Crockham Hill is a village in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. It is about 3 mi south of Westerham, and Chartwell is nearby. The village has a population of around 270 people. It contains a 19th-century pub, the Royal Oak, and Holy Trinity church.

Etymology

Crockham Hill comes from the Old English 'crundel' meaning a 'chalk-pit, quarry' with 'ham' as a 'village, homestead' and 'hyll' for 'hill'; therefore, the 'quarry village on the hill'.

History

The village street is on the line of a Roman road, the London to Lewes Way. Initially a cider house and inn, the buildings of the Royal Oak pub are thought to be at least 500 years old. The Inn had a 35-foot well, which was used by pilgrims on their way to Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Becket's tomb in Canterbury and, in the 1950s, was recorded as a possible safe supply of drinking water in the event of atomic warfare. Holy Trinity Church, a Church of England parish church, was constructed in 1842, in the Gothic Revival style. It is a Grade II listed building, of stone construction with a hammerbeam roof. Crockham Hill Church of England Primary School was built below Holy Trinity Church in 1867 at a cost of £1,252. The school was enlarged and modernised after the First World War, and again in 1922 when a new classroom and cloakroom were added. In 1872, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales gave the follow description of the village:"Crockham-Hill, a chapelry in Westerham parish, Kent: at the boundary with Surrey, 2 miles N of Eden-bridge r. station, and 2¼ S of Westerham. It was constituted in 1842. Post town, Edenbridge. Rated property, £1, 930. Pop., 542. Houses, 108. The property is subdivided. A hill which gives name to the chapelry commands an extensive panoramic view. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury. Value, £105.* Patron, Mrs. W. St. John Mildmay. The church is good."

Notable residents