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Churches Committee
Kent Churches - Architectural & Historical Information

St Mary Church, Woodlands, West Kingsdown  TQ 564 607

ROCHESTER DIOCESE: HISTORICAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY
Tim Tatton-Brown's Survey 1993

LOCATION: Situated at c. 500 feet above O.D. at the southern end of a remote high downland dry valley, the church is just over 2 miles N.E. of Otford church.

DESCRIPTION: This church was 'erected and endowed....and consecrated.... in 1850. The ancient building having fallen into decay in the reign of Queen Elizabeth (I)', as the marble tablet on the south side of the nave tells us. The architect was Talbot Bury ( John Newman - B.O.E. (W. Kent) p.600 - says it was erected in 1851-2).

The old church at Woodland Manor was only a chapel, which was attached to (West) Kingsdown church. It is in the southern part of the parish, while another ruined chapel at Maplescombe is situated just within the north-west bounds of the parish. Before the Reformation, both Woodlands and Maplescombe were parishes in their own right.

The whole church is in a uniform mid-Victorian Gothic style, with a nave and chancel and north vestry and south porch, all probably built at the same time. There are diagonal buttresses at the east end of the chancel and west end of the nave, and the chancel arch is buttressed from the north and south. The windows are all in a uniform 'Decorated' style and externally there is knapped flint, Bath stone dressings and a plinth. Some of the stone quoins (to the north-west and south-east diagonal buttresses, for example) have been restored fairly recently in ? Lepine stone.

Internally the church is very plain, and the Victorian pews have presumably been removed fairly recently. There is a plain chancel arch, but on the west side are head stops of a king and bishop. Above the west window there is a scar of a higher two-centred rear-arch.

BUILDING MATERIALS: Flint and Bath stone

CHURCHYARD AND ENVIRONS:
Size & Shape: Large rectangular area around church (see plan in typescript Record of Monuments and Inscriptions (1990) which records and plots all gravestones.

Condition: Good

Building in churchyard or on boundary: Shed in S.E. corner, and ? 19th cent. school on N.E. boundary.

Ecological potential: Yes, a large Yew is in the N.W. part, and the whole area around is heavily wooded.

HISTORICAL RECORD (where known):
Earliest ref. to church: Textus Roffensis at 'Watlande'.

Evidence of pre-Norman status (DB, DM, TR etc.): Chapel to Kingsdown, paying 9d. chrism money.

Late med. status (rectory\vicarage\appropriation): Only became a parish church in 1850.

Patron: The neighbouring manor, until in 1573 it was united with Wrotham and left in ruins.

Other documentary sources: Hasted tells us that 'a few years ago....' it was totally pulled down, and the stones carried away, but the foundations are still 'visible'. Hasted, II (1797), 489). His map seems to show the chapel site much nearer to Kingsdown.

SURVIVAL OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL DEPOSITS:
Inside present church: ?

Outside present church: ?

RECENT DISTURBANCES\ALTERATIONS:
To structure: Repairs to quoins in ? Lepine stone

ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL ASSESSMENT:
The church and churchyard: The present church was built in 1850. It may, however, contain remains of the earlier medieval manorial chapel of Woodlands.

REFERENCES: Records of Monuments and Inscriptions (Typescript, 1990) by N.W. Kent family history society.

Plans & drawings: Plan of churchyard in above typescript.

DATE VISITED: 27/5/93                                          REPORT BY: Tim Tatton-Brown

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