The Wicks or Wicken (Hwicce in Latin) may have been a prominent family group or clan of the tribe of Angles. A series of places with names like Wickenburg and Wickendorf mark the movement of the Wicken from Poland and Austria up through Bavaria and central Germany to the Jutland Peninsula, where Angeln is now located.
Learn More1/1/0100The Angles were known to have settled in northern Germany on the Jutland Peninsula, a location today known as Angeln. From there, they moved down the Frisian coast of the North Sea to the land of the Franks, and from there they crossed the Channel to Britain.
Learn More1/1/0350According to Bede, Vortigern invited the Anglo-Saxons to serve as mercenaries to help defend the British against the Pics and Scots. Hengist and Horsa lead several boats of warriors to Britain.
Learn More1/1/0450Also according to Bede, Vortigern told the Anglo-Saxons to leave, but they refused. They were granted the island of Thanet (no longer an island), but after a series of battles, the British fled to London and the Anglo-Saxons settled the south shore of the Thames.
Learn More1/1/0500As Kent was being settled by the Anglo-Saxon and Jutes, "the ancient Weald was left in its original forest state to serve as a vast commons where herds of swine could be fattened on acorns and beech mast; the earliest place-names being those of the swine pasture or 'den-baera'. Some hundreds of these have survived; they account for the great majority of the names of villages, hamlets and farms and can also be picked up in those of many woods and fields. They do not start to appear in writing until the early eighth century and many of them first appear in medieval documents, but their origin is certainly deeper" (Witney, p. ).
Learn More1/1/0600Other Wicken, called "Hwicce" in Latin, moved past London to the southern midlands and together with local British and others settled in what became known as the Kingdom of Hwicce.
Learn More1/1/0700The original grant of the Manor of Lewisham was by Elstrudis, the daughter of Alfred the Great and wife of Baldwin, Count of Flanders, to St. Peter's, Ghent, in 918. The grant was confirmed in 946 by "Edgar king of the English." William the Conqueror granted a fresh charter and added the five tenements in Cowden, including Wickenden, for pannage of swine in the forest (Ewing, p. 20).
Learn More1/1/0918Martin de Wiggendenn was mentioned in Archaeolingio Cantiana in Cambridgeshire (according to Ewing, p. 250?)
Learn More1/1/1200A document dated 29 September 39 Henry VI [1461] in Cowden, Kent, and signed with multiple witnesses indicates that Thomas Wykenden of Cowden, who is living in Clenden, has leased Wikenden, located just to the West, to Richard Saxpayse. See Wickendens of Cowden for a picture of the document.
Learn More9/29/1461As the original Wickenden family grew, they established and occupied other homesteads throughout Cowden. Shortly thereafter, they began to migrate beyond Cowden, as indicated by marriages recorded in other parishe registers.
Learn More1/1/1500The place of Wickenden on the list of Church Marks (indicating the portion of the fence enclosing St. Mary Magdalene Church in Cowden which is to be maintained by each homestead) is replaced by Polefields.
Learn More1/1/1623After nearly four centuries (1623 - 2021), the most likely location of Wickenden is published on the Wickenden Families website. In a section on the Wickendens of Cowden, Thomas and Beth Wickenden describe how they traveled to Cowden in 2000. They walked Spode Lane and documented in photographs the clues to the location of the Wicken den. See Wickenden Homesteads in Cowden to see and read the clues!
7/1/2000