fall.1 Most of the grazing land in the
Weald and central Kent is of indifferent quality, and by the later
period nearly all the Marsh was used as pasture, much of it
providing the richer grazing grounds needed by the more substantial
farmers of the uplands: many of the inhabitants, too, were the
shepherds and bailiffs of the absentee landholders. It is possible
that the higher population of the fourteenth century reflects a
greater emphasis on mixed farming with a much higher proportion of
resident landholders. The later fall in the number of inhabitants
may also have been caused by the decay in the port facilities of the
area provided by New Romney and Hythe, consequent on the silting up
of their harbours.
The most thickly populated areas of the county were the
easily tilled chalklands of the Isle of Thanet comprising the
hundred of Ringslow and two areas of rich loam soils, the first in
the north-east of the county between Canterbury and Deal, and the
second in north-central Kent in the neighbourhood of Faversham. Thus
in Thanet there were no less than twenty-five, and in both the
north-east2 and in the Faversham area3 about
fourteen taxable inhabitants for each one thousand acres. In
contrast with most of the rest of Kent there may have been little
woodland even at this period, and with the possible exception of the
Faversham region, nearly all the land was unenclosed and nucleated
villages were numerous. The easily tilled and often rich soil made
the areas particularly suitable for a comparatively intensive arable
farming. |
|
On the poorer soils of the downlands of east Kent, also largely
unenclosed, the population was smaller, with only eleven taxable
inhabitants per thousand acres.4 In north Kent west of
the Medway in the fertile region between Strood and Dartford the
figure was only ten and a half.5 In the poorer soils in
the Blackheath and Bromley areas in the north-west corner of the
county, where the remnants of once considerable heath and waste
lands survive today, there were only ten people per thousand acres.6
To the south, among the parishes lying in and on the edge of
the vale of Holmesdale and on the sandstone ridge on its south,
where parks and heathlands were of considerable extent, the figure
was only seven and a half.7 Altogether the western
1 Thus the total population of the
county in the sixteenth century was little different from that of
the fourteenth. In 1377, after the period of the great plagues, it
was approximately 90,000; in 1600 it is unlikely to have exceeded
120,000.
2 In the hundreds of
()ornio, Bleangate, Eastry. Downhamford, Preston and Wingham.
3 In the hundreds of
Teynham, Faveisham and Boughton.
4 In the hundreds of
Bewsborough, Kinghamford, Stowting, Loningborough, Folkestone and
Felborough.
5 In the hundreds of
Shamwell, Toltingtrough and Hoo.
6 In the hundreds of Bromley, Beckertham, Blackheath,
Lessness and Ruxley.
7 In the hundreds of
Codsheath, Wrotham and Larkfield. |