Publication Review

History is a curious affair. Here is a business which concerns itself as much with the disappearance of the parish of Maplescombe as it does with Eynsford as cradle of the Maxim gun and the pom-pom and home of the steam plane and early gliders. If you want to know more about these intriguing matters get a copy of Miscellany No. 3, the latest in the Farningham and Eynsford Local History Society's series of Local History Papers. Miscellany No. 3 is attractively presented and well illustrated delivering the fruits of the authors' research in a very digestible form. Apart from armaments and aviation, Miscellany No. 3 also introduces us to a Lord of the Manor of Farningham, Sir Henry Isley, who was executed for high treason under Mary Tudor and a resident of Eynsford, Richard Mullens who managed the King's Bench Prison in Southwark under George II. The authors, Zena Bamping, Leslie Crawley and Wilfrid Duncombe, have excelled in offering us this mixed but fascinating bag of four pieces of little known local history spanning more than eight centuries from the building of Maplescombe's little church in the early 1100's to the departure of Vickers from the Upper Austin Lodge gun range in 1960. This is excellent value.

Peter Saunders
Review reprinted from The Trident magazine.