 Edward Hasted , the local historian of Kent , has dismissed the story of the Biddenden Maids as a folk myth , claiming that the image on the cake had originally represented two poor women and that the story of the conjoined twins was " a vulgar tradition " invented to account for it , while influential historian Robert Chambers accepted that the legend could be true but believed it unlikely . Throughout most of the 19th century little research was carried out into the origins of the legend . Despite the doubts among historians , in the 19th century the legend became increasingly popular and the village of Biddenden was <unk> with <unk> visitors every Easter . In the late 19th century historians investigated the origins of the legend . It was suggested that the twins had genuinely existed but had been joined at the hip only rather than at both the hip and shoulder , and that they had lived in the 16th rather than the 12th century . 
