Church of St Mary and St Radigund, Postling

A local man uses a scythe and rake to clear the long grass from the churchyard.

Sadly, information on this church seems hard to come by, and the parish pages on the Kent local government website has not been used.

It is a simple, but stunning church, and worth a visit to for sure.

POSTLING is within the ECCLESIASTICAL JURISDICTION of the dioceseof Canterbury, and deanryof Eleham.

The church, which is dedicated to St. Mary, is very antient, and consists of one isle and one chancel, having a low pointed tower at the west end, in which hang three bells. At the north-east corner of the chancel, within the altar-rails, is an antient tomb without any inscription on it. No part of the church is ceiled. In the chancel, against the north wall, is a small stone fixed in it, with an inscription in old capitals, denoting, that on the 19th cal. Sept. on the day of St. Eusebius, confessor of the Roman church, this church was dedicated in honor of St. Mary. This Kennet takes notice of, in his Parochial Antiquities, p. 609, for, says he, in the first form of consecrating churches in England which we meet with, at a synod held at Calchyth, under Wulsred, archbishop, anno 816, it was decreed, that when a church was built, care should be taken by the diocesan that the saint, to whom it was dedicated, should be pictured on the wall, on a tablet, or on the altar; and Dugdale had an old transcript of a decree made by archbishop Winchelsea, who died anno 1313, and confirmed by archbishop Reynolds his successor, by which the parishes throughout his province were to provide, that the image of the saint, to whose memory the church was dedicated, should be carefully preserved in the chancel of every parish church.

The church of Postling was antiently appendant to the manor, and continued so till Philip de Columbers, the third lord of it of that name, in the reign of king Henry III. gave it to the abbot and convent of St. Radigund, which gift was confirmed anno 1260 by that king, by his charter of inspeximus, and by his successor Philip de Columbers. This church was appropriated to the above abbey before the 8th year of Richard II. in which state it remained, together with the advowson of the vicarage, till the dissolution of the abbey in the 27th year of king Henry VIII. when it came into the king's hands, who granted the scite of it, with all its possessions, that year, to the archbishop, in exchange for other lands, (fn. 5) who soon afterwards conveyed them back again to the crown; but in the deed of it, among other exceptions, was that of all churches and advowsons of vicarages; by virtue of which, the appropriation of the church of Postling, together with the advowson of the vicarage, remained part of the possessions of the see of Canterbury, as they do at this time, his grace the archbishop being now entitled to the inheritance of this appropriation, as well as to the advowson of the vicarage.

In the valuation of spiritualities and temporalities, in the diocese of Canterbury, anno 8 Richard II. 1384, among small benefices not taxed to the tenth, was this of Postling, then valued at four pounds.

It was valued in the king's books at 61. 8s. 1½d. and the yearly tenths at 12s. 9¾d. In 1588 it was valued at forty pounds, communicants sixty-six. In 1640 it was valued at fifty pounds, communicates as before.

Archbishop Sancrost, in 1688, for the improvement of this vicarage, upon the near expiration of the lease of the parsonage, granted a new lease of it for twentyone years, determinable with the incumbency without any fine, at the small improved rent of four pounds per annum, to answer the profits of the future fine to the revenues of his see, for the sole benefit of the vicar and his successors; by which means this vicarage was augmented to double its former value; so that now the vicar pays ten pounds rent yearly to the archishop, as well for yearly rent as in lieu of fines, and the lease is in course renewed to each incumbent vicar.

www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=63476

Taken in: United Kingdom / England / Postling (show map)

Taken on: July 21, 2009

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Postling

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Sets appears in: • Kent Churches • July 2009 more » • Kent • Sigma 10-20mm • Ss. Mary and Radegund, Postling, Kent « less

Groups appears in: • Kent • Churches, Chapels, Domes, Mosques, Temples, Shrines and Monaster more » • Sigma 10-20mm • Kent churches • Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM • (Officially) England's Best Buildings • Saintes de tous les pays « less

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