Pluckley village, in Kent, where my ancestral Maxted's came from, is said to be the most haunted village in Britain, and is so picturesque that it was chosen as the setting for The Darling Buds of May. Two of my friends in France, Jeremy and Ian, also have ancestors from this village , their shared ancestors being the Kingsnorths.
My ancestor, George Maxted while thatching a haystack, accidentally fell off, and coming in contact with a stick, it ran through part of his thigh and entered his bowels, from which injury he died the following evening.
Interactions between my friend's Kingsnorths & my Maxteds
One Maxted man stole from a Kingsnorth farmer in Pluckley, the Kingsnorth's being the family of my friends Jeremy and Ian, and my ancestors being Maxteds, and for that the Maxted fellow was sentenced to transportation to Australia.
In a list of baptised gypsies of Kent there are some Maxteds mentioned, one being the gypsy baptism of a Mary Maxted to a John and Rose at Burmarsh in 1805 on 22nd September, and in Lympne in 1806 on 28th September there being a child Maxted buried who was a gypsy, with the name of William Kingsford Maxted.
Elizabeth was in the papers for having been neighbour to a murder victim, Hannah Giles, killed by a man, Samuel Seager, who obsessively stalked Hannah while her husband was out rat catching with his dogs and ferrets. Elizabeth was well acquainted with both Hannah and her killer Samuel.
Setting off homewards bound, I en route planned to visit the most haunted village in Kent, called Pluckley, which had been the home of my Maxted ancestors. At last I got to see this quaint village and I loved it.