Where The Fern Dwellers Are

Today dawned grey and cold again but after our usual morning run we nevertheless decided that we should make an effort to set off on a micro trip and thought we would continue our tour of Kentish towns and villages.
Today's trip was inspired by an article my brother saw on the Kent Live website about a lovely village called Farningham with an ornate bridge of disputed origin (more of which later).
Farningham comes from the Old English 'Fearn' meaning fern, ferns, place of ferns and 'people of or people called after..' with 'ham' for a village or homestead - so literally where the fern dwellers live (the village is named as Ferningham in the Domesday book). The area itself dates back to Neolithic times and it is fairly certain there was also a Roman presence here as the villa at Lullingstone is less than a mile away with the village also once having boasted four manors (in the 11th Century) - one being owned by a Norman knight called Wadard whose portrait can be seen on the Bayeux Tapestry. 
The journey there only took about half an hour and I must admit I nearly drove past it altogether until I turned down a side road to turn around, as I thought we'd got lost, and there was a sign for the village's High Street.
What a gloriously picturesque village with a plethora of grand houses, weatherboarded cottages, a mill, two pubs, an hotel, an antiquarian bookshop and an Indian restaurant but strangely not a single other shop that we could see - and a river running through it with the aformentioned ornate bridge.
I couldn't get an image of this rather unique structure, which sits opposite the historic Lion Hotel, that I was happy with but it does have an intriguing history. It is thought to have been built between 1740 and 1770 and its purpose has been puzzled over as you cannot walk across or traverse it. Once thought to be a folly or the remains of a medieval bridge it is in all probability a cattle screen (it has a wooden beam strung between the arches with hanging gates) built to prevent cattle from wandering downstream whilst crossing the village's ford and that it owes its ornate nature to the fact that the owners of the nearby Farningham Manor wanted to flout their wealth to the local population.
My image was taken as we wandered further along the High Street and is of Farningham Mill which was first recorded in the Domesday book in 1070, but it is likely that there has been a mill on this site since Saxon times.
The majority of the buildings - the mill house, stables, engine house, cart store, carriage shed and glass house - were built by Charles Colyer in the late 18th Century - he also replaced the old mill with the wonderful, weather-boarded, four storey mill that you can see in my image - when times were good in the milling industry.
The mill was a busy place for this rural industry - for more than a thousand years carts carrying sacks of wheat would make their way down the drive from the High Street to be ground into flour until the mill stopped operating over 100 years ago. After 250 years owned by the same family it was sold to developers and is now private housing.
Of course after strolling around such historic and scenic surroundings we had to try one of the pubs - The Pied Bull. We received a lovely warm welcome from the landlady and ordered some chicken satay skewers with an accompaniment of skin on fries and pint each next to a fabulously warming open fire. A great end to our micro tip to the home of the fern dwellers!