The Wealthy of Woodchurch

Three Woodchurch families stand out as ‘important’ over the last 1000 years. Coins found by metal detectorists and others tell us that Romans passed by long ago but I know of no evidence that they actually lived here. It was a place later called Wudecirce, possibly because there was then a church made of wood. These wealthy families were the gentry who owned most of Woodchurch in their time.

The Clarke alias Woodchurch Family

The first recorded name is from the time of the Norman Conquest. Anchitel de Woodchurch is said to be here then. His name is the first we have of fourteen generations of his family but we have only four over the next 200 years. Roger de Woodchurch was born about 1200 and his son Thomas married the daughter of a Lord Mayor of London. Thomas had a son called Simon who was knighted by King Edward I.  Around 1300 Simon de Woodchurch married Susan a wealthy heiress of the le Clerc (Clarke) family from Kingsnorth. It is possible that our Susans Hill was named after her.

The family story gets complicated over the next few generations as they started calling themselves Clarke alias Woodchurch to acknowledge the wealth brought to Woodchurch by Susan. By the late 1400s there was a William Clarke of Woodchurch. He had a grandson called Humphry (c. 1530–1620). Humphry sold the family seat at Woodchurch Place of which only the house on the Green we know as Place Farm survives. You can go and see Humphry in his tomb in the church of St. Michael and All Angels at Kingsnorth.

The Harlackenden Family

In 1545 when Humphry sold Woodchurch Place to a Martin Harlackenden, he was then head of our second wealthy family of Woodchurch. The Harlackendens had been here at least five centuries and the origins of the family name are Anglo-Saxon. It is said that there was a William Harlackenden about the year 1080. We know nothing of him or his next seven descendants except their names but another William Harlackenden did leave his mark. William was a builder and helped put up the Guildhall in Canterbury in 1438, demolished in the 1950s. Perhaps he built Henden for himself in 1435. In 1450 he supported Jack Cade’s rebellion but was pardoned by Henry VI. He died in 1481 and lies in All Saints, perhaps under the organ.

William had a son Roger who was a troublemaker. He would disrupt the services in All Saints. Roger married twice and sired two sons, one of whom Robert moved away and founded a branch of the family at Tunstall near Sittingbourne. The other son Thomas stayed in Woodchurch and has lain in his tomb in All Saints since 1558. He had six sons of which the youngest was his eventual heir and our Martin who lived to 1584. 

Early in the seventeenth century, plague struck Tunstall and the Harlackendens, killing a father and son but baby grandson Walter survived. Another Walter, his wicked uncle, employed skullduggery to try to disinherit baby Walter and a series of court cases ensued. These dragged on for years until young Walter reached twenty-one years and claimed his just inheritance. This included Woodchurch property with both Woodchurch Place and Henden. Once married, he produced a son called Thomas who may have been MP for Maidstone. Thomas had a son called George who found his way back to Woodchurch and lived at Woodchurch Place. But financial mismanagement by his ancestors obliged George to sell up everything in 1699. All that remains at Woodchurch is Harlackenden Farm near where the original manor house stood.

The Schreiber family

Karl Schreiber was born far away in Durlach near the German city of Karlsruhe. He moved to London in the 1740s and traded in furs, building a fortune that his descendants were to enjoy. Karl later lived at Enfield and Tewin a village now near Welwyn Garden City. Karl was quite a character, having three wives and nearly four. His first-born son William grew up at Tewin, and later moved around living in Ipswich, Bures on the Essex-Suffolk border and in the New Forest at Brockenhurst. He bought Hengherst at Woodchurch towards the end of the eighteenth century and his eldest son John Charles inherited the estate when William died in 1821.

John Charles Schreiber married Amelia Cameron in 1823, taking up residence there in 1828. John Charles was our village squire for forty years until he died childless in 1863. Amelia carried on at Hengherst for another twenty years and Duncan Cameron her nephew kept her company there, with his family.

In 1883, Amelia died and Arthur Schreiber, a nephew of John Charles, inherited the estate. His wife Elizabeth was a Yorkshire lass. In photographs, she looks somewhat severe but Arthur appears to have been a gentle soul, who was well-loved by those who knew him well. They had just one child, Evelyn, who inherited the Hengherst estate when Arthur died in 1902.

In 1899, Evelyn had married an army man, Captain Somerset Edward Deane Webb. Evelyn was very active in Woodchurch affairs, donating regularly to All Saints as had John Charles. The couple had three children, a boy and two girls. The eldest was known locally as ‘Tommy’. Evelyn died of skin cancer in 1931, leaving Hengherst to him.

The estate included many properties in Woodchurch with a total of over 2500 acres. Evelyn was worth a total of over what would have been £20 million in today’s values. In 1937 the estate was auctioned off and Tommy moved to Ireland. Thus ended 114 years of Schreibers as the squires of Woodchurch. John Charles, Amelia, Arthur, Elizabeth, Evelyn and Tommy all lie in All Saints churchyard near the western end of the church.

Suggested Reading

If you want to know more about the village gentry and wealthy of Woodchurch, you can read about the first two families in Scuppets & Scutchell, a journal produced by the Woodchurch Ancestry Group. The Schreibers are mentioned in Then & Now, A Social History of Woodchurch and Old Sqyre Schreiber, all published by the Woodchurch Village Life Museum.