The New Rector

You came to Warehorne to give them hope

Their swampy lives were short and harsh

They lived in fear of gibbet and rope

The lawless tribes of Romney Marsh.

They smiled as you offered them the host –

The new rector at St Matthew’s.

Already, they could see your ghost

It was not men, but the ague that killed you

The marshes claimed you; you won’t go back

A yellow chill made you fall asleep.

Now, in the burial ground by The Woolpack

Your grave is nibbled by the Romney sheep.

Like the others, you were corruptible

A lonely bell tolls for your funeral.




THIS PARISH lies upon the clay-hills, near the western boundaries of them, an unhealthy, as well as unpleasant situation, partaking of the gross atmosphere of the Marsh, and the soil of it in general a deep miry clay. The village is built round a large green, called the Lecon, or more properly, the Lecton, on which is a handsome house, the property of Mr. Thomas Hodges, who lives in it, as his ancestors have for some generations past, bearing for their arms, Or, three crescents, sable, on a canton, argent, two bars wavy, azure, over all an anchor in pale, sable. At a small distance from the Lecon is Warehorne-green, and round it several houses, one of which is the parsonage, and another Tinton-house, Mr. Howland's, who lives in it. The church stands on the edge of the hill, overlooking the Marsh, which is at the foot of it. About a mile northeast from the church, over which the country is hill and dale, is the hamlet of Ham-street, close at the edge of the Marsh; part of which only is in this parish, and about a mile further in the Marsh, another small hamlet, called Hammill-green, through which is the usual high road, an execrable bad one, from this part of the Marsh to the upland country. This parish extends northward by a narrow slip between Shadoxhurst and Orlestone, as far as Sugar-loaf and Bromley-green, which is partly in it, all which is for the greatest part covered with coppice wood; and it extends again in like manner into the Marsh southward to Brookland, and joins Snave. All of it, above the Marsh, is within the Weald.

There are two fairs, one kept on Ham-street-green, on the 14th of May, for toys, and the other on the 2d and 3d of October, on Warehorne-green, the profits of which belong to the earl of Thanet, being a very large one for cattle.

The FIRST MENTION made of Warehorne is in a charter of king Egbert, who with king Ethelwulf his son, in 820, gave to one Godwine, two plough-lands, in a place called by the English, Werehornas, situated among the marshes, and it was bought for one hundred shillings in money, and, as the boundaries are expressed extended on the east part southward over the river Limen, unto the South Saxon limits.