Editing Downe (section)

==Brief history==

Lord Simon de [[Manning]], a former Lord of the Manor of nearby [[Kevington, London|Kevington]], then in Kent, and holder of the land which now includes Downe, was a grandson of Rudolph de Manning, [[Count Palatine]], who married Elgida, aunt of King [[Harold I]], of England; he was the royal [[Standard Bearer]] to King [[Richard the Lionheart]], who carried the Royal Standard to Jerusalem in 1190, during the [[First Crusade]]. In England, the forms Earl [[Palatine]] and Palatine Earldom are preferred.

As well as Downe, Kevington Manor then included the areas which later became [[Berry's Green]], [[Luxted]], [[Single Street]], [[Westerham]] Hill, and [[Leaves Green]]. These (excluding Kevington), together formed the [[Darwin (ward)]], Greater London's largest electoral ward), as it was first constituted in 1965. The current elected political party's website (2022), states that the ward includes Cudham, Leaves Green, Leavesden Estate, Westerham Hill, Beechwood, Berry's Green, and Pratts Bottom.

The spelling of the name of the village varied in the past, until the 1870s it was most commonly "Down", then "Downe’ became more usual.<ref name="Letter no. 3368">{{cite web | title=Letter no. 3368, Ellen Frances Lubbock to Emma Darwin (January 1862), footnote 3 | website=Darwin Correspondence Project | date=24 November 2024 | url=https://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/letter/?docId=letters/DCP-LETT-3368.xml | access-date=24 November 2024}}</ref>
In postal directories of the mid-19th century, it is named as Down.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.30136353 |title=Post Office Directory of Essex, Herts, Kent ... , 1855. [Part 1: Counties & Localities] |publisher=Kelly and Co. |language=English}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.30136032 |title=Melville & Co.'s Directory of Kent, 1858 |publisher=Melville & Co. |language=English}}</ref> By 1882 Kelly's Directory was using "Downe".<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/community.30136269 |title=Kelly's Directory of Kent, 1882 |publisher=Kelly & Co. |language=English}}</ref>