Graveney (The Gatehouse Record)

Also known as, or recorded in historical documents as;
Greveney; Graveneycourt

In the civil parish of Graveney With Goodnestone.
In the historic county of Kent.
Modern Authority of Kent.
1974 county of Kent.
Medieval County of Kent.

OS Map Grid Reference: TR05256273
Latitude 51.32660° Longitude 0.94480°

Graveney has been described as a probable Fortified Manor House, and also as a Uncertain although is doubtful that it was such.

There are uncertain remains.

This is a Grade 2 listed building protected by law*.

Description

Chandlers transcription of Leland includes Graveney in a list of places in Kent with a castle.
Other castles in this list include the Thames blockhouses of Henry VIII including the Gravesend Blockhouse. This is transcribed as Greveney in the Toulmin-Smith edition with the footnote 'Greyne, the Isle of Grain. see after, pp. 52, 58). There was a C19 coastal fort here (at TQ889765), at the mouth of the Medway opposite Sheerness and Queenborough and it is not an improbably place for an earlier coastal artillery fort but there absolutely no evidence for this.
There is a C15 manor house at Graveney called Graveneycourt, described by Hasted, which may be what Leland was referring too, although there are many similar such houses in Kent which are rarely called 'castle'. However, in Hasted time there was an 'ancient gateway' suggesting something perhaps a little more defensible than the surviving timber framed house suggests. The route given in Toulmin-Smith (iv, p. 46) would take Leland by Graveneycourt. The order of the list itself does not favour a location.

House. Circa 1420 and C18. Timber framed, plastered and weather boarded with painted brick extension. Plain tiled roof. Two storeys on plinth with jetty on brackets to centre, and roof hipped to left, with moulded barge boarded:gable to centre and stacks to centre right and end right. Five wooden casements on first floor, 4 on ground floor, the right end 2 on each floor in C18 extension. Central door with moulded panels and sidelights. Built c.1420 by John Martyn, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, buried in the adjacent Graveney Church (see Hasted, VII, p. 64). (Listed Building Report)

The flat, expansive nature of the Graveney marshes continues to exert an influence on the character of development at Graveney, despite the land having been converted almost entirely to arable use. Whilst the marshes no longer have a truly wild appearance, the presence of these wide and open spaces extending up to the very edge of the church graveyard is a strong reminder of just how remote the place has been. (Graveney Church, Graveney Bridge and Goodnestone conservation areas: character appraisal)

Sources of information, references and further reading

National Heritage List for England Listed Building number(s) 1069108
Historic England (PastScape) Defra or Monument number(s) 463550.
County Historic Environment Record (or Sites and Monuments Record) number(s) TR 06 SE 1080.

Books
- Hasted, Edward, 1798 (2edn), The history and topographical survey of the county of Kent Vol. 7 p. 28-38 online transcription
Antiquarian (Histories and accounts from late medieval and early modern writers)
- Chandler, John, 1993, John Leland's Itinerary: travels in Tudor England (Sutton Publishing) p. 250
  Toulmin-Smith, Lucy (ed), 1909, The itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1535-1543 (London: Bell and Sons) Vol. 4 p. 48, 52, 58 online copy

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It is an offence to disturb a Scheduled Monument without consent. It is a destruction of everyone's heritage to remove archaeological evidence from ANY site without proper recording and reporting.
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The information on this web page may be derived from information compiled by and/or copyright of Historic England, County Historic Environment Records and other individuals and organisations. It may also contain information licensed under the Open Government Licence. All the sources given should be consulted to identify the original copyright holder and permission obtained from them before use of the information on this site for commercial purposes.
The author and compiler of Gatehouse does not receive any income from the site and funds it himself. The information within this site is provided freely for educational purposes only.

The bibliography owes much to various bibliographies produced by John Kenyon for the Council for British Archaeology, the Castle Studies Group and others.

Suggestions for finding online and/or hard copies of bibliographical sources can be seen at this link.
Minor archaeological investigations, such as watching brief reports, and some other 'grey' literature is most likely to be held by H.E.R.s but is often poorly referenced and is unlikely to be recorded here, or elsewhere, but some suggestions can be found here.

The possible site or monument is represented on maps as a point location. This is a guide only. It should be noted that OS grid references defines an area, not a point location. In practice this means the actual center of the site or monument may often, but not always, be to the North East of the point shown. Locations derived from OS grid references and from latitude longitiude may differ by a small distance.
Further information on mapping and location can be seen at this link.

Please help to make this as useful a resource as possible by contacting Gatehouse if you see errors, can add information or have suggestions for improvements in functality and design.
Help is acknowledged.

*The listed building may not be the actual medieval building, but a building on the site of, or incorporating fragments of, the described site.

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