Bridge comes from the Old English ‘brycg’ meaning a ‘bridge, causeway’. The Domesday
Book records Bridge as Brige. This is where the old Roman Canterbury-Dover road crosses
the Nailbourne – Little Stour.
Bridge parish church is a Grade: II listed building, dedicated to Saint Peter. The
Normans built the church in the 11th century as a Chapel-of-Ease to Patrixbourne,
with additions and extensions in the following 200 years. William le Belyetere cast
and hung a tenor bell in 1325, and an unknown founder added two trebles in 1450.
In 1800, Edward Hasted described the Bridge church as consisting of ‘three isles,
a high chancel, and a north sept or chancel in the middle of the north isle. It has
a spire steeple at the south-east corner, in which are three bells…. The north chancel
is made use of for a school, by voluntary contributions’. In 1859, the Victorian
Gothic revival architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, heavily rebuilt the church, which
attracted much criticism…. more
