Copyright Kent Past 2010
Kent Past
The History of Kent
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History of Godmersham
Godmersham comes from the Old English ‘ham’ meaning a ‘village, homestead’ combined with a personal name; therefore, ‘Godmær’s village/homestead’. The Domesday Book records Godmersham as Gomersham. The earliest record is in 824AD when Beornwulf, King of Mercia, gave Godmersham to Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Godmersham parish church is a Grade: I listed building, dedicated to Saint Lawrence
the Martyr. The nave and chancel date to around the time of the Norman Conquest –
either just before of just after. The Normans added the tower in the 11th century
and rebuilt the nave and chancel in the following century while extending the chancel
in the 13th century. There is a record of four bells in 1552, which Christopher Hodson
recast into a ring of five in 1687. In 1798, Edward Hasted described the Godmersham
church as ‘consisting of a body and a chancel, having a square low tower on the north
side of the body, on which was formerly a steeple. There are five bells in it. The
chancel is large and handsome. There were formerly eight stalls in it’. In 1865,
the Victorian architect William Butterfield carried out a general restoration together
with the south transept, aisle and porch. In 1998, Whitechapel augmented the bells
to six with the addition of a treble in memory of Charlie Bell…. more
In 1270 Canterbury Cathedral, possessors of Godmersham built Court Lodge, a great hall, at the centre of the estate. The lodge had the finest windows of any manor house in Kent. They demolished it in 1955.
Jane Austen took inspiration from and included many of, the Godmersham buildings, in her books.