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Rolvenden Tourist Guide
Click images to enlarge

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St Mary the Virgin Church

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Cricket pitch and pavilion

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Weatherboard cottages

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Rolvenden windmill

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Village sign

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1805 building

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C M Booth museum

Area Guides: Rolvenden


Details: Rolvenden is a village located on the A28 Ashford to Hastings road, approximately five miles south-west of Tenterden. Rolvenden Layne, south of Rolvenden, is also in the parish.

The village of Rolvenden dates from Saxon times. The name 'Rolvenden' probably derives from Hropwulf, a chieftain, and describes the 'den or pasture of Hropwulf's people'. Rolvenden was first mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Rovindene. By the reign of Edward III it had changed to Riolvinden, and then to Rounden in the late 17th century.

Rolvenden village originally occupied the area called the Streyte, situated along what is now the A28 Ashford to Hastings road. This was almost completely burned down during the Great Plague (onlt the church, pub and a few farms remained). This led the villagers to desert the Streyte and move a mile down the hill to the common land of the Layne during the 1660s. They later returned to rebuild the Streyte. This led to the two small hamlets, the Streyte and the younger, smaller and quieter Layne.

The population fell between 1830 and 1850 when numerous people left during and after the Swing Riots. This was caused by Rolvenden parish making the decision to provide the poor with a single payment for assisted passages to the colonies rather than make large ongoing payments for parish relief.

Rolvenden is now approximately ten square miles in area, consisting largely of farming and rural activities with an increasing number of professional, craft and tourist services. Rolvenden is within the High Weald Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) and the South Kent development area. The nearest mainline railway station is at Headcorn, with a bus connection to the village.

Rolvenden’s Attractions
The 13th/14th century parish church is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. The font has the arms of the Culpeper family on it. Standing high on a rise to the south of the village street, this is prominent sandstone building dates from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The most interesting feature is the eighteenth century family pew. It stands on a gallery and includes tables and chairs! In the arch to the opposite chapel is a memorial to Lt Tennant designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. The font is of about the same date and shows the arms of two prominent medieval families, the Guilfords and the Culpepers. The church contains a seventeenth-century wooden alms box and on the south door-frame is a medieval mass dial. The church has 8 bells, which date from 1819, and were made by Thomas Mears II of London. The clock on the north side of the tower dates from 1810, and bears the name 'Thomas Ollive of Cranbrook'. There are many unusual and attractive memorials to be seen in the churchyard. The War Memorial was designed by Lutyens and was dedicated by the Archbishop of Canterbury on November 11th 1922.

Great Maytham Hall, located down the hill towards Rolvenden Layne, contains ‘The Secret Garden’ that inspired the well known children's novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett. The Hall was also designed by Lutyens. Frances Hodgson Burnett lived at Great Maytham Hall from 1898 to 1907 where she found the old walled garden dating from 1721 overgrown and derelict. She discovered the door hidden among the ivy and began the restoration of the garden which she planted with hundreds of roses. She set up a table and chair in the gazebo, and dressed always in a white dress and large hat, she wrote a number of books in the peace and serenity of her scented secret garden. When Sir Edwin Lutyens rebuilt Great Maytham Hall in 1910 for the Right Honourable H J Tennant, a prominent Liberal Member of Parliament, he kept the old walled garden, but landscaped the terraced lawns and surrounding parkland in the style of Gertrude Jekyll. The gardens and grounds were well cared for by the Tennants until the outbreak of the Second World War, when the house was requisitioned by the army. As part of the ‘Dig for Victory’ campaign, Frances Hodgson Burnett's beautiful roses were replaced with cabbages and leeks, and the immaculate lawns were planted with potatoes and carrots. A jettisoned German bomb landed in the middle of the former lawn, and after the war the house stood empty for many years and the gardens were left to decline. In 1965 Great Maytham Hall was purchased and restored by the Mutual Households Association, now the Country Houses Association, a charity dedicated to saving and preserving historic stately homes. The house was later converted into apartments.

Hole Park on the Benenden Road regularly opens its gardens to the public under the National Gardens Scheme.

Also to be seen on the Benenden Road is Rolvenden Windmill. It does not, however, open to the public. Rolvenden Windmill is built on a mill mound that probably belonged to a previous mill, as the present building is known to have replaced an earlier mill some time after 1736. The mill has a rare type of brake, with wood below and iron above the centreline. A mill is shown here on a map dating from 1596 but not on maps of 1680 or 1736. Intriguingly, one is shown on a map of 1719. The earliest date marked on the building is 1772. This is a restored ‘turret’ post mill — that is, it has a roundhouse. There are two pairs of stones carried in 'head' and 'tail' configuration, one with a wooden stone nut and the other in iron. The wooden windshaft has mortises to take a compass arm wheel and may have been reversed at some period. Rolvenden was last powered by wind in about 1882. Two sails were removed in 1885. The timber roundhouse was used for firewood during the First World War and the ladder collapsed in 1917. Some repairs were made in the 1930s but restoration was not begun until 1956.

The C.M. Booth Collection of Historic Vehicles is located in the middle of Rolvenden High Street at Fallstaff Antiques. It specializes in Morgan 3 wheelers and has a variety of other vintage cars, motorcycles, bicycles, displays of toy and model cars.

Rolvenden also has a flourishing Farmers' Market which takes place every Thursday morning between 10am-12 noon in the church and the new village hall opposite. It aims to help local farmers sell their produce to local people, keeping down ‘food miles’ and giving customers direct contact with the farmer/producer.

The Kent and East Sussex Railway has its workshops near Rolvenden Station, which is some distance from the village itself. The line runs through miles of delightful countryside from picturesque Tenterden to Bodiam. The railway is open every weekend May-October and daily in peak season. Visit www.kesr.org.uk here




Disclaimer: The information in this Tourist Guide has been researched from a variety of sources including books, articles and online information. While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information the reader should check any specific facts for themselves before making any decisions based upon the said information.





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Another Kent Tourist Guide listing created by Let's Stay Kent.
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