I spent a number of holidays in Hartlip in the late 1940s when I was a child, staying with my 'Auntie Ag" - whose rather daunting real name was Agnes Augusta Clout. My aunt lived at Step House, which was then three small houses but is now one larger house. I remember hop fields in front of the house. The privy was at the bottom of the garden, one of a block of three, and there was a map behind the door showing where the doodlebugs had fallen a few years before. Funny what you remember.
Agnes had been born in Hartlip in 1872, and was baptised in the church there on 13 October. Her parents were Edward Crayden and Ann (nee Ward), and Agnes was the second eldest child, my grandfather Thomas being the next eldest. Edward had been born in Hartlip in 1840 and he and Ann had been married there in 1870. His parents, Thomas and Sarah (nee Head) were born in Frinsted and Bredgar respectively, but seem to have moved to Hartlip after their marriage in 1837.
Agnes, who outlived two husbands - Frederick Goodhue (1872 - 1904) and George Clout (1863-1947) - stayed at Step House until she grew too old to be alone. The rest of the Crayden family had long since moved from Hartlip, and the 130 year link with Hartlip was finally broken when Agnes moved to Chatham to be nearer her daughter; she died there in 1976 at the ripe old age of 104.
updated by @david-atkinson: 15 Jun 2020 10:59:15