The Nave and Chancel © PE Blanche 2001 Blocked West door into The Nave. © PE Blanche 2001

This Church has one of the most extensive guides I have seen for a local country Church. However, this is mainly due to the fact that the Parish has been able to reproduce an excellent article from Archaeologia Cantiana by Tim Tatton-Brown. It is beyond the scope of these pages to deal with the history of this particular Church in such depth but might be interesting for some readers with a particular connection to this Church to know that such information is available. One thing that is striking from the guide is the amount of "damage" that was done to the earlier structure and interior of the Church by the Victorians when there was a large renovation project carried out in 1865/6 under the leadership of the Rev. Walter Field. I place the word "damage" in inverted comma's because his feeling at the time would have been that he was doing his very best for his community and congregation in making these improvements to the Church. The had been criticism of the Parish from the then Archbishop of Canterbury that the Church was in a dilapidated state. Whether that was strictly true or whether it paled in comparison to other Victorian "renovations" in the area, I cannot be sure. However, much of the interior, including all the old pews and galleries were removed and the blocked West Door directly into the Nave (pictured left) was one of the more obvious "improvements". It was through this door that one of England's favourite authors would have come on many Sundays to worship at this very ancient country Church - Jane Austen. (This was one of two Churches that Jane Austen would visit - the other was at Goodnestone, near Wingham). However, the main property owned by her brother, Edward Knight, was the nearby Godmersham Park. It is somewhat obvious that as brother and sister, Jane and Edward did not share the same surname. The answer to this is a little complicated...... There were two prominent families in the Godmersham area in the 17th Century, The Brodnaxes of Ford Place (later renamed Godmersham Place) and the Scotts of the manor of Eggerton who also had land and property at Brabourne and Smeeth. In 1727, the then occupant of Ford Place, Thomas Brodnax inherited a fortune from Sir Thomas May and as a result, had his name changed to Thomas May. It seems that eleven years after this, he inherited yet another fortune (... and all I want to do is win the lottery!) from a Mrs. Elizabeth Knight and again changed his name, this time to Thomas Knight. His son, also named Thomas Knight, inherited the estates at Godmersham from his Father and soon after this adopted Edward Austen, Jane Austen's brother. When Thomas died, his widow moved to Canterbury and left Edward Austen to live at Godmersham Park with his wife, Elizabeth, who just happened to be the daughter of Sir Brook Bridges of Goodnestone Park - which is where the Goodnestone connection comes in. When the widow of Thomas Knight died, the whole estate was left to Edward Austen (...talk about being in the right place at the right time!) and following the Brodnax tradition, he then changed his name to Edward Knight, hence the reason for Edward and his sister Jane having different surnames. (QED)