. It is billed as ‘a 21st Century
appreciation of the past and present of a Kentish village’, with
essays about the Saltwood of today and yesterday.
When the first Rector, Walter de Gray, took up
his post in 1207, England was ruled by King John, a man damned by
his nicknames: Lackland and Softsword. Vicious, cruel
and tyrannical, he had already despatched (allegedly with
‘dispiteous torture’) the 17 year-old Prince Arthur (his deceased
elder brother’s son, who had a claim to the throne), and lost
Normandy. His own Barons forced him to sign Magna Carta in 1215; de
Gray was one of his advisors and supporters and so earned promotion
to the Archbishopric of York. But while these great events were
stirring, back in Saltwood villagers were busy expanding the little
stone Church, completed only 50 or 60 years before, with a new aisle
on the North side and a stone tower. Roger Martin comments: ‘Our
world is unimaginably different from that of Walter de Gray, yet, as
generations overlap, there inevitably exists a sense of continuity.
Rectors and parishioners come and go, but vital links remain,
binding past, present and future closely together’.
The book is written by Mike Umbers, well known to
readers of this Newsletter, with help from Brian Doorne (also a
Civic Society contributor, and one of our knowledgeable Town Guides)
who provided the photographs. Included is a list of the Rectors –
some interesting names appear here, men who played a part in a wider
sphere of England’s story – and a Map of the Boundaries of the Civil
and Ecclesiastical Parishes, of particular interest because it shows
that they are by no means congruent. This detail may come as a
surprise: much of North Hythe, though under the administration of
Hythe Town Council, is in fact in the Ecclesiastical Parish of
Saltwood.
Where do you live -
are you sure?
The book is on sale in the Hythe
Bookshop at £6.
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