Godmersham - History

History

The first known record of Godmersham was AD824 when Beornwulf, King of Mercia, gave Godmersham to Wulfred, Archbishop of Canterbury. The village also is recorded in the Domesday Book. Bilting is thought to be even older.

Although a significant number of residents work on the land, in more recent times the area has become largely a dormitory for people who work in Ashford, Canterbury and further afield. Many commute to London by train from nearby Wye station. The village school in The Street closed in 1946 and the shop/post office in 1982. It is many years since there was a public house in the village, consequently, Godmersham is one of a few "dry" parishes in the country.

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