Place Name
Hengist, the name is Old English and means Stallion, who along with his brother Horsa (Horse), was hired as a mercenary by Vortigern, high king of the Britons, in the middle of the 5thCentury as the country adjusted to post-colonial Roman rule. The two brothers brought with them an army of Angles, Saxons, and Jutes – mostly from modern day Germany and Denmark – with the aim of settling on the Isle of Thanet, which had been promised them in exchange for their allegiance against the Scottish Picts and Gaels which were threatening Vortigern’s rule from the north. But, in what is most likely to be legend, the brothers turned on their paymaster soon after landing at Ebbsfleet. In what was to become called the Treachery of the Long Knives they massacred many of the king’s men at a meeting on Salisbury Plain. Horsa was killed fighting the Britons in 455. But his brother successfully conquered Kent, having beaten the British at Cecganford (thought to be modern day Crayford) in 457. The defeated army were said to have fled to London to resist the former allies turned invaders. However, much of this was recorded centuries later and there is little to no evidence to suggest any of it happened in this way. Hengist is often cited as the first of the Jutish kings of Kent. He died in 488. Like a few of the roads in the area this is a reference to one of the ancient peoples who inhabited the land, inspired by the Roman camp, traces of which were found in the grounds of a house called Romanhurst, off today’s Kingswood Road. The camp’s remains were a feature of maps until 1890 leading to streets being named with a Celtic and Roman theme.
