Cooling - Cliffe History

Cooling the smallest populated parish in the Strood Rural   District probably gets its name from the Saxon ‘Cu’   (pronounced Koo) meaning a cow, and ‘ling’ a pasture   although ancient deeds and books have spelt it various ways,   such as Couling, Cowling and Cowlinge. It covers an area of   2,077 acres, marsh and arable land.

It is known that the Romans occupied Cooling by the fact   that in 1922 at Redhills on Eastborough Farm, a Roman kiln   was unearthed.  The pottery found in the kiln was from   A.D. 65 – 120, some still being in a perfect state of   preservation, and may be seen by permission of Mr. & Mrs. F.   Mugeridge at The Bungalow, Eastborough Farm. Coins have also   been found on this farm. Roman dating from A.D. 65,   Elizabethan and many others. About 1914 some Elizabethan   gambling tokens were unearthed from beneath two chestnut   trees at Eastborough, but were of Dutch origin.

What are known today as Eastborough Farm Cottages,   are reputed to have been called ‘Elizabeth’s Hall’, where   Queen Elizabeth I was supposed to have landed from the Royal   Barge, and the stone upon which she stepped may still be   seen. This did not seem feasible until the floods of January   1953 when the waters came within a few yards of the site.

Cooling Castle was commenced in 1381 taking about five   years to erect and replacing Cooling Manor a possession of   the Cobham family for more than 350 years from the reign of   Henry III to that of James I.

The castle was built early in the reign of Richard II   by John de Cobham the 3rd Baron, and was lived in for many   years by Lord Cobham and their

  descendants until they eventually built the present Cobham   Hall, andthe castle suffered damage by Sir Thomas Wyatt’s   force in January 1554.

The ruins and part of the moat can still be seen but   the twin drum towers are in good preservation and the   inscription in old fashioned English enamelled on copper   plates can be translated as follows: -

In 1942 Cooling Castle estate comprising the ruins   and about 190 acres of farmland, was bought by the Rochester   Bridge Wardens, direct descendants in office of the Wardens   appointed by Sir John de Cobham in 1395.

It is said that Queen Elizabeth once had a hunting   lodge on the top of Lodge Hill (the Cooling Lodge property)   but the present house built in 1760 by Samuel Clay Harvey is   now used to accommodate Admiralty personnel.

On New Barn Farm there is s piece of land called   ‘Brick Kiln-field’ where we believe the bricks were made for   building farm houses and barns at Cooling Court and New Barn during the 17h and 18th   centuries. Even today the plough turns up pieces of red   brick and ashes, proving that once there must have been a   brickfield there. The barn at New Barn Farm which was partly   destroyed by bombs during the 1939 – 45 war, but now   repaired, dates from 1733,and Cooling Court Farm House was   built in 1705 by a widow named Clay.

One of the shepherd’s houses on Cooling Marshes known   as the “Shades” has a very shady past. It was used by   smugglers who landed contraband goods at Egypt Bay, and from   there are supposed to have taken and hidden some under the   pulpit of Cooling Church; the cavity is still to be seen   there.

An old man called Dusty Wellard who had lived in   Cooling about 50 years ago remembered his father telling how   he was paid to drive a flock of sheep through the gate ways   across the marshes to cover up any tracks left by the   smugglers.

In reality these tombstones are commemorating   thirteen little late 18th century Comports who lived at   Cooling Castle, and at Decoy Farm House below Northward   Hill, although none survived longer than seventeen months.

Cooling now forgeless, did actually possess one at the   beginning of the nineteenth century, and an old house   adjoining the churchyard was called ‘The Forge.’

The Old Rectory still stands in the middle of the   village, but is now used as a private residence. Since the   late was the parish has been linked with Cliffe, with Canon   F. S. Gammon A.K.C. Rural Dean and Surrogate as the joint   rector.

In 1899 a Methodist Chapel was built in the part of Cooling   known as Spendiff. It was used as a day school for some   years prior the building of the Council School at Cooling   Street in 1906. The school registers can be still be seen   but before building of the chapel, the Wesleyans as they   were called held their meetings and Sunday services in the   upper storey of an Oast-house at Spendiff: that room is now   used to store farm produce.