St Peter’s Church, Ash, is mentioned in Domesday Book (1086). There was a Saxon church on the site well before the Norman conquest. The oldest parts of the current church date to the 11th century. The church was enlarged in the 19th century, when the current spire replaced a thinner one. A local legend claims the bones of Thomas Paine, whose 1776 pamphlet “Common Sense” helped foment the American Revolution, are buried in the churchyard. Paine’s bones were removed to England from America by the radical author William Cobbett, who lived his final years near Ash, in Normandy. (Photo taken 22 Dec. 2003)
