Averill, Baker, Godden, which was probably the same as Goodwin, Johnson, Lanne or Lane, Launce or Lance, Middleton, Scudder or Skudder, Walter and Whiffen or Wiffen, these are names of families who were established in Ash during the reign of Elizabeth I and who were also there two hundred or more years later. Most seen to have lived continuously in the parish, nor were any who temporarily absented themselves likely to have gone far afield. A majority were farmers; so, usually, were those of their contemporaries, such as the Carriers, the Comforts or Conforts, the Hadlows, the Kettles, the Overeys and the Swans, who were also to remain long after Tudor times. With less deep roots, the labourers were more prone to move from parish to parish, if seldom venturing far.

   Some of these early families were certainly settled in the parish before the sixteenth century. Wills of Ash men proved in the Rochester Consistory Court¹  include those of William Overey, made in 1450, and Thomas Lane, made in 1498. In the latter year, a James Auerell also figures in the Court’s records. Pride of place, however, amongst old Ash families must be given, saving the Hodsolls, to that family which, in earlier times, was most often called Launce and, in later years, Lance. A probate act of 1493 relating to John ‘Lawnce’, senior, of Ash seems to be the first reference to the family in the surviving probate records of the Rochester court, but those records date only from 1440. By then, the Lances had certainly been in Ash for more than a hundred years.