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The Kent Lay Subsidy Roll of 1334/5. 
By  H.A. Hanley, B.A. and C.W. Chalklin, M.A., B.Litt    Page 171

Introduction to Map of Medieval Kent

   The hundredal boundaries marked on this map are largely conjectural. There are many reasons for this. It was not until the mid-fourteenth century at least, and certainly after the date of the subsidy roll of 1334-5, that the boundaries assumed anything approximating to the form in which they are now known; from time to time hundreds were merged; vills were eliminated and merged into the hundreds and as a consequence the original lines of division are either completely lost or at best very uncertain. There are no maps contemporary with the subsidy and maps of the seventeenth and eighteenth century have had to be used; all these differ widely in the placing of the hundredal boundaries and none of them is entirely consistent with a modern map of the county. For the most part the boundaries shown on this map are based on Hasted’s maps of c. 1790 as they appear to correspond more or less with information contained in the subsidy roll, and are drawn on a large scale.1
   Where two hundreds have been merged into one and the dividing boundary has been lost, some attempt has been 

made to discover the actual line of division, and to represent the hundreds as they were at the time when the subsidy was taken. In the case of Chart and Longbridge hundred this was determined by the line of the two tributaries of the River Stour which form a natural division and effectively cut the hundred into two equal parts. Evidence of place names., in the subsidy roll also suggested that this was so. Similarly the hundred of Bromley and Beckenham has been divided along the line of the River Ravensbourne which is in fact part of the parish boundary. This hundred was not apparently divided, except into half hundreds until 1347, according to Hasted, but in this subsidy roll the two halves have been treated as separate hundreds. Until 1347 it was known as the hundred of Bromley.2 There was no natural division between the hundreds of Bridge and Petham but internal evidence as to which parishes and places lay in which hundred suggested the line that has been drawn.
1 Hasted, E., History of Kent I-IV, 1778-1799
2 Ibid., I, p.80.

Page 171

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