Place:Smeeth, Kent, England

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NameSmeeth
TypeChapelry, Civil parish
Located inKent, England
See alsoAldington, Kent, Englandancient parish in which it was a chapelry
Bircholt Barony and Franchise, Kent, Englandancient county division in which it was located
East Ashford Rural, Kent, Englandrural district of which it was a part 1894-1974
Ashford District, Kent, Englanddistrict municipality to which the parish was transferred in 1974
source: Family History Library Catalog
the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia

Smeeth is a mostly agricultural village and civil parish, centred 4 miles (6.4 km) east of Ashford in the Ashford Borough of Kent, England.

The church of St. Mary contains some Norman work such as the south doorway, tower archways and chancel.

Three east-west routes pass quite near to the middle of the parish and are aligned east-west: the M20 motorway, a county-level single carriageway road and High Speed 1 railway. Most of the development is residential and all of the neighbourhoods are north of the motorway. The parish has many headwaters to the East Stour which bounds Smeeth to its south. The far northern borders are contiguous with Brabourne Lees and link into its main 'village street' directly; this is also where most of the buffer land is woodland.

Smeeth was originally a chapelry in the ancient parish of Aldington in Bircholt Barony and Franchise. Between 1894 and 1974 it was part of the East Ashford Rural District. Since 1974 the area is covered by the non-metropolitan Borough of Ashford.

Research Tips

  • Kent County Council Archive, Local Studies and Museums Service. James Whatman Way, Maidstone, Kent ME14 1LQ. This incorporates the Centre for Kentish Studies in Maidstone and the East Kent Archives Centre near Dover.
  • Canterbury Cathedral Archives see the Archives web pages on the Canterbury Catherdral site.
  • For information on the area around the Medway Towns, have a look at Medway Council's CityArk site.
  • Ordnance Survey Maps of England and Wales - Revised: Kent illustrates the parish boundaries of Kent when rural districts were still in existence and before Greater London came into being. The map publication year is 1931. An earlier map of 1900 may also be useful. The maps blow up to show all the parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. Maps in this series are now downloadable for personal use.
  • Census records for Kent are available on FamilySearch, Ancestry and FindMyPast. The first site is free; the other two are pay sites but have access to microfilmed images. Steve Archer produced a very useful round-up of the available sources, but this information may not be up to date.
  • Registration Districts in Kent for the period 1837 to the present. By drilling down through the links you can follow any parish through the registration districts to which it was attached.
  • England, Kent, Parish Registers, 1538-1911 The full database from Kent Archives Office, Maidstone, has been available online from FamilySearch since June 2016.
  • Kent had five family history societies (now only four):
  • Volume 2 of the Victoria County History of Kent (published 1926) is available online through the auspices of British History Online. It includes accounts of the early history of Canterbury and Rochester cathedrals, and of several sites now within the conurbation of London.
  • Volume 3 of the Victoria County History of Kent (published 1932) This includes the text of, and the index to, the Kent Domesday survey. It has been provided by the Kent Archaeological Society.
  • In place of the other volumes of the Victoria County History, British History Online has transcriptions of the numerous volumes of The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent by Edward Hasted (originally published 1797)
  • English Jurisdictions 1851, a parish finding aid provided by FamilySearch, is particularly helpful in locating parishes in large ancient towns and cities like Canterbury.
  • Kent Probate Records Numerous links provided by Maureen Rawson
  • GENUKI lists other possible sources, however, it does not serve Kent so well as it does some other counties.
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Smeeth. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.