QUINTESSENTIAL..

Barney and I are continuing our afternoon explorations of nearby villages and the other day we stopped off at Offham, which is two or three miles from home.   Barney had had his walkies in the woods so he didn`t mind wandering around the village on our way home.

Now, when my parents and I first moved to this part of Kent well over 50 years ago, the first place I wanted to visit was Offham.   In those days, like today, I was fascinated by books about the English countryside and I remember having one or two published just after the war by the then Odhams Press.   One was called `Romantic Britain` and had a photograph of Offham Green with its unique quintain post and it was this that encouraged me to visit Offham for the first time all those years ago.   The photo above is one I took the other day and it`s pretty obvious that not much has changed.

The quintain is a wooden post on the village green, six foot high with a freely revolving arm on the top. One end of the arm is flat and from the other hangs a heavy object, normally a heavy bag of sand. In the age of chivalry the horseman rode as fast as he could at the quintain with his lance extended and the idea was to strike the flat end (or eye) and gallop on before the heavy arm swung round, hit the competitor on the head and knocked him to the ground.

`Tilting the ring` was a popular tournament sport and gave rise to the term `full tilt,` as unless you went at it full tilt, then the bag of sand would win the contest.  Shades of Monty Python`s Fish Slapping Dance one might think. On the other hand there is something quintessentially English about Offham, with its village green and its unique reminder of the days of Merrie England.   It`s well worth a visit.