ST. PETERS CHURCH
BRIDGE

Cover picture: detail from
roundel in the east window.

ridge Church fr ridge 

“It is situated about two miles and a half eastward of Canterbury, on the
high Dover Road, formerly the Roman Watling-street way, which appears high and

entire almost throughout it; in the valley on this road stands the village of Bridge
with the church and Vicarage in it, a low moist situation, the bourne or stream of

the Little Stout crossing it under a stone bridge, built a few years ago by the
contributions of the neighbouring gentlemen”.

Hasted: “The History and Topographical Survey of Kent”.

 

  

St. Peter's Church, from the west end.

The village of Bridge, straddling the main road from Dover to Canterbury, has
been an important village since the Roman occupation of England. There was
probably a Roman bridge across the river (cf. Bruges which has a similar name
and site). There is however no village mentioned in the Domesday Book but there
is a “Hundred of Brige” i.e. a meeting point for the villagers on the “Burne”
Bishopsbourne, Patrixbourne and Bekesbourne and hence perhaps it had its
chapel (not a chantry) built. There was certainly a Chapel on this site in Norman
times, as may be seen from the history of the parish displayed in the church and
from the Norman base of the tower as well as the arch over the West door, but it
was in the Parish of St. Mary, Patrixbourne, then an important place since the
Archbishop’s Palace was there. The Hundred of Brige was part of the manor of
Blecknersbury and was part of the possessions of St. Augustine’s Abbey until the
suppression of the monastries by Henry VIII. In 1258 the church at Bridge was
appropriated by Archbishop Boniface to the Prior and Convent of Merton in
Surrey in which patronage they remained until the middle of the 15th century.

Bridge church has three aisles and a chancel with some Norman features re-
maining in the tower and the western doorway. There are three bells and there is
a board above the belfry stating that the church and steeple were repaired by one
Samuel Hills, Churchwarden in 1787. The pillars which separate the aisles are
large for this size of church; the east end of the north aisle was formerly par-
titioned off for a school room. The font is small and though it appears to be old
has nothing peculiar on it.

In the Chancel on the North wall there is a fine semi-circular Norman carving,
all that survives of a lost doorway. It shows scenes from the Book of Genesis;
in one sequence Adam and Eve in Eden listening to the Devils and then driven
out by the Angel; in another the story of Cain and Abel. Below this carving is the

stone figure of a robed priest, apparently cut in two, and reclining in two small
recesses. He is Macobus Kasey, Vicar till 1512, and the carved scrolls on the

opposite side of the Chancel must have been part of his tomb.

3

 

 

The Norman carving in the Chancel, on the north wall.

High on the East wall is a portrait thought to be the work of Cornelius Jansen,
a noted painter of the time of Charles I, who is known to have stayed with Sir
Arnold Braems of Bridge Place, who built Dover Harbour. His first wife Joan
has a plaque on this same chancel wall. Her memorial is flanked by two marble
carvings, one of a skull through which a serpent twines, the other a coat of arms.
These are probably all we have of another forgotten tomb.

Detail: Adam and Eve and the Serpent. Painting by Cornelius Jansen.

 

 

There are several interesting tablets in the Church — in the middle of the
Chancel lies buried the second daughter of Sir Dudley Bigges of Chilham Castle,
Master of the Rolls in 1643. Notice also in the left side aisle the tablet to Mr.
Sicard who is one of the many people who lived in the village with Hugenot for-
bears. The church was restored by Mrs. Gregory of Bridge Hill in the middle of
the 19th century and it is to her that we owe the striking Kentish flintstone of the
exterior. She was not a native of the village but the daughter of Nathaniel Patti-
son of Congleton in Cheshire and whose grandfather founded the first silk mill

in Congleton in 1752.

St. Peter’s Church from High Street; the road began life as Watling Street.

The village of Bridge if you have time and inclination, is worth further study.
In 1793 Zechariah Cozens wrote: “The parish of Bridge is but small and the soil
in general is but chalky and barren, producing in several places heath and cop-
pice wood, though throughout the whole extent of the parish there is a beautiful
variety of hill and dale. From the woods around Bridge we have a most delightful
view of the Vales which are adorned with many a gentleman’s seat,” and in 1815
Dr. Haddy Jones, Assistant Surgeon to the 1st Life Guards returning from the
Battle of Waterloo wrote that the “neatness of the farms and the mode of agri-
culture much impressed him between Dover and Canterbury.”

5

A small distance to the south of the church is the house built by Sir Arnold
Braems of which only the wing remains of the original structure: recently draw-
ings of the original house were discovered in Amsterdam Museum and after
Chilham Castle it was the largest country house in East Kent in the 17th century
and had a large deer park and aviary. At a later date it belonged to the Reverend
Edward Taylor of Bifrons who was a friend of George IV and Jane Austen. Much
of the house is built with hand-made Dutch brick which was brought over from
Holland and landed at Sandwich. A little further up the road from the church to-
ward Dover lies “Englands Old Hole” which is reputed to be the place where
the seventh Roman legion captured and slew the Britons in their last attempt to
stem off the Roman invasion.

Bridge High Street in the quiet years earlier this century.

In 1829 when excavations were made, a number of Roman arms and skulls
were discovered at a depth of five feet. The circular earthwork of the redoubt still
remains in very good preservation after a lapse of more than 1900 years. The
village main street has not changed a great deal since the middle of the 19th
century. There is a fine example of a Tudor cottage in the middle and the White
Horse public house is the scene of the famous brawl of Christopher Applegate, a
friend of Christopher Marlowe who became famous in the English Army in the
early 16th century. This incident is mentioned in the Canterbury Court records of
1598. Further up the street at the post office is the place where Field Marshall
Lord Kitchener sent his first dispatches at the beginning of the First World War.

6

A little further up the road is Dering Road, named after Colonel Dering who
raised the Duke of York’s Own Regiment in 1794. He subsequently bought How-
letts, a fine Palladian villa between Bridge and Littlebourne which was sold in
1816 to George Gipps a founder of the Canterbury Bank. In Union Road is an old

workhouse founded in 1835 now maintained by the Kent County Council as an old

age home.

St. Peter’s Church, Bridge, is part of the plurality of three churches, having been
linked for many years with St. Mary’s Church, Patrixbourne, and St. Peter’s
at Bekesbourne. Given opportunity, both churches repay a visit.

Patrixbourne Road leads directly after an eight-minute walk up the pleasant
Nailboume valley to the church of St. Mary’s, Patrixbourne. This was once the
more important church, and it boasts a wonderful Norman doorway, a mass clock
outside and a fireplace inside, a 16th century Dutch screen (now at the west end)
and some wonderful stained glass including 18 panels of Swiss glass in Bifrons
Chapel, probably the -work of Peter Bock of Altdorf, and Martin Moser, two of the
best Swiss glass painters of the 16th century.

Following the bed of the Nailbourne stream further up the valley, a further
five minutes brings you to St. Peter’s at Bekesbourne, standing in a proud posit-
ion on the hillside. The Chancel is 13th century and the tower has a ring of six
bells. By the ropes beneath is a fine Elizabethan monument of a kneeling man at
prayer, Sir Henry Palmer. Dr. Beke is buried in the churchyard, the explorer who
mapped 70,000 square miles of Abyssinia and explored the Nile basin in the mid-
19th century.

E
i
E


    

 . -' _ F‘: . . . " ' 
St. Mary’s Church, Patrixbourne. St. Peter’s Church, Bekesbourne.

 

An 18th Century double stone

memorial in Bridge Churchyard.
William and Elizabeth Tucker
died in 1715.

Research: John Williamson
Graphics: John Purchese

   

Printed by A. & J. PURCHESE LTD., Cow Lane, Canterbury CT1 3RW

 

‘r