Reculver - Notable People

Notable People

King Eadberht II of Kent was buried in the church at Reculver in the 760s. His tomb was in the south porticus of the church, adjacent to the chancel, though this later became part of the church's south aisle. This was traditionally believed to be the tomb of King Æthelberht I of Kent, and was "of an antique form, mounted with two spires". Simon of Faversham, a 14th-century philosopher and theologian, was appointed rector of Reculver but was forced to defend his appointment to the pope, and died in France, either on his way to the papal curia in Avignon or after his arrival, some time before 19 July 1306.

The first recorded owner of Brook, about 0.8 miles (1 km) south-southwest of Reculver, but within Reculver parish, was Nicholas Tingewick, physician to King Edward I and, until 1310, rector of Reculver. He was regarded as the "best doctor for the king's health", and there are more records of his medical practice than there are for "most physicians of his time." Brook subsequently passed to James de la Pine, sheriff of Kent in the early 1350s. His grandson sold it to an ancestor of Henry Cheyne, who was elected knight of the shire for Kent in 1563, and was created "Lord Cheyney" in 1572. He had sold all of his possessions in Kent by 1574 to "finance his extravagance", and Brook subsequently became the property of Sir Cavalliero Maycott, who was a leading courtier to Elizabeth I and James I. He had a "handsome monument representing Sir Cavalliero and Lady Maycote, with their eight children, all in alabaster figures, kneeling". Brook is now Brook Farm, where there is a remnant of Maycott's home in the form of a gateway, which is a "very rustic Elizabethan affair", all of brick, with mouldings.

Thomas Broke, alderman and MP for Calais in the mid-16th century, may have been a son of Thomas Brooke of Reculver, as well as being a "religious radical". Ralph Brooke, officer of arms as Rouge Croix Pursuivant and York Herald under Elizabeth I and James I, died in 1625 and was buried in the church at Reculver, where he was commemorated by a black marble tablet on the wall of the chancel, showing him dressed in his herald's coat.

Robert Hunt, vicar of Reculver from 1595 to 1602, became minister of religion to the English colonial settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, sailing there in the ship Susan Constant in 1606, and probably celebrated "the first known service of holy communion in what is today the United States of America on 21 June 1607." Barnabas Knell was vicar of Reculver from 1602 to 1646, during which time his son Paul Knell was the chaplain for a regiment of cuirassiers, to whom he preached a sermon, "The convoy of a Christian", during the siege of Gloucester, in August 1643. An estate map of 1685 shows that much of Reculver then belonged to James Oxenden, who spent much of his life as an MP for Kent constituencies, between 1679 and 1702.