Place:Somerden Hundred, Kent, England

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

Somerden was a hundred, an historical land division, in the county of civil parish. It occupied the southwest corner of Kent, in the southern part of the Lathe of Sutton at Hone, within in the west division of Kent. The hundred was one of the last to be created in Kent. Unlike the majority of Kent hundreds, it was not formally constituted in the Domesday Book of 1086, but came into being sometime after. Today the area is mostly rural and located in the southern part of the Sevenoaks District, south of Sevenoaks and west of Tonbridge. Somerden Hundred was approximately 7.5 miles (12 km) wide east to west, and 5.5 miles (9 km) long north to south,[5] and had a small exclave about 1 mile (1.5 km) out from its southeast corner. In the 1831 census Somerden was recorded as having an area of 13,650 acres (55 km2). The population in that census was recorded as 3,924, of which 2,078 were male and 1,846 were female, who belonged to 734 families living in 567 houses.

In the later years of its existence the Oxted Line and Redhill to Tonbridge Line railway lines were constructed through the hundred. Somerden, like the other hundreds in Kent, became less significant gradually over time, and although never formally abolished, it was obsolete by 1894 with the creation of new rural and urban districts. The majority of Somerden became part of the Sevenoaks Rural District in 1894, which in turn merged with the Sevenoaks Urban District in 1974 to become the Sevenoaks District which remains up to present day.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Somerden Hundred.

Parishes in Hundreds

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.