[Riding With The Angels]

Pics

view from NW



view from W



view from E




view from inside chancel looking W



detail of the remains of a beam on a corbel




the piscina in the chancel



door moulding

[Riding With The Angels]

Interestingly (again!) it seems that Lost.... has got it wrong if Hasted is correct and the Chapel of St Thomas was part of the Ickham church building.

[Riding With The Angels]

Will post some pics when I can get Explorer to recognise the web page!

[Riding With The Angels]

From 'The Lost Churches and Chapels of Kent'

The chapel of well in the parish of Ickham probably dates from the 14th Century when Robert de Solbury was instituted Rector of Ickham, cum capella de Welle, in 1351. It consisted of a bell tower, nave and chancel and had the facilities of a parish church. It had a west door with a window above, east window, south door, possibly a north door and a holy water stoup. There was also a graveyard.

The chapel's dedication is unknown, but it is suggested that it was to St Thomas because Richard Grant of Ickham bequested in 1514 'The chapel of St Thomas in the same parish'. This must have referred to Well chapel. In the 16th century the chapel came out of use and fell into ruin. Today parts of the four walls remain standing in a field by a path. Well is named from the spring water which forms the Little Stour river only a few yards away.

From Hasted's 'History of Kent' dated 1800 -

Well is a district on the west side of the river, next to Littleborne, which, so late as the beginning of king James I.'s reign, was esteemed as part of that parish, but it has been for a number of years past annexed to the parish of Ickham. Though the chief part of it is situated as above-mentioned, yet there are some small parts, separated by other parishes intervening. THE MANOR of it, usually called WELL-COURT, stands close to the bank of the river, and was in very early time the property of the family of Clifford, from whom it passed into the possession of those who took their surname from it, the trustee of one of whom, John at Welle, in the 44th year of king Henry III. sold it to Reginald de Cornhill, who lest by Matilda de Lukedale his wife, an only daughter and heir, who carried this manor in marriage to one of the family of Garwinton, whose descendant Thomas de Garwinton obtained the king's licence in the 30th year of king Edward III. to suppress the chantry held here, and to grant that part of its revenues which lay at the Wike to St. John's hospital; in Northgate, and to keep possession of the scite of the chantry, and the lands belonging to it at Lukedale, to him and his heirs; in which name it descended down to Mr. William Garwynton, who dying s. p. it came to his next heir Joane, married to Richard Haut, of a younger branch of those of Bishopsborne, in whose descendants it continued down to Richard Haut, who leaving an only daughter and heir Margery, she carried this manor in marriage to William Isaak, esq. of Patrixborne, whose son Edward Isaak leaving by his first wife, an only daughter and heir Jane, she carried it in marriage to Martin Sidley, esq. of Great Chart, and their son Sir Isaac Sidley sold it to Sir Henry Palmer, of Bekesborne, who had married his mother Jane before-mentioned. Sir Henry Palmer died possessed of it in 1611, and by will devised it to his old servant, as he stiles him in his will, John White, in tail general, remainder to his son inlaw Sir Isaac Sidley, above-mentioned. How it passed afterwards, I have not found; but in the year 1680 it was become the property of Mr. Francis Jeoffery, whose only daughter and heir Elizabeth entitled her husband John Knowler to it, and they afterwards joined in the conveyance of it to Robert Daines, who left it by will in 1733 to Daines Balderston, and he in 1750 passed it away to his father Captain George Balderston, of Dover, who died in 1751, leaving his wife Sarah surviving, whose trustees in 1775 sold it to Sir Philip Hales, bart. and he in 1787 alienated it, with other adjoining estates, to Isaac Baugh, esq. the present owner of it, who has since built a seat for his residence, on the rise of the hill, within this precinct, about a quarter of a mile distant from the courtlodge of it.
The ruins of the chapel or church of Well, adjoining to the court-lodge, are still remaining. It was entire in 1535, in which year Thomas Franklyn, parson of Ickham, devised a legacy to the repair of it. On the next page is a view of the ruins of it.

From: 'Parishes: Ickham', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 9 (1800), pp. 167-179. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63553  Date accessed: 14 August 2009.

[Maturin281]

I'm sure there are those who know more about this than me but I can offer this. The Well Chapel is next to the spring where the Little Stour rises. A quarter of a mile below the spring the Little Stour is joined with the less than reliable Nailbourne. Judging from the mills on the Little Stour at Littlebourne, in Nargate Street, at Wickhambreaux and at Seaton the Little Stour has long been vital to the economy of the area. So I am guessing that this was an important religious site for a long time.

Although the chapel is away from the main road it is on a footpath that was certainly there when the railway was built because a large tunnel was constructed in the railway embankment to let the footpath through.

Has the site every been surveyed or dug?

John

[Riding With The Angels]

Its called Well Chapel

[Roland]

Anybody know what the ruins are across the road from howletts zoo?

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?t=h&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF8&ll=51.264855,1.152294&spn=0.00117,0.003479&z=19