Introduction
I was born in Pluckley over 70 years ago and apart from 12 years in my 20/30s, have always lived here. My roots with Pluckley are deep as I have ancestors who lived here before 1500. I have always been interested in Pluckley’s history, its buildings and people and this website is an attempt to share my knowledge and information. It will include items from surrounding villages which form part of the wider community. I believe that knowledge should be shared freely with everyone and not kept hidden away. Should you wish to share your own information of Pluckley and its surrounds feel free to contact me and I will include it on this site if appropriate.
I am very keen genealogist and have been working on my Family Tree for over 35 years and gained a lot of experience building quite a large tree. Because of my long association with this area, my tree includes a lot of local families. Some of this information will appear on this site in due course. I am willing to help anyone who has family in this area with their own tree, either help them get started or break down “brick walls”. I do not charge for this service.
This site is still being developed. New content will be added on a regular basis.
Pluckley Heritage Centre
There is a Heritage Centre in Pluckley Church which was set up with aid of The Heritage Lottery Fund to preserve the Heritage of Pluckley including creating an archive and disseminate this knowledge to others. I was very keen to assist it in its goals and became one of the volunteers that ran the centre. However, I soon became disillusioned for the following reasons:
- The information panels within the Centre telling visitors about Pluckley’s past were more of a PR exercise than providing facts that had substance. I do not believe a lot of the information given had been properly researched and no sources for this information are given, if they even exist.
- When new information became available that indicated that the panels were possibly incorrect it was ignored, making it more likely that misinformation was being given and the public were not being fully informed.
- Information that was being given to visitors was often inaccurate and some of it I believe had not been properly researched.
- One of the volunteers has their own private archive. Not only is this contrary to the aims of the Heritage Centre but created a dangerous conflict of interest. It is known that more than one item that had been passed to this person for inclusion in the Centre’s archive was never passed on by that person.
- The Centre pays for a website. This website gives little more than a contact number and email address for the Centre. The Centre has no control whatsoever over this site. This email address is the only way that people who cannot visit can contact the centre and send it information. The only person with access to this email is the person with the private archive. The Heritage centre does not see or have access to emails sent to it or sent on its behalf. This proved quite embarrassing at times when talking to visitors who said they have emailed the centre. Some visitors have said they would send information to the Centre. This information was never received and there was no way of knowing if it was sent or not. I find it extremely suspicious that the Centre are denied access to these emails.
- Items have gone missing from the Archive. The only people with access to the Archive are the Volunteers. It is extremely unlikely that these items could have been removed by anybody other than one of the Volunteers. This calls into question the safety of the archive that the Centre is trying to make.
The Heritage Centre and the PCC (who are responsible for the Centre) are fully aware of the above and have said they wish to leave things as they are. Because of this, I decided the Heritage Centre Archive was not a safe place for items to be kept and that I could not carry on deceiving the people who have given so kindly to the Archive, nor did I want to be part of an organisation that was giving out information, I believe, to be incorrect. I feel the Centre makes little attempt to reach out to the community and share the knowledge that it has. This is one of the reasons I decided to start this website.
A recent example of the Heritage Centre giving out incorrect and misleading information is a post they issued regarding a 14th Century Charter that was generously donated to them. In this post, they stated that the charter was dated 1348. This is clearly incorrect and shows a lack of basic historical knowledge and research. Edward III came to the throne in 1327 which dates the charter at 1363. The post will also lead the reader to believe that the John de Surrenden in the charter is of Surrenden manor in Pluckley. That cannot be the case as there was no Surrenden Manor in Pluckley in 1363. At this time, Surrenden Manor was in Bethersden and is now known as Old Surrenden Manor. Surrenden Manor in Pluckley only existed from 1371. Before that it was known as Pluckley Manor.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the following people who have made this site possible by their contributions to this site.
Ken Moody-Smith
Jim Moody-Smith
Jim Miles