CHARING, a parish in the hundred of CALEHILL, lathe of SCRAY, county of KENT, 13 miles (B. S. E.) from Maidstone, containing 1103 inhabitants. The living is a vicarage, in the diocese of Canterbury, exempt ffom archidiaconal jurisdiction, rated in the king's books at £ 13, and in the patronage of the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, London. The church, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, consists of an aisle, a transept, a lofty chancel, with a chapel on the south side of it, and a square tower, with a small turret at one of the angles: it is chiefly in the later style of English architecture, and contains several ancient monuments; it sustained considerable injury from a fire in 1590. There is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists. Fairs are held on April 29th and October 29th, for horses, cattle, and pedlary. A free school, endowed with £30 per annum, was founded in 1761, by Elizabeth Ludwell, who also established two exhibitions, of the yearly value of about £35 each, at Oriel College, Oxford, with preference to natives of this parish. The archbishops formerly had a palace here, erected before the Conquestj the remains of which have been converted into a farm-house and out-offices. Various Roman antiquities and a Roman way have been discovered in the neighbourhood.