Next Meeting: Friday 17th April 2026 at 7.30pm
with Gilly Halcrow - The History of Shops
Visitors & members welcome. Village Hall, Riding Lane, Hildenborough
We are looking forward to a return visit from Gilly Halcrow in April when she will give a presentation on The History of Shops. This is sure to be an interesting and well presented talk, as we have very much enjoyed Gilly's previous talks. We hope you will join us.
Visitors (£2) are warmly invited to join HHS members (free) for the evening.
Tea and coffee will be available from 7.15pm and there will be time to mingle.
New members may join the Society at any time, annual membership just £5.
www.hildenboroughhistorysociety.weebly.com
hildenboroughhistorysociety.weebly.com/next-meeting.html
For list of future speakers - see Events page
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NEWS Hildenborough School History Timeline Wall Art Project
Hildenborough History Society is partnering with Hildenborough CE Primary School to install a wall art timeline of local and curriculum history events. Donations to the school for the development and installation cost have been gratefully received by the school from members, HHS and others. Thank you for your generosity and for supporting this initiative which will help engage young minds in history and the village.
The Society’s book “Hildenborough – Our Village” reprint now available
Perhaps you missed the opportunity to buy a copy of the published book when it was first published. Further copies are now available. Please contact Howard Dolling if you would like to purchase a copy. Enquiries also via the contact us link on HHS website. £20 Contact Us - Hildenborough History Society
Alternatively you may like to obtain a downloadable copy for yourselves or family and friends for just £5.
Our publisher, Canterley Publishing has uploaded the book to their website, where you will be able to purchase a copy which you can download to your own computer and read on line or print yourselves. All you have to do is enter www.canterley.co.uk/hildenborough and follow the on-screen instructions scrolling down to and selecting “Hildenborough – Our Village”.
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What would a traveller have seen in Hildenborough in the days of King William IV? Coming from Tonbridge near the "Flying Dutchman" a toll gate across the main road. In front of this inn, fresh horses being harnessed to the cart which brought fish from Hastings to London. The old house next to the "Flying Dutchman" and the two old cottages on the left at the top of Oakhill; then on the left a brickyard nearly opposite where the Church now stands. On the right a stretch of fields and forest trees ending with a Forge at Watts Cross. Near here on the left was the Pound where straying animals were secured. A little further on were a few houses, including "The Poplars", and then, on either side of the main road, stretches of hop gardens. The traveller might also have seen a stage-coach going up or down the road or stopping outside the "Old Cock Inn." Turning to the left when a little further up the main road, he would come to Nizels Cottages and Nizels Hoath. Here would be an encampment of gypsies and a travelling fair. Continuing the windings of Nizels Lane the traveller would come to where it joined the Penshurst road opposite ancient Mardens Farm. Looking to the right to where Philpots Railway Bridge now is, he would see another brickyard; but turning left at Mardens Farm he would soon reach Noble Tree Cross so called because a man named Noble was hanged there for sheep stealing. From here on the right down Rings Hill is the ancient village of Leigh. If the traveller continued over the cross-roads, he would soon see Mountains (another farmhouse) on the right, and on the left a house covered with ivy, virginia creeper and wisteria and having a large bush in the garden. The bush and the ivy, creeper and wisteria have disappeared, but in its name "Little Foxbush" is a memory of a man named Fox who lived there and was murdered and buried in the garden and a bush planted over his grave.
(an excerpt from The History of Hildenborough by A.M.Chaplin) |
This village is truly Hil-den-borough, a place of hill and dip and flat ground, a parish long and wide. Its base is Hilden Hi11, where its roots are in Tonbridge; from which town it grew as a separate parish when Hildenborough Church, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, was built in the year 1844.
Northwards, the main road, with some bends and twists extends near Morleys Farm Hut. Thereafter is the parish of Sevenoaks Weald. On this main road are Oakhill, a little hill near Watts Cross, and the beginning of Riverhill. |
