 Historian Edward Hasted , in the third volume of The History and <unk> Survey of the County of Kent published in 1798 , dismissed the legend of the Biddenden Maids . He claimed that the Bread and Cheese Lands were the gift of two women named Preston ( although he elsewhere described the lands as having been " given by persons unknown " ) . Hasted stated that the Biddenden cakes had only begun to be moulded with the imprint of two women in the last 50 years ( i.e. since 1748 ) and that the figures were intended to represent " two poor widows , as the general objects of a charitable <unk> " . While he mentioned a legend that the figures represent two conjoined twins who died in their <unk> and bequeathed the Bread and Cheese Lands to the parish , he dismissed it as " a vulgar tradition " . 
