The village of Lydd on Romney Marsh, in Kent, is one of the oldest villages in the county, with evidence showing inhabitation of the area for almost 4000 years, archaeological evidence from the bronze age and Roman periods; documentary records and physical evidence dating to Saxon times and long before the Doomsday Book while many of the buildings and streets of modern Lydd remain identical to how they looked in Norman and middle ages.

Bronze Age - c1800BC
Evidence of human activity in the area around Lydd has been found dating back to Bronze age¹. In 1985, five bronze age flint axe heads were uncovered in a quarry just North of the village. These axe heads have been dated at around 1800BC with a further axe head of similar age found nearby in 1991. The thinking is that Bronze ages traders, on their way to and from Ireland and the continent regularly stopped off on the shingle banks that would have marked the area at this time and perhaps hunted nearby - other Bronze age finds include large numbers of animal bones.

Roman History

The village is believed to have been formed on an island (in a similar fashion to the Houses of Parliament lying on Thorney Island or the Isle of Thorns) in the early lagoons when Romney Marsh was still mostly water, probably around Roman times - approx. 2000 years ago. The Roman armies valued salt (soldiers were given salt as part of their pay, the origins of the word 'salary' hinting at this original usage) and the Saline lagoons behind the shingle foreland would have made ideal salt workings. Recent archaeological finds in the area have found Roman artifacts and burial remains on the outskirts of Lydd, in particular at Scotney Court. The name Romney Marshes is thought by many to be a direct reference to Roman activities in the region, meaning Romney taken to mean 'Roman Island'.

Romano-British

All Saints Church in Lydd is the largest church in Kent and is also one of the oldest churches in the county. Recent studies have dated parts to the 5th Century. There are also early records reporting of battles between Saxons and Danes in 904AD - possibly the same Danish army that landed at Lympne in 892 - when the Barons of Lydd fought so well that they were granted the land now known as the Rype for their valour - the edge of this land being Stone End, in Greatstone.

First Documentary Evidence - 774AD

There were certainly human settlements at Lydd well before the Doomsday book. A Royal Charter of 774AD by King Offa grants the archbishop "three sulungs - in occidentali parte regionis quae dicitur Merscuuare, ubi nominatur ad Lyden"². A sulung was an area of land, approx. 160 to 200 acres in size.

Saxon/Norman Period

In the Saxon and Norman periods Lydd was a thriving town and one of the Cinque Ports³. It was a hive of smuggling activity with many famous smugglers using it as a base. The George Public House (see picture above) in particular regularly being used as a base for both smugglers and their arch rivals - the customs offices.

The Domesday survey reference to Lydd was in the Hundred of Langport entry with 21 Burgesses and 7 salt pits mentioned⁴.

Lydd - Memories of the Past

Lydd is unusal in that it has managed to escape the high street harmonization that has destory the character of other English towns and villages, with a great many of its houses, buildings and streets retaining their original look and character to a remarkable degree. Skinner House, on Skinner Road, for example, built by John Skinner - bailiff of the town and captain of the town militia and burried in the church yard of All Saints - looks just as it would have done in the 1700's while the newsagent in the High Street also looks almost identical to how it looked almost 100 years ago, even retaining some of the original exterior signage.

Grisbrook Farmhouse is another ancient building that has escaped largely unscathed from the challenges of modern builders and despite being surrounded by modern houses retains its original farm house essense, complete with thatched roof. The building is all that remains of the once large Grisbrook Farm that occupied this part of what is now the Rype, with a nearby Grisbrook Farm Close the only other indicator of the farm that once occupied the area hundreds of years ago.

The George Inn - in the High Street - would also be instantly recognisable to any of many the smugglers who frequented it in the middle ages, and retains much of its internal structure from this period. Indeed, Lydd and the George frequently show up in Old Bailey court records - particularly between 1740 and 1750, such as this account from 9th December 1747: "In the beginning of August, 1746, the Prisoner with about twenty or thirty others, all of them arm'd with fire-arms, blunderbusses, and other offensive weapons came to a place call'd Lid, in Kent, to an Inn known by the name of the George-Inn, they came on horses, and drove horses with tea in oil-skin bags, and brandy in half anchors " while another account records how the Mayfield Gang - who operated out of Lydd - once roused over 100 locals to raid the George and free two smugglers being held there by Customs officers. Many smugglers would also no doubt also recognise the old Court House - which although now a hardware store on the ground floor, still has the original court rooms on the first floor. The George is also supposedly haunted, with many tales of strange noises and sightings.

Explosive

Lydd is also birth place to Lyddite (picric acid), an explosive used to fire shells during South African War and the Great War. It was first tested at the military camp in Lydd in 1888.

With its long history, it's no surprise that Lydd has a number of ancient buildings and one of the oldest streets in Kent. In - previously called Wheeler’s Green - can be found the original court room known as Common House. Now Woolleys hardware store, the building dates back to 1428 and is one of the oldest timber-frame court halls in Kent. This building is also on the corner of New Steet - originally called New Bigging Street - and one of the oldest Streets in Kent. In Lydd High Street, and around a designated conservation area, can be found several significant buildings including the Haunted George hotel, the Guild Hall - in which can still be seen the arches from where market traders operated in the middle ages - and old town lock-up to which documentary evidence dating back to 1428 is available⁶. The current council offices feature historic arches - still visible today although now bricked up doorways - from which traders once sold livestock and other produce (a similiar arrangement existed in New Romney). Across the High Street is the Beehive, formerly a public house renowned for bare knuckle fighting while elsewhere are a number of fifteenth century houses.

Thanks to the Great Britain Historical GIS Project, a page from Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870 - detailing Lydd in the past is available here.

No discussion of Lydd would be complete with mention of All Saints, the church at the center of the town. Documentary evidence relating to All Saint's, in the form of churchwarden accounts, goes back to 1520 with physical evidence in the form of building material in the Church walls indicates a church being on the site from Saxon times.

The Church is the largest in Kent, hence its psuedonym of the Cathedral of the Marsh.

In the graveyard can be found the memorial stones for some of the town's more notable past residents, including Thomas Edgar⁷, Master of the HMS Discovery, the ship on which Biologist Captain Cook sailed on his last exploration during which he was killed by cannibals in 1779. Thomas Edgar's gravestone poetically reads⁸:

Tom Edgar at last has sailed out of the world / His shroud is put on and his topsails are furl’d; / He lies snug in death’s boat without any concern / And is moor’d for a full due ahead and astern. / Or’r the compass of Life he has merrily run, / His voyage is completed his reckoning is done. His Will can be read here.

One of the more interesting stories of Lydd is that of a connection to Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, with speculation that Lydd was the final home to Grand Duchess Tatiana Nikolaevna who, it is speculated, survived the assassinations by Bolsheviks in 1918.

According to local rumour the wife of Owen Frederick Morton Tudor - an officer of 3rd Battalion of the King's Own Hussars based in Lydd - was in fact the Grand Duchess and whose final resting place is in All Saints cemetary.

Claims of the story:

• Wikipedia page on Larissa Tudor (Romanov)
• King, Greg, and Wilson, Penny, The Fate of the Romanovs, John Wiley and Sons, Inc., ISBN: 0-471-20768-3 (Romanov)
• Massie, Robert K. The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. 1995. ISBN: 0-6794-3572-7 (Romanov)
• Occleshaw, Michael, The Romanov Conspiracies: The Romanovs and the House of Windsor, Orion, 1993, ISBN 10-1855925184 (Romanov)

Last update: 07-12-2008 21:07