Most know it simply as a small village at the end of the B2000 on the Hoo peninsula, but could Cliffe be the home of democracy as we know it?

It’s a weighty claim, but there’s a wealth of historical evidence to prop it up, suggesting it would be the natural meeting place for those who drew up Magna Carta 800 years ago.

And outgoing vicar The Rev Edward Wright is not one to play down the claims.

Mr Wright, who will leave the parish he has served for 22 years at the end of the month, will give a talk on Magna Carta at the Cliffe Village Fair today, where he will put forward the case that Stephen Langton, then Archbishop of Canterbury, drew up Magna Carta in the church rectory at Cliffe before the document was conveyed 40 miles upstream to Runnymede to be signed by King John.

“It’s like a lot of these things,” he said. “It’s not proven, but it’s a legend that has been fairly well circulated for a long while.

“The basis is that Cliffe parish had an unusual status as what’s called a Peculiar of the Archbishop of Canterbury – it came under the direct jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, not under the Diocesan system, and the old rectory is thought to have been a lodge of the Archbishop of Canterbury.”

Cliffe’s status as an important meeting place is likely to stretch back even earlier, to the 8th century, when it was the probable site of the ancient church councils known as the Synods of Clovesho.

On a practical level, as the archbishop’s base near the river crossing, it would have been the most suitable site for Stephen Langton to meet the barons coming from around the country who would have travelled downriver or over the crossing at Higham.

Another intriguing find – of an ancient horse brass, which will be on display at the fair – gives more colour to the legend.

The harness mount is thought to have belonged to a Robert Fitz-walter, a knight who supported the archbishop, and was found between Cliffe and Cooling.

Could Fitzwalter have dropped it on his way to meet the archbishop at the rectory in Cliffe?

That much is speculation, as is so much surrounding ancient history, but it’s just another small piece in a jigsaw that’s slowly coming together to show Cliffe was the birthplace of Magna Carta.

As Mr Wright says, with his tongue only slightly in cheek: “There are other claimants – but they’re not as good.”

The Cliffe Village Fair will be one of Mr Wright’s last appointments before he leaves with wife Sarah to take up a new part-time position in Wrotham.

“It’s going to be a bit of a wrench and my feelings are very mixed,” said Mr Wright, 60.

“There’s a lot of feelings of wrench and sadness.

“I’m going to be leaving a lot of friends and a place I’ve come to love.”