What's a Hoath

I have taken you before to Chiddingstone , site of the chiding stone where chiding took place in days of old.  This is a nearby hamlet.  The weather was hot and sunny this afternoon so I planned a short walk over the fields from a geocache placed near here to note the increasingly rare sight of a red phone box and red post box next each other.   The phone box has a notice inside dated 2009 warning of the box's imminent removal because it is not being used and asking the locals to adopt it. Luckily for geocachers it's still there  and the village children who use it when the school bus is late , according to the local who chatted to me,  curious as to why I was taking pictures of their phone box. 
  
As what is a Hoath? I it seems to have no geographical meaning but there is a Hoath House with medieval origins so perhaps the Hoath family lived there.