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Aldington is a village and civil parish in the Ashford District of Kent, England. The village centre is eight miles (12 km) southeast of the town of Ashford. Aldington is set on a steep escarpment above agricultural Romney Marsh and the upper Stour valley. Aldington Knoll was used as a Roman burial barrow and later as a beacon. It has a panorama towards the English Channel and the low land such as Dungeness. At the 2011 Census the population included Bonnington, but Bonnington was a civil parish until at least 1974. Aldington was originally an ancient parish in Bircholt Barony and Franchise and in the Romney Marsh Liberty. Between 1894 and 1974 it was part of the East Ashford Rural District. [edit] History
The village of Aldington is steeped in history: more than 50 buildings of historical or architectural interest are in the civil parish. Beside the church was one of the Archbishop of Canterbury's palaces, of which only ruins remain. Court Lodge Farmhouse was its manor house and hunting lodge, particularly favoured and improved by Archbishops Morton (1486-1500) and Warham (1508-1532), both of whom also embellished the adjacent parish Church of St Martin. The house, park and chase (1000 acres) were bought and extended by Henry VIII of England in 1540, the whole complex said to have 5 kitchens, 6 stables and 8 dovecotes. After the Napoleonic Wars, Aldington was the stronghold of The Aldington Gang, an infamous band of smugglers who roamed the marshes and shores of Kent plying their trade. The gang's leaders, Cephas Quested and George Ransley, natives of Aldington, made the Walnut Tree Inn their headquarters and drop for their contraband. High up on the southern side of the inn is a small window through which the gang would shine a signal light to their confederates on Aldington Knoll. Aldington Knoll was one of a chain of viewpoints used for the Anglo-French Survey (1784–1790) linking the Royal Greenwich Observatory with the Paris Observatory. This ground-breaking example of early international scientific co-operation was led in England by General William Roy. Aldington Knoll itself is the subject of local and wider legend. Traditionally, it is said to be the burial site of a giant and his sword and is protected by murderous ghouls who will kill anyone attempting to flatten the area. Ford Madox Ford's poem Aldington Knoll is inspired by this legend. Others, including H. G. Wells, on account of its lush wooded slopes, have suggested that it is the entrance to a fairyland. In 1511, Erasmus of Rotterdam, the theologian and scholar, was appointed rector of Aldington by Archbishop Warham. He lived at the rectory next to the church in what is now called Parsonage Farm. Erasmus spoke Latin and Dutch but no English. He could, therefore, not preach to the English congregation. He resigned one year later after a kidney complaint, which he blamed on the local beer. Elizabeth Barton, the 'Holy Maid of Kent', was born in the village in 1506. She became a maid to one of the local families but claimed that she had visions. She was provided a place in the convent at Canterbury and, through some manipulation by Bishop John Fisher and Thomas More, she prophesied that King Henry VIII would die a villain's death if he divorced Catherine of Aragon. She was beheaded in 1534. In August 1926, a Blériot 155 of Air Union crashed at College Farm, Hurst (in Aldington parish) killing three of the 15 passengers and crew. [edit] Research Tips
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