Kemsing is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. The parish lies on the scarp face of the North Downs, 20 miles south east of Central London, north east of Sevenoaks. Also in the parish are the hamlets of Heaverham, to the east, and Noah's Ark to the south. The population of the civil parish in 2001 was 4,014 persons, increasing to a population of 4,218 at the 2011 Census. History Kemsing was the birthplace, in between AD 961 and 964, of Saint Edith of Wilton, a daughter of the Anglo-Saxon King Edgar I. The well at the centre of the village is dedicated to her, a plaque on the wall recording the local legend that her saintly presence has given the water healing properties. Given the village connection with St. Edith it is perhaps surprising that the parish church, Saxon in origin, is however dedicated to St Mary the Virgin. Another local legend states that the knights who murdered Archbishop Thomas Becket rode through Kemsing on their way to seek him out at Canterbury. Following his canonisation Kemsing became a stop-off place on the Pilgrims' Way, along which pilgrims travelled to visit the saint's shrine at Canterbury Cathedral. The lordship of Kemsing had a long royal and noble association: it was held by King Henry II who passed it to Baldwin of Béthune, the Earl of Albemarle. It was acquired by the Earl of Pembroke by his marriage to Lady Alice, Baldwin's daughter. The manor passed later to the de Grandison and Fynes families, becoming part of the estates of Baron Say and Sele. In the reign of Edward IV, Kemsing was sold to Sir Geoffry Boleyn, father of the future queen Anne Boleyn, and later reverted to the crown. Briefly in possession of Anne of Cleves, it was then granted by Elizabeth I to Sir Henry Carey and eventually acquired by the Duke of Dorset. The historic village centre area around the well includes the war memorial of 1921 (Grade II listed by the architect Godfrey Pinkerton), a cluster of picturesque cottages and St. Edith's Hall of 1911 (Grade II listed by the architect Godfrey Pinkerton), the front of which is adorned with a statue of the saint and a clock which chimes the hours and bears the inscription: The Women's Institute organisation opened its first institute in Kent in Kemsing in December