The Chiding Stone

Was the Chiding Stone which gives its name to Chiddingstone village actually used for chiding? Were naughty folk put on it and chided? No-one seems to know, although the idea that it was used in Druidic rites and rituals does seem to be untrue. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that any chiding took place!  It is more probable that the stone was used in Saxon times as a boundary marker, and that perhaps the local tribe or maybe it’s leader was named Chidda or Cidda. By  814 the village already had its name because it was when King Coenwolf of Mercia gave it to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It is sandstone, millions of years old from the Old Cretaceous period, and its shape is described as ‘tor’ like; it is quite dramatic in its way, shaped by the wind. It is part of the the Tunbridge Wells Sandstone Formation and there are a lot of other strange shaped rocks in this part of Kent, and no doubt there are many legends attached to many of them!