Copyright Kent Past 2010
Kent Past
The History of Kent
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History of Fawkham
Fawkham comes from the Old English ‘hām’ meaning a ‘village, homestead, estate’ combined with a personal name; therefore, ‘Fealcna’s homestead/village’. The Domesday Book records Fawkham as Fachesham and the Textus Roffensis as Falcheham.
Fawkham parish Church is a Grade: I listed building, dedicated to Saint Mary the
Virgin. The Normans built the simple two cell church in the 12th century, with the
addition of the south porch and bell turret over the following 200 years. There is
a record of two bells in 1552, which Robert Mot recast into one in 1604. At the reformation,
parishioners white washed over the wall paintings, replacing them with painted text.
A mural of ‘Christ in Majesty’ would be rediscovered 300 years later. In 1797, Edward
Hasted described the Fawkham church as being a ‘small building of one isle and a
chancel, with a very low pointed steeple, in which is one bell and appears to be
of deep antiquity’. Some essential restoration took place in the 19th Century, followed
by major refurnishing, to the chancel, in the 1920's. A flood in 1958 necessitated
the complete restoration of the nave. Re-