aylesham: from o.e. aegeles ham; aegel’s settlement. now refers to the mining village, previously used in connection with the corner, wood and farm of that name which were part of the parish of nonington until the 1950’s.

barfrestone: also bason, barson, barston: diminutive names in common use until late 19^th century for barfrestone. o.e. beornfride’s tun; beornfrid’s farmstead. used in old documents to refer to barfrestone i.e. in connection with the barson mills just within nonington parish on its extreme s.w. boundary with barston.

beachams, beechams, beauchamps,1086 bedeshams, 1558 beacham, 1615 bechams: wood, lane and field. the name derives from bedesham, a manor mentioned in the doomsday book and adjacent to the manor of eswalte/eswelle. bedeshams possibly derives from the o. e. baeteles (or similar personal name) and ham; baetel’s settlement or homestead. an ancient manor belonging the manor of wingham centred on what is now believed to be ‘white house farm’, in esole street.

benvilles, a field to the south of the old and the west of the new fredville mansion. possibly derives from o.e. beonnas (or similar personal name, a beonna held land at bishopsbourne, so giving his name to benn hill) and feld = beonnas field or open space. in kent, and other southern counties f was usually pronounced as v, e pronounced as i and the last letter of the word was commonly dropped. feld would therefore evolve into vil. less likely is a norman-french derivation from bienville, or good place, although if fredville derives from froideville this is possible. (see fredville).

butchers alley, the bridle way running from esole street towards elvington and eythorne alongside the old butchers premises and up the hill along the western side of easole fields.

brick field, to the west of holt street farm and bordering on the north side of butter street from the brow of the hill to approximately two thirds of the way to church street. its the western and northern boundaries are a banked hedge or carvet (a kentish dialect word for a shave or shaw [ large hedge]).an old brick making site, probably in the early 17^th century. beachams field and brickfield piece in fredville park are other sites in the parish purpose.

butter street: documents from the 1550’s mention ‘5 roods of land in the parish of nonington next harelesstrete / holestrete (holt street) butts’. often small and scattered pre-nineteenth century land holdings were separated from adjoining holdings by small ridges, hedges or hedged-banks constructed as a boundary and also to protect crops from animals and the weather. these are the ‘butts’ referred, not archery butts, the name deriving from the fact they were where individual holdings adjoined or ‘butted’ together. several of the fields in the holt street area still have clearly visible boundary banks and ditches, some still dividing modern land holdings. butter street runs from holt street to church street through these ‘butts’ and so was probably originally known as ‘butts strete’. as kentish t’s were, and often still are, pronounced as d’s, ‘budds strete’ eventually evolved over the years into ‘butter street’.

chapmans: hill and close, named after a tenant farmer family of that name who farmed in this part of the old parish area in the late 16^th and early 17^th century, the name was being used on documents by the 1640’s. now partly in aylesham parish.

church street: the name now given to the road going from the church towards acholt and womenswold, it originally included what is now called pinners lane.

drove, the: used before the mid-1800’s to refer to the lower part holt street from just below the garage to the beginning of easole street. the original meaning derives from o.e. draf; a roadway along which cattle were driven.

curlswood park: crudes wod 1283, croddeswode 1342, cruddyswood 1425; also curleswood park farm & park farm: from the o. e. crudes wudu; crudes (a personal name) wood . one of the woodland areas of the manor of wingham, in 1283 crudes was where richard hokemok held two parts and rikemund the widow of alexander crud (from whence the name came) held the third part, crudes wood then consisted of 244 acres. the later curleswood park belonged to the archbishop of canterbury being in the 18^th century an enclosed deer park. until the 1920’s the farm house and buildings stood just to the west of the junction of cornwallis avenue and ratling road, aylesham, the area now occupied by a nursery.

easole or esole street: also aet oesewaelum 824, oesuualum 832, eswalt 1086, easole 1242, yewsole 1768 also east old st., hazle st, issel st, yselle st: mentioned in 9^th century saxon documents (see nonington) and the doomes day book, the manor was part of the manor and, later, college of wingham.

wallenburg’s 1930’s book ,‘place names of kent ‘ gave the origin as being from the o.e. ‘oet oesa waelum’; ‘at the god’s deep pools’, reporting there were "pools at easole which were very likely regarded as holy in pre-christian times". no evidence exists as to the location, or even the existence, of these pools. wallenberg and the oxford dictionary of english place names both give an alternative derivation from the old english, ‘walu’, meaning variously: a weal, mark of a blow, a ridge of earth or stone, or a bank.(waelum, walum is the dative of this word). the site of the old eswalt manor house is on a spur of land with beachams (bedeshams) wood behind it. in the 1930’s dr. hardman, an eminent kent historian, wrote he believed it was originally ‘oestwalum or eswalum’ and derived from ‘oest or es’ meaning ‘east’ and ‘walum, weald, walt’ wald’, meaning wood or wooded area. the present beachams wood, mentioned above, has several remaining dividing banks indicating coppicing may have been practiced since saxon times as a wood providing timber for fencing ect. is mentioned in the doomes day book. nearby place names such as holt and acholt indicate a heavily wooded area in saxon times. sometimes referred to as hazle, yselle or issle street, due to local vowel pronounciation. street, as in easole street, and later, holt street and frogham street, does not refer to the road running through a settlement but the fact that the settlement is on either side of the street. (o.e. straet: roman road or street).

freydevill 1266, freydvile 1309, fredvyle 1401, freidfylde 1552, fredfield 1639, fretfield 1780’s map: fredville is not recorded in either the doomesday book or archbishop pecham’s 1283-86 survey of the manor of wingham. said to derive from the old french : ‘freide ville’, meaning a cold place, deriving from its cold, wet, low position. as fredville’s situation does no really fit this description an alternative origin is more likely. adjoining fredville to the south is benvilles, both have the same ending and, therefore most likely, similar origins, both possibly deriving from a personal name pre-fix; possibly frida, frijas, freja, alfridda or aelfred in fredville’s case, and the suffix feld, a field or open space in old english. in the old kentish dialect f was pronounced as v, e as i, and the last letter of a word was often dropped, thus ‘feld’ became ‘vil’. the expression ‘spoiling the ship for a ha’peth of tar’ refers to treating sheep, (the double e being pronounced as i), for maggot infestation with tar, not water-proofing a ship. dialectal evolution through the centuries from freydevill in 1266 via fredvyle and fredfield (used in a letter from henry oxenden to his mother, katherine, in 1639) to the present fredville is perfectly feasible. benvilles may be linked to ben hill near bishopsbourne, possibly once having the same owner. an alternative derivation could be from the anglo-saxon frith or frid meaning wooded country as nearby names such as holt street; from ‘holt’, a wood or thicket, and hangers hill, from ‘hangra’, a wooded slope or ‘hanging wood’, show a once heavily wooded area giving a possible derivation from ‘frith’ or ‘frid feld’, literally a wood field, really a field or clearing in the wood. th tended to be pronounced as d, so that, until quite recently, ‘those’, ‘them’ and ‘that’ were pronounced ‘dose’, ‘dem’ and ‘dat’ and as previously explained ‘feld’ evolves into ‘vil’, so giving ‘frid-vil’.

frogham or frogham street; two possible origins, froggenna hamm; frogs water meadow or flat, low lying area or frogga (or similar personal name) ham ; froggas homestead. the first is possible, the name ‘soles’ from ‘sol’, a wet, muddy place, appears frequently in east kent. adjoining frogham to the south-west is the ancient manor of soles with all that its name implies, some ponds still survive in the area.

holstrete, also old st. a hamlet a quarter of a mile to the south-east of the church, the name driving from the o.e. ‘holt’, meaning a thicket, holt street was the hamlet clustered around holt street farm. the lower part of holt, or old, street, from the ash path to easole street was referred to as the drove. old street, often referred to in documents and maps, is simply holt with the h dropped and the t pronounced as d.

kittington. kethampton 1226, kethamtone 1304, ketyntone 1330: farm and cottages. from the o.e. ‘cyte hamtun’, meaning ‘home farm where there are cottages’. an extensive manor part of the manor and, later, college of wingham at the extreme eastern edge of the parish on the border with eythorne and tilmanstone parishes. the farmhouse was lost in the 1940’s, with only farm buildings and some farm-workers cottages now remaining.

longlands: from the o.e. ‘lang’’ or long, and land. now the name of the field opposite nightingale cottages.

mount ephraim. at the northern extreme of the parish where it adjoins goodnestone. mount ephraim possibly derives from monkton, via monnoctons, moncks, 1615, to mounkton, on a 1750’s st. alban’s estate map, the original name of the old gooseberry hall farm. the farm once belonged to the manor of adisham, owned by the monks of christ church in canterbury. monkton literally means ‘the monks farm or manor’.

nonington: 1460 nonyngton, 1548 nonnyngton, 1615 nunnington. usually said to derive from ‘nunningastun’, the farmstead or manor of the family or followers of nunna. the doomes day book of 1086 does not mention nonington, in the 1280’s archbishop pecham’s survey of the manor of wingham refers to the manors of north and south nonington.

it is more likely to derive from nuns, or their tenants, occupying a farm or manor in the proximity of eswalt with ‘nunningas tun’ meaning ‘the place, farmstead or manor of the people, followers, or tenants of the nuns’. a 1938 nonington church guide says: "at the time of the norman conquest a nunnery appears to have stood in what is now st. albans park, a few ruins still being visible. nonington was possibly the ‘tun’ or ‘homestead’ of the nuns of bedesham, a name which survives in ‘beachams’ or ‘beauchamps’ lane close by".

beornwulf, the king of mercia and overlord of the kingdom of kent, settled a dispute in the early 820’s between cwoenthrith (or selethryth), daughter of cenwulf, late king of mercia and abbess of minster abbey on the isle of thanet and wulfred, archbishop of canterbury, over ownership of various manors and estates including the manor and estate of eswalt (easole). previously granted to the archbishops of canterbury by earl aldberht and his sister the land was later claimed by the abbess of minster. the dispute was resolved and wulfred allowed to keep eswalt as part of the settlement. this may be the link with the nuns, or it may have occurred later in 1142 when the estate was granted to the abbey and convent of st. alban’s, some 150 years before the formation of the parish so giving the nuns ample time to become established in the area. the manors of north and south nonington are mentioned in archbishop pecham’s 1280’s survey just prior to the founding of the parish of nonington. when a parish was founded the church was usually built close to the house of lord of the manor or centrally. nonington parish church was built in the geographical centre of the new parish formed from several manors held by the archbishop of canterbury through the chapelry, later the manor, of wingham. over the years a hamlet grew up around the church, often shown as either church street or nonington on older maps, other parts of the parish retained their names, ie. nearby esole and holt streets. a settlement which includes an old late medieval farmhouse possibly built on the site of the original nuns settlement and converted into a shop in the late 1800’s, an ale house known as the white horse, a 16^th century vicarage and later tithe barn along with several other still standing late medieval, tudor and later houses grew up around the church.

oxney. oxinden 1278, oxenden 1535: oxena denn; oxen, meaning cattle, woodland pasture. the oxenden family, for many years prominent in east kent affairs, took their name from the manor of oxinden, part of the manor of wingham which was once centred on the present oxney wooden, the name oxney forestall, still in use, indicates the area of the manor buildings as,a forestall was the area in front of, or leading to, a manor house. the 1839 tithe map records a field adjacent to the forestall as oxney barn indicating a substantial structure in the then recent past. a 1626 marriage settlement relating to the boys family of fredville, refers to a house, buildings and three acres of pasture land occupied by john mundaie as being near to rowberries (ruberries), adjacent to the present oxney wood. by then this may refer to buildings subsequent to the old oxinden manor. the sibertswold parish register records the wedding on october 4^th 1667 of richard ffryer and elizabeth sayers of oxney, indicating that the old manor was still inhabited. no obvious remains of settlement are visible, any remains are now covered by the present oxney wood, the older parts of which appear to have some embankments and ditches indicating early enclosure and settlement. oxinden seems to have evolved into oxney at sometime during the 17th century, possibly via oxen ley (o.e., ‘leah’, meaning a clearing or glade) as ox clearing or glade is very similar in meaning to oxindens original meaning.

pinners, pyners: hill, wood and lane. ‘pynnars helle’ is mentioned in an 1487 document. the name appears to derive from the pyner family who farmed in the parish from at least the late 15^th to the early 19^th centuries, long pinners wood , of which a small remnant still stands, is reffered to in the 1626 boys marriage settlement.

ratling: also rytlinge c.1100, ratlyng 1453, from the old english (o.e.). ryt hlinc; lit. rubbish slope, an area of little use for agriculture. ratling is now part of aylsham parish.

ruberry or ruberries: 1415 rowbergh, 1626 rowbarrows, 1839 redberry: downs and woods. from the o.e. ‘ruh’, meaning rough and ‘beorg’, meaning hill or barrow, three of which are still visible on three barrows down. ruberry downs extend from ‘ the roman road’, the local name for an ancient track way now forming part of the north downs way, and the adjacent three barrows, to nightingale lane, which runs from holt street cross roads to frogham. ruberry wood was dissected into big and little ruberries by the construction of the london to dover railway in the 1860’s. part of ruberry wood and the nearby broomhill wood are now covered by spoil from snowdown colliery.

slay lane: from the o. e. ‘slay’, a track running through gorse. this bridle way runs from the car park opposite the ‘royal oak’ in holt street into fredville park and then onto sheerway gate.

shaw: from o.e. scaga; copse. a kent dialect word to describe a small area of woodland, or large hedge. also shave, derived from shaw, although it is usually used to describe a long, narrow piece of wood land.

sheerway gate. a sheer way or shire way is kent dialect for a track or road going through private land i.e. a park. a 1750’s map of church farm shows the footpath running from church farm to goodnestone as a shereway, shepherds gate is an alternative name for the fredville park sheer way gate on the 1839 parish map.

stafflands: woods and fields, from the o.e. ‘staf’; meaning a boundary & ‘land’, meaning land, literally boundary lands. these lie on the extreme south east of the parish on the boundary with barfrestone, & shepherdswell parishes.

soles court or soles court farm, soles 1086. the name derives from the o.e. sol; mud or mire, as in kentish dialect it means a pond or pool of muddy water. soles court was mentioned in the doomesday book, now consists of farm buildings only. the surrounding woodland has extensive wood banks, probably pre-norman.

tygh, tigh, tye: wood, hedge, bottom & close, from the .o.e. ‘tye’, meaning common pasture, ie. held in common for communal use, and extensive in area, probably as part of the manor of kittington. the wood grew to the south of the nonington to elvington road but was grubbed out in the 1960’s, having been for many years a regular camp site for romanys. a small area was reserved as a camp site until the early 1970’s when it ceased to be used as such, possibly the result of a natural death on their. tye wood hedge has a foot path running through it which, until the late 19^th century, was part of an ancient road through kittington to frogham and beyond.