SOME VILLAGE NOTES XII
Ihe Bridge Parish Register 15Z9 ~ 1760
There are over three thousand names recorded
in the Bridge Church Register during this period
and the deciphering depends very much on the
calligraph of the particular Vicar the
Elizabethans are the best, the Stuarts the worst,
but each period gives some insight into how life
was led at that time; the earliest record is to
Anne Ryall buried 12th day of September Anno
Supra 1579 and the last to the baptisement of the
son of Mary and George Kendall (his reputed
father) 20th April 1760, Some typical recordings
during the Seventeenth Century are as follows:~
1661 Christpher Carger an aged man buried
13th August,
1663 James Jorden the Clerk of Bridge buried
21st December.
1667 Macobus Kasey, later of Pembroke College
Oxford Vicar of Patrixbourne with Bridge died aged
32 years 7 weeks and A days and is buried in ye
north chancel of Bridge Chappel.
1668 Died: John Herring a poor householder
of Bridge Hill House and Richard Adams a poore
servant of John Fowler a Butcher at Bridge.
1669 Joan Briggs a servant maid brought from
Canterbury died October 1st.
1672 Samuel Mazbrook, a stranger was buried
in woolen (as the affidavit doth appoint)
1681 Sir Arnold Braenes born in Dover in
1602 was buried on 20th November near the tomb of
his tWO deceased ladies,
1686 John Taylor of Tower Hill London was
killed by a fall from a horse on Barham Downs on
March 17th between 3 and u in ye afternoon and was
buried behind the pulpit at Bridger
During the 18th Century there were often
military encampments at Barham Downs. For example
in 17#8 there is recorded that John Levingston a
private soldier in Major General Jeffereys
regiment was accidentally killed by a bread and
forage waggon belonging to the camp at Barham Downs
going over his body whereby he was crushed to death
-11..