Swanley Heritage No 20 - Anglo-Saxon "Governmental" Administration and Swanley - No 2

After the Roman occupation, say 410 AD, administration in Kent gradually developed into a heirachy of administrative units (I need to hunt further for detail.):

• several kingdoms which became the Kingdom of Kent - eventually to become a dependent kingdom within Alfred's Kingdom before it was lost as such;
• County - created by the end of the Anglo-Saxon Era;
• Lathe -  probably reflected tribal times of the Jutes and others after 410;
• Bayliwick - (seen on map but not identified as yet);
• Hundred - likely to have been introduced in Anglo-Saxon times as an area for tax assessment;
• Vill - town or town-like settlement which was base for king's law and taxation;
• Estate - developed as alloidal portions by Alfred's time - Alfred had 47 estates;
• Manor - basic rural customary law unit under the Lord of the Manor.

At some time after 410 AD it came about that Kent was a single Kingdom of Kent with its own laws. Administratively it was divided into "lathes" - a unit which was a term peculiar to Kent. After Kent was absorbed into the Kingdom of England the lathes were further divided into "hundreds" - both in Kent and elsewhere in the English kingdom.

In Kent an old undated map (c 1700) shows that there were one, two, three or four bayliwicks in each lathe. The land of the Swanley district was within the Lathe of Sutton at Hone (for which there was only one bayliwick). The eight hundreds of Sutton at Hone included a) Axtane (?), b) Bromley and Beckenham,  c) Blackheath, and d) Westram (sic).

The hundreds are likely to have been introduced by the Anglo-Saxon kings as a means of raising Danegeld to buy off Danish Viking raiders by tribute.

The Lathe which included Swanley Hills (some) stretched roughly from Deptford to North Fleet, North Fleet to Groombridge, Groombridge to Cowden, and Cowden to Deptford. The latter being an old  boundary with Surrey.