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IN Vol. XXX of our Transactions I contributed
some account of Smallhythe Chapel and its clergy, but further research
has revealed some additional names and other interesting particulars
relating to this quaint old edifice so that it is felt a revised list is
long overdue. The chapel is an interesting specimen of Tudor brickwork
having been, according to evidence from wills, rebuilt in the years
1516-17 after the disastrous fire of 1514 which destroyed the old one
and also a great part of the hamlet. Its characteristic features are
described, with a few drawings, by Mr. Nathaniel Lloyd in a History
of English Brickwork which he published in 1925. It may also be
considered noteworthy as being one of the very few livings in England—certainly
the only one in this diocese—where the parishioners had the right to
elect their own minister; this, however, lapsed when the benefice was
amalgamated with that of the mother parish of Tenterden in 1928. The
following list of its clergy is here offered, not altogether in lieu of
that appearing at pages 181-89 of the above-mentioned volume, but as
supplementary, in particular it is to be noted that Percival Brett was
not a curate and the mistake arose from the correspondent who furnished
his name misreading the word "jurat" as "curat."
Percival Brett the jurat served also as Mayor of Tenterden in
1609-10. |
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So far from being a good churchman he was in 1606
presented1 by the Churchwardens of
Ivychurch for not paying his cess of 23s. towards the reparation of that
church, he occupying 188 acres of land in that parish, and also for not
paying 11s. 6d. due in 1607. But he eventually paid both.2
It is unfortunately still difficult to trace out some of
the earlier names of the clergy. The records of the Archdeacons'
Visitations which are preserved in the Chapter Library of Canterbury
Cathedral (from which extracts have been kindly permitted) date from
1499 and contain the names of numerous Tenterden and Smallhythe clergy,
but frequently no distinction is made between a chaplain serving in the
Chantry at Tenterden Church and one serving at Smallhythe Chapel.
The earliest of which there is reliable record as a chaplain is
c. 1478. WILLIAM STANTON,
whose name appears in the will (3) of Thomas Sherpey, sen.,
of Tenterden, made "the xiij day of Januer in MCCCCLXXVIII in the
feste of Seynt Hellar"
1 Comperta et Detecta,
Vol. 18, 1606-7, fo. 107.
2 Comperta et Detecta, Vol. 19,
1607, fo. 23.
3 Archdeaconry Wills, A.3, 199. |