The Lyminge Historical Society
Our Historical Society was formed in 1971.
Activity
The main activity of the Society is the presentation of monthly talks, between March and June and then again between September and December each year.
Forthcoming speaker meetings are listed here.
Local History
The parish of Lyminge lies in the south of the Elham Valley on the edge of the North Downs in East Kent. The parish includes the villages of Lyminge, Etchinghill and part of Rhodes Minnis and the hamlets that lie within the area. As with all parishes that appear in the Domesday Book, we have a long history, and this has been extended for many thousands of years further into the past by the discoveries of archaeology.
Over the years much local history has been unearthed and we are lucky to have both serious amateur & professional historians and archaeologists to help us in this quest.
The oldest standing building in the parish is the parish church of St Mary and St Ethelburga, which is Grade 1 listed dates to the late 11th Century. To the south of this building, marked in the path is the outline of the first stone building constructed in Lyminge, probably in the 630s or 640s by Queen Ethelburga, widowed Queen of Northumbria, and sister to King Eadbald of Kent who granted her his estate at Lyminge when her husband was killed in battle and she was forced to flee the north. The church that was re-excavated in 2019 has been firmly dated to the 7th Century so there are good grounds for believing this was built by Ethelburga. A monastic community was founded at Lyminge, possibly in the 7th Century, certainly by around 700AD, and continued until the later 9th or the 10th Century.
From around 800, Lyminge was the centre of the cult of St Eadburg, whose relics are recorded as being in Lyminge in a charter of 804. Her cult was still being actively promoted in the early 11th Century when a new hagiography comprising the biography and miracles of St Eadburg was commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury. New building west of the church may be associated with these new efforts to promote St Eadburg at this time. By this time, Lyminge had passed into the hands of the Archbishop, remaining part of his lands until the dissolution of the monasteries under King Henry VIII.
After the Norman Conquest, we know that Lyminge served as the head of a group of ten churches, served by a college of priests. Archbishop Lanfranc, the first Norman archbishop started the church we see today, and this still survives as the nave and chancel of the standing church though much has changed since the 11th Century. Lanfranc removed the relics of Queen Ethelburga and St Eadburg to Canterbury in 1085.
The church bore the dedication to St Mary and St Eadburg until the end of the 19th Century. But by that time, the fame of Ethelburga as an early champion of the Christian church was known, but St Eadburg, a local saint from Thanet, had been long forgotten. The dedication was changed from Eadburg to Ethelburga in the mistaken belief that Eadburg was merely a version of the name Ethelburga and it was more reasonable to use the name by which she was normally known. The church therefore has the curious distinction of bearing a dedication that was changed unilaterally and replaced in error.
Archaeology
Archaeological excavations, starting in 2008 under the direction of Drs Gabor Thomas and Alexandra Knox of Reading University, have confirmed the significance of Lyminge during the period after the end of direct Roman rule in Britain. Settlement started by the end of the 5th Century and has been continuous ever since. Evidence has also been found demonstrating that people were visiting Lyminge and making stone tools here up to 10,000 years ago after the end of the last Ice Age. Finds of flint axe heads show that some of the first farmers were living here during the Neolithic period up to 5,000 years ago, and burials show that people were living close by during the Bronze Age. But we have not found the homes of these people. See the Archaeology page for further information.
Archives
Part of the reason for creating this web site has been promote the existence of the parish archive. A large portion of the files have been catalogued. You can see the index here. We have still to catalogue our collection of other documents, maps, photographs and a bibliography from our archive library.
Publications
We have published a series of social histories that currently runs to 14 volumes under the series title of Lyminge a history. Follow the link to read more on these volumes. We have also published local walking guides, but currently only that for Etchinghill is in print. Publications can be bought by emailing the society using the contact form on the Contacts Page.