Sunday, 23 December 2007

Ringwould

Kingsdown's neighbouring village of Ringwould is the older relation; the main village to Kingsdown's fishing hamlet, with the original church and attractive houses. Kingsdown formed part of Ringwould's parish and is still linked, although Ripple, Sutton and Studdal have recently been added to the duties of the one vicar.
The two oldest yews in the churchyard - one at either end of the church - have been dated from 1300 and 1000 years ago respectively, indicating that they formed part of an Anglo-Saxon place of worship before the current building was founded.

Along the road towards Dover there is an eerie strip of land enclosed by chalk banks, into one side of which have been hollowed six caves. It is thought that these were store holes for houses that once stood in front of the bank.

The vegetation in the area provides some interesting clues to its history, as the chalk bank (on the left in the picture) is fronted by elder bushes and the middle part is covered in nettles, the former showing that the land is nitrogen-rich (from pig-sties perhaps?) and the latter confirming the earlier presence of buildings and other disturbance.
On the right, a less-vegetated strip shows where a road ran - possibly the course of the original main road which has now moved a few yards to the east.

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