Ruxley

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Maidstone Road

Milestone

Ruxley Cottage

Tollgate

Ruxley

The name Rokesley (Ruxley) is said to derive from Rookesley (O.E.) and means 'a pasture in which rooks do breed'. Gregory de Rokesle (Ruxley) possessed the manor of St. Mary Cray, and King Edward I authorised him to hold a weekly market and annual fair in the village. A plaque, set in the wall of Lloyds Bank, Lombard Street, London, records the fact that Gregory had his town house on that site, and was made Mayor of London no less than eight times between 1274 and 1285.

Ruxley Garden Centre – covers the entire area of the former village.

Ruxley church. Ancient church of St. Botolph, disused for years.  It is above the main Rochester Road on a hummock with, one is surprised to find, far-extending views in all directions. The walls are built of flint and Kentish Greensand, which survive intact. Incorporated into the foundations of the latter are some Roman tiles, which may have been moved from the bathhouse, which stood in nearby Beden's Field. This former church is now used for storage and the attached oast kiln has been partially dismantled. For many years it was used as a barn - it was never more than a chapel a simple rectangle.  It is recorded in Textus Roffensis (1120) that 9 denarii were paid to the see of Rochester at the time of the Domesday Survey (1087). Some 60 graves were discovered here many dating from the 14th century and suggesting that the occupants were victims of the Black Death. Gregory de Rokesle was buried in the Greyfriars Church in the City of London, but there is a remote possibility that his remains were transferred to the new medieval church at Ruxley, which had been rebuilt by the de Rokesles over the earlier Saxon structure. A skull and bones found beneath the site of the altar during the excavation presumably had some special significance. With a major stretch of the imagination, the bones may even be regarded as those of St. Botolph himself, translated from St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate, City of London! In 1557 the church was suppressed by Cardinal Pole, and authority given for the removal of building materials to the parish of North Cray.

Tiles from local Roman bathhouse.

Ruxley Manor. An 18th century red brick building incorporating parts of an earlier timber-framed structure

Ruxley Farm

Upper Ruxley Farm. Denehole

Ruxley Wood

Denehole

Swanley Bypass

1926: Ruxley to Wrotham KCC 1926


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