The Maids of Biddenden: The heart-warming and inspirational story of 12th-century Kent's conjoined twins.

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The story is effectively split in two; the first 45% tells the story of the Maids as young children. This element of the story is filled with a deep sense of foreboding that drives the story onward and makes the reader fearful for the future of the Maids. The narrative then moves forward a few years, and we see them as young women, trying to make a name for themselves and use their talents for good. At this point, the immediate landscape that the Maids encounter broadens considerably, and we move away from the nunnery and the settlement of Biddenden, into the politics and events of the early twelfth century, that almost consume the lives of the Maids for the remainder of their years - they lived during the time of the tragedy of the White Ship. What are conjoined twins?, BBC, archived from the original on 5 November 2010 , retrieved 15 October 2010 In a Nutshell: There are some books you read for prose, and some you read for the plot. This is in the latter category. Don’t expect flowery writing. Expect a touching story, though a tad longwinded. Biddenden is a large, mostly agricultural and wooded village and civil parish in the borough of Ashford in Kent, England. The village lies on the Weald of Kent, some 5 miles (8km) north of Tenterden. It was a centre for the Wealden iron industry and also of clothmaking. a b c d Cheverells (22 November 1856), "Folk Lore", Notes and Queries, London: Chappell & Co: 404–405

Millie and Christine McCoy, born into slavery in Columbus County, North Carolina in 1851, lived into their 60s and enjoyed a successful musical career under the stage name of "The Two Headed Nightingale". They were particular favourites of Queen Victoria, who met with them each time they toured England. They retired wealthy in 1900, dying of tuberculosis in 1912. [39] It's the story of two real-life conjoined twins, Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst, born in 12th century England, in the town of Biddenden in Kent to a wealthy farmer who could afford to keep them cared for in an abbey for their first half a dozen years of their life. When the girls, joined at the hip by birth, have to be taken from the abbey to live with their father, trouble ensues. First, it's their two-faced stepmother not having their best interest at heart as she pretends, and then it's the townspeople, who, urged on by the town priest, are initially hostile and superstitiously believe the girls are either a punishment from God or a product of the Devil. It takes a while, and lots of work and coordination between the few people able to see Mary and Eliza for what they are, just two unfortunate children not responsible for their condition instead of demonic work, for the girls to get accepted and thrive. Bygone Buses was based in Biddenden during the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was sold to Maidstone & District Motor Services. The point about the style of dress depicted on the cakes being that of the 16th, not the 12th, century had previously been made by an anonymous contributor to Notes and Queries in 1856. [4] The twin image (popularly known today as the Siamese twins) of the Biddenden maids is popular in Biddenden even today; and these have accumulated different meanings as manifested in the varying visual representations through time. In a way, the image of the conjoined twins has been appropriated as a commemorative material for specific event and persons through different forms of visual and material representation: from biscuits to postcards, village landmarks, and a recycling icon (even for a blog title for an evidenced based philosophical discussion on surgery!). Gosden and Marshall (1999:167) suggests that "people and objects gather time, movement and change, they are constantly transformed, and these transformations are tied up with each other." Here, the objects become invested with meanings through the social interactions they are caught up in. This notion of biographical approach is drawn from Kopytoff (1986) who felt that things could not be fully understood at just one point in their existence and processes and cycles of production, exchange and consumption had to be looked at as a whole.Lloyd, George (10 February 1866), "Chulkhurst: The Biddenden Maids", Notes and Queries, London: Chappell & Co: 122 Many characters are met along the way and the reader observes the everyday lives, the beliefs, superstitions, and fears of 12 th Century folk, which G D Harper has portrayed with an authentic feel alongside his excellent descriptions of setting and character, vividly bringing a less-unknown era alive for me. It is an evidently well researched piece of fiction. The pacing remains steady throughout, and I found the ending perfectly written. The narrative voice switches occasionally from third-person to first-person, with these first-person viewpoints from Eliza and Mary. This narrative voice from the Maids as children was the only thing that did not work for me personally; while it does give an immediate connection to the two sisters, allowing an intimate insight into their thoughts, hopes and understandings, the language and understanding they related was not age appropriate for the two young children who are portrayed to have been deprived from the outside world and from education. Later on, as adults, this narrative voice worked far more effectively, especially in portraying their thoughts and feeling towards each other. Six year old Eliza and Mary have spent all their life in a local abbey, hidden away from the world because of their physical oddity. The locals have never seen/heard of conjoined twins and their superstitious behaviour leads to this decision. They have only two well-wisher Two young girls sat cross-legged side-by-side each playing with a small rag doll. "As they moved their arms to play with the dolls, each anticipated the other's actions, an unconscious dance performed between them." These two young girls, born in the village of Biddenden in Kent in the summer of 1100, were twins conjoined at the hip.

An Old Kent Charity". News in Brief. The Times. No.51662. London. 11 April 1950. col D, p.3. (subscription required) If Eliza and Mary Chulkhurst did exist, it seems likely that they actually lived in the 16th century. The numbers one and five look similar in the Old English writing style, which could explain the confusion. An Elizabethan timeline could also explain why they are often depicted wearing ruffs. The story doesn't so much lose focus here, but because the impending danger has passed, the reader is instead absorbed in how the twins accomplish all that they do. There is a great deal of attention to detail here - both medical knowledge and music - and it's fascinating to see how the Maids' lives interact with known events from the period. Bondeson, J. 2000. "The Biddenden Maids," The Two Headed Boy, and Other Medical Marvels. Cornell University Press, pp. 141-159. Based on real characters who lived in the early 12th century, the author has woven a very interesting tale about two girls joined at the hips from birth. Not much is known about Eliza and Mary. Both sisters lived their first 6 years hidden in a convent. When their keep got too expensive for the nuns, their father took them in his home. However, before this decision was made, there was much talk about what to actually do with these girls! Killing them was an option, as they were considered devil work.....

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Mary and Eliza are also the women who, on inheriting their father's wealth on his passing as his only children, set up the oldest charity in England, which the author says is still active nowadays, nine centuries later. This part was very remarkable. This is the kind of disability representation I like: accurate, non-preachy, non-agenda-pushing. Just tell how it's like to have a deformity or a disability, the hard parts and the challenging parts, showing how people are ableist and compassionate, loving or hostile, the blatant discrimination and the subtle ones. It was saddening to see how Mary and Eliza were treated, which makes you realise just how unfathomably hard it was for people with deformities and birth defects and disabilities in the past, when there was no state healthcare, no programmes to assist them, superstititon and wrong ideas circulated freely, etc. Mary and Eliza were fortunate that they had a rich father who was also a honest man and didn't have them disposed of or let them rot someplace like many would have, but imagine how many other children without the Chulkhurst girls' means perished and you feel grateful for the things we can enjoy today, even if not perfect. Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst (or Chalkhurst), commonly known as the Biddenden Maids (1100–1134), were a pair of conjoined twins supposedly born in Biddenden, Kent, England, in the year 1100. They are said to have been joined at both the shoulder and the hip, and to have lived for 34 years. It is claimed that on their death they bequeathed five plots of land to the village, known as the Bread and Cheese Lands. The income from these lands was used to pay for an annual dole of food and drink to the poor every Easter. Since at least 1775, the dole has included Biddenden cakes, hard biscuits imprinted with an image of two conjoined women.

Clinch believed that the evidence pointed to the twins having existed but that they had lived in the 16th century, rather than the early 12th century as generally claimed. They are not, however, mentioned in any journals or books from the period. [35] This points against their having lived in the 16th century; the case of Lazarus and Joannes Baptista Colloredo (1617– after1646) had prompted great interest in conjoined twins, and conjoined sisters surviving to adulthood in south-east England would have been widely noted. [36] By their will they bequeath to the Churchwardens of the Parish of Biddenden and their successors Churchwardens for ever, certain Pieces or Parcels of Land in the Parish of Biddenden, containing Twenty Acres more or less, which now let at 40 Guineas per annum. There are usually made, in commemoration of these wonderful Phenomena of Nature, about 1000 Rolls with their Impression printed on them, and given away to all strangers on Easter Sunday after Divine Service in the Afternoon; also about 500 Quartern Loaves and Cheese in proportion, to all the poor Inhabitants of the said Parish. [4] [note 7]Although later writers have stated that Chambers accepted Hasted's arguments and dismissed the legend of the conjoined twins out of hand, [25] unlike Hasted, Chambers accepted that the legend was potentially true. [24] He concluded that in the absence of any evidence for the sisters having existed, on the balance of probabilities the figures on the Biddenden cake were more likely to represent "the general objects of a charitable benefaction" and that the story of the twins was likely to be a folk myth created to explain the unusual design of the cakes. [24] There are also other representations of the Biddenden maids in a rather modern way depicting them in red bodices of floor-length Tudor gowns. The Tudor dress in the 15th to the 16th century has ornate clothing which exemplifies how wealthy a person was, and thought that more likely that the twins lived in the 16th century than in the 12th century. This sculpted wooden figure is about 3 feet tall which stands outside the West House, a 16th century house in High Street, Biddenden. The house is now an award winning restaurant which was also at one time a craft shop. Moreover, it is also thought that it is in the All Saints Church, a Romanesque church that has an attached cemetery where the grave markers of the sisters, Mary and Eliza Chulkhurst were to be found a long time ago. For instance, one of the earliest visual representations of the Biddenden maids, after their image appeared in a broadsheet in 1808, is a printed postcard postmarked August 4, 1939 by Young and Cooper in Maidstone, Kent. The Biddenden maids are elegantly dressed in the costume of the time of Mary I. Here, while the writer notes that "the charity in charge of the dole no longer persist," the postcard is created as a substitute to commemorate this particular event. The postcard being accessibly possessed as souvenir in printed form. While current postcards are mostly views of Biddenden, an item which includes the original image of the Biddenden twins as part of the charity's history is sold at the Biddenden Church.