Wickhambreaux

The Mill, Wickhambreaux (now converted to private flats) © P.E. Blanche 2000

A really sleepy but pretty little Kent village with a triangular tree-lined green at its centre, also known locally as Wickham. On the West side of the green is a tall white clap-board mill with a working water wheel located on the Lesser (or Little) Stour. I almost drove into this attractive watercourse on a motorbike late one night for reasons I will not explain. One of the local public houses used to be the Hooden Horse which represents one of the characters in the local of "hoodening". This "hoodening" was practiced by farm labourers in December when they went from door to door to try to collect funds for an annual Christmas feast, often to the point of becoming quite threatening. The practice died out in most of Kent by the turn of this Century except in Thanet and Walmer where is survived for slightly longer but some of the characters such as the horse, the rider and "Molly" can be seen in current Morris Dancing.

There is an old country "counting-out" rhyme about this village and its neighbouring village of Ickham which goes as follows:

Ickham, pickham,
Penny Wickham,
Cockaloram jay,
Eggs, butter, cheese, bread,
Hick, stick, stone dead!

I knew this rhyme well enough as a child as did my parents before me but I wonder whether it is as well known by the current generation. It is strange to this that the wonders of modern science, i.e. the Internet, may be the only way to keep these older traditions alive.

Wickambreaux was one of the Kent Estates of Princess Joan Plantagenet, the original "Fair Maid of Kent" and she visited the village on at least one occasion in 1381. Princess Joan was the Grand-daughter of Edward I, the the wife of Edward, The Black Prince, (her second marriage after her first husband died), and the Mother of Richard II.