A View of the Parish

Your Online Parish Clerk for Chilham is:  VACANT.  

Chilham is, ecclesiastically, in the diocese of Canterbury, in the archdeaconry of Canterbury and in the deanery of Bridge.  The church is named for St. Mary with registers commencing 1558.

Chilham, a village and parish in East Ashford district, Kent.  The village stands near the river Stour and the Ramsgate and Hastings railway, 6-1/2 miles southwest-by-south of Canterbury;  is the Cilleham of the Saxons;  was once a market town;  and has a station on the railway, a post office under Canterbury, and a fair on 8 November.  The parish comprises 4,332 acres.  Real property in 1860, £7,502.  Population in 1861, 1,319.  Houses, 256.  The property is divided among a few.

The manor belonged to the Saxon kings of Kent;  was given by the Conqueror to Fulbert, who assumed the name of De Dover;  passed to the Badlesmeres and others;  went, in the time of Edward VI, to Sir Thomas Cheney;  went again, at the beginning of the 17th century, to Sir Dudley Digges;  passed to the Colebrooks, the Herons, and the Wildmans;  and was bought, in 1862, by C. Hardy, Esq..

A Roman castrum was here, and is said to have been the residence of Lucius, the Brito-Roman king;  a castle of the Saxon kings succeeded the castrum, was renovated after the Conquest, and underwent demolition by Sir Thomas Cheney;  and a mansion, in lieu of this, was built by Sir W. Digges, is still standing, and forms a fine specimen of Jacobean architecture.  The castle was surrounded by a deep fosse, enclosing about 8 acres;  and the remains of it include a late Norman octagonal, three-storey keep.  Many Roman relics, of various kinds, have been found here;  and a great barrow or artificial mound, popularly called Julaber’s Grave, the subject of much dispute among antiquaries, is immediately above the railway station.

The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarage of Molash, in the diocese of Canterbury.  Value, £698 with a habitable glebe house.  Patron, Charles Hardy, Esq..  The church is decorated English, with a later clerestory;  was rebuilt, in the east part, in 1863;  belonged anciently to Throwleigh priory, afterwards to Sion monastery;  and contains monuments of the Diggeses, the Colebrooks, and the Wildmans.

There are a national school, and charities £37.^1
1John Marius Wilson, comp. The Imperial Gazatteer of England and Wales.  (London, England:  A. Fullerton & Co., 1870).

• Monumental Inscriptions
• Christenings 1558-1640
• Christenings 1641-1700
• Christenings 1701-1775
• Christenings 1776-1900
• Marriages 1558-1640
• Marriages 1641-1700
• Marriages 1641-1700
• Marriages 1776-1900
• Burials 1558-1640
• Burials 1641-1700
• Burials 1641-1700
• Burials 1776-1900
• IGI batch #s, Boyds, Pallots, BVRI, NBI
• Published Records

• 1801-1831


• 1841


• 1851


• 1861


• 1871


• 1881


• 1891


• 1901

• Settlement Certificates
• Removal Orders
• Bastardy Examinations
• Parish-assisted Immigrants
• Churchwarden's Accounts
• Overseer's Accounts
• Surveyor's Accounts
• Workhouse Records
• Pew Rents
• Donors' Rolls
• Vestry Minutes
• Bishops' Visitations
• Parish Magazines
• Parish Histories

• AD index 1448-1857
• CC index 1448-1857
• PCC 1338-1858
• PPR 1858-1925
• Depositions
• Quarter Sessions
• Militia Lists
• Muster Rolls
• Description Books
• Tithe Apportionment c1830s
• Transportations
• Protestation Rolls c1641-1643
• Oaths of Allegiance c1720s

• Poll Tax
• Hearth Tax
• Window Tax
• Hair Powder Tax
• Land Tax Assessments 1780-1831
• Land Tax Assessments 1799-1805

• Pigot's Directory of Kent, 1824
• Illustrated Guide to the London and Dover Railway, 1846
• History, Gazetteer & Directory of Kent, Vol. II, 1847
• Post Office Directory of Essex, Herts, Kent ... , 1855. [Part 1: Counties & Localities]
• Post Office Directory of Essex, Herts, Kent ... , 1855. [Part 2: Court & Trade Directories]
• Melville & Co.'s Directory of Kent, 1858
• Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1882
• Kelly's Directory of Kent, Surrey & Sussex, 1891. [Part 1. Kent: County & Localities]
• Kelly's Directory of Kent, Surrey & Sussex, 1891. [Part 2. Kent: Court & Trade Directories]
• Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1903. [Part 1: County & Localities]
• Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1903. [Part 2: Private Resident & Trade Directories]
• Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1913. [Part 1: County & Localities]
• Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1913. [Part 2: Private Resident & Trade Directories]

• Parish Map
• Deeds, Mortgages, etc.
• Rated Property Returns
• Returns of owners of land, 1873
• Manor Court Baron
• Manor Tenancy Rolls
• Manors, Castles & Holdings of Significance

• War Memorials
• Apprenticeships
• Immigration
• School Records
• Notable Events
• Nefarious Activities
• Newspapers