Place:Cowden, Kent, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Cowden is a small village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. The parish is located on the northern slopes of the Weald, southwest of Tonbridge. At the 2011 Census the population of the village was 818.

Crippenden Manor, built in about 1607, was once the home of ironmaster, Richard Tichborne (1568-1639), related to the Tichbornes of Tichborne, Hampshire. This branch of the Tichbornes descended from a younger son of John Tichborne and Margaret Martin, who inherited his mother's lands in and around Edenbridge, including Crippenden. Richard was the son of John Tichborne (c1549-1620) and Dorothy Chaloner, daughter of Thomas Chaloner of Lyndfield and his wife, Alice Shirley. Richard married Dorothy Saxbie, circa 1592, and had at least ten children, including Dorothy who married John Tillinghast (1604–55), son of the Rector of Streat, who was also involved in the iron industry. Richard formally leased Crippenden from 1612 and built the house there. It descended to Captain Edmund Tichborne who sold the manor after 1721.

In 1649 Robert Tichborne, a nephew of Richard Tichborne, petitioned the House of Commons in favour of the execution of Charles I. He was one of the Commissioners who, in 1651, prepared the way for the union with Scotland; he was knighted in 1655 by Cromwell, and was elevated to the peerage in 1657. After the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, he was arrested and sentenced to death, but was reprieved, imprisoned in Dover Castle and died, in 1682, in the Tower of London. The family, however, did not die out in Cowden until 1708, when the last member of the family, John Tichbourne, was buried there.

Prior to 1974 Cowden was a civil parish in Sevenoaks Rural District (1894-1974) and an ancient parish partly in the Somerden Hundred and partly in the Westerham Hundred. At some very early time it was in the Axstane Hundred.

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):

• Kent FHS (serves the whole county)
• Folkestone & District FHS (serves the southeast corner)
• North West Kent FHS (serves the western area of present-day Kent)
• Tunbridge Wells FHS (ceased operation 31 Dec 2016; see North West Kent)
• Woolwich & District FHS (serves eastern sections of Greater London which were in Kent until 1966)

• 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.