Talk:Borden, Kent

Untitled

Very sweeping statements here! In particular:

• surely "village" is better than "community"?
• the impression in the village itself (ie the original village) is that it is very compact: OK there are outlying settlements such as Hearts Delight, but that applies to most villages
• Sittingbourne, to which it is almost joined, hardly gets a mention
• have all the orchards been "scrubbed" (shouldn't that be "grubbed up" anyway?): in many parts of Kent they have been replaced with easier to manage lower trees; and the land must be used for something, surely?
• and is it really true that "most people commute"?

Peter Shearan 16:20, 21 August 2005 (UTC)

Lady Robergia

Could this information from Terry Mason be applied to add some citations to the source of the town's name?

• Lady Roberga de Bourdon http://tmason1.com/pafn180.htm#2876
• Simon de Bourdon http://tmason1.com/pafn180.htm#2875

Evan Borden 12:46, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

In a word, "NO".

The reference to "Lady Robergia" is from Cook, 1905,

https://archive.org/details/robergiastoryofo01cook

which is a work of early 20th century fiction. Cook's introduction makes it clear that the story he tells was something he made up for the benefit of his grandchildren. His appendices include some useful factual information, but nothing of genealogical significance. One shouldn't have to read the introduction to realize this is a work of fiction. The main line of the story involves the appearance of the Ghostly Apparition of Lady Robergia, in the local church at midnight, who reveals the location of a hidden manuscript telling her story. That alone should tell you that this is a work of fiction. As to the genealogy, there's as much value with what's in Cooke 1905 as there is in the genealogy of Lord Graystroke provided by Edgar Rice Burroughs in his Tarzan series. Both lineages seem credulous, but are in fact works of fiction.

A healthy portion of Cook's work provides solid information based on original parish records, and from wills filed with the Commissary Court of Canterbury. This "good stuff" is from the end of his book, in an appendix. The main part of the book is a fiction---literally. It was never intended to be taken as historically, or genealogically true, but only as an entertainment. See the Preface, p. x, where he makes it clear that the lineage is "only" traced to c 1370, and one Henry Borden, well after the death of Robergia the heroine of his story, and roughly 200 years after the Norman Conquest. Almost everything preceding her was made up for purposes of the story he was telling. This, by the way, is not a criticism of Cook. His purpose was to entertain. His collection of genealogical records in the appendix seems good, and where I've attempted to verify them, I can find the same wills in other sources well predating his work. There are some discrepancies between his abstracts, and those I find in other sources, but by and large these sources are consistent with each other. None of them (at least those that I've looked at) carry the line back further than Henry b c1370. We can find persons by this name at earlier dates, living in either Cranbrook or Headcorn, and even in Borden. Weld also references other Bordens (using the de Bourdon variant spelling of the name), dating to the mid 1200's (I've not been able to verify them so far.) But even she does not trace their line down to Henry---just points out that they existed.

Irrespective of the above, the idea that the Bordens were in origin companions of William the Conqueror who fought at Hastings, is probably not well founded. This idea was introduced by Weld 1899, who traced the modern descendancy of Richard Borden of Headcorn in Kent,forward to the late 1800's. She makes a complicated argument for the family originating in Bourdonay, France, and settling in Borden parish after the Conquest. She points to the use of "bourdons" (pilgrims staff) as heraldic emblems in the Coat of Arms of Bourdonnay, and in the COA's of some lines of Bordens---Here she assumes that this must mean that the Borden family originated in Bourdonnay. Perhaps so, though she provided no real proof of this, just a simple conjecture based on the common use of the bourdon in heraldic emblems. More critically, she overlooked the fact that Bourdonnay is in the Moselle District of France, and quite some distance from Normandy. Cook 1905 seems to have noticed this discrepancy, and attempted to rectify it by placing the family origin in Bayeux which does lie in Normandy. What ever was gained by this change in location of the homeland of the Bordens is largely lost because a) there is no evidence that they came from Bayeux, and b) whatever was gained by Weld in pointing to the use of the bourdon in the arms of Bourdonnay, is lost when the origin is transferred to Bayeux, whose shield lacks those bourdon's.

TwelveGreat (talk) 23:12, 19 December 2017 (UTC)

Name Meaning

According to the current text the source of the parish name...

is more likely to stem from Sir Francis de Bourdon...who descended from the de Bourdons of Bayeux, in Normandy, France. Francis de Bourdon became Lord of the existing castle and surrounding lands previously Lorded over by the Saxon Ethelwolf of Kent, who perished at Hastings, by William the Conqueror as a gift to his vassal after the great Norman victory in 1066 and at which time became known as Bourdon

This is based on Cook 1905's work "Robergia:A story of Old England", cited in the sources. While Cook provides extracts of various wills for the Borden family, those wills date to the 14th century and later and are confined to an appendix at the back of the main work. He presents no supporting evidence for Francis de Bourdon, his wife Robergia, etc. As far as I can tell, while many use this work to show that the Borden family came to England from Bayeux, Normandy, during the Norman Conquest no evidence is presented by Cook to support this, nor has anyone else that I can tell.

The main text of Cook 1905 simply a work of fiction. I do not believe he ever intended for it to be anything other than this. It is worth pointing out that neither the Domesday Book of 1088, nor its ecclesiastical equivalent, the Domesday Monachorum, mention the parish of Borden, or anyone using that surname or variations thereof. If the Borden family did in fact descend from one of William the Conquerors supporters, you'd expect to see something about either them, or their supposed place of residence in one or another of the two Domesday records.

As to the actual source of the Parish name, the terminal ending of the name "-den" suggests that the name arose from the use of the area as a foraging ground for pigs, known either as dens, hursts or lays, depending on local dialectical preferences. That usage is well documented, and there are literally hundreds of place names in Kent ending in "-den", and an equal number ending in "-hursts. KentArchaeology.com has a nice map showing the distribution these names. They are heaving concentrated in the Kentian Weald, but there are others throughout Kent, including some in the the parish of Borden. Whatever the meaning of "Bor", the ending in "-den", seems near conclusive evidence that the name of the parish represents the presence of a denn in that area at an early date. There are a few records for the presence people bearing the surname "de Bordon" there in the 13th century (Weld, 1899). This has probably been the spring board from which people have taken to the idea that the Borden family had a Norman connection. More likely the name simply reflects usage of french during the Norman period in England, and its significance is only that the persons bearing the name "de Borden" (or variants there of) came from the parish of Borden. TwelveGreat (talk) 13:38, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

Iron Foundry

The text currently reads

→Borden also had a bell foundry and small ironmongers.

Were the ironmongers simply short, or were there a small number of them, or does "small ironmongers" mean something else---ie did they only make small iron objects?. I'd correct this but I don't know what the intent of the statement.TwelveGreat (talk) 22:15, 19 December 2017 (UTC)