1922.] 



A Village History Exhibition. 



619 



obsolete agricultural implements came from different farm- 

 houses. Flint and steel, tinder-boxes, rush-light holders, one 

 being a rather unusual type formerly in the belfry, needle-work 

 pictures, a horn book, a pair of gloves made in the village 25 

 years ago when glove-making was a considerable industry there, 

 poke bonnets, sraocks, locally known as round frocks, a straw 

 " topper " worn by a cricketer at the end of the 18th century, 

 a wooden trencher, and a pair of scales made out of trenchers, 

 mothering-irons — in fact a great variety of relics and antiquities 

 beginning with fiint-implements and ending with the silk flag 

 and stewards' wands of the Benefit Society now defunct — were 

 produced. Flint-lock guns and muzzle-loading volunteers' rifles 

 were lent, and in their own time fouj working men of the Com- 

 mittee fetched over two miles an ancient cannon, cast for the 

 Armv of the Parliament in the village foundry. The pewter 

 Church Plate bought by the churchwardens in 16GB to take the 

 place of that which disappeared at the Reformation came from 

 the rectory. The Parish Registers and account book, referred to 

 above, were shown, as well as a letter from the " Chief e in 

 Habitance " of the Parish declining to accommodate any Pala- 

 tine Refugees in 1709, on the ground that they had more of their 

 own poor than they could " imploy " and no " housing to pott 

 them in." This was lent by the Secretary of the Kent Arch?eo- 

 logical Society. 



A curious old diary, kept by a carrier at the end of the 18th 

 century, threw light on one of the causes of the decay of the 

 iron industry in the Weald. Tie not only took considerable 

 quantities of guns and shot to Woolwich, but brought back 

 " cole " for the " furnis." owing, no doubt, to the exhaustion 

 of wood fuel. 



A pillion saddle and a spinning wheel, both in use little more 

 than a hundred years ago, were curiosities that very few of the 

 villagers had ever seen the like of , though many of their grand- 

 mothers used both. 



Outside the parish, not many of the families have ever made 

 a name, but one of ihe Commissioners who tried Charles I came 

 from it, and in later years it has boasted a Lord Justice of Appeal 

 and his son, a well-lmown London Police Magistrate, a Privy 

 Councillor and University Member, with his brother, a Bishop. 

 Caricatures by Spy and Ape were exhibited of the last four and 

 a large collection of portraits of them and of others, both gentle 

 and simple, was shown. 



