Otterden and the Domesday Survey
The Domesday Survey of 1086 records Otterden Manor as "answering for * sulung" (a land measurement). It had land for 2 ploughs, and the lord himself had land for one plough (also a form of land measurement). There were two villagers and four smallholders and they had * a plough. There was one acre of meadow and sufficient woodland to feed 5 pigs on acorns and beech mast.
In the time of King Edward the Confessor 1043-1066 it was valued at 10s, but at the time of the Survey it had increased to 30s. The manor also had two measures of land in Canterbury at 12d. A Saxon, or Jute, called Alfward held the manor from King Edward.
Otterden Manor as listed in the Survey made by Christ Church, Canterbury (known as the Domesday Monachorum, or the Survey of the Monks) "is paying 7d".
Under the section on 'Otterden' (volume V, p533) in his History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (published c.1797), Edward Hasted refers to the Domesday record. He wrote: Otterden "lies the next parish northward from Lenham, being written in the survey of Domesday, Otringedene, in ancient deeds, Otteringden, and in later ones Ottringden, alias Otterden."
Otterden's name
Judith Glover's book The Place Names of Kent (1976) describes Otterden as the "woodland pasture of Oter's people".
She lists the many different spellings of the name throughout the centuries: OE Oteringa denn; Otringedene 1086; Ottrindaenne, Ottringedene c.1100; Oteringdene 1253; Otringden 1291; and Ottinden c.1550.
In his History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (published c.1797), Edward Hasted says: "OTTERDEN. Lies the next parish northward from Lenham, being written in the survey of Domesday, Otringedene, in ancient deeds, Otteringden, and in later ones Ottringden, alias Otterden." (vol V. p533).