Вротам: Кент ауылының тарихы мен географиясы

Village in Kent, England

the locality in Australia

Wrotham ('/r//uː//t//əm/ ROOtəm) is a village on the Pilgrims' Way in Kent, England, at the foot of the North Downs. It is 1 mile (2 km) north of Borough Green and approximately 5 mile (8 km) east of Sevenoaks. It is between the M20 and M26 motorways.

The name first occurs as Uurotaham in the year 788, meaning 'homestead of a man called Wrōta'. The offshoot village on Wrotham Heath at the heart of the heath of the same name, once an area of wholly common land, is to the south east. Wrotham shows extensive signs of occupation by the Romans and it is posited that the Wrotham Pinot, a disease resistant variety of the Pinot noir grape found in Wrotham churchyard, is descended from vines brought by the Romans. The church of St George is Early English and later; nearby is the site of a palace of the Archbishop of Canterbury, maintained until the time of Archbishop Simon Islip (c. 1350). Wrotham Hill to the north was a main measuring point for the 18th century trigonometric survey linking the Greenwich Royal Observatory with the Paris Observatory. This Anglo French Survey (1784–1790) was led by General William Roy. Close by is the Wrotham transmitting station which was the first transmitter in the UK to broadcast on FM in 1955 and now carries the main national FM radio frequencies for most of London.

Wrotham was an ancient parish, and was formerly significantly larger than it is today, also including Borough Green, Platt, Plaxtol and Stansted. Stansted became a separate civil parish sometime before the nineteenth century. In 1863 the parish of Wrotham was made a local government district, governed by a local board. Such districts were reconstituted as urban districts in 1894. Although named after Wrotham, the urban district council was always based in Borough Green, which was growing to become the largest settlement in the parish following the opening of Wrotham railway station there in 1874 (renamed Borough Green and Wrotham in 1962). The council met at the Railway Hotel until 1902, then at a converted house it leased at 2 Sevenoaks Road from 1902 until 1924, before building its own headquarters at 16–18 Maidstone Road in 1924. Wrotham Urban District was abolished in 1934, with the area being absorbed into Malling Rural District and divided into the parishes of Borough Green (which also took some territory from Ightham), Platt, Plaxtol and Wrotham. Malling Rural District in turn was abolished in 1974 to become part of Tonbridge and Malling.