Little Chart

Little Chart

The replacement St. Mary the Virgin Church
Little Chart
Little Chart shown within Kent
Area 6.01 km2 (2.32 sq mi)
Population 234 (Civil Parish 2011)[1]
 Density 39/km2 (100/sq mi)
OS grid reference TQ943459
Civil parish
  • Little Chart
District
Shire county
Region
Country England
Sovereign state United Kingdom
Post town Ashford
Postcode district TN27
Dialling code 01233
Police Kent
Fire Kent
Ambulance South East Coast
EU Parliament South East England
UK Parliament

Little Chart is a civil parish and small village, centred 4 miles (6.4 km) north-west of Ashford in Kent, South East England and wholly south of the M20 motorway.

Geography

Within the parish boundaries is the linear settlement village centre by the old water mill and two smaller neighbourhoods less than 500m east:

  • Little Chart Forstal (the term forstal means the land in front of a farm and farmyard; cp Painters Forstal[2]). Colloquially known as The Forstal, it is home to Little Chart Cricket Club.
  • Rooting Street

The river flowing eastwards, passing a long mill pond and mill on its way, is the West Stour.

History

The ruined church of St. Mary the Virgin; destroyed in 1944 by a V1 flying bomb.

The secular property that would have had the highest grading of listed building in the parish, Surrenden Park,[3] half in Pluckley, was owned by the Dering family for over 400 years; the family estate covered about four square miles of Kent. Part of their property was Calehill Park,[4] to the north. Neither property now exists: Surrenden succumbed to fire in 1952; Calehill was demolished in 1951.

Transport

Little Chart is situated close to the M20 motorway. The closest railway station is Charing.

Amenities

The Swan Inn

The original village church, to St Mary the Virgin and the Holy Rood, was wrecked in 1944 by a V-1 flying bomb during World War II;[5] it stood on a site further upstream from the village, near Chart Court. The new church is now within the village.[6]

The Ford Paper Mill, named after the one-time ford over the Great Stour, has a long history, and is still in operation dealing in salvaged paper.[7]

The Stour Valley Walk, which follows the Great Stour river, and the Greensand Way, from north to south, are both routed through the village. The village has a large pub, The Swan Inn.[8]

Past residents

Jonathan Bates, the Oscar-nominated sound engineer and youngest son of acclaimed writer H. E. Bates, was born in the village.[9]

References

  1. Key Statistics; Quick Statistics: Population Density United Kingdom Census 2011 Office for National Statistics Retrieved 10 May 2014
  2. Painters Forstal
  3. The Surrenden Estate Archived 2 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  4. Calehill Park
  5. Little Chart old church Archived 11 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
  6. Little Chart new church Archived 11 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine.
  7. Ford Paper Mill history Archived 2 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. The Swan Inn
  9. Monks, Mick (3 December 2008). "Obituary: Jonathan Bates". guardian.co.uk. London. Retrieved 9 October 2011.

Media related to Little Chart at Wikimedia Commons


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.