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The historic hamlet of Greenstreet takes its name from the family that occupied Claxfield Farm near what is now called - London Road. There has been some confusion over time between which came first, the name of the family or the name of the street.
- Greenstreet Family influence from Claxfield
- Greenstreet Hamlet on London Road
- Cellar Hill
Elizabeth Selby, MBE, tells us (p.72., Teynham Manor and Hundred, Originally published 1935 by Headley Brothers. Page credits here refer to the 1982 reprint by Meresborough Books. ISBN 0905270 630):
“CLAXFIELD: This farm is at the western edge of Lynsted, near the London Road. In the 1327 Subsidy Roll various persons known as “de Claxfield” paid subsidies, but it is mentioned in a 15th century Manor Roll as Claxfeldestane. In the 14th and succeeding centuries it was the possession and home of the Greenstreet family, whose name, spelt Grensted, Grynsted, Grenstede, Grensteyde, is to be found all over Kent, though as the name meant “green farm” possibly they were not all related. It is difficult to determine if the name of the family or the name of the “street” came first, as apparently the old name was Kay Street or Clay Street.
A John de Grenestrete was Prior of Rochester in 1314, and he appears to have had brothers Richard de Grenestrete of Bromleye and Robertus de Grenestrete of Teynham Hundred, who are mentioned in a deed of 1328.
The names of Thomas de Grenestrete and Roberto de Grenestrete appear in a Subsidy Roll of 1339, paying VIIId. and IIId. respectively.
John Grenestrete Senior and Roger Grenestrete appeared before the Manor Court about a debt from Robert at Hatche in 1389. A John Grenestrete was Manor Reeve in 1467.
This was possibly the John Grenestrete of Claxfield who died in 1494, leaving property in Lynsted and Eastling. His grandson John bought Plumford and Painters Forstall in Ospringe about 1566, and his son Peter inherited Huntingfield as well as some of the Lynsted property. The family held Claxfield until 1674 when James Greenstreet sold it to Christopher Clarke of Frognal.
They bore for arms Barruly of 8 pieces argent and azure on a canton of the 2nd an eagle displayed with 2 necks or.
There was a Simon Greenstreet or Teynham Hundred, a “suspect” under the Commonwealth, probably father or brother of the James who was borsholder in 1657 and 1658 and sold the property.
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Laurence Greenstreet was Churchwarden for Teynham in 1609, and John Greenstreet in 1622 and 1623.
The Greenstreets owned property from Claxfield to Selling and remained an important family, though they died out in the original home. Hasted says several of the family are buried in the middle aisle of Lynsted Church. There is a tomb in the Churchyard to “Henry Greenstreet died 1752, aged 18”, and another “Henry Greenstreet died 1742”.
There is still standing at Claxfield a fine old half-timber farmhouse, certainly dating from the late 15th century, which appears to be on earlier foundations.
In 1740 the farm belonged to George Smith, and in 1846 it was the property of George Wildash. It now belongs to Mr. Potter Oyler.
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Greenstreet
(p.57, Selby) “Greenstreet is part of the old road from London to Dover, usually spoken of as Watling Street.
Two miles of this road lay in Tenham Manor, the western mile being known as “Greenstreet”. This road divides the Parish of Teynham from Lynsted. “Watling Street” was the old Roman road. Harris, writing in 1719, describes the remains of it at Greenstreet. - ”Leaving the common road on the right hand, it runs along with a fair bank rising in the middle and falling on each side for a considerable length.” Possibly this is the wide path on the north side, which was a rough banked-up path when the writer first remembers it forty-five years ago.
The ancient name of this road, as “Cay Street” and “Caycol Hill” (now Key Street and Keycol Hill) at Newington, is alluded to by Harris who says tradition connects it with Caius Julius Caesar.
By an old will, Thomas Byx (1483) left a sum of money to repair the road between Bogill and “Clay Street”. Perambulation of Faversham boundaries of the time of Edward I alludes to this road as “Key Street” (Hasted). It was called Casing Street at Bexley in 814. (Archaeologia Cantiana, Vol. XLVI, p.60)
Dr. Gordon Ward has given me particulars from a small parchment in private hands, apparently 13th century, headed as follows:- “Memorandum what Lord John of Cobham knight holds on the North side of KAYSTREET”. Presumably the properties, at present unidentified, were in the neighbourhood of Cobham.
Wallenberg (Kentish Place Names, p. 349) mentions “Caseru Street” as a boundary of land near Canterbury and “Casing burnam” apparently near Faversham. It seems the road was known at all events from Canterbury to London by the same name, possibly “Kasern” or “Casern Straet” (=Caesars Street), as Wallenberg suggests at Canterbury though he does not connect the name with “Key Street” near Sittingbourne.
In MSS.33992, British Museum, Streatfield gives an account of the method of collecting money for the repair of this road. He says by an Act of 10 Queen Anne a cesse of 6d. was collected from the respective parishes on the road, but that “notwithstanding it was ruinous and unsafe”.
In the 4th year of George II (1730) an Act was passed for Aid by a Land Tax on the principal inhabitants of Kent. £1,019 was to be raised. Trustees were appointed to receive tolls and borrow money on securities, etc.
The tax was again raised for the same sum in the following year. In spite of this the road was in such a bad state after the Napoleonic Wars that the coaches sank to their axles in mud or dust, and many inhabitants used the “Lower Road”, i.e. the road through Barrow Green. (Related by old inhabitants).
This latter road is traditionally the “Old Road” and may well have been an ancient track. It led from the ancient town of Faversham to Tong Castle, traditionally supposed to have been the home of the British King Vortigern.
At the west end of the village, beyond the house now called Melrose, was the “Rope Walk”, a usual adjunct to a village when ropes were made by the rural population.
New Gardens and Frognal land occupied the rest of the northern part of Greenstreet until the last century, when shops and cottages were built.
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Cellar Hill
The east end of Greenstreet was known as “Cellar Hill”, on both sides of the street. On the top of the hill lay Brewson’s Farm, an old half-timbered house used as a dame’s school till 1880 (?) when St. Andrew’s was built. (The farmhouse was pulled down as being past repair and the present Brusons House built by James Lake for Dr. Pritchard about 1880.)
The name seems to have come from John Brewster or his forbears who owned it and whose heiress sold it. Before 1753 it appears as Brewsters and in that year as “Brusons” in the Rate Book. It appears to have been a portion of a farm of 25 acres at Barrow Green, called Hays, and was owned by Edward Hasted in 1740, and later belonged to William Fairbeard, Nurseryman, and was occupied by James Flood who was Registrar in the Parish.
St. Andrews Church was built in 1880 (?) largely by the generosity of Mr. James Lake of Newlands. I have heard that when the foundations were dug a group of bodies were found; local opinion said it looked as if “there had been a fight there”, but I have heard nothing to prove this.
A few old properties on the Teynham side of Cellar Hill are mentioned in the 1740 Manor Rolls.
1st - Messuage, Oasthouse and land at the “Western foot of Cellar Hill, now a hop garden (1740)”, then belonging to the heirs of William Lambert. Probably Mr. Ray’s Nursery.
2nd - Heirs of John Stott for messuage and backside adjoining the last, being the corner house, leading thence to Teynham (the old cottage burnt down in 1891).
3rd - Heirs of John Smith, messuage and 4 acres on the top of Cellar Hill, possibly the farmhouse, afterwards school, at Brusons.
Mr. Read, the Postmaster of Teynham, told the writer his grandfather had occupied the present grocers shop before him.
Mr. George’s carpenter’s yard and shop were occupied by his father and grandfather before him. Much good restoration of Church and old houses has been carried out by that family.
Mr.Wildash’s (builder) family also has a long connection with Teynham, and the name is found in the Manor Rolls in the middle of the 17th century.
The mention of 6/4 rates paid in 1854 by the “European Electric Telegraph Co.” for telephone wires and tubes was the beginning of a new appearance in the old road. The road is now a mass of telephone and telegraph wires both above and below ground.
The motor bus service, now such a matter of course, was only started in 1914 by Messrs. Standen of Sittingbourne.”
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[END OF EXTRACTS]
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