Historic Charing

Historic Charing. . Charing lies on a line of springs that surface where the porous chalk of the North Downs lies above impervious clay. The earliest evidence of human habitation is an Iron Age flint working site, and there was a Roman villa in the vicinity. The name Charing is thought to derive from that of a local Jutish chief, 'Ceorra' (pronounced Cheorra), of the Anglo-Saxon period., Charing was given to the Church of Canterbury by Egbert II, King of Kent between 765-780, and the manor remained the property of the archbishops until Henry VIII took it from Archbishop Cranmer in 1545. The land below the Downs has always been a major transport route. An Iron Age track at the top of the Downs was duplicated by another at the foot which became incorporated into the Pilgrims' Way. In the Middle Ages a road from London to Canterbury and the coast passed through the village. This was used by the archbishops, who established a Palace here, a day's journey from Canterbury. A market grew up outside the Palace gates. The present settlement was largely in place by the fifteenth century., In the eighteenth century some elegant houses were built, and access was improved by two rival turnpike roads which had to share the High Street a situation which occasionally led to violence. Small alehouses gave way to large coaching inns, but these declined in importance with the coming of the railway in 1884.