England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Great Mongeham St Martin

The Parish

The parish of Great Mongeham lies in the extreme east of Kent not too far from its eastern coastline with the North Sea. Great Mongeham is located roughly 2 miles west of the coastal town of Deal and sits a mile southwest of the A258 road which links Deal with Sandwich. Great Mongeham is a mid-sized village with properties lying all around a mis-shapened oblong of lanes. At the time of this transcript it was a discrete village separated from Deal by open fields but the latter has grown to touch the eastern edges of Great Mongeham turning it into a suburb and losing some of the village character. The local economy was more varied than some with pastoral farming of sheep intermixed with much arable dominating, nearby, however, is the now disused colliery of Betteshagne indicative that the area sat upon the tiny Kent coalfield. Great Mongeham also held a brewery and malting establishment employing a few villagers. Much of the area lies upon porous chalk with little surface drainage, eventually to the north a small stream, the North Stream, forms to take water eventually to meet the Great Stour east of Sandwich and thus to the North Sea. Great Mongeham is sited between 10 and 30 metres on a site which rises westwards, to the south the low chalk hills rise steadily to around 70 metres above the sea. Great Mongeham parish was rather small in extent covering just 874 acres yet supported a population of around 300 parishioners, the larger parish of Little Mongeham was absorbed in early times and contributed a further 1,100 acres and 100 parishioners. In Domesday times Great Mongeham was held by Canterbury Abbey with assets of 10 ploughs, a small wood and a mill.

The Church

St Martin's church sits on the northern side of the lane headed for Northbourne, appropriately enough Northbourne Road, yet is tucked away behind fronting properties with twin approaches by Mongeham Church Close or by a shady footpath from the centre of the village. This is a church with a ling and complicated history, somewhat spoiled according to Pevsner by the "cruel if creative" Victorian restoration conducted between 1851 & 1861. Traces of the 12th century Norman Romanesque are still found in the outer wall of the northern chapel where a window of that style remains; it is speculated that the church had its origins as a cruciform Norman church but was much modified and relaid out in the 13th century. This period saw an aisled nave and a chancel augmented by gabled chapels with 3-bay arcades all in the Early English Gothic style. Both sedilia and piscina show this styling too despite the work of the restorers. The Perpendicular period of the late 14th and 15th centuries saw a clerestory inserted into the nave to improve internal lighting and finally the stout western tower complete with its rounded turret on the northeastern corner. As already implied the Victorian restoration changed much in its 10-year duration albeit in most cases true to the original styling despite Pevsner's criticism. Parking is best within the main part of the village with the shady approach the shortest route on foot to the churchyard. The church sits rather too close to the churchyard's southern boundary for the favoured aspects to be preferred but all other angles are available to the photographer.