Copyright Kent Past 2010
Kent Past
The History of Kent
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History of Reading Street
Reading Street is a hamlet approximately 3 miles south east of Tenterden.
The church
dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, and until 1858 sited at the nearby hamlet of Ebony,
where it had originally been built in the 12th Century. Ebony is included in the
1070 list of churches in Kent, and there are many records of it on the island.
Until
1650, the Rother flowed through Robertsbridge, Bodiam and Newenden, then turned left
handed to pass the Isle of Oxney on its north side. After passing Small Hythe, it
forked at Ebony surrounding it on both sides and then in a broad estuary found its
way to the sea past Appledore into Rye Harbour. At high tides, the salt water swirled
all over the levels, leaving Ebony isolated by a sea of water. This changed when
the landowners cut a new channel below Newenden to divert the Rother over the Wittersham
levels to Iden and its old estuary at Rye. So long as the main sea channel flowed
past it, Ebony benefited by the sea trade and could move its people and its crops
by water.
The population deserted the island for the healthier and more accessible
hamlet of Reading Street the nearest house was three quarters of a mile away, and
the fabric of the church needed repair. With great initiative, the new Vicar and
his Churchwarden decided to pull the old building down, and move the stone work by
horse and cart over a mile of rough track, where they rebuilt it on the new site..
The whole project took three months at a cost of £270 -