Descriptive Gazetteer Entry for LYDD

LYDD, a small town, a parish, and a sub-district, in Romney-Marsh district, Kent. The town stands near the coast, 3½ miles SW by S of New Romney, 4 NW of Dungeness, and 7½ SW of Appledore r. station; is a member of Romney cinque-port, and a borough by prescription; is governed by a bailiff, jurats, and freemen, -the bailiff and jurats elected annually; is a seat of petty sessions; had, till recently, a weekly market; and has a post office‡ under Folkestone, a neat market-house, a church, a Wesleyan chapel, a national school, breweries, and a fair on the last Monday of July. The church is later English, and large; has a lofty handsome tower, supposed to have been erected by Cardinal Wolsey, who held the benefice in right of the abbey of Tintern; contains an altar-tomb to Sir W. Meynell of the time of Edward III., and a number of brasses; and was given, by one of the De Clares, to Tintern abbey. The parish comprises 11,788 acres of land, and 1,715 of water. Real property, £16,889. Pop. in 1851,1,605; in 1861, 1,667. Houses, 360. The land is of varions character; a great portion appears to be of more recent formation than the adjacent marshes; and parts, called the Rype and Midrips, run out in narrow tongues; yet reaches of the beach are suffering inroads by the sea, and are cut by it into pits or water-holes. A long tract, called the Holmstone, was once covered with sea-holly, locally termed holm, and of an unusual size. A heap of stones, at Stone-end on the shore to the E of the town, was long traditionally regarded as the tomb of Sts. Crispin and Crispianus, who were alleged to have been shipwrecked and buried here. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury. Value, £1,450.* Patron, the Archbishop of Cauterbury. Charities, about £130. See DUNGENESS.—The sub-district contains also seven other parishes. Acres, 26,114. Pop., 2,826. Houses, 593.


(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))

Linked entities:
Feature Description: "a small town, a parish, and a sub-district"   (ADL Feature Type: "cities")
Administrative units: Lydd AP/CP       Lydd SubD       Romney Marsh RegD/PLU       Kent AncC
Place: Lydd

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