Queenborough was once accounted a chapelry to Minster (Hasted); and in (Val. Eccl.) it is called the "chapel of Quinburghe." There was formerly a hospital here, dedicated to St. John (Hasted.)
268. Reculver.—Herne and Hothe, as well as St. Nicholas in Thanet, with All Saints attached to the latter, were formerly chapelries to Reculver, and are so mentioned even as lately as in (Val. Eccl.) Reculver must, in ancient times, have been a place of great consideration, it being the site of a Roman town called Regulbium, and the Saxon kings of Kent having a residence there, which is stated (Bed. Hist. Eccl. note to 258, ed. 1846) to have been given by King Æthelbert to Augustin for the palace of himself and his successors. The Saxon Chronicle (Gibson's ed. 40) records, that King Egbert, A.D. 669, gave Reculver to Bassus, a priest, for him to build a monastery therein. Which Bassus, we learn from Bede (Hist. Eccl. 1. 2, c. 20), was a Northumbrian noble, who, after King Edwin's death in battle, accompanied his widow and children in the exile to which they were compelled. "Basso, milite regis Ædvini fortissimo." A.D. 692 (690, Chron. Sax.), Berctuald, abbot of Reculver monastery, succeeded Theodore in the archbishopric of Canterbury. (Bed. Hist. Eccl. 1. 5, c. 8.) Two grants to this establishment by Eadberht and Earduulf, kings of Kent, the former dated in 747, the latter considered to be of about the same period, are preserved in (Cod. Dipl. V, 46, 47.)—The monastery of Bassus was given by King Eadred, A.D. 949, to Christ's church, Canterbury, though it continued a monastery till A.D. 1020, the abbot's title being altered to that of dean. (Kilburne.) In a charter of Archb. Æthelnoth, dating between 1020 and 1038, we find mention of St. Mary's monastery at Reculver, as well as of its dean: " Sanctae Mariae Raculfensis monasterii—Guichardi decani eiusdem aecclesiae sanctae matris dei." (Cod. Dipl. IV, 53.) Consult Eadred's charter. (Ib. II, 293, and V, 324.)—Lambarde asserts, that vestiges of K. Ethelbert's palace at Reculver existed in his time.
269. Ringwold.—Kingsdowne in Ringwold is reported to have been once a separate parish. (Harris.)
270. Ripple.—The arch over the south door of this church is circular. A document of A.D. 1287 mentions a chapel in Ripple cemetery, called the Charner, of which no vestiges remain to show whether it was attached to the church, or an unconnected erection in the churchyard. (Hasted.)
