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The town of Westwell in Kent, is a town that plays a large part in the lives of this particular Heneker clan. I am also lucky enough to have visited Westwell in 2008. It struck me as the quintessential English country town. It was something out of an English period movie or picture. A winding narrow road with hedges on each side, rather scary for this Aussie girl who is used to wide roads. What did we do when another car came in the other direction. Luckily this didn’t happen.
Photograph taken by the author Vicki Lovell in June 2008, On the road to Westwell, Kent UK.
A town square with a pub and other quaint buildings around it. Large overhanging trees, drizzle, a beautiful old church with the most amazing large wooden door, and gravestones surrounding parts of the church.
St Mary’s Church, Westwell, Kent with graveyard in foreground, taken by Vicki Lovell in June 2008
Westwell is a rural village in the North Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty at the foot of the Westwell Downs, the highest part of which is called the Beacon after the chain of beacons erected to signal the approach of the Spanish Armada. The village was first mentioned in 858 in a Saxon document and was included in the Domesday Book. A weekly market was held here under a licence granted by Edward I, there was a park during Edward II‘s time and later a vineyard tended by monks (recalled by one of the cottages in the village named Vineyards).
The centre of the village is a conservation area with many mature trees and listed buildings, including Court Lodge, Swinford Cottage, Periton Court and The Mill House (with its water wheel still in working order). The notable parish church is St. Mary the Virgin which dates from the 13th century or earlier. Among many other buildings of interest in the parish are Ripple Court (which used to house the local dungeons—and where it is alleged that Jack Cade was captured) and The Haven (pronounced ‘harven’) a Tudor residence where Elizabeth I is believed to have spent one night.[2] Kent Gliding Club is located nearby.
*Source: the above information has been taken from Wikipedia
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Working now as a nurse, I previously worked as a Library Technician at the State Library of South Australia and then Noarlunga Library Services. I was lucky enough to work at the State Library in the Archives department, which is now a separate entity and housed at a suburban site. then Noarlunga Library Services. I always loved English and Australian history, and began my Heneker family history in about 1980, well before the advent of the internet, and now of course with so many digitised records online there is a treasure chest of information out there, and it just keeps growing. One of the most wonderful treasures we have here in Australia is the Trove website, the free digitised newspapers of nearly every place in Australia, provided for free by the National Library of Australia. This has opened up so much day to day information for people searching for further information about their ancestors. I chose to write a blog as a way for me to put down a lot of information I had that wasn't necessarily easy to slot into a "family tree" as such. And I wanted to record some of the stories of the Heneker clan, and especially James Heneker (1826-1917) who arrived in South Australia as a 12 year old boy with his family. Like most of us in the genealogy community I have become obsessed, and of course, this is really a never ending story. The community of bloggers, and also Facebook specialist pages has allowed me and many of us to learn from each other, and to use some of the many amazing tools that are out there now for us to use and enhance our research. I just want to stay awake at night reading or researching or just browsing online for more and more information and I am sure I am not alone. My one wish?? Dad Neville Laurence Heneker 1929 - 1987, this is for you, for all the things you told me, and the stories you related, often when we were up north in the Flinders Ranges, at Beltana, Hawker, Blinman and many other amazing places. I wish you were here, so I could share all this new information that has come to light. And of course for you Pa (Laurence Douglas Heneker), your stories were incredible and watching you sleep out under the stars at Arkaroola with a rock for your pillow is an image I will never forget. Oh if only we had digital cameras back then...I think of you both every time I write my words and read my books. I love you both.
