Before New Ash Green - Hartley-Kent: Covering Hartley, Longfield & District

After the end of the Roman era the area was settled by the English, and was part of the kingdom of Kent.  The evidence of place names suggests this was a wooded area.  Ash is of course named after the tree (Old English "æsc"), while Hartley is a combination of heort (hart) and leah (glade, wood).  By the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066 the parish boundaries would have been set, and it is likely both had their own church too.  At that time Godric was lord of the manor of Ash, while an unnamed woman was chatelaine of Hartley.

Bazes Shaw was originally part of a 45 acre farm owned by the Blodiner (Blundum) family since at least 1232.  The last of the family line, Walter, died probably sometime in the 1280s.  At the Greenwich Assizes held on 21 January 1288, his nephew John Eylnoth sued seven individuals for the recovery of 31 acres of the estate.  They in turn successfully argued that Walter was not the owner because he had sold the land to them.  One of the defendants was an Alarus Veysyn, and the 1¼ acre plot that he claimed is identical in size to the woodland.

Once one of Hartley's larger farms, New House Farm in its modern form is an amalgam of two holdings purchased by the Burrowes family.  Thomas Burrow bought a farm and 35 acres from John Northash in 1583, and in 1622 the family acquired another 72 acres (largely the area now known as Northfield) from Richard Overy.  It is likely that part of the farm near Church Road was part of a 45 acre farm owned by the Blodiner family in the c13th, some 14 acres of which was inherited by John Eylnoth in about 1288.

This was originally owned by the Lovelace family of West Kingsdown.  In 1620 Richard Lovelace gave the farm to his daughter Margaret and her husband Henry Coke, in consideration of their marriage.  Henry was the son of the famous lawyer Lord Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke.  As well as Turners, the newlyweds got land in West Kingsdown, Hever, Farningham, Eynsford and Shoreham.  It continued to be owned by the Coke family until it was sold by Thomas William Coke, the first Earl of Leicester in 1790 to Thomas Whitaker.  The Whitakers lived at Wrotham, so the tenant was a John Middleton.

This is one of the few old buildings in New Ash Green and the headquarters of Bovis.  It has been associated for centuries with one Ash family - the La(u)nces, who are commemorated in the road Lancecroft.

This the remnant of the old manor of Scotgrove, the remains of which are to be found in Chapel Wood.  In the early c13th it was owned by Mabel de Torpel, lord of the manor of Ash.  She sold it to the de Faukham family, but by 1275 it was in the hands of Richard de Gatewyk.  The buildings appear to have fallen into disuse after the Black Death (1348), and later the site was bought by the Colepepper family in 1381.  In 1500 it was given to Walter Lewkenor of Warbleton, East Sussex in consideration of his marriage with Jocosa Colepepper.  Their son Humphrey sold it to Thomas Fane, who was arrested for his part in Wyatt's rebellion against Queen Mary in 1555.  Thomas Walter purchased the land in 1556 and his son sold it to John Kettell in 1589.  Then it was called "the Chantry", a name preserved in the one part of the farm that lies in Hartley.  It then passed through several branches of one family until it was given in marriage by Everard and Frances Clement to their only daughter Margaret and her husband Finch Umfrey.  The last of the Umfrey's Elizabeth died in 1760 and her heirs George and Jarvis Brook sold the land to James Lance of North Ash in 1782, thus joining the farms.

These two fields are the final piece of the New Ash Green jigsaw.  They were part of the demesne land of the manor of Ash, and thus belonged to the Lambard family up until the last century.  They appear to have been acquired by the North Ash Estate between 1926 and 1941.

In the midst of the modern buildings in New Ash Green are two reminders of a byegone age.  North Ash Farmhouse we have already discussed.   But on the corner of West Yoke and Ash Roads stand a pair of almshouse cottages.  They may possibly be the successors to a cottage called "Butlers Hall", mentioned in 1642, as it is on the corner of Butlers Field.   These were given by James Lance in 1811 to be occupied by four poor widows forever.  He also left money for the school and the poor of Ash.

North Ash, Old House and Turners were eventually bought by George Day in 1911 for £5,000, although he had been tenant here since about 1892. Then the farm was a mixture of pasture and arable, mostly soft fruit.  He was from Harvel Lodge, Meopham, his father was a third generation Meopham farmer.  He came to North Ash Farm and successfully managed it in difficult years for farming.  He disliked the remnants of the manorial system, in 1932 he paid the quitrent due on his holding in small change!  A stalwart of Ash Baptist Chapel, he was also local county, district and parish councillor.  Interviewed in 1936 and 1939 by the Dartford Chronicle he said there were no steam rollers for the roads when he first came to Ash "How did we get the roads made up?  Why we walked on them!"  He also recalled thinking nothing of walking the 7 miles to Dartford for council meetings in the 1890s.  He specialised in fruit at North Ash, which meant a lot of seasonal out of parish workers were employed in picking.  In the first world war his daughter Daisy ran two farms taken over by the War Agricultural Committee, with the help of prisoner of war labour.