Welcome to the Horsmonden Archive : This is under construction May 2024

In the past the village played a major part in the weaving industry, the iron and gunfounding industry as well as the hops industry. It is also famous for its annual Gypsy Horse fair held on the second Sunday in September. The census of 2021, showed the village had a population of 2,400 people.

The area was an important centre of the medieval iron industry and Furnace Pond was one of the largest and finest of the artificial lakes made to provide water power for the iron works. King Charles I visited the foundry in 1638 to watch a cannon being cast – a bronze four-pounder, forty-two inches long, now preserved in the Tower of London’s White Tower.

Horsmonden was also an important centre of the cloth trade with the Austen family of Horsmonden – one of whom was Jane Austen’s grandfather – being important merchants in this trade and based at the Broadford estate in Horsmonden. Several of Jane Austen’s relatives, many of whom lived at Capel Manor are buried in the churchyard of St Margaret’s church.

There is a gypsy horse fair held on the village green each year. In 2000, the local parish council with assistance of the then-Home Secretary Jack Straw, ruled that due to ongoing safety concerns, the fair would not go ahead and a 5 mile exclusion zone was put in place. However due to protests and legal action from the wider gypsy community, this decision was overturned and the fairs resumed following a compromise between the travellers and the local authorities in 2001.

St Margaret’s church is located some distance away from the centre of the village towards the neighbouring village of Goudhurst.

Just outside the village is the 16th Century National Trust property Sprivers, which has an open garden at specific dates as part of the National Gardens Scheme.