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Historic St.Stephen's
'Hackington' is the original Saxon name of the village meaning 'amongst the thorns'. The area has many historic associations which are shown in condensed form on the history board on St.Stephen's Green. The Green itself is the old centre of the village and, standing in front of Glebe Cottage, you can see the beautiful almshouses, Ye Olde Beverlie, the Church, the sweeping tree-lined drive up to what was once the magnificent Hales Place, and enjoy the same scene as someone two centuries ago.
The church is largely thirteenth century and the almshouses, with the warden's house which is now Ye Olde Beverlie, were built and endowed by Sir Roger Manwood in 1573. He was the Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and his magnificent monument is in the south transept of the church. His grand mansion, Place House, alongside the church, was later replaced higher on the hill, along what is now The Terrace, by Hales Place, which later became a Jesuit college of which only the little chapel on Tenterden Drive remains.
Ye Olde Beverlie has a very early association with the game of cricket, said by some to be derived from bat and trap, and was the home to the original Beverley Cricket Club before it transferred to the St.Lawrence cricket ground. The earliest games were played on Beverley Meadow and Canterbury Cricket Week originated here.
An even more notable association was the opening of the first steam-drawn passenger railway in the world in May 1830, the 'Crab and Winkle Line' between Canterbury and Whitstable. Stephenson's Invicta pulled the train over the final three miles. The first railway tunnel in the world ran from St.Stephen's under the hill on which the University of Kent now stands and was ignominiously sealed up when part of it subsequently collapsed.
The manufacturing heart of St.Stephen's was closer to the river and our local historians have produced excellent CD histories of this together with detailed biographies of the residents of local houses of note.
You have moved to, or are already living in, a place where people have lived and loved, worked and thrived for centuries. We hope that you too will be happy in this historic part of Canterbury.

Historic St.Stephen's Information Board
history boardThe History Board, which stands on St.Stephen's Green, was orignally devised by the St Stephen's Residents' Association as a Millennium project. After selecting from the myth and history as much as could reasonably be represented, Marjorie Lyle wrote the historical detail - subsequently edited to fit - and the Archeological Trust produced the template - we had collected a number of old pictures and photographs, mainly from Derek Butler and Marten Rogers, and John Kemp did the necessary additional photography. Continue reading these pages for the full story behind the board, after this run through of the top ten interesting things about the St.Stephen's area.
Contributors : Marjorie Lyle (text), Stephen Brooks (photograph St Stephen’s Green), John Kemp, Derek Butler, Marten Rogers.
Sponsors : St Stephen’s Road & Close Residents’ Association, Viridor, Kent County Council, Barretts, Shepherd Neame, Cloud Nine, Porter Chemist.
1. Sir Roger Manwood's Tomb
Sir Roger Manwood's tomb
Sir Roger Manwood’s tomb, the work of Colt, who also designed Elizabeth I’s tomb, is in the church, where he endowed an annual sermon on ‘the frailty and vain delights of the world’.

As Lord Chief Baron of the Exchequer, he gained Hackington’s royal Manor. He died in 1592, under house arrest on corruption charges, still trying to bribe the Queen’s chief minister.

2. Manwood’s ‘Place House’
Manwood's Place House
Manwood’s ‘Place House’, built on the ruins of Langton’s residence west of the church, was a courtyard house with Tudor chimneys and a gatehouse.
Its brick foundations re-appeared in 1933, when the Hales Drive shops were built. Later the Roman Catholic Hales family occupied it for nearly a century before building ‘Hales Place’.

3. The Almshouses
almshouses
The Almshouses : Six brick almshouses together with their Warden, the parish clerk’s dwelling, now ‘Ye Olde Beverlie’, cost Manwood £500 in 1573. He supplied a water conduit, pensions, new clothes triennially, bread and fuel, and hosted Sunday dinner.
Today's residents enjoy modernised facilities from his and later bequests and thanks partly to Ye Olde Beverlie’s rents.

4. Cricket
cricket
Cricket: John and William Baker’s Beverley Cricket Club was so fashionably successful, that its first Cricket Week in 1839 attracted 4,000 spectators.

By 1870, it had moved to St Lawrence ground, rescuing the impoverished County Cricket Club, of which William became the first Secretary.
His widow gave the 1835 coat of arms to Ye Olde Beverlie ‘for ever’.


5. Church
cricket
The Church: St Stephen’s was begun by St Anselm, Archbishop, in 1100. Some stonework of the College of Canons planned by Archbishop Baldwin in 1185 still survives.
The plan was still-born. Archdeacon Simon Langton, given the manor by his brother, Stephen, the Magna Carta archbishop, added the tower and completed the church.
The community tapestry project of Lay Reader Mary Ray is her memorial.