Yahoo News The tiny tight-knight Kent village with a curious name you'll definitely pronounce wrong
If you haven't got your specs on, the name of this tiny village in Kent might look a little like a 1970s magazine or a strange planet populated only by women.
This is Womenswold and unless you are one of the small number of residents who live in a dozen or so houses there, or have cause to know, you are probably pronouncing it incorrectly.
You say it 'Wimmins-wold', so get that right before you head down to this lovely place which is around seven miles from Canterbury. And its name has nothing to do with women, but more on that later.
READ MORE:Kent’s gorgeous three castle walk perfect for a winter stroll
This hamlet used to have a pub, The Woodpeckers, which was previously a vicarage and then a guest house according to the Dover Kent Archives, and it's now a family home.
But you will find a few breathtakingly quaint thatched cottages, at least one with huge armfuls of fragrant wisteria growing up the front.
Everywhere you look, it's delightful, whether an impossibly old looking wooden door, a lane enclosed by a green tunnel of trees in the summer, or the mini 'five bar gate' Womenswold sign.
And well worth a visit is the small medieval Grade I listed church dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch, patron saint of pregnancy and childbirth. The church serves the hamlets of the parish of Womenswold, which are Woolage, Woolage Green and Womenswold.
If you visit the church, believed to have its origins in the 12th and 13th centuries, you might be lucky enough, as Dover resident Julie Lovegrove was, to hear a gentleman organist playing.
Julie, who is "one half of The Recumbent Duo" on their fascinating Facebook profile, which documents their visits to beautiful places on their recumbent bicycles, has these gems to share with KentLive.
"Womenswold is a very cute village and the church is rather lovely. The man in the church, a local, told me that the church is the social hub of the village because there is no pub, or village hall."
"The recent works to the church have enabled this as they took away the pews in the front half of the church and added proper chairs, they turned the vestry into a kitchen, and added outside toilet facilities, so now they can hold village meetings and concerts in the church and provide refreshments."
She said: "He also told me that the most beautiful thatched cottage in the village sadly burned down in February 2023."
The church is on the Via Francigena, a pilgrimage route from Canterbury, through France and Switzerland, to Rome.
People taking the route today can collect their "pilgrim stamp" at St Margaret of Antioch.
The average sold house price in Womenswold in the past year is an eye-watering £1,350,000, according to Rightmove. The reason for that, however, is that only one was sold during the past 12 months, and it was at that price.
It's flabbergasting to calculate that this property in The Street in December 2023, sold for five times what it was bought for in 2016. Rightmove said sold prices overall in Womenswold during the past year were 29 per cent up on 2020's peak of £1,050,000.
Womenswold is surrounded by burial mounds believed to have been created in the Bronze Age. The area used to be covered extensively by forest.
And it's the woodland which gave the area its name, nothing to do with women at all. A plaque at the church says its origin is probably from the words "the forest of the people of Wimel". Its thought 'Wimel' could be a name of a person or family.
If you want to visit somewhere charming and explore all the other hamlets and villages nearby, then curiously named Womenswold is a must-see. However, an organist playing in the church can not be guaranteed on every visit.....
