Copyright Kent Past 2010
Kent Past
The History of Kent
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History of Bobbing
Bobbing comes from the Old English ‘ingas’ meaning the ‘people of, people called after’ combined with a personal name; therefore, the ‘people of Bobba’. The earliest records in the 12th century show Bobbing as Bobinge.
Bobbing parish church is a Grade: I listed building, dedicated to Saint Bartholomew. The Normans built the first church in the 12th century, with major rebuilding in the 14th century. There is a record of five bells in 1760. In 1798, Edward Hasted describes the Bobbing church as consisting of ‘two small isles and two chancels, having a tall spire steeple at the west end of it, in which are five bells’. In 1804, the tower and shingled spire had become so dangerous that they removed the steeple. Thomas Mears recast the five bells into six. The Victorian architect R C Hussey carried out restoration work in 1863.
Sir George Moore, who had recently purchased Bobbing Court, installed Titus Oates, inventor of the Popish Plot, as Vicar to St Bartholomew’s in 1673. Unfortunately, Oates drunkenness and blasphemy horrified the parishioners, who ejected him later that same year.