Twins legend plays a part in village’s jubilee celebrations
This photograph from 1935 shows the celebrations held in Biddenden to mark the Silver Jubilee of King George V and Queen Mary.
There was a day off school and work for everyone and the High Street was decked with bunting as villagers turned out in their hundreds to watch maypole dancing and a procession.
One of the delights was the appearance of twins Mollie and Vera Stapley in a horse-drawn carriage, playing the part of the famous Biddenden Maids.
It’s difficult to determine now how much of the story of the Biddenden Maids is truth, but the legend is so interwoven with the village’s history the twins feature on the village sign.
It is certain at some time two sisters, whose names and dates remain uncertain, willed 20 acres of land to the church wardens so rent from farming it could pay for a dole of bread and cheese to be given out at Easter to the most needy villagers.
This charity was given High Court approval in 1656 and has continued its work ever since, with the dole now managed by trustees of the Consolidated Charities. It is given out on Easter Monday from the old workhouse on the Sissinghurst road. Tea, cheese and bread are traditionally given to widows and pensioners, and Biddenden Cakes, baked from flour and water, distributed among the spectators.
The legend has it the Biddenden Maids were conjoined (or Siamese) twins born in 1100.
Their names were Eliza and Mary Chulkhurst and they came from an affluent family. They lived until 1134, when Mary fell ill and died.
Eliza was asked if she wanted to be separated from her twin, but said “As we came together we will also go together.” She died six hours later.
Although the first recorded mention of the charitable handout was made by the Archdeacon of Canterbury in 1605, it had no mention of the Chulkhurst twins. The first written reference to them appeared in 1808 in a twopenny broadsheet sold outside the church at Easter.
Was someone embroidering the story for greater effect?
On the other hand, there is a obscure 12th century poem called De Contemptu Mundi by Bernard of Morlaix, an AngloSaxon monk in Cluny, France, which contains a passing reference to two conjoined twins born in the English countryside in the first half of that century.
The Kent Archaeological Society has just made a grant of £250 to the Biddenden Local History Society to help members research and copy the Biddenden Church Wardens’ Accounts from 1645 to 1780, which form the basis of the ‘Bread and Cheese Charity’.