From "A Brief Guide to the Church of St. Peter, Molash, Kent" by Alan Neame

INTRODUCTION TO ST. PETER'S CHURCH

The parish church, dedicated to St. Peter, stands half a mile N.W. of the A252, at the end of narrow Church Lane. This contains a number of houses, one of which, Cherry Barton with its walled garden, is extremely old; it ends with handsome half-timbered Church Farm (dated on the woodwork 1624 but surely older) to N. and smaller Old Mill Farm opposite. Apart from these, the position of the church is somewhat isolated but there are signs to S. and S.W. - ancient wells, sherds, a windmill remembered - that this was not always so and that the centre of population has shifted, leaving the church behind.

The church itself is inconspicuous. From most parts of the parish only an informed eye may pick out its unassuming tower among the churchyard yew trees. However, as you enter the village from the W. on the A252, there is a fine view of St. Peter's across the fields

The name of Molash, variously Molesse, Mollesh, Moldash through the centuries, is derived from OE. mael, speech + aesc, ash, according to Judith Glover (Place Names of Kent, Batsford, 1976) who agrees with J. K. Wallenberg, the Sage of Uppsala. It marks the village as an ancient rural assembly-point where speeches were made and instructive talks delivered under a monumental tree: one day, a royal proclamation as it might be; the next, an eye-witness account of how King Alfred raised the Danish siege of Rochester and sent the heathen packing.

Travellers in Kent must have looked forward to the news service and entertainment available at Molash as they made their way through the deer and boar-infested forest. In, say, 1213 they might have encountered King John in full cry from his hunting lodge at Wytherling Court in the parish. He was locked in negotiations with Archbishop Stephen Langton (Edward Hasted, History of Kent, under Chilham). A day out at Molash with the boar-hounds made a capital change from wrangling in Chilham Castle with the man who first divided the Bible into chapters.