OTFORD, a parish in the hundred of CODSHEATH,
lathe of SUTTON at HONE, county of KENT, 3 injles
(N.) from Seven-Oaks, containing 630 inhabitantsi
The living is a perpetual curacy, in the peculiar jurisdiction
of the Archbishop of Canterbury, endowed \rith
£400 private benefaction, £200 royal bounty, aji.d
£900 parliamentary grant, and in the patronage of the
Dean and Chapter, of Westminster. The church, de.dn
cated to St. Bartholomew, is principally in the deeo-s
rated style of architecture. There is a place of worship,,
for Wesleyan Methodists. An hospital for lepers exV
isted here in the reign .of Henry III. The river Darent
runs through the parish. In the village are the- ex;
tensive ruins of an .ancient palace of the Archbishopsof
Canterbury, once the residence .of the celebrated
Thomas a Becket, the square tower of which is still in,
good preservation; some idea may be formed of..it&.
extent and grandeur from the repairs, in Warham's,
time, having cost upwards of £33,000. Near it. is a.,
well, thirty feet deep and fifteen in diameter, enclosed
by a wall, which is called Thomas a Becket's well,, and
said to have been used by him as a bath. Archbishop
Winchelsea died here in 1313. At this, place, in
773, Offa, King of Mercia, gained a great victory over
Ealhmund, King of Kent; and here Edmund Ironside,
in 1016, defeated the Danes with great slaughter; niany
skeletons and bones of the slain have been discovered
in the neighbourhood.