Frant

FRANT is a village, parish, and railway station, 2½ miles from Tunbridge Wells, on the brow of a hill, and is partly in Kent and partly in the Eastern division of Sussex, hundred of Rotherfield, rape of Pevensey, Ticehurst union, Tunbridge Wells county court district, diocese of Chichester, and archdeaconry of Lewes. The church of St. Alban is a Gothic edifice. The register dates from 1543. The living is a rectory, yearly value £800, with a glebe house, in the a gift of the Earl of Abergavenny, and held by the Rev. Sir Henry Thompson, Bart., M.A., of Oriel College, Oxford, prebend of Chichester and rural dean. The rectory house was considerably enlarged by the present rector in 1845. On the confines of Eridge Park, in this parish, there are traces of an old English camp called Saxonbury Hill. Eridge Castle, an ancient seat of the Nevills, is in the form of a quadrangle, surrounded by an extensive park. Bayham Abbey, a seat of the Marquis Camden, is in this parish, about 4 miles east from the church. Here are National schools. The Marquis Camden and the Earl of Abergavenny are lords of the manor. The charities are £23 per annum, arising from bequests made by Thomas Weller in 1667, and of Henry Smith in 1628. Eridge Rocks, also the High Rocks, are situated in this parish; they are of immense size, and the grounds open to the public on Wednesday and Thursdays. The reservoir for supplying Tunbridge Wells with water is in this parish. At Eridge Green is the church of the Holy Trinity, which together with the parsonage, were built at the sole cost of the Earl of Abergavenny in 1852. The living is a perpetual curacy, yearly value £150, derived from the tithe commutations of Rotherfield and Frant, out of which parishes the district is formed; it is in the gift of the Earl of Abergavenny, and held by the Rev. Daniel Winham, M.A., of Christ's College, Cambridge. There is also a mixed National school. At HAWKENBURY is a branch of the Frant school, where divine service is performed on Sunday. The area is 8,745 acres, and the population in 1861 was 2,469, of which 483 are in the town of Tunbridge Wells. [Kelly's Post Office Directory of Essex, Herts, Middlesex, Kent, Surrey and Sussex, 1867.]