If you’re not wearing your glasses, the name of this tiny Kent village might resemble a 1970s magazine or an odd planet inhabited solely by women.
This is Womenswold, and unless you’re one of the few residents living in about a dozen houses there, or have reason to know, you’re likely mispronouncing it.
It’s pronounced ‘Wimmins-wold’, so make sure you get that right before you venture to this charming place, which is roughly seven miles from Canterbury. And its name has nothing to do with women, but more on that later.
This hamlet once boasted a pub, The Woodpeckers, which was formerly a vicarage and then a guest house according to the Dover Kent Archives, and it’s now a family home.
However, you will discover several stunningly quaint thatched cottages, at least one adorned with large bunches of fragrant wisteria climbing up the front, reports Kent Live.
Everywhere you glance, it’s delightful. Whether it’s an ancient-looking wooden door, a lane enveloped by a green canopy of trees in the summer, or the mini ‘five bar gate’ Womenswold sign.
Also worth a visit is the small medieval Grade I listed church dedicated to St Margaret of Antioch, the patron saint of pregnancy and childbirth. The church serves the hamlets of the parish of Womenswold, which include Woolage, Woolage Green and Womenswold.
If you visit the church, believed to have been established in the 12th and 13th centuries, you might be fortunate enough, as Dover resident Julie Lovegrove was, to hear a gentleman organist playing.
Julie, known as “one half of The Recumbent Duo” on their captivating Facebook page which chronicles idyllic journeys to scenic sites on recumbent bicycles, revealed to Kent Live some delightful insights from their travels.
During her chat she gushed about Womenswold, saying: “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.”
Julie added: “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 and all the way 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”. It’s 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.