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HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN
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MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK . BOSTON . CHICAGO
ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
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Frontispiece.
Highways and Byways
IN
Kent
BY WALTER JERROLD
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HUGH THOMSON
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1908
Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,
bread street hill, e.c., and
bungay, suffolk.
First Edition, 1907. Reprinted, 1908.
TO
FORD MADOX HUEFFER
PREFACE
As one of the counties most crowded with varied interests, as
the scene of many historic events, as the place at which
invaders and more peaceful visitors have landed, as the raising
ground of a strong yeomanry and of many men of great distinc-
tion from the time of the making of England to the present, as the
original centre of our national church life, Kent has a peculiarly
notable position among the counties of England. Many books
have been written dealing with these various aspects of the
county, and with its geological features, with its flora and its
fauna ; others have been devoted to its history, now in large
and many-volumed form, now in merest outline ; its past has
been presented in fiction and in archaeological records, there
have been many guides dealing with it as a whole, and many
more dealing in special fashion with particular centres. A
library of respectable dimensions might be made of books con-
cerning Kent, so that it may seem a temerarious act to add yet
another to their number. The series to which this volume
belongs has, however, established a place of its own in the
large class of topographical works. Between the voluminous
method of a Hasted or the worthy clergyman who spent his
life in collecting materials and would have written a greater
history had he had a second life to do it in, and that of the
compiler of the useful but necessarily compact "guide," there
are many degrees. It is a position between these two extremes
x PREFACE
that a volume of the Highways and Byways Series such as this
seeks to fill ; while it may answer many of the requirements of a
guide book it does not pretend to supplant such a useful com-
panion.
In dividing up a county into subjects for chapters many
methods may be followed. Here I have mostly taken a district
around some centre from which it may conveniently be explored,
and have sought to indicate the nature of the surrounding
scenery, to point out the more interesting places to be visited,
and to tell something of the men and events associated with
them. The object has been to indicate the various attractions
of a county peculiarly rich in associations, and including within
its limits much beautiful and varied scenery.
From Lambarde, who perambulated Kent nearly three
centuries and a half ago, there has been a succession of writers
on Kent and to a large number of them the present day writer
is necessarily indebted — for he is but telling an old tale in a new
way. To many who have preceded me in wandering about the
highways and byways of Kent I owe much, but special mention
must be made of the long series of volumes of the Archceologia
Cantiana, a crowded repository of facts which is invaluable to
all who would inquire into the past history of Kent. But if the
gossiping topographer owes gratitude to predecessors who have
worked in the same field he is also grateful to friends and to
those acquaintances whom his work has brought him, who
have assisted him in compressing much into little, — a large
county into a small volume.
In the spelling of place names — in which there is occasional
disagreement — I have made a rule of following that of the
Ordnance Survey maps.
W.J.
October 17, 1907.
In the one-inch-to-the-mile Ordnance Survey maps Kent is
comprised in the following fourteen sheets — sheet 258 includes
the fringe of the Thames marshes, and sheet 320 an incon-
siderable scrap —
270
Beckenham
271
Dartford
272
Rochester
273
Whitstable
274
Isle of Thanet
287
Sevenoaks
288
Maidstone
289
Canterbury
290
Deal
303
Tunbridge
Wells
304
Tenterden
305
Hythe
306
Shakespeare's
Cliff
321
Lydd
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
1 AGF
INTRODUCTORY I
CHAPTER II
CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL l8
CHAPTER III
THE CITY OF CANTERBURY • . 4I
CHAPTER IV
ROUND ABOUT CANTERBURY 65
CHAPTER V
THE ISLE OF THANET IOI
CHAPTER VI
SANDWICH, DEAL, AND THE GOODWINS I23
CHAPTER VII
DOVER AND NEIGHBOURHOOD 145
CHAPTER VIII
FOLKESTONE AND HYTHE 163
CHAPTER IX
ROMNEY MARSH l8l
CHAPTER X
LYMFNE TO THE " DENS " 199
xiv CONTENTS
CHAPTER XI
PAGE
ROUND ABOUT ASHFORD 220
CHAPTER XII
CRANBROOK AND THE " HURSTS " 242
CHAPTER XIII
MAIDSTONE 260
CHAPTER XIV
ROUND ABOUT MAIDSTONE 278
CHAPTER XV
"THE WELLS" AND TONBRIDGE 3C9
s
CHAPTER XVI
PENSHURST AND THE EDEN VALLEY 326
CHAPTER XVII
WESTERHAM AND SEVENOAKS 34I
CHAPTER XVIII
OTFORD AND "THE HAMS " 356
CHAPTER XIX
DAKTFORD AND GRAVESEND 37 1
CHAPTER XX
COBHAM, ROCHESTER, AND THE THAMES MARSHES 384
CHAPTER XXI
SITTINGBOURNE, FAVERSHAM AND SHEPPEY 404
CHAPTER XXII
KENT NEAR LONDON 422
INDEX 439
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
the dark entry, CANTERBURY Frontispiece
CANTERBURY FROM A DISTANCE 3
A KENTISH BYWAY 4
BRIDGE OVER THE MEDWAY AT TESTON, NEAR MAIDSTONE .- . 6
QUEBEC HOUSE, WESTERHAM &
RECULVER IO
BETWEEN YALDING AND WATERINGBURY . . . 12
KENTISH ORCHARD J3
NORMAN PORCH, CANTERBURY 19
CANTERBURY 2°
THE STOUR FROM HIGH STREET 2I
THE CATHEDRAL FROM CHRIST CHURCH GATE 2J
THE SPOT WHERE BECKET FELL 25
A GLIMPSE OF DETLING ON PILGRIMS' ROAD 27
HARBLEDOWN HILL 2&
THE WEST GATE 34
THE NAVE, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL • • 3^
OAST HOUSE (FORMERLY A CHAPEL), AT HORTON, NEAR CANTER-
BURY 4°
BELL HARRY FROM THE DARK ENTRY 42
THE WEST GATE, CANTERBURY ¥>
THE WEST GATE FROM WITHIN 47
OLD HOUSE IN ST. DUNSTAN'S STREET 49
WHERE MR. MICAWBER STAYED IN CANTERBURY 52
MERCERY LANE 54
xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
ST. JOHNS HOSPITAI 60
FORDWICH TOWN HALL 65
SANDWICH FROM THE RAMSGATE ROAD 66
A MILL ON THE STOUR 67
ON THE STOUR AT FORDWICH . . ' 68
STURRY ... 69
FORDWICH CHURCH 70
INTERIOR OF THE TOWN HALL, FORDWICH .... ... 7 1
PLOUGHING NEAR WI.NGHAM. ASH CHURCH IN THE DISTANCE . 74
WINGHAM .... 75
DENTON 76
TAPPINGTON 77
ELHAM .... 80
BISHOPSBOURNE CHURCH 83
PATRIXBOURNE CHURCH 84
CHILHAM S7
THE CATHEDRAL FROM HARBLEDOWN HILL 89
BOUGHTON CHURCH AND BOUGHTON STREET FROM NEAR SELLING
STATION . . . . ' 90
HERNEHILL 91
LOW TIDE AT WHITSTABLE 92
A JOTTING IN WHITSTABLE 94
HERNE BAY 96
THE RECULVER 97
HERNE BAY 98
APPROACH TO RECULVER FROM HERNE 99
RAMSGATE FROM THE WEST CLIFF IO3
RAMSGATE FROM THE PIER IO4
EASTRY IO5
MARGATE IN DECEMBER 112
BROADSTAIRS II5
SARRE WALL 121
THE BARBICAN, SANDWICH I26
WOODNESBOROUGH 130
DEAL 132
HIGH STREET, DEAL . I33
HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS
IN
KENT
CHAPTER I
" O famous Kent
What county hath this isle that can compare with thee ?
That hath within thyself as much as thou canst wish :
Thy rabbits, venison, fruits, thy sorts of fowl and tish ,
As with what strength comports, thy hay, thy corn, thy wood,
Nor anything doth want that anywhere is good."
Michael Drayton.
To invite anyone to a saunter through Kentish byways, or even
to a motor-scorch along Kentish highways, is to invite them into
a county that has beauty, and varied beauty, to offer to the eye
at all seasons of the year ; but it is to invite them also to a
county rich in matters that appeal to the imagination, a county
in which the making of history has been carried on for close
upon twenty centuries, and one rich even in those relics which
tell of earlier unrecorded times when wild in woods the naked
savage ran. From the coming of Caesar Kent takes a prominent
place as the scene of notable events ; it was ravaged successively
by the neighbouring kings of Mercia and Wessex and by the
Danes ; its shores welcomed the first coming of Christianity ;
it has witnessed fighting, has taken part in rebellions of a serious
and of an insignificant character, has welcomed the comings
of some of the Kingdom's rulers and speeded the parting of
IE b
2 VARIETY OF BEAUTY chap.
others. It has been the scene of pageants and of pilgrimages,
of historic love-making and of historic crime. It has, indeed,
come to stand for the whole kingdom of England, for to what
do the thoughts of the exile turn if it be not to the white cliffs
of Albion — and it may be affirmed that for the vast majority of
exiles the vision which those words conjure up is a vision of the
cliffs of the south-eastern corner of Kent, the cliffs about Dover,
where one was wont — if Shakespeare is to be accepted as a
topographical authority — to gather samphire, dangerous trade.
From the point at which London touches Kent in the north,
to Dover in the south ; from the quiet lane which marks the
entrance of the old Pilgrims' Way on the west, to the holiday-
maker's Merry Margate in the extreme east, the county offers
an infinite variety of attractions in the towns along its high-
ways, the villages and hamlets of its byways, the pleasure resorts
along its coast, in its wide stretches of hopfields, its orchards,
its strawberry fields, its woods and coppices, its meadows,
streams, and riverside marshes.
An American visitor who saw the county in the time of
the bridal white of its cherry-bloom thought of Kent as
of one vast cherry orchard. Visiting it later in the year,
when the fragrant hops were near the time of their gather-
ing, he rubbed his eyes and wondered where all the
cherry trees had gone. Yet cherries and hops cover but a
small portion of the acreage of our county, and there is so
much else to be seen that a man might know much of Kent
yet know but little about the uplifting beauty of a cherry
orchard in bloom, or even of the fragrant trailers of the hopbine.
In things to be seen, and associations for stimulating the
imagination, the county is so rich that to one who has wandered
hither and thither about it, has sojourned for some years now
in a lonely hill-top house four miles from a railway station, now
in a valley in the very shelter of a railway embankment and
then by the wind-blown shore, it becomes a difficult matter to
know where to begin a description of what may be seen, an
account of some of the many associations, historical, literary
and general, with which every square mile of the county is
marked. We might enter Kent from London, and, following
after a long interval in the steps of Chaucer's story-telling
band, reach Canterbury, and thence take radiating routes to the
rest of the county ; we might follow the course of the conquer-
I THE STARTING POINT 3
ing Romans;. we might consider ourselves as newly come
to England by that common port of entry at the base of
Shakespeare's Cliff, and so work through the land to London;
or we might imagine a pleasure-seeker at one of Thanet's
populous resorts determining to learn something of the Kentish
hinterland, setting out from Ramsgate or Margate to explore
the Kentish ways. It matters not where we begin with all the
county before us, but perhaps the centre which for hundreds
\uj
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'*•* i
Canterbury from a Distar.cc.
of years has attracted visitors from all parts of the world will be
that at which it is fittest to make a start.
Before beginning our saunterings through historic towns,
by lanes and footpaths, or our more hurried journey ings along
the telegraph-poled and mile-marked highways, it may be well
to take a bird's-eye view of the county as a whole, to note its
situation and some of its general features. Of the " scituation,"
saith William Lambarde, the father of English topography,
"■Kent therefore lying in the Southern Region of this Realm,
hath on the North the River of Thames ; on the East the Sea,
Y, 2
THE BOUNDARIES
CHAP.
on the South the Sea and Sussex, and on the West Sussex and
Surrey. It extendeth in length from the West of the lands in
Beckenham, called (I will not say purposely hereof) Langley,
where is the stile, as it were, over into Surrey, to the Ramsgate
■
-'
A Kentish Byway.
in the Isle of Thanet, about fifty and three miles ; and reacheth
in breadth from the River Bother on the South of Newendene
next Sussex, to the River of Thames at Nowrlzeade in the Isle of
Greane, twenty-six miles and somewhat more : And hath in
circuit 1 60 miles or thereabouts."
I HEALTH AND WEALTH 5
Its situation at the south-eastern corner of England, at the
point nearest to the ( Continent, has made Kent a place of great
historical importance from earliest times, whilst its position,
bounded on two sides by the sea. on one by the river Thames,
has given it a larger share than most other counties of the
advantages which the whole country gains from its insular
position. Then, too, the 1,624 square miles of its area include
great tracts of the chalk downs and of the greensand hills,
broad stretches of the fruitful Weald, rich pasturage, and wide
sea and river marshes. Old Puller has pointed out that the
county " differeth not more from other shires than from itself,
such the variety thereof." In some parts of it, the same quaint
writer puts it, " health and wealth are at many miles distance,
which in other parts are reconciled to live under the same roof—
I mean abide in one place together." The same differentiation
has been expressed in quatrain form, thus :
" Rye, Romney, and Hythe, for wealth without heallh,
The Downs for health with poverty ;
But you shall find both health and wealth
From Foreland Head to Knole and Lee.''
The river marshes in the north and the Romney Marshes
in the south can scarcely be cited for their healthfulness,
yet of the greater part of the county it may be said that health
and wealth are reconciled together, though the height of the
chalky downs suggest more of health than wealth — the rich
meadows of the valley of the Medway, the stretching orchards
surrounding houses and farmsteads, the extensive fruit gardens
in the part of the country nearer London, the many thousands
of acres of swaying hops, all point to the wealthfulness of the
county — its very nickname of the Garden of England suggests
something of the same kind. It looks a rich country as viewed
from any of the numerous heights along " the Backbone of
Kent " as the southern chalk downs are named, along the
northern downs of chalk and greensand, or any of the other
elevations by which the whole county is marked, for there is
but little level country, with the exception of the flats along the
river Thames, the marshes about the estuary of the Stour and
the levels recaptured from the sea in the south. Be we where
we may, from Sydenham Hill to Dover Castle Hill, from
Shooter's Hill to the neighbourhood of Tunbridge WTells, there
THE MEDWAY
CHAP.
is always an eminence from which we may get an extended view
of the well diversified country, though in many parts the
extent of the woods must make the observer wonder where lie
the pasture and arable lands ; in other parts orchards or hops
seem to have annexed the country-side. Of these various hills
we shall say something as we reach their neighbourhood, but of
the Kentish rivers a few words may here be said indicating
their course. "The river of Thames." as Lambarde terms it,
Bridge over the Medway at Teston, near Maids/one.
belongs to the country rather than to the county ; but on its
Kentish banks we shall find Deptford, Greenwich, Woolwich,
Erith, Greenhithe, Gravesend — places of interest and import-
ance all.
The river of Kent most characteristic of the county is
the " Medway, the bright flowing Medway," which passes
through the most varied scenery. Entering the county at the
Sussex border, it meanders in a general north-easterly direction,
flows west and north of Tunbridge Wells to Tonbridge and
i THE GREAT STOUR 7
Maidstone, thence by the ancient battle-ground of Aylesford
to the stretch of beautiful country disfigured by cement works,
and so to Strood, Rochester and Chatham, and thence by
broad, winding reaches to Sheerness and at the estuary of
the Thames to its marriage with that river, as celebrated by
Edmund Spenser and Michael Drayton. Though Spenser, in
one poem, describes the nuptials of Medway and Thames, in
another he makes them brethren, where he sings of
" The salt Medway that trickling streams
Adown the dales of Kent
Till with his elder brother Thames
His brackish waves be blent."
The Medway is notable for being navigable during about
two-thirds of its course of sixty miles.
Next in importance to the Medway comes the Stour, or the
Great Stour as it is proudly named. As a local singer puts it :
" Let others sing the Doon and Trent,
Vet none my lingering thoughts shall lure ;
I love my own romantic Kent,
And best I love — the banks of Stour."
One branch of this river rises near Lenham and flows south-
easterly, the other — the East Stour— rises near Postling, within
about three miles of the south coast, and flows north-westerly.
These streams unite at Ashford and flow north-easterly through
a picturesque valley of parks and pasture by Chilham and
Chartham to Canterbury, and thence by the ancient Fordwich
through pleasant country by Sarre, beyond which it is joined by
the Eittle Stour to the Isle of Thanet, and, by a great curve in
which it doubles and redoubles on itself past Richborough
Castle and Sandwich, it reaches the North Sea at Pegwell Bay,
immediately to the south of Ramsgate. Near Sarre the Stour
used to branch, one stream going north to the sea east of
Reculver, and the other following more or less closely the
present course to Pegwell. These two branches from Sarre to
the sea used to be known as the Wantsume, or Wantsome, and
it was their course which made Thanet an island, a term since
the drying up of the northern channel no longer geographic-
ally accurate. When Bede wrote this Wantsume was about
three furlongs broad, with but two fordable places, but in
Lambarde's time (1570) the one branch was so far silted up
THE DARENT
CHAP.
that it was necessary to asseverate that the persons yet living
who had seen vessels pass the whole length of the Wantsume
were "right credible." The Little Stour rises in the Elham
valley, and after flowing north towards Canterbury turns near
Bridge and goes roughly parallel with its greater neighbour
until their junction near East Stourmouth.
The Darent, Spenser's
" Still Darent, in whose waters clean
Ten thousand fishes play,"
JV<w. 5 oi
-',-
Quebec House, Westerhat.
■T/f
rises near the western limits of the county at Westerham, and
after flowing south of the North Downs, passes through a break
in the hills at Otford and goes north by Farningham, Darenth
and Dartford, joining the Thames a mile and a half east of
Erith. The Sussex Rother during a portion of its course is in
part a Kentish river, forming the boundary between the two
counties for some miles, and there are many tributaries of the
i THREE GREAT LANDINGS 9
larger streams mentioned, and pleasant smaller rivulets which
will be more fittingly noticed as we visit them.
From the streams that water our fruitful valleys we may pass
to some of the general features of the stream of History as it
has passed over the fair land. Of the " five great landings in
English History," as 1 )ean Stanley pointed out, the three first
and most important probably took place on the shores of Kent
— those which first " revealed us to the civilised world and the
civilised world to us ; . . . which gave us our English fore-
fathers and our English characters : . . . which gave us our
English Christianity." It was on the Kentish coast that Julius
Caesar landed with his Roman soldiery in the year 55 B.C., as
every schoolboy knows — exactly where the Roman general
landed even the wisest of those whose business it is to add to
the schoolboy's knowledge cannot affirm with certainty. The
balance of evidence is, however, so much in favour of the
neighbourhood of Deal that we may look upon that district
with some confidence as being that which first did lie at the
proud foot of the conqueror fresh from his achievements in
Gaul. Some writers, it is true, think that the landing was
effected at Romney Marsh, while others would take the tradition
away from Kent altogether and make Sussex the scene of Caesar's
as well as of William of Normandy's landing. The evidence
adduced on behalf of the east coast, somewhere between ^Talmer
and the Isle of Thanet, is, however, sufficiently convincing for
most people. Caesar recorded that he found the people of
Kent — though they had menaced him at Dover so seriously
as to make him seek a landing further north — remarkable
for the civility of their manners. " Kent in the commen-
taries Caesar writ is termed the civil'st place of all the isle."
The Roman occupation of over four hundred years left many
marks upon our county in the way of roads, while of remains
of varied character we learn hither and yon all up and down
the county. Five centuries after Caesar's coming three ship-
loads of Saxons under Hengist and Horsa landed at Ebbsfleet
and set about the overthrowing of Vortigern. Incidentally it
may be remembered that from the banner of the Saxon chiefs
Kent takes its distinguishing mark of the rampant white horse.
Another hundred and fifty years passed, and at the same spot
Augustine and his missionaries landed to begin their peaceful
conquest of the country, and to leave in Kent most enduring
IO
THE "TIDE OF RACES"
CHAP.
marks of their holy zeal, though there have been writers who
refer to Reculver as Augustine's landing place.
"^\i-<*<
^
I '-^
Reculver.
When William the Conqueror came and added Norman blood
and influence to the " tide of races " out of which the English
I THE CONQUEROR IN KENT n
nation was to emerge, the men of Kent offered peace and
faithful obedience only on condition that they were permitted
to enjoy all their ancient liberties, otherwise " Warr, and that
most deadly." The ancient liberties of the county thus pre-
served included the custom of gavelkind, by which at a man's
death his lands were equally divided among his sons, the
youngest of whom succeeded to the home. The story of how
the men of Kent dictated their terms to the Conqueror is
recorded by Lambarde as taken from Thomas Spot, "some-
times a monk and chronicler of St. Augustine at Canterbury,"
and, as the same quaint old topographer puts it, " I neither well
may, ne will at all, stick now eftsoons to rehearse it."
"After such time (saith he) as Duke Willi am the Conqueror
had overthrown King Harold in the field, at Battell in Sussex
and had received the Londoners to mercy, he marched with his
army toward the castle of Dover, thinking thereby to have
brought in subjection this Country of Kent also. But Stigande,
the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Egelsine, the Abbot of St.
Angustines, perceiving the danger, assembled the Countrymen
together and laid before them the intolerable pride of the
Normanes that invaded them and their own miserable con-
dition if they should yield unto them. By which means they
so enraged the common people, that they ran forthwith to
weapon, and meeting at Swanscombe, elected the Archbishop
and the Abbot for their Captains. This done, each man got
him a green bough in his hand and beare it over his head, in
such sort, as when the Duke approached, he was much amased
therewith, thinking at the first that it had been some miraculous
wood that moved toward him. But they, as soon as he came
within hearing, cast away their boughs from them, and at the
sound of a trumpet bewraied their weapons, and withall
despatched towards him a messenger, which spake unto him in
this manner : — The Commons of Kent {most noble Duke) are
ready to offer thee either Peaee or Warr, at thy own choice and
election : Peace with their faithful I Obedience, if thou wilt permit
them to enjoy their ancient Liberties ; Warr, and that most deadly,
if thou deny it them."
These men of Kent bearing green branches might well have
suggested to Shakespeare the scene in Macbeth near Birnam
Wood, when Malcolm says : —
12
PEACE, OR WAR MOST DEADLY
CHAP,
" Let every soldier hew him down a bough
And bear't before him ; thereby shall we shadow
The numbers of our host and make discovery
Err in report of us."
The men of Kent seemed to have gained their ends, if the
pleasant story of the old monk be true, no less surely and less
strenuously than did the Scottish soldiers who fulfilled the
baneful witches' prophecy to Macbeth.
Of some of the many historic incidents which have taken
place within the confines of our county, of some of the great
(wmAg-s. 0-7
Between Yalding and Wateringhury.
number of great men who were natives of or dwelt in Kent we
shall learn as wTe touch at the towns and villages, castles and
fields where they were enacted or where they lived, but a few
words may fittingly be said as to the origin of those broad
hop-fields, those May-rich stretches of cherry orchards which
remain in the memory of so many who know Kent intimately,
as of those who know it but casually, as characteristic features t
of the land.
" Hops and pickerel, carp and beer
Came into England all in a year."
THE KENTISH "VINE"
13
So runs one of the many versions of an old rhyme. The
date was some time in the sixteenth century, and since then the
hop has become so much acclimatised that it is to be found
wild in many parts. Of the half-dozen counties in which the
plant is grown extensively for commercial purposes Kent has
easily the first place, with between thirty and forty thousand
acres devoted to its cultivation. Of the appearance of a hop-
field in its various seasons, from the bareness of the winter, the
sticking and stringing of the bines to the growing crop, to the
fulness of growth when the whole fields are masses of more or
Kentish Orchard.
less orderly tangled bines with their clusters of hanging blooms,
to the time when those clustered blooms are gathered by an
army of " hoppers," we shall see something again and again
along the highways and byways of our county and more
especially about the Maidstone district and in the valley of the
Medway. Yet the hop is so characteristic that we find fields
of it on hillsides and in valleys in all parts, its cultivation being
well distributed ; and the railway traveller passing through the
county, though there may be no hop-fields within sight of the
line, may know that where he sees round brick buildings with
coned tops and small pointed cowls there is a hop drying place,
14 OAST-HOUSES chap.
or oast-house, and that hop-fields are not far away. The name
of these oast-houses, it has been said, was introduced with
hops from Flanders in the sixteenth century, being an adapta-
tion of the Flemish " huys," but the suggestion, though
ingenious, is incorrect, as old records testify that the word
" oast " stood for a kiln in Kent long before the hop had been
introduced — " lime-oasts " are referred to nearly a couple of
centuries before hop-oasts could have been wanted, and the
word probably survives in such place-names as Limehouse.
The same may be said of the Kentish orchards of cherry
and apple, which we meet with in all parts, though except in
spring, when under their light load of indescribable beauty, their
extent is not easily recognised. .Strawberries, too, are grown over
wide tracts of hillside at Orpington, about Cudham, and in
other places, while great fields of gooseberries and currants
form further extensive plots in this great garden of England.
Rarely, however, has the division into hop-fields and fruit-
fields been so extensive as to do more than diversify the
scenery ; the " garden " has not become a formal one. It is
saved from the curious patchwork effect which we get between
Calais and Dunkirk, and in other tracts immediately across the
Channel, by its many hedges, and even where there are not
broad stretches of woodland or rich parklands, by the many
spinneys and coppices, by bold clumps of trees, by the young
woodland growths known as springs and springshaws, which
are to be seen in all parts. The preservation of game has no
doubt been responsible for the conservation of the beauty of
much of our scenery, a fact which may be worth remembering
when we inveigh against closed woods. So well-wooded does
much of our county appear that its richness as agricultural
land might almost be overlooked. Its fame, however, in this
regard has been long-lived, for, as the old rhyme has it, —
"A Knight of Cales,
A gentleman of Wales
And a Laird of the North Countree,
A Yeoman of Kent,
With his yearly rent,
Will buy them out all three."
Though the yeoman of Kent flourished thus his eldest son
was scarcely a man of means, if "The Wooing Song of a
I AN INDEPENDENT WOOER 15
Yeoman of Kent's Sonne " is to be believed. It was a case of
" the son to the plough " — duly given him by his godfather —
and in the song we see how with his house and land and small
beginning of livestock he set more or less peremptorily about
getting a wife. There is an easy pride about the wooing,
which suggests that the youthful farmer knew his value in the
matrimonial market, and if the lady did not choose to have
him — there were others who would.
" Ich have house and land in Kent,
And if you'll love me, love me now;
Two-pence half-penny is my rent, —
Ich cannot come every day to woo.
(Chorus.) Two-pence half- penny is his rent
And he cannot come every day to woo,
Ich am my vather's eldest zonne,
My mouther eke doth love me well 1
For Ich can bravely clout my shoone
And Ich full well can ring a bell.
(Chorus.) For he can bravely clout his shoone,
And he full well can ring a bell.
My vather he gave me a hogge,
My mouther she gave me a zow ;
Ich have a god-vather dwells there by
And he on me bestowed a plow.
(Chorus.) He has a god-vather dwells there by
And he on him bestowed a plow.
One time Ich gave thee a paper of pins,
Anoder time a taudry lace ;
And if thou wilt not grant me love
In truth Ich die bevore thy vace.
(Chorus.) And if thou wilt not grant his love
In truth he'll die bevore thy vace.
Ich have been twice our Whitson Lord,
Ich have had ladies many vare ;
And eke thou hast my heart in hold,
And in my minde zeemes passing rare.
(Chorus.) And eke thou hast his heart in hold,
And in his minde zeemes passing rare.
Ich will put on my best white sloppe
And Ich will wear my yellow hose ;
And on my head a good gray hat
And in't Ich sticke a lovely rose.
( Chorus, ) And on his head a good gray hat
And in't he'll sticke a lovely rose.
16 A MAN OF KENT chap.
Wherefore cease off, make no delay,
And if you'll love me, love me now ;
Or els Ich zeeke zome oder where, —
For Ich cannot come every day to woo.
( Chorus. ) Or els he'll zeeke zome oder where,
For he cannot come every day to woo."
The dialect of the song is curiously unlike that of the Kent
of to-day, but it may be that it has changed since the verses
were written, and also, it is probable that the spelling has been
conventionalised by some old-time copyist. The song is said
to date back to Tudor times, and to be the original on which
was founded the popular Scottish one — " I hae laid a herring
in saut."
Before proceeding to wander about our county, it may be
well to touch upon a subject on which non-Kentish folk are for
ever jarring their more fortunate fellows : What is the difference
between "a man of Kent" and a "Kentish man"? This is
not a conundrum, nor is the difference merely one of words.
It is a question, however, with several answers, and perhaps —
unlike the ways of singing tribal lays — not a single one of them
is right. One authority tells us that the " men of Kent " are
those born within the limits of the diocese of Canterbury, while
" Kentish men " are those born within the limits of the diocese
of Rochester. The more commonly accepted explanation is,
however, that the " men of Kent " are those born east and
south of the Medway, while "Kentish men" are those born
to the left bank of that river, which cuts the county into two
very unequal portions. This explanation may be historical as
well as geographical, for, according to some records, the
eastern part of Kent was settled by Gothic and the western
by Frisian tribes, so that the jealousy may be a survival of
ancient rivalry. That it is jealousy may be found by calling
an East Kent friend a " Kentish man," or, within the same
friend's hearing, referring to one from Sevenoaks as a " man of
Kent."
Man of Kent, or Kentish man — under whichever of these
banners he is enrolled — the native of the county is proud of
his birthplace, — is proud of all that it has stood for in history,
of the part which has been played by sons of Kent in all spheres
of action ; he is proud not only of the traditions of his county,
of the way in which Kent has stood for freedom from the time
I A KENTISH MAN 17
of William the Norman, but he also likes to recall that it was
Kent which led the forlorn Royalist hope against the triumphant
Parliamentarians, that it was Kent which — with unpleasant
results to the petitioners — petitioned the Government of King
William III. to be true to its trust. He also likes to recall
that, if his county has won honour in the highways of history,
it has also won for the White Horse a proud place in those
byways of history which are devoted to sport, and especially in
the national game of cricket. The saying that " the Battle of
Waterloo was won on the playing-fields of Eton " was true in a
wider sense, for the spirit cultivated on cricket field and
bowling green has been no small factor in the growth of the
British Empire, and it will be a sad day when the tendency to
watch games rather than play them shall have struck a blow at
the national character. In the games of a country's youth can
be read that country's destiny.
CHAPTER II
CANTERBURY CATHEDRA L
In Canterbury Cathedral we have something of a natural centre
from which to begin our wanderings about Kent — a centre that
draws, and has drawn for many centuries, visitors from all parts
of the world. In this magnificent pile is summed up in stone
the whole history of Christianity from its first coming to England,
and here took place one of the most dramatic tragedies in our
tragic records, an episode which, though it arose, perhaps, out
of the petulance of a monarch impatient of ecclesiastical con-
trol, yet had the effect in the long run of welding more closely
together Church and State.
There are many ways of approaching the beautiful Cathedral,
perhaps the least impressive being that followed by those who
arrive in the city by rail. It is true that glimpses of the edifice
may be had from the train, but they are glimpses not com-
parable with those views which meet the visitor who approaches
by some one or other of the highways or byways, which afford
something of a bird's-eye view of the " metropolitical " city,
with the Cathedral magnificently dominating the whole. As
Erasmus said, the sight is one to strike even those who only see
it from a distance with awe.
Perhaps the best approaches — for those who can choose their
routes — are the ones from the west to the north-east. From the
hill just below the scattered hamlet of Broad Oak, and again
from the road at the foot of the hill, near the river Stour,
we see the Cathedral stand with bold dignity from amidst
the surrounding buildings, its form clearly defined against the
distant hills, above the skyline of which is seen the beautiful
CH. II
THE CATHEDRAL FROM AFAR
19
Perpendicular Tower — "Angel Steeple " as it was, " Bell Harry "
as it is now called. From the hill above Hackington, on the road
leading north to Heme Kay, another fine view of the city as a
Norman Porch, Canterbury.
whole with the Cathedral as the centre is to be had, and another
similar one from just below the brow of the hill on the road to
Blean where the left side of the road is fringed with a row of
old pines through which the Cathedral appears, finely framed.
c 2
20
THE ANGEL STEEPLE
CH. II
Another impressive view is that from the road which ap-
proaches from the south-west, parallel with the course of
the Stour and at a half mile or so from its right bank. Yet
another view, and in some regards perhaps the best, is that to
be had from the west, above Harbledown, and this is the more
interesting in that here we are on the old Pilgrims' Road, and
get such a view of the City and Shrine as rewarded pious
Canterbury.
pilgrims from London, or others after their long journeying from
Southampton and Winchester, along the middle heights of the
northern downs of Surrey and Kent. It was here that such
pilgrims as had ridden dismounted, as soon as the Angel
Steeple came in view, to complete the journey to the Shrine on
foot. The early tower was surmounted by a steeple crowned
with ;i gilt angel. Yet another and a more intimate view,
though marred by the prison in the foreground, is to be had
from the little hill on which St. Martin's Church stands, half a
'. r.^3
The S tour from High Street
22 AN INSPIRITING VIEW chap.
mile to the east of the Cathedral. This view aroused the
enthusiasm of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, when, as Dean of
Canterbury, he wrote those " Historical Memorials of Canter-
bury," which must be read by all who would know, with any
fulness, the great story of the great building, and his account
may well be borrowed here :
" Let any one sit on the little hill of the little church of St. Martin and
look on the view which is there spread before his eyes. Immediately
below are the towers of the great Abbey of St. Augustine, where Christian
learning and civilisation first struck root in the Anglo-Saxon race, and
within which now, after a lapse of many centuries, a new institution has
arisen, intended to carry far and wide to countries of which Gregory and
Augustine never heard the blessings which they gave to us. Carry your
view on, and there rises high above all the magnificent pile of our Cathedral,
equal in splendour and state to any the noblest temple or church that
Augustine could have seen in ancient Rome, rising on the very ground
which derives its consecration from him. And still more than the grandeur
of the outward buildings that rose from the little church of Augustine and
the little palace of Ethelbert, have been the institutions of all kinds, of
which these were the earliest cradle. From Canterbury, the first English
Christian city ; from Kent, the first English Christian kingdom, has, by
degrees, arisen the whole constitution of Church and State in England
which now binds together the whole British Empire. And from the
Christianity here established in England has flowed, bv direct consequence,
first, the Christianity of Germany — then, after a long interval, of North
America — and lastly, we may trust, in time, of all India, and all Austra-
lasia. The view from St. Martin's Church is indeed one of the most
inspiriting that can be found in the world ; there is none to which I would
more willingly take any one, who doubted whether a small beginning
could lead to a great and lasting good — none which carries us more
vividly back into the past, or more hopefully forward to the future."
After considering the Cathedral from a distance, we may
well make our way to its precincts and see the beautiful build-
ing from near at hand. Entering by the richly sculptured
Christ Church Gate we find ourselves at once within those
precincts with the Cathedral immediately in front of us.
Details of all that is to be seen within and about it must be
sought in a guide-book, which this is not ; such guide-books,
large and small, may be bought at a hundred shops of the city,
or of the old man who stands ready to take charge of bicycles
beneath the ancient gateway of Christ Church, giving on
to the Cathedral. The lofty nave, the beautiful choir, the
various chapels, each with its point of interest, its ancient
tradition, in succession claim our attention as we go to
the pilgrims' steps, by the tomb of that national hero, the
II
THE SCENE OE A GREAT TRAGEDY
23
Black Prince, with his helmet and gauntlets, his sword scabbard
and surcoat, on which the royal leopards and the fleur de lys
still show plainly after hanging for over five centuries above
the dust of their wearer. We may trace through the ancient
cloisters, in which the present seems to fall from us and be
V
The Cathedral from Christ Church Gate.
one with the past, the way which Thomas a Becket went on
that fateful day when hurried from his palace by his devoted
monks and pursued by the irate knights. The whole story of
the tragedy has been pieced together with graphic fulness
from the ancient records in Dean Stanley's work. The four
knights of King Henry, " spurred to outrage by a passionate
outburst of their master's wrath," had followed the Archbishop
24 "NO TRAITOR, BUT A PRIEST OF GOD" chap.
from France to England, and after forcing themselves into his
presence and demanding certain things in the King's name,
went out, armed and returned to find the Churchman had gone
to the Cathedral ; following they came up with him as he was
mounting the steps from the transept to the choir. It was
about five o'clock in the afternoon of December 29th, and in the
dim Cathedral the pursuers could not see their prey. " Where
is the traitor Thomas Becket," cried Fitzurse. The Primate
descended the steps again, saying, " Here I am, no traitor, but
a Priest of God." The knights sought to drag him from the
sanctuary of the Cathedral, but the Archbishop firmly with-
stood them ; " all the bravery and violence of his old knightly
life seemed to revive in Thomas as he tossed back the threats
and demands of his assailants." Then the blows fell sharp
and sudden, and the whole of Christendom was soon ringing
with the story of the brutal murder of a prince of the Church
in the sacred edifice. A small stone let into the floor is pointed
out for the gratification of those who can realise the scene the
better for that detail, as marking the spot on which the Arch-
bishop fell. The Cathedral has had its burnings and rebuildings
since that momentous day in n 70, but still it is the memory
of a Becket that has left its most enduring mark on Canter-
bury. His martyrdom and canonisation led to the place
becoming one of the most frequented shrines of Christendom,
and indirectly gave to us our first great national poem in
Chaucer's " Canterbury Tales."
The position of the actual " shrine," which was not that of
the martyrdom, but of the burial place — of which a drawing
is to be seen in the Cottonian MSS. — is pointed out to all
visitors, and the very dints in the stone worn by generations of
devout pilgrims are shown, for " the bricks are alive at this day
to testify, and therefore deny it not " ; but the shrine itself has
long since passed away, though there is, as Dean Stanley pointed
out, still sufficient interest around its ancient site " to require a
full narrative of its rise, its progress, and its fall, in any historical
records of the great Cathedral of which in the eyes of England
it successively formed the support, the glory, and the disgrace.
Such a narrative, worthily told, would be far more than a mere
investigation of local antiquities. It would be a page in one
of the most curious chapters of the history of the human
mind — it would give us a strange insight into the interior
II
THE SHRINK
25
4-}
The spot where Becket fell is indicated by the small square stone of the pavement.
working of the ancient monastic and ecclesiastical system, in
one of the aspects in which it least resembles anything which
we now see around us, either for good or for evil ; it would
26 TRANSLATION OF ST. THOMAS chap.
enable us to be present at some of the most gorgeous spectacles,
and to meet some of the most remarkable characters of
mediaeval times ; it would help us to appreciate more compre-
hensively and more clearly some of the main causes and effects
of the Reformation."
To the tomb of Becket Richard Cceur de Lion walked all
the way, after landing at Sandwich, that he might render thanks
" to God and St. Thomas " for his deliverance from his enemies
and his success at the siege of Acre ; it was at the same
tomb that Louis VII., the first King of France to set foot
in England (1179), offered thanks (and jewels) in gratitude
for his son's recovery from a dangerous illness.
It was fifty years after the murder that there took place
the translation of St. Thomas of Canterbury, which made
the shrine become more widely popular. Fire had largely
destroyed the edifice shortly after the great tragedy, but the
rebuilding had proceeded apace, and for just upon half a
century the body of the murdered Primate had lain in the
crypt. Two years' notice of the approaching translation was
given that people from all parts of the Christian world might
attend, and the consequence was that Canterbury witnessed
such a sight as, the various chroniclers agree, had never been
seen in England before.
The Archbishop Stephen Langton " through the range of his
episcopal dominions had issued orders for maintenance to be
provided for the vast multitude, not only in the city of Canter-
bury itself, but on the various roads by which they would
approach. During the whole celebration, along the whole way
from London to Canterbury, hay and provender were given to
all who asked, and at each gate of Canterbury, in the four
quarters of the city, in the four licensed cellars, were placed
tuns of wine, to be distributed gratis, and on the day of the
festival wine ran freely through the gutters of the streets."
They did things in a generous fashion in those days, though the
debt incurred was such that it took four of Langton's successors
to wipe it off. But Canterbury has witnessed many events
since then, some of which vied in splendour with the celebra-
tion of the translation of the Saint's body to the shrine. Such
for example was the enthronisation in 1295 of Archbishop
Winchelsey, who, as a boy of humble parentage, had some
II
PILGRIMS FROM LONDON
27
years before sought a gratuitous education at the school of the
city over which he was to rule.
Of the pilgrimages to the Shrine of St. Thomas we have the
most lasting and most fascinating account in Chaucer's great
work, where we see a representative company setting out from
A Glimpse of Detling on PilgrinCs Road.
Southwark and proceeding in leisurely fashion along tne
highway to the great centre of attraction on which pilgrims
from the east were converging from Sandwich, from the south
by the Dover Road and from the west by that Pilgrim's Road
which we shall touch again and again on our Kentish byways.
The route of London pilgrims undyingly portrayed by the
28
" BOBBE-UP-AND-DOUN "
CHAP.
father of our poesy is indicated by widely separated lines in his
poem : —
" Lo, Depeford, and it is half wey prynie ;
Lo, Grenewych, ther many a shrewe is inne . . .
Lo ! Rouchestre stant heer faste by ! . . .
Before I come to Siden bourne."
At " Boghton-under-Blee " the pilgrims were overtaken by
the Canon's Yeoman and then later comes a reference which
Harblcdo'ivn Hill.
has greatly puzzled Chaucerian commentators. Introducing the
Manciple's Tale the poet begins.
" Woot ye nat where ther stant a litel toun,
Which that y-cleped is Bobbe-up-and-doun,
Under the Blee in Caunterbury wey ? "
This has sometimes been taken as meaning Harbledown, and
sometimes, on the strength of there being a field known as
" Up-and-down " in the parish, as meaning Thanington. In
either case it would seem as though the pilgrims would be so
near the end of their journey as to have been more likely to be
thinking of getting accommodation for the night than having
time for two further stories, yet the description applies so well
II CHAUCER'S PILGRIMS 29
to Harbledown that the village is likely to remain identified
with the place " ycleped Bobbe-up-and -doun."
Chaucer's " Tales " were written, presumably, about an
ordinary company of pilgrims setting out in the springtime of
(probably) 1387, possibly spending in leisurely fashion four
days on the journey, which now is an easy day's ride for a
cyclist, and a mere mouthful of miles to a motor.
"Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote
The drpghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour :
When Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heelh
The tendre croppes, and ihe yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe coursy-ronne,
And smale foweles nuki-n melodye,
That slepen al the nygh) with open eye, —
So priketh hem Nature in hir corages
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To feme halwes, kowthe in sondry londes ;
And specially, from every shires ende
Of Engelond, to Caunturbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke."
Though the poet tells us that in the spring the English folks*
fancy lightly turned to thoughts of pilgrimage, Canterbury
was a well-honoured shrine all the year round. More es-
pecially was this so in December and July, the anniversaries
of the martyrdom and translation. Then, too, at every fiftieth
anniversary, or jubilee of the translation, the celebration was far
more numerously attended ; then indulgences were granted to all
pilgrims and the festival lasted for a long July fortnight.
Of the many great pilgrimages that took place there are
particulars in various chronicles and in the city records. It
was during the fifteenth century that the fame of St. Thomas
was at its height, that the old city saw the whole year long a
stream of pilgrims reaching flood proportions in July and
December. At the first jubilee after Chaucer's company had
visited the shrine, that of 1420 — two centuries after the
translation — the festival lasted for fifteen days, from noon on
St. Thomas's day, and the ancient record tells us that the
Bailiffs of the city — William Bailey and William Ickham —
30 THE PASSING OF THE SHRINE chap.
arranged with the townsfolk to make suitable provision for the
many expected visitors, in the preparing of lodgings, beds and
food in and around the city. The coming of the pilgrims on
this occasion meant the crowding into the city of about one
hundred thousand men and women, English and foreigners,
in addition to the ordinary inhabitants. The " foreigners "
included Irish, Welsh, and Scots, and it is interesting in this
connection to recall that in Kent a foreigner at the present day
signifies anyone who is unlucky enough to belong to the shires,
or anywhere other than Kent. When Canterbury was thus
invaded by a pious army of a hundred thousand pilgrims we
may be sure that it was a merry place during the week of
jubilee, for having performed their duties at the Shrine our
forefathers turned readily to amusement. So amply were
preparations made that the victuallers were enabled to sell
Gascony wine and white wine for eightpence a gallon, while
they asked but a penny for two loaves. Then must the narrow
lanes and streets, the wider " markets " and the suburbs without
the walls have been like one great fair.
There were, however, but half a dozen such jubilees, for
before 1570 came round Henry VIII. and the " Hammer of the
Monasteries " had established the Reformation and done that
work of destruction in which the jewelled Shrine of St. Thomas
passed from the sight of men. In 1538 it is said that
Henry VIII. addressed a summons to "Thomas Becket, some
time Archbishop of Canterbury," charging the dead Prelate
with treason, contumacy and rebellion, and this summons
having been duly read before the Shrine and thirty days having
elapsed without the 3 6 8-y ears-dead Churchman having put
in an appearance, the case against him was formally argued at
Westminster — with the inevitable result. Sentence was duly
pronounced that the bones of the contumacious one should
be burnt and that the offerings made at the Shrine should
be forfeited to the crown.
Great was the change that had come over men in a couple
of centuries, for that which was so readily violated in the reign
of the eighth Henry had been so guarded in the reign of the
second Edward that when a powerful baron, Lord Badlesmere,
visited the Shrine in arms, and with armed companions, the
outraged citizens informed the King and the nobleman was
tried and decapitated for insulting the Shrine by the presence
II KING JOHN AT CANTERBURY 31
of accoutrements of war. Between the time of Becket's
murder and translation came the unhappy rule of King John,
whose uneasy conscience made him a frequent visitor to the
Shrine. Scarcely a year passed but that monarch came to
Canterbury, and from his sojournings there came a romantic
tradition showing how
" Unlearned men hard matters out can find
When learned bishops princes eyes do blind."
The story as set forth in an olden ballad in the Percy
" Reliques " has the novelty of showing us the darkling King
John in a pleasant guise.
" He tell you a story, a story so merrye
Concerning the Abbot <>f Canterbiirye. "
The Abbot kept up such state that King John sent for him,
said that he suspected treason, and that except he could
answer three questions his head should be smitten off his
body. The hard questions were duly asked and the Abbot
craved three weeks in which to find the answers. The King
allowed the time limit and the ecclesiastic went off
"all sad at that word,
And he rode to Cambridge, and Oxenford ;
But never a doctor there was so wise,
That could with his learning an answer devise."
Sadly he rode back to Canterbury with but three days of the
three weeks' grace to run ! He met his shepherd, who inquired
the news, and on learning his master's sad case said,
" ' Now cheare up, sire abbot, did you never hear yet,
That a fool he may learn a wise man witt ?
Lend me horse, and serving men, and your apparel,
And I'll ride to London to answere your quarrel.
' Nay, frowne not, if it hath bin told unto mee,
I am like your lordship, as ever may bee ;
And if you will but lend me your gowne,
There is none shall know us at fair London towne.'
' Now horses and serving men thou shalt have,
With sumptuous array most gallant and brave,
With crozier, and miter, and rochet, and cope,
Fit to appeare 'fore our fader the pope.'
32 A WITTY SHEPHERD chap.
' Now, welcome, sire abbot,' the king he did say,
' 'Tis well thou'rt come back to keepe thy day :
For and if thou canst answer my questions three,
Thy life and thy living both saved shall bee.
' And first, when thou see'st me here in this stead,
With my crown of golde so fair on my head,
With all my liege-men so noble of birthe,
Tell me to one penny what I am worth.'
' For thirty pence our Saviour was sold
Amonge the false Jewes, as I have bin told :
And twenty-nine is the worth of thee,
For I thinke thou art one penny worser than hee.'
The king he laughed, and swore by St. Bittel,
' I did not think I had been worth so littel !
— Now secondly tell mee, without any doubt,
How soone I may ride this whole world about ?
' You must rise with the sun, and ride with the same
Until the next morning he riseth again ;
And then your grace need not make any doubt
But in twenty-four hours you'll ride it about.'
The king he laughed and swore by St. Jone,
' I did not think it could be gone so soone !
— Now from the third question thou must not shrinke,
But tell me here truly what I do thinke.'
' Yea, that shall I do, and make your grace merry ;
You think I'm the Abbot of Canterbury ;
But I'm his poor shepheard, as plain you may see,
That am come to beg pardon for him and for mee.'
The king he laughed, and swore by the masse,
' He make thee lord abbot this day in his place ! '
' Now naye, my liege, be not in such speede,
For alacke I can neither write ne read.'
' Four nobles a weeke, then I will give thee,
For this merry jest thou hast showne unto mee ;
And tell the old abbot when thou comest home,
Thou hast brought him a pardon from good King John.' '
This pleasant story showing that Canterbury had its legends
centuries before that diverting son of the city, Richard Harris
Barham, set about inventing new ones, must not keep us from
the storied stones of the Cathedral. The beauty of the
building to be properly enjoyed should be allowed to sink in
ii SHRINES AND SHOW-PLACES 33
quietly, and that alas is not easy except so far as the nave is
concerned. To visit the Shrine, the various chapels and tombs,
to penetrate the crypt, to go to the " martyrdom " it is not only
necessary to pay, but having paid one is led round by an
iterating cicerone who confuses where he would enlighten, who
gabbles certain archaeological, architectural or other data, and
hurries his little flock on to the next view point. The magnifi-
cent Cathedral is converted into a mere show-place, to be
" done " as quickly as the cicerone can take his party round ;
though it may be said that visitors who wish to go round
unaccompanied and peacefully can obtain the privilege — by
due notice and further payment. The uninteresting way in
which all too often the guides who show people over places
of interest drone forth their lore was noted by Byron when
describing Don Juan's journey from Dover to London—
" They saw at Canterbury the cathedral ;
Black Edward's helm, and Becket's bloody stone,
Were pointed out as usual by the bedral,
In the same quaint uninteresting tone : —
There's glory again for you, gentle reader ! All
Ends in a rusty casque and dubious bone,
Half solved into these sodas and magnesias,
Which form that bitter draught, the human species."
It is by repeated visits that the magnificence of the
structure grows upon us, and we learn to appreciate the
beauty and nobility of the whole, the interest of the details.
The study of its varied workmanship from Norman times
onward needs such repeated visits, the mere enumeration of its
attractive features, the events connected with its growth would
occupy far more than a chapter of this volume. The more
notable tombs include those of the Black Prince and
King Henry IV. and his queen, besides a large number of
ecclesiastical dignitaries. Among those of the latter something
of a morbid interest attaches to that in the eastern transept of
Abbot Chichele (1449), giving as it does two effigies of the
Abbot, the one as alive in his canonicals and the other as
in death; and to that of Dean Fotherby (16 19) with its
sculptured mass of skulls and bones. Most curious perhaps of
all the tombs is that of Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of
Canterbury to whom England owed King John's submission to
the terms of Magna Charta — curious not for its form but from
D
34
UNLOVELY FEATURES
CHAI'.
its position, half of it being in the Warriors' Chapel, and half
of it projecting through the wall.
Among the things which one would like to forget are
the gimcrack pulpit in the nave, and the monument to
The West Gate.
Archbishop Temple in " Becket's Crown," where the bronze
figure of the kneeling man is set against a toy wall that looks
as if it had been designed in children's bricks, or built up
of modelling clay j a striking contrast with another modern
ii THE HUGUENOTS 35
monument — the dignified recumbent marble figure of
Archbishop Tait.
The cool, low-pitched Norman crypt with its sculptured
pillars and its painted crowns of thorns still showing in the
roof, has various points of interest, one being the ancient holy-
water well which was discovered about five years ago at the
eastern end near the Virgin Mary's chapel. Water from this
well — with, it was supposed, some of the martyr's blood — was
carried away as a precious souvenir by the pilgrims who sought
the shrine of St. Thomas, and it is recorded that after
Henry II. had performed penance at the temporary grave of
h Becket, he carried off with him one of the usual phials.
These little bottles, made of lead and worn suspended round
the neck, became the " hall mark " of one who had performed
the pilgrimage to Canterbury. Another feature of the crypt
worthy of more than passing mention is the little chapel built
by the Black Prince to commemorate his marriage with Joan,
"the Fair Maid of Kent." A quaint stone head in the roof
above the organ is pointed out as a " portrait " of the fair
Joan.
This chapel in the crypt was later given by Queen Elizabeth
to the use of Huguenot refugees — and there every Sunday
afternoon a French Huguenot service is still held. An old
tradition said that the whole crypt was given over to the
foreign weavers, but the tradition is unsupported by any
evidence and seems to have no foundation beyond the fact
that their religious services were held here. The Black Prince
has left his name at a well on the Harbledown Road which he
passed on his pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas, and it
was at his own desire that he was buried here, though the wish
that he should be laid in the crypt was not fulfilled.
There is beautiful stained glass, some of it very old, for not
all was destroyed in the days when our Puritan fathers lost their
heads and continued the work of destruction begun a century
earlier by the burly Defender of the Faith. Richard Culmer
— ■" Blue Dick," as he is nicknamed — parson successively of
Goodnestone, Chartham, St. Stephen's, Harbledown, and
Minster, all in the Canterbury district, distinguished himself
at the time that Laud was a prisoner in the Tower of
London, by breaking some of the Cathedral's glass windows,
" standing on the top of the city ladder, near sixty steps
d 2
36
"BLUE DICK "—ICONOCLAST
chap.
high, with a whole pike in his hand, when others would
not venture so high.''- This feat of vandalism, says Barham
■
v\'s,-o!>
The Nave, Cantei bury Cathedral.
in recording it, " the ccerulean worthy called ' rattling down
proud Becket's bones." High in the lofty roof above the
place where stood the ancient Shrine is to be seen a golden
[i THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE 37
crescent, which cannot fail to excite the curiosity of the visitor
whose attention is drawn to it. A pretty, but wholly unwar-
ranted, legend accounts for it as a souvenir of the Saracen maid,
who, knowing but the words "Gilbert" and " London," found
her way from the East to her English lover, and became the
mother of Thomas a Becket. A more likely account says that
it was the centre from which radiated a number of banners
captured in the East, which were hung above the Shrine because
St. Thomas was credited with having achieved victory for
Richard Cceur de Lion at Acre.
It is a vision of lofty nave, of quaint side chapels, of rich
glass old and new, of monuments ranging from the dignity of
the fourteenth century to the " taste" of the nineteenth, of a
magnificent crypt with quaintly carven pillars, of beautiful
cloisters, of a great simple Chapter House with its record of
cathedral dignitaries, that we take out with us as we leave the
Cathedral to wander about the precincts. Before doing so we
may recall portions of Mr. Henry Newbolt's fine poem, "The
Building of the Temple (an Anthem heard in Canterbury
Cathedral)"1 :—
The Organ. O Lord our God, we are strangers before Thee, and
sojourners, as were all our fathers : our days on the earth are as a shadow,
and there is none abiding.
O Lord God of our fathers, keep this for ever in the imagination of the
thoughts of Thy people, and prepare their hearts unto Thee.
And give unto Solomon my son a perfect heart to keep Thy command-
ments, and to build the palace for the which I have made provision.
Boys voices. O come to the Palace of Life,
Let us build it again.
It was founded on terror and strife,
It was laid in the curse of the womb,
And pillared on toil and pain,
And hung with veils of doom,
And vaulted with the darkness of the tomb.
Men's voices. O Lord our God, we are sojourners here for a day,
Strangers and sojourners, as all our fathers were :
Our years on the earth are a shadow that fadeth away ;
Grant us light for our labour, and a time for prayer.
Boys. But now with endless song,
And joy fulfilling the Law ;
Of passion as pure as strong . . .
Let us build the Palace of Life anew.
1 The Island Race, by Henry Newbolt, 1907, p. 121.
38 THE DARK ENTRY chap.
Men. Let us build for the years we shall not see.
Boys. Lofty of line and glorious of hue
With gold and pearl and with the cedar tree,
Men. With silence due
And with service free,
Boys. Let us build it for ever in splendour new,
Men. Let us build in hope and sorrow, and rest in Thee
The quiet lawns about the Cathedral have that air of dignity
and peace which we are wont to associate with the precincts of
a cathedral or with the quadrangles of an old University. The
houses or gardens of the various dignitaries give on to this
pleasant space, from which we may contemplate the spacious
and beautifully proportioned building, the Bell Harry Tower,
still half hidden by the scaffolding of the workmen who have
long been engaged in its repair. Passing round the east we
come to scraps of ruined walls and noble arches- — the remains
of part of the old monastery buildings which extended along
this side of the Cathedral. Passing through here we come to
the " Dark Entry," celebrated by the "legend " which Barham
invented to fit the name. The story forms one of the " Ingoldsby
Legends," and tells how a merry Canon and his " niece " were
poisoned by the Canon's servant, jealous Nell Cook, and how
they were buried in one grave by the scandalised monks ; how
the cook was put into a vault beneath the paving of the
" Dark Entry " ; and furthermore how every Friday night Nell
Cook's ghost haunts the place of her interment with fatal
effect to those who encounter it.
'■ A hundred years were gone and past since last Nell Cook was seen,
When, worn by use that stone got loose, and they went and told the
Dean. —
— Says the Dean, says he, ' My Masons three ! now haste and fix it tight ; :
And the Masons three peep'd down to see, and the)' saw a fearsome
sight.
Beneath that heavy paving-stone a shocking hole they found —
It was not more than twelve feet deep, and barely twelve feet round ;
— A fleshless, sapless skeleton lay in that horrid well !
But who the deuce 'twas put it there those Masons could not tell.
And near this fleshless skeleton a pitcher small did lie,
And a mouldy piece of ' ld-sing crust,' as from a warden-pie !
And Doctor Jones declared the bones were female bones and, ' Zooks !
I should not be surprised,' said he, ' if these were Nelly Cook's.'
II A FICTIONAL GHOST 39
1 1 was in good Dean Bargrave's days, if I remember right,
'1 hose fleshless bones beneath the stones these Masons brought to light ;
And you may well in the 'Dean's Chapelle ' Dean Bargrave's portrait
view,
'Who died one night,' says old Tom Wright, 'in sixteen forty-two !'
And so two hundred years have passed since that these Masons three,
With curious looks, did set Nell Cook's unquiet spirit free ;
That granite stone had kept her down till then — so some suppose, —
— Some spread their fingers out, and put their thumb unto their nose.
But one thing's clear — that all the year on every Friday night,
Throughout that Entry dark doth roam Nell Cook's unquiet Sprite :
On Friday was that Warden-pie all by that Canon tried ;
On Friday died he, and that tidy Lady by his side !
And though two hundred years have flown, Nell Cook doth still pursue
Her weary walk, and they who cross her path the deed may rue ;
Her fatal breath is fell as death ! the Simoom's blast is not
More dire — (a wind in Africa that blows uncommon hot).
But all unlike the Simoom's blast, her breath is deadly cold,
Delivering quivering, shivering shocks unto both young and old,
And whoso in that Entry dark doth feel that fatal breath,
He ever dies within the year some dire, untimely death ! "
The " legend " was of course nothing but an ingenious fiction
of the humorous " Ingoldsby," but it has probably sent a shiver
down the backs of many pedestrians who have had to pass
through the Dark Entry on Friday nights, and it has met
with severe reprobation at the hands of some dignified writers
on the Cathedral who resented the " most unsavoury fashion "
in which the clerical humorist wrote his story about the
Canterbury precincts.
Now there are but ruined portions of the great Benedictine
Monastery of which the Cathedral Church was at one time
the neighbour. This monastery, dating as it did from the
time of Augustine, grew to a place of great importance with
the growing importance of the Archbishops of Canterbury —
for those dignitaries dwelt with the monks — and among the
ruins remaining are some fine Norman arches, and portions of
walls, but scarcely sufficient for the ordinary visitor to recon-
struct in imagination the great building where hospitality was
given by the monks to distinguished pilgrims visiting the Shrine.
To the student of ecclesiastical architecture and lore every foot
4Q
THE r-RECINCTS
CH. 11
of the Precincts, as of the building itself, is charged with interest ;
but to the ordinary sojourner it is an impression of the whole
that remains — of neatly-kept ruins and comfortable looking
houses set back in comfortable gardens, all around the warm-
grey stone cathedral, every detail of which contributes to the
impressive and beautiful dignity of the whole.
,- ' _— -, ,
Oast House (formerly a Chapel), at Horton, near Canterbury
CHAPTER III
THE CITY OF CANTERBURY
Though, as we approach it, Canterbury is dominated by its
Cathedral, and though the story of that Cathedral dominates
the story of the city as a whole, yet has that city a very
interesting story to tell, a story which is to a very great extent
written in stone about its ancient buildings, in its narrow,
tortuous streets, its many survivals of mediaevalism in archi-
tecture in its old lanes, and their names. That the city stood
on the Roman highway which ran from Dover to London, is
told to the postman every time he delivers a letter in Watling
Street, though there was a town here, it is believed, long before
the coming of the conquering legions of Caesar.
In the old abbey of St. Augustine, in a score of churches,
the ecclesiastical history of the place is found recorded with a
fulness which affords abundant opportunity of much study to
the curious, which shows that even though we ignored the
Cathedral we should find this the first centre of Christian
influence in England. Indeed, the Abbey of St. Augustine
would claim attention first had not the Cathedral oversnadowed
it, for here we are brought more directly into touch with the
bringer of Christianity to England. In the Chronicles of
Bede we are told that, when the chronicler wrote, the inscrip-
tion still to be read on St. Augustine's tomb ran :
" Here resteth the Lord Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury,
Who erewhile was sent hither by blessed Gregory Bishop of the City
of Rome, and being helped by God to work miracles, drew over King
42
ST. AUGUSTINE'S ABBEY
CHAP.
Ethelbert and his race from the worship of idols to the faith of
Christ. Having ended in peace the days of his ministry, he departed
Bill Harry Tower from the Dark Entry.
hence seven days before the Kalend of June in the reign of the same
king, A. D. 605."
in DEGENERATE DAYS 43
After the Dissolution the old abbey was partly used as a royal
palace, and later it fell into such a ruinous state that by 1836
it had degenerated into a sort of provincial Vauxhall, as may
be seen from the following advertisement : —
OLD PALACE GARDENS, CANTERBURY.
Mr. STANMORE,
(Late of Canterbury Theatre),
Begs most respectfully to inform the inhabitants of
Canterbury and its Vicinity that the above Gardens will
open under his direction
On TUESDAY, JULY 31ST, 1836,
and will continue open every
TUESDAY AND THURSDAY EVENING,
during the season upon the principle of
THE ROYAL GARDENS, VAUXHALL,
And trusts these entertainments will give satisfaction
and meet with the support it will he his study to deserve.
The beauty of the Gardens are known to all, and
their appearance will he highly imposing when
ILLUMINATED
with nearly
TWO THOUSAND VARIEGATED LAMPS.
The Concert
will take place in the spacious < >rchestra erected in the
Gardens, for. which
Miss MEARS,
of the Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, and Drury Lane, and
Mr. WARREN,
Late of Royal Gardens, Vauxhall, and several other
professional persons are engaged.
A part of the gardens will be appropriated to
DANCING,
And will be open to the Public without any extra charge
and for which
A FULL QUADRILLE BAND IS ENGAGED.
Mr. Stanmore is making arrangements with numerous
performers for
SINGING and DANCING,
SLACK and TIGHT-ROPE DANCING,
GYMNASTIC EXERCISES,
44 SHAM ANTIQUARIES chap.
And every kind of amusement suitable for Gardens also
with
Mr. Fenwick the celebrated artist in fireworks, who will
have the honor of firing during the season of which due
notice will be given.
ADMISSION :
One Shilling each Person. Children under twelve years
of age half-price.
Gardens open at Half-past Seven. Performance to com-
mence at Eight.
This hand-bill — eloquent testimony to the taste of the nine-
teenth century at its worst — is preserved at the fine Missionary
College which a dozen years later was opened on the site, the
old building being preserved and restored with reverent care.
Some of the ruins are still to be seen at the back of the college,
but the place is changed beyond all recognition sin ce a certain
picnic party came from Tappington Everard to inspect the
ruins. On this occasion such talk took place as all too
often does take place when those who think they should be
interested in antiquities pretend that they are. Ingoldsby
records the visit in an admirable bit of fooling. For " Bol-
sover " of course we should read St. Augustine.
" To souls so congenial, what a sight was the magnificent ruin of
Bolsover ! its broken arches, its mouldering pinnacles, and the airy tracery
of its half-demolished windows. The party were in raptures ; Mr.
Simpkinson began to meditate an essay, and his daughter an ode ; even
Seaforth, as he gazed on these lonely relics of the olden time, was betrayed
into a momentary forgetfulness of his love and losses ; the widow's eye-
glass turned from her cicisbeo's whiskers to the mantling ivy ; Mrs. Peters
wiped her spectacles ; and ' her P.' supposed the central tower ' had once
been the county jail.' The squire was a philosopher, and had been there
often before, so he ordered out the cold tongue and chickens.
'Bolsover Priory,' said Mr. Simpkinson, with the air of a connoisseur,
— ' Bolsover Priory was founded in the reign of Henry the Sixth, about the
beginning of the eleventh century. Hugh de Bolsover had accompanied
that monarch to the Holy Land, in the expedition undertaken by way of
penance for the murder of his young nephews in the Tower. Upon the
dissolution of the monasteries, the veteran was enfeoffed in the lands and
manor, to which he gave his own name of Bowlsover, or Bee-owls-over (by
corruption Bolsover), — a Bee in chief, over three Owls, all proper, being the
armorial ensigns borne by this distinguished crusader at the siege of Acre.'
'Ah ! that was Sir Sidney Smith,' said Mr. Peters ; ' I've heard tell of
him. and all about Mrs. Partington, and '
'P., be quiet, and don't expose yourself!' sharply interrupted his lady.
P. was silenced, and betook himself to the bottled stout.
in ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH 45
'These lands,' continued the antiquary, ' were held in grand serjeantry
by the presentation of three white owls and a pot of honey '
' Lassy me ! how nice,' said Miss Julia. Mr. Peters licked his lips.
' Pray give me leave, my dear — owls and honey, whenever the king
should come a rat-catching into this part of the country.'
' Rat-catching !' ejaculated the squire, pausing abruptly in the mastica-
tion of a drumstick.
' To be sure, my dear sir : don't you remember that rats once came
under the forest laws — a minor species of venison? "Rats and mice and
such small deer," eh? — Shakspeare, you know. Our ancestors ate rats
("The nasty fellows I" shuddered Miss Julia in a parenthesis) ; and owls,
you know, are capital mousers '
'I've seen a howl,' said Mr. Peters; 'there's one in the Sohological
Gardens, — a little hook-nosed chap in a wig, — only its feathers and
Poor P. was destined never to finish a speech.
'Doha quiet !' cried the authoritative voice, and the would-be naturalist
shrank into his shell, like a snail in the ' Sohological Gardens.'
'You should read Blount's Jocular Tenures, Mr. Ingoldsby,1 pursued
Simpkinson. 'A learned man was Blount. Why, sir, his Royal Highness
the Duke of York once paid a silver horse-shoe to Lord Ferrers
'I've heard of him,' broke in the incorrigible Peters; 'he was hanged
at the old Bailey in a silk rope for shooting Dr. Johnson.' "
The veritable gatherings from history and the comments
thereon were continued further, and may be read in the no less
veritable record of the doings of "The Spectre of Tappington."
A little to the east of St. Augustine"s stands on its eminence
St. Martin's Church, originally built during the Roman occu-
pation, the church in which Queen Bertha, the Christian wife
of Ethelbert, worshipped, and in which it is probable that the
King was baptized after the coming of Augustine. The feelings
of those with a sense of antiquity may well be deeper here than
at the neighbouring Abbey and Cathedral, for here we are in
touch with Christianity as it had reached this country before
' the coming of the great missioner. On this hill stood many of
the Roman villas in the days when the City of the men of
Kent was the Durovemum of the invaders, and much Roman
material is utilised in the older parts of the building, which has
many features of interest to the archaeologist and ecclesiologist,
though it is by its ancient traditions that the building appeals
first to most visitors, and then by the beauty and quiet of it, as
we walk about the trim graveyard with its ancient yews and
its wealth of blossoms among the crowded gravestones, its neat
paths like a garden. At the east side is a raised terrace where
we can sit and muse and, recalling Dean Stanley's words
already quoted, admire the distant view over St. Augustine's
46
A SHOWMAN'S IMPUDENCE
CHAP.
to the Cathedral, somewhat spoiled in the foreground by
modern houses and the ugly severity of the county gaol.
Mr. Wombwell, the great menagerie man, must have known
how Mr. Stanmore had been allowed to treat the ruined abbey
outside the eastern-walls of the city in 1836, when he in 1859
proposed to visit Canterbury and finding the ancient West
Gate not quite high enough to allow the passing through it of
his elephant-drawn cars, had the impudent assurance to petition
Tlie West Gate', Canterbury.
the Mayor and Corporation, to be allowed t-o pull it down.
That the confidence with which such a request could be pre-
ferred was not over-extravagant in the mid-nineteenth century
is shown by the fact that the Corporation gravely debated
this petition and that on a division the gate was only
saved from destruction by the casting vote of the mayor.
This old gate — now well looked after, though it is not
many years since it stood a picture of piteously neglected
age — is the only one remaining of the seven gates which
gave admittance to the well-walled city. Just without it runs
Ill
THE WALLS OF CANTERBURY
47
the main stream of the Stour with patient disciples of old
Izaak frequently angling from the parapet of the bridge ; and
not always unsuccessfully, for I have- watched an excited youth
play and land, to the admiration of his fellows, a plump trout
of about a foot in length. Up to the eighteenth century all
the gates and most of the wall were standing ; now there remain
but portions of the wall to the east of the Cathedral and by the
Dane-John — with close-grown lawns where the old ditch was,
The West Gate from Within.
and fruit trees growing up the ancient flint walls. Enough
remains however to show that Canterbury must have been a
notable stronghold in mediaeval times, but the city's " expatia-
tions," as old Fuller puts it, beyond the walls, and the changed
temper of the times, long since made the walls nothing but an
interesting survival.
Intramural Canterbury was but little more than half a mile
across from east to west and north to south, and rather less
than half a mile at its narrowest from the West Gate to
48 A NORMAN KEEP AS COAL SUED chap.
where St. George's Gate stood. Within this square half mile
or so of city are gathered buildings so many and so charged
with ancient tradition that the visitor making a stay of
some time in the neighbourhood should take as guide some
volume such as that by Dr. J. Charles Cox. For the more
hurried passer-by there is but a general impression of irregular
streets with shops and houses with quaint gables, with strange
bowed, rounded and square projecting windows, with upper
floors bulging over the lower in the. old Tudor style. It
may be doubted whether any other square half mile of the
country can show so great a variety of ecclesiastical and
domestic architecture and can awaken such varied traditions.
We may see little (unless we visit the Museum) of the remains of
the Roman occupation, the early Christian period is only pointed
out in bits of walls and portions of old buildings, but the Norman
flinty Keep of the Castle gives us some idea of the aspect of the
place about eight centuries ago ; though the way in which it
is neighboured by small houses and by the harmful, necessary
gas-works has gone far to debase it. According to Leland
" the most anncyent building of the towne appeareth yn the
castel," but the nineteenth century not only allowed the gas-
works to be erected close to that same castle, but even gave
over the great keep to the Gas Company by way of " coal shed."
The reproach dates back to the time of Thomas Ingoldsby—
from whom there is no escaping in East Kent — for in the
legends of that worthy we read : —
" The keep, I find, 's been sadly alter d lately,
And, 'stead of mail-clad knights, of honour jealous,
In martial panoply so grand and stately,
Its walls are filled with money-making fellows,
And stuff'd, unless I'm misinformed greatly,
With leaden pipes, and coke, and coals and bellows ;
In short, so great a change has come to pass,
'Tis now a manufactory of Gas."
Well might visitors to the metropolitical city despair of citizens
who could turn the ancient abbey into a dancing saloon, could
contemplate pulling down an ancient monument for the con-
venience of a travelling showman, and make of a fine Norman
Keep a coal shed. As, however, better feelings prevailed in the
case of St. Augustine's and the West Gate, so have they done
in that of the Castle. Coal, I understand, has been given notice
Ill
A CITY OF BYWAYS
49
to quit, and the ancient edifice is, it is hoped, before long to be
added to the public monuments of the city as a fitting neighbour
to the Dane-John, that curious conical mound of supposed pre-
historic origin which rises just within the walls near the southern
railway station, and in the shadow of which is raised Canterbury's
latest monument, that to the soldiers of East Kent who fell in
jMf'A-ffVL'l^TVV. o4
Old House
St. Dunsttlri s Street.
the South African War — the oldest and newest of Canterbury's
memorials thus closely neighbouring each other.
Canterbury might almost be described as a city of byways.
It is true that it has a High Street, and that St. Dunstan's Street,
Wincheap Street, Longport Street, some of the ways by which
we approach, are broad, but once within the old city the high-
ways have dwindled into more interesting byways, the very High
Street itself, with its plate-glass shopfronts beneath overhanging
upper storeys and quaint gables, has more of the old than the
E
50 LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS chap.
new about it ; while in the rambling side streets and lanes is end-
less variety of attraction. Here we may visit the birthplace of
Christopher Marlowe, the residence of Richard Lovelace (the
beautiful thirteenth century Greyfriars' House bridging a
branch of the Stour), the birthplace of Thomas Sidney Cooper (in
St. Peter's Street), which the veteran artist gave to the city when
founding the Sidney Cooper School of Art ; we may visit in
St. Mildred's Church the place whefe Izaak Walton — whom
it is pleasant to meet more than once in our Kentish wanderings
— was married in 1620 to Rachael Floud. Another Canterbury
worthy to be recalled is Stephen Gosson, the poet, player, and
playwright, who turned and rended the playhouse, players, and
plays. The memory of Marlowe's association is perpetuated
by a monument close to the Christ Church Gate — a graceful
monument which does not harmonise with the massy stone
gateway, a monument still wanting statuettes in three of its
four niches, and a monument made hideous by the gimcrackery
lamps which stand at its four corners. Here of old stood the
Butter Market, and when it was decided to demolish the edifice
as "unsafe," the oak beams by which the roof was supported
could not be removed until dragged down by teams of horses !
as old inhabitants who regret the march of improvement are
delighted to tell.
Leaving fact for fiction scarcely less real, we may follow the
way that little David Copperfield went, first on the penniless
tramp at the end of which he made himself known to his aunt,
and later when the worthy Betsy Trotwood drove the grey
pony and chaise from Dover to take the rehabilitated David,
re-named Trotwood, to school. It was many years ago, but
the hand of "improvement" has happily lain but lightly on
Canterbury, and Dickensians may well seek to identify Mr.
Wickfield's house described by Boz with such minute faith-
fulness.
" I asked for no more information about Mr. Wickfield, as she offered
none, and we conversed on other subjects until we came to Canterbury,
where, as it was market-day my aunt had a great opportunity of insinuating
the grey pony among carts, baskets, vegetables and hucksters' goods. The
hair-breadth turns and twists we made, drew down upon us a variety of
speeches from the people standing about, which were not always com-
plimentary ; but my aunt drove on with perfect indifference, and I dare
say would have taken her own way with as much coolness through an
enemy's country.
Ill DICKENS'S CANTERBURY 51
"At length we stopped before a very old house bulging out over the
road ; a house with long, low lattice windows bulging out still farther, and
beams with carved heads on the ends bulging out too, so that I fancied the
whole house was leaning forward, trying to see who was passing on the
narrow pavement below. It was quite spotless in its cleanliness. The old-
fashioned brass knocker on the old-fashioned door, ornamented with carved
garlands of fruit and flowers, twinkled like a star ; the two stone steps
descending to the door were as white as if they had been covered with fair
linen ; and all the angles and corners, and carvings and mouldings, and
quaint little panes of glass, and quainter little windows, though as old as
the hills, were as pure as any snow that ever fell upon the hills.
"When the pony-chaise stopped at the door, and my eyes were intent
upon the house, I saw a cadaverous face appear at a small window on
the ground floor (in a little round tower that formed one side of the
house) and quickly disappear. The low arched door then opened and
the face came out."
If Dickens made a composite picture for his house he might
well have taken " the beams with carved heads on the ends
bulging out " from the beautiful old house at the corner of
Broad Street and Lady Wotton's Green. Canon Benham
unhesitatingly identifies the place : " I avow that I have no
doubt as to Mr. Wickfield's house. There it is, halfway up the
High Street." The makers of picture postcards represent
another residence without the West Gate.
The face that came out to admit Miss Trotwood and her
nephew was, of course, that of the "humblest person going"
Uriah Heep — and having sought to identify the house with the
carved beam outside so uncommonly like Uriah, the follower in
the steps of Copperfield may look among other houses for
" a humble abode " such as that in which David had tea with
the Heeps, mother and son, and may then seek the little inn
— by some identified as the "Sun" — -where Mr. and Mrs.
Micawber put up after they had come to see if there might be
an opening for a man of Wilkins Micawber's talents in the
Medway coal trade. They found that the coal trade on that
river might require talent, but it certainly required capital — a
thing very shy of turning up where Mr. Micawber was about.
To return again from the fascinations of fiction to fact,
mention must be made of the old house in which we have a
relic of the Continental weavers who came hither in Elizabeth's
time, and made Canterbury flourish anew by its manufacture of
various woven stuffs. It is true that of the Walloons from the
Spanish Netherlands, who first settled here, there were said to
e 2
52
REFUGEE WEAVERS
CHAP.
be only eighteen householders besides children and servants,
but "the Queen, as a further mark of her favour, in 1568
granted to them the undercroft of the cathedral church, as a
place of worship for themselves and their successors. After
which, the persecution for religion still continuing abroad, the
number of these refugees multiplied so exceedingly that in 1634
the number of communicants in the Walloon Church was
increased to 900 ; and there was calculated to be of these
*r.t
Where Mr. Micaivber stayed in Canterbury.
refugees in the whole kingdom 5,213, who were employed in
instructing the English in weaving silk, cotton, and woollen
goods ; in combing, spinning and making different kinds of
yarns, worsted, crewels, etc., etc At the beginning of King
Charles II. 's reign, anno 1665, there were in Canterbury 126
master weavers, their whole number here amounting to near
1,300, and they employed 759 English ; so that the King thought
proper to grant them a charter in 1676, by which it appears
that their number here was then but little short of 2,500."
Twenty years later came the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
in A PICTURESQUE OLD HOUSE 53
and some 5,000 French Protestants are said to have come to
this country. ': Great numbers of these came to Canterbury,
and joined themselves to the Walloon Church, and by their
industry the wealth of this place increased considerably ; it
became more populous ; the poor, even to their children, found
a constant employment, and the owners of houses finding
sufficient tenants for them, and their rents increased, were
induced to rebuild or to add great improvements to them, much
to their own emolument and the public welfare of the city."
By the end of the eighteenth century silk weaving had largely
moved to Spitalfields, and the industry had been so much
affected by the improved making of printed muslins and
chintzes in other places that the number of those engaged
in weaving here had been greatly reduced. As weaving de-
clined, however, an old county historian tells us, the cultiva-
tion of hops increased, and the hops from the Canterbury
district, he adds, were highly esteemed by the London
brewers for their great strength, " doing more execution in the
copper than those of any other district." To-day the old
weaving industry is represented by the many-gabled building
overhanging one branch of the Stour, where visitors may see
something of the old home-weaving still carried on, and may
see a delightful old house, one of the most picturesque of its
kind remaining, but so neat and well looked after with its
flower-grown window-boxes as to suggest the sham medisevalism
of the " Old London " of some years ago. The window-boxes
give a pleasant bit of colour to the view of those who pause on
the bridge and look down the stream, but they are something
of an anachronism. Tudor folk did not indulge in such
decorative " hints that nature lives." Opposite the Canter-
bury Weavers is a house bridging the stream, and here we
have one of the many ancient hospital foundations in which
the city is rich, though they have mostly been rebuilt.
Wandering about the many lanes and streets of Canterbury,
with its numerous churches, its quaint irregular houses,
" bulging," as Dickens has it, and gabled; it is not difficult
to realise something of its past when the ways were thronged
with pilgrims, when friars and monks were to be met with
everywhere in the miry and unpaved thoroughfares. It was
near the end of the fifteenth century that the King kindly
empowered the Mayor and Corporation to pave the streets at
-
\.-ifki
BC
«
.J Jin ob
Mercery Lane
CH. in A ROYAL ESCAPADE 55
the charge of the inhabitants thereof. On the dissolution of
St. Augustine's Monaster)', about half a century later, say the
city records of 1542, "the city was supplied with building and
paving stones from its ruins on paying a trifle to the gatekeeper."
The memories of the old place are many and varied.
Hither, when the burly Henry VIII. was contemplating
marriage with Anne Boleyn, was brought Elizabeth Barton,
the Holy Maid of Kent, to set men, lay and cleric, marvelling,
later at Tyburn to pay the penalty of her "visions " and of the
folly of the credulous who would have employed her as tool to
their own ends. She was a maid-servant from Aldington who
saw visions, and professed to be divinely inspired in her utter-
ances against the King's projected marriage. Examined by
ecclesiastical authorities, she was at first made much of, but
her seeings and sayings were not to the temper of Henry and
Cromwell, and she and some of her supporters were duly
executed.
On February 19th, 1623, there set out from Dover across
the narrow seas a notable party of five adventurers, consisting
of " Thomas and John Smith " (i.e. Charles, Prince of Wales,
and the Marquess — after Duke — of Buckingham), Sir Richard
Graham, Sir Francis Cottington, Secretary, and Mr. Endymion
Porter, " Bed-chamber servant of Confidence to his Highness,"
though the trouble met with in passing through Canterbury
bid fair to stop the little expedition. The Prince was going
off on a secret adventure that he might see the Spanish Infanta,
with whom there was some idea of his marrying. With the
whole escapade we have here little concern, but the adventurous
journey across Kent may be cited as a pleasant bit of county
lore pieced together after much research by that good man of
Kent, Sir Henry Wotton. Cottington and Porter having been
sent ahead to provide a vessel at Dover, the others, " with
disguised beards and with borrowed names," set out from
Buckingham's Essex seat on February 18th.
"When they passed the River against Gravesend, for lack of Silver, they
were fain to give the Ferry Man a piece of two and twenty shillings, which
struck the poor fellow into such a melting tenderness, that so good Gentle-
men should be going (for so he suspected) about some quarrel beyond Sea,
as he could not forbear to acquaint the Officers of the Town with what had
befallen him, who sent presently Post for their stay at Rochester, through
which they were passed before any intelligence could arrive. On the brow
of the Hill beyond that City, they were somewhat perplexed by espying the
56 A PRINCE IN DISGUISE chap.
French Ambassador, with the King's Coach and other attending him, which
made them baulk the beaten road, and teach Post- Hackneys to leap Hedges.
At Canterbury, whither some voice (as it should seem) was run on before,
the Mayor of the Town came himself to seize on them, as they were taking
fresh Horses, in a blunt manner, alleadging first a Warrant to stop them,
from the Councel, next from Sir Lewis Lewkner Master of the Ceremonies,
and lastly from Sir Henry Manwaring, then Lieutenant of Dover-Castle.
At all which confused fiction, the Marquess had no leisure to laugh, but
thought best to dismask his Beard, and so told him, that he was going
covertly with such slight company, to take a secret view (being Admiral) of
the forwardness of his Majesties Fleet, which was then in preparation on
the narrow Seas : This, with much ado, did somewhat handsomely heal
the disguisement. On the way afterwards, the Baggage Post-Boy, who had
been at Court, got (I know not how) a glimmering who they were ; but his
mouth was easily shut. To Dover, through bad Horses, and those petty
impediments, they came not before six at night."
That the disguised Prince and his companions got through
to Dover with no further trouble was probably owing to
the fact that news of their escapade was little likely to get
ahead of them in days when communication was necessarily
slow. Indeed, in 1637, as we learn from that maker of many
books, John Taylor the Water Poet, Canterbury had regular
communication with London but twice a week : " The Foot
Post of Canterbury doth come every Wednesday and Saturday
to the sign of the Two-Necked Swan at Summers Key, near
Billingsgate."
A quarter of a century after his escapade, when the Prince,
become King, had nearly reached the tragic close of his
struggle with his people, it was Canterbury that made the last
attempt on behalf of the old order against the new, though it
must be said that it was not altogether devotion to the monarch
which gave rise to the Petition of Kent and the subsequent
insurrection. The good people of Canterbury were greatly
annoyed at the Puritan ordinances, which forbade the celebra-
ting of Christmas, and determined to do as they had done
before, and duly arranged for a service on Christmas Day,
1647, "a heinous offence in those times of reformation," says
the contemporary historian "of that Honorable though Un-
fortunate Expedition," who was himself a participator. The
service was duly held at St. Andrew's Church, "where the
Reverend Mr. Allday, then resident minister of the parish,
preached a sermon suitable to the day, a thing then so much
out of use that the people began to forget that Christ was ever
in PETITION OF THE MEN OF KENT 57
born, as well as the celebration of His birth." The "new
saints " tried by external disturbance to drown the speaking
within. The mayor sought to persuade the people to open
their shops, and on one tradesman expostulating with him,
struck the first blow. Tumult followed, until a certain barber,
"a man swelled as full of ungodly schismatical principles of
rebellion as a toad with poison," shot some one, and the
tumult was only stayed by agreement between the leaders of
the two parties.
In a "Perfect Diurnal" of Parliament under the date of
December 30th, 1647, it is recorded that a letter had been
received that day out of Kent, from some of the committee of
the said county, acquainting the House with " the great riot
that was at Canterbury on Saturday last." A week later the
trouble had abated, only to be aroused afresh by the arrival of
an armed body of troops, and later by the special commission
sent by Parliament to try the offenders. The Grand Jury not
only ignored the bill but " composed upon the spot a petition
to Parliament, which, to my mind, was worthy of ' unconquered
Kent,' and of a people whose ancestors always claimed the
right to march in the van of the English army."1
Out of this disturbance thus rose the Petition of the Men of
Kent, which was forbidden to be presented, and thus led to
the petitioners forming a resolution that it should be presented
if necessary with sword in hand, and so to the military
expedition, which was finally crushed at Colchester, in Essex.
The men of Kent claimed the right to petition Parliament,
but had less success than when they parleyed sword in hand
with William of Normandy. The " Petition " was simple in
expression, but for the time was marked by a boldness which
could but irritate those who had grown tired of " treating " with
their Sovereign. It ran : —
"To the Right Honorable the Lords and Commons assembled in
Parliament at Westminster.
The Humble PETITION of the Knights, Gentry, Clergy, and Common-
ality of the County of KENT subscribed by the Grand Jury on the nth of
May, 1648, at the Sessions of the Judges, upon a Special Commission of
Oyer and Terminer, held at the Castle of Canterbury, for the said County.
Sheweth
That the deep sense of our own miseries, with a fellow-feeling of the dis-
1 Colonel Colomb, F.S.A., Arch. Cantiana, xi.31-49.
58 FOR GOD, KING CHARLES, AND KENT chap.
contents of other Counties exposed to the like sufferings, prevaileth with us,
thus humbly to present to your Honors these our ardent desires.
I. That our most Gracious Sovereign Lord King Charles, may with
all speed be admitted in safety and honor, to treat with his two Houses
of Parliament, for the perfect settling of the peace, both of Church and
Common Wealth, as also of his own just Rights together with those of the
Parliament.
II. That for prevention and removal of the manifold Inconveniences,
occasioned by the continuance of the present Army, under the command
of the Lord Fairfax, their Arrears may be forthwith audited, and they
disbanded.
III. That according to the fundamental Constitution of this Common
Wealth, we may for the future be governed and judged by the English
Subjects undoubted birth-right, the known and established Laws of the
Kingdom, and not otherwise.
IV. That, according to the Petition of our Right, our Property may not
be invaded by any Taxes or Impositions whatsoever ; and particularly, that
the heavy burthen of Excise may no longer be continued, or hereafter
imposed upon us.
All which our earnest desires, we humbly recommend to your serious
considerations, not doubting of that speedy satisfaction therein which
the case requires, and we humbly expect. Whereby we may hope to see
(what otherwise we cannot but despair of) a speedy and happy end of
those Pressures and Distempers, whose continuance will inevitably ruin
both ourselves and posterities. Your timely prevention whereof, by a
mutual agreement to what we here propose, in order thereunto, shall
oblige us ever to pray."
The men of Kent struggled unavailingly for their petition in
1648, and again half a century later, as we learn at Maidstone.
Of the rioting at Canterbury some fun was made in Hudibrastic
verse by a partisan of Parliament, who affected to believe that
it was for the good cheer of Christmas rather than for the King
and their rights as freemen that the men of Kent rose. The
verses appeared in a quaint contemporary news-sheet.
"Verses by Mr. Egerton on certain men of Canterbury, declaring them-
selves for God, King Charles, and Kent, January, 1648.
" The roast-meat men of Canterbury,
Counting it no small injury
To lose their spiced broth, and their pies,
Their wassails and their fooleries,
Resolved ere Christmas went away
They would some uncouth gambol play ;
For now debar'd of their good cheer,
They took the double size in beer ;
And now so long they sit and fuddle,
'Till each agreed to broach his noddle
Then one saith this, another that,
in PLUM-POTTAGE AND CHRISTMAS-PIE 59
And the third he talks he knows not what.
'Till one upstart, whose nose to handle
Had often saved them fire and candle,
And he in broken sense relates
The wrong to be debar'd their rates ;
And tells them if they do not rise
To right plum-pottage, and mince-pies,
Hereafter may things never whittle,
And the plum-pottage burn the kettle,
And may each bak'd meat (heaven forbid)
Lose both the bottom and the lid.
Al this each swain lift up his snout
And wrath incensed all the rout :
And now- away the clowns do reel,
And out of doors each one doth wheel ;
He gels a mattock or a rake,
A third will need his coulter take,
And all with an inspired rage,
Set forth in martial equipage.
hear now upon the townsmen falls,
To see these frantic bachannals :
They lock their doors, but to no end,
The madmen do them open r< nd,
And he that hath not broth or pie,
Within his lard or butter}',
Was surely banged, back and head,
And all his chattels forfeited.
But to prohibit this wild course
Out comes the Mayor on his horse ;
But they of him stand in no awe.
His crown is crack't, he doth withdraw ;
And thus, elated with success,
They needs will further yet transgress.
For God, and for King Charles, they cry,
Plum-pottage and sweet Christmas pie ;
But out, alas ! this did no good.
Their language was not understood.
And now these birds in cages sing,
Wee'l no more Christmas revelling."
Though largely a place of old traditions, Canterbury has so
much to show within its limits that makes those traditions real
that to the visitor with a sense of antiquity its every street has
something of interest, from whichever side the city is approached.
Its air is one of comfortable prosperity allied with age. It is
true that some of the outlying thoroughfares, some of the
poorer districts, may be dingy, but these are small portions of
the whole ; it is true that we carry away impressions of ugly
barracks as well as of quaint streets, of irregular-sized, many-
oo
OLD BUILDINCS
CHAP.
Sf. John's Hospital.
gabled, and bow- and bay-windowed houses, but they are by no
means dominating features. He is unfortunate who first
in SET AMID HILLS 61
approaches the city by the Northgate leading out to Thanet,
for it is the most uninteresting way, lined on the one hand
by military barracks and on the other by a dull river-side
suburb. It is true that as a military station Canterbury first
comes into history in the time of the Roman occupation, but
the barracks of today are wanting in beauty themselves, and
have not about them the glamour of the old and but half known.
It is a city of many churches, of many " hospitals " and alms-
houses, of narrow byways, of quaint houses and of illimitable
traditions ; a city set amid hills, amid woodlands and hopfields ;
a city in which past and present join hands without anything
jarring in the alliance. It is true that Canterbury's latest historian
has suggested that motors — "those throbbing, noisy, evil-smelling
machines " — should be left outside the city, as their presence is
"a vulgar and irreverent anachronism." But the view is that of
the zealous antiquarian, who forgets that a city is not only a
kind of object for a national museum, but a living entity, and
that it is in the freshness of life, in its adaptation to, and recon-
ciliation with, the spirit of the time that a place like Canterbury at
once excites our reverent admiration and compels our affection.
In the days of the Pilgrims few folk reached the confines of
the city unless on foot — if they rode thither they dismounted
when the Angel Steeple of the Cathedral came in sight, and so,
no doubt, it might be thought that chaises, carriers' waggons and
coaches successively were "anachronisms," to say nothing of
the railway, but that, it is true, is without the limits of the
ancient walls, yet these various improvements in locomotion
have not harmed the city. When motorists, remembering the
showman's nearness to success in his desire to demolish the
West Gate, wish the old streets widened and straightened, it will
be time enough to protest against vulgarity and irreverence.
To object to their admission to the ancient thoroughfares is
worse than objecting to the illumination by gas and electric
light of the venerable buildings that were anciently lighted by
torches and candles.
Kent has long been famous as a cricketing county, and
" Canterbury week," at the beginning of August, is so notable a
feature of the season that it cannot but be amusing to some
readers to recall a great contest that once took place here.
About a hundred and fifty years ago one James Love, whose
enthusiasm for the game was greater than his genius as a poet,
62
CRICKET IN KENT
CHAr.
wrote " An Heroic Poem " on cricket, which he concluded
prophetically with
" And now the Sons of Kent com pleat the Game,
And firmly fix their everlasting Fame,"
showing clearly enough that he knew the county would, in
1906, establish its position as champion. In July, 1773,
however, it was the noblemen and gentlemen of Kent and
Surrey who met in the neighbourhood of Canterbury in friendly
rivalry, and the three days' match roused considerable interest,
though Kent, it must be confessed, made but a bad second, as
we see from the account given in the Kentish Gazette :
" The following is a List of the Noblemen and Gentlemen
Cricketers, who played on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday
last in Bourn-Paddock, Surry against Kent, for Two Thousand
Pounds :
Names.
Lord Tankerville
Mr Bartholomew
Mr Lewis
Those marked thus B were bowled out
SURRY.
Out by whom. ist
C catclied out.
B. out by May
C. out by Simmons
. B. out by the Duke
Mr Stone B. out by the Duke
Stevens alias Lumpey
John Woods .
Palmer . . .
Thomas White
Yaldin . . .
Childs . . .
Francis . .
B. out by Miller . . 6
C. out by Sir II. Mann 6
C. out by Mr Davis . 22
B. out by the Duke . 5
Last Man in . . . .17
B. out by May . . . o
B. out by the Duke . 5
Byes ... 1
77
Out by whom
C. out by Mr Davis
B. out by Miller .
Last Man in . .
B. out by Miller .
B. out by Miller .
C. out by R. May
C. out by the Duke
C. out by Mr Hussey
B. out by the Duke
B. out by the Duke
C. out by Wood
Byes
ad.
3
10
21
24
6
38
60
1
3
36
7
217
Names.
Duke of Dorset .
Sir Horace Mann
Mr Davis .
Mr Hussey
Miller . .
Simmons .
R. May .
Thomas May
Louch . .
Pattenden .
Wood of Seale
KENT.
Out by whom. ist.
B. out by Woods . . 25
B. out by Woods . . 3
B. out by Woods . . 4
Last Man in . . .
C. out by Yaldin .
B. out by Lumpey
B. out by Woods .
B. out by Lumpey
C. out by Mr Stone
C. out by Mr Lewis
C. out by Woods .
Byes . .
13
5
o
4
5
o
1
3
63
Out by whom.
B. out by Woods . . .
C. out by L. Tankerville
C. out by Mr. Lewis . .
B. out by Woods . .
Run out
C. out by Yaldin . . ,
Last Man in
C. out by Childs . . .
B. out by Lumpey
B. out by Lumpey . .
C. out by Mr Bartholomew
Byes .
2d.
1
22
o
10
4
o
5
26
1
9
o
78
lit SURREY TRIUMPHANT 63
The third Duke of Dorset, who did yeoman service on
behalf of the county which, as plain Mr. Sackville, he had
represented in the House of Commons and of which he was
Lord Lieutenant, is remembered in the cricketing field as a
member of the Hambledon Club, and as one of the committee
that drew up the original laws of the M.C.C. Sir Horace
Mann was Sir Horatio Mann, of Bishopsbourne, " the King of
Cricket," who did not succeed his more distinguished uncle,
the British Envoy at Florence, in the baronetcy until 1786.
The match moved a contemporary rhymester, J. Duncombe,
to tell the story of "Surrey Triumphant, or the Kentish Men's
Defeat," in a lengthy ballad parodying "Chevy Chase." The
poet ascribed the defeat of the Men of Kent to their playing
the match in harvest time : —
" God prosper long our harvest-work,
Our rakes and hay-carls all !
An ill-tim'd cricket match there did
At Bishopsbourn befall.
To bat and howl with might and main
Two Nobles took their way ;
The hay may rue, that is unhous'd
The batting of that day.
The active Earl of Tankerville
An even bet did make,
That in Bourn paddock he would cause,
Kent's chiefest hands to quake ;
To see the Surry cricketers
Out-bat them and out-bowl.
To Dorset's Duke the tidings came,
All in the park of Knowle :
Who sent his Lordship present word,
He would prevent his sport.
The Surry Earl, not fearing this,
Did to East Kent resort. . . .
This game did last from Monday morn
Till Wednesday afternoon,
For when Bell Harry rung to prayers,
The batting scarce was done. . . .
Their husband's woful case that night
Did many wives bewail,
Their labour, time, and money lost,
But all would not prevail.
64 "IDLE GAMES" AT HARVEST-TIMES CH. in
Their sun-burnt cheeks, though bath'd in sweat,
They kiss'd, and wash'd them clean,
And to that fatal paddock begg'd
They ne'er would go again.
To Sevenoak town this news was brought
Where Dorset has his seat,
That, on the Nalebourn's banks, his Grace
Had met with a defeat.
' O heavy news ! ' the Rector said,
' The Vine can witness be,
We have not any cricketer,
Of such account as he.'
Like tidings in a shorter space,
To Barham's Rector came,
That in Bourn-paddock knightly Mann
Had fairly lost the game.
' Now rest his bat,' the Doctor said,
' Sith 'twill no better be ;
I trust we have, in Bishopsbourn,
Five hands as good as he.
Yet Surry-men shall never say,
But Kent return will make,
And catch or bjwl them out at length,
For her Lieutenant's sake. '
This vow, 'tis hoped, will be perform'd
Next year, on Laleham down ;
When, if the Kentish hearts of oak
Recover their renown,
From grey goose- wing some bard, I trust,
Will pluck a stouter quill :
Thus ended the fam'd match of Bourn,
Won by Earl Tankerville.
God save the King, and bless the land
With plenty and increase ;
And grant henceforth that idle games
In harvest time may cease ! "
Fordtvich Town Hall.
CHAPTER IV
ROUND ABOUT CANTERBURY
Not only is the metropolitical city the most obvious centre of
interest in Kent, but it is also a centre from which radiate
highways and byways full of beauty and crowded with interest.
Within a few miles we may visit scenery of the most varied
character, from the quiet woods of the north and west to the
clayey "cliffs" of the Thames estuary, from the wide marsh-
lands where the Stour once met an inlet of the sea east of
Fordwich to the bare stretches of chalk downs where the
ancient Watling Street crosses the heights that lie between here
and Dover. Starting in Canterbury it will be found that the
highways which, roughly speaking, bisect the city from north lo
south, and again from west to east, are the London to Dover
and Maidstone to Margate roads, and any one of these four
main routes out of the city offers its attractions to the
lover of country life and scenery no less than to the seeker
after old-time lore. A few miles from Canterbury in any
direction by these roads, or by that which leads to Sandwich,
or by the ancient Stone Street which goes due south, and has
(on the map) all the apparent straightness which we are
taught to associate with the old Roman ways, but which seems
to the pedestrian or cyclist like a switchback on a grand scale,
takes us amid varied hilly and well-wooded scenery, broad
stretches of hop-lands and of farmfields. All around are
small villages each dominated by its grey stone or flinty
F
66
PRIMROSES AND WILD HYACINTHS
CHAI'.
church, sometimes spired but more often square towered,
generally rising from amid trees. Most of the villages, too,
have in their neighbourhood twin-pointed oast-houses, the old
ones of red brick with lichened roofs looking pleasantly
picturesque, the new ones slate-roofed and ugly. The villages
by the Stour or Little Stour are further marked by their tall,
white-painted mills, like toy copies of the grain elevators that
line the great highway across the Canadian prairies. Go
which way we may it is through a country of pleasant
prosperity, of nestling villages and of wide prospects, with
broad stretches of woodland starred in spring with wood-
»?tJ7uj-T<.-
Saiiciiuic/i from the Ramsgate Road.
anemones and primroses, and clouded in May with the
wonderful blue of the wild hyacinths massed in their millions.
These " bluebells " of the spring — in the summer and autumn
many people give the name to the more delicate and shyer
hare-bell — form indeed a noticeable feature in many parts of
Kent even to within fifteen miles or so of London. In
almost any direction we shall find them within a short journey
of our cathedral centre— most plentifully perhaps by the
pleasant by-road which goes by the top of the Scotland Hills—
so called presumably on account of their gorse-dotted bareness—
and then passes through the quietude of the Trenleypark Woods,
the varied slopes of which show indigo beneath the under-
growth with myriad blooms.
IV
THE PORT OF FORDWICH
67
In setting out from Canterbury we are confronted by so
many attractive alternatives that the visitor whose time is
limited may almost be reduced to the condition of the donkey
in the fable who died of starvation between two equally
attractive bundles of hay. We, having time, may choose
that one which must in the past have been one of the best
trodden ways, that which takes us by the level eastern road
parallel with the Stour to Canterbury's ancient port of
Fordwich. Time was, at the close of the sixteenth century,
A Mill on the Stour.
when the Canterbury folk objected to having their port two
miles away, and so set about considering the advisability of
making the river navigable for goodly vessels right up to the
city, but the scheme did not get much further than considera-
tion and the spending of money, and in the course of time
instead of bringing it up to Canterbury it became necessary to
retire the shipping to Sandwich, and little Fordwich was left
a quiet place of memories. Two miles of straight road, with
the character of canal country, but with pleasant hills rising
away, on either hand, bring us to Sturry, a straggling village,
probably owing its name to its original situation on an ey or
F 2
6S
A CURE FOR SCOLDS
CHA1\
island of the Stour, and turning to the right we come in about
quarter of a mile to as pretty an approach to a quiet village as
the keenest Syntax in search of the picturesque could wish — a
narrow rising bridge over the river amid trees backed by
cottages. Although a one-time port, and " limb " of the
Cinque Ports — " there are five of 'em " as a Sandwich cicerone
sagely informs those who see the lions of the place under his
On the Stour at Fordwich.
guidance — Fordwich to-day has little of interest to show
beyond its small, square town-hall or court-house and its small
church, both of them standing — separated only by an inn — on
the right bank of the Stour. In the compact little town-hall
the visitor may see the actual ducking-stool in which Fordwich
scolds were lowered from a kind of crane at the quayside
into the river in accordance with an old custom which sought
to cure by indignity ; and he is furthermore shown a little loft
or attic in the court chamber in which, it is said, the drenched
IV
A TINY GAOL
69
scold was shut up to dry herself and reflect on her unpleasant
ways (and possibly to vow vengeance on all and sundry who
had taken part in or witnessed her ducking). In the fine old
timbered hall is an ancient deed-chest and a couple of drums
which, according to the attendant, were used by the press
gangs of a century ago. Most people would think that the
work of a press-gang could have been performed in silence and
suddenness better than by giving advertisement of its approach
:V;
■
Sturry,
with the banging of drums. Here, too, is to be seen a list of
the mayors of Fordwich from 1292 to 1884 when the town
ceased to have a corporate existence, while below on the
ground floor the visitor may go into the tiny gaol, or lock-up,
the last prisoner in which was — close upon a century ago — a
man who was imprisoned for a year because he could not pay
a debt of thirty shillings. After falling into desuetude for
some time the hall, one of the most perfect of its kind re-
maining, was furbished up, its lath and plaster removed, its
revealed timbers newly polished and it took its rank as a show
7o
FORDWICH CHURCH
CHAP.
place, speaking to the present of a widely different past. A
little to the east of the hall is the church, a quaint old building
with many features of interest, including old box pews and
inward leaning pillars between the nave and north aisle
which may well make nervous the worshippers who sit near.
Of the days when seaworthy craft came up to Fordwich
Fordivich ( liurch.
there are now but few memorials ; where the vessels came
laden with goods for the monks of St. Augustine's and the
citizens of Canterbury, are now but a few pleasure boats
floating for the use of visitors. A relic of the navigability of
the water is to be seen in the towing-path, by which the sinu-
osities of the stream may be followed by leisurely walkers from
here to Sandwich through scenery marked by so much of same-
IV
WALTON'S FORDIDGE TROUT
7i
ness that most people will rest satisfied by seeing it from the
windows of the railway train between Sturry and Minster, or
by sampling it at this Fordwich end, at pleasant Grove Ferry,
some miles further east, or in the neighbourhood of Minster.
Camden quotes " old Robert of Glocester in the time of
King Henrie 3 " as saying : " In the countray of Canterbury,
most plenty of Fish is," and the Stour may well attract
anglers who have had their curiosity excited by references
to " Fordwich trout." According to Fuller, " Kent affording
trouts, at a town called Fordwich, nigh Canterbury, differing
Interior of the Town Hall, Fordwich.
W^{ulV«*iovi
from all others in many considerables," notably in largeness,
in its cunning, and in the whiteness of its flesh. Izaak Walton
does not refer to any attempts of his own after the cunning fish,
but he devotes a pleasant passage in the " Compleat Angler" to
its history. " There is also in Kent, near to Canterbury, a trout
called there a Fordidge trout, a trout that bears the name of the
town where it is usually caught, that is accounted the rarest of
fish ; many of them near the bigness of salmon, but known by
their different colour ; and in their best season they cut very
white, and none of these have been known to be caught with an
angle, unless it were one that was caught by Sir George Hastings,
an excellent angler, and now with God; and he hath told me he
72 LITTLE STOUR VILLAGES chap.
thought that trout bit not for hunger but wantonness, and it is
rather to be believed, because both he, then, and many others
before him, have been curious to search into their bellies, what
the food was by which they lived, and hath found out nothing
by which they might satisfy their curiosity." Old Walton's
theory that the Fordwich trout fed not in fresh water would
lead us into the bitter discussion which agitates anglers who
study the Salmonidas, and may therefore be dismissed. Return-
ing to the place that gave the fish its name, we may follow
footpaths up the hill-side into Trenleypark Wood, towards
Elbridge, past a well in which, says tradition, thieves were
drowned, or following the southerly road, may pass up a lane
between flowery banks — a floral red, white and blue, as I recall
it in May, with campion, greater stitch-wort, and wild hyacinths —
and turning to the right at the top pass on to the Canterbury-
Sandwich road, with a glimpse of the Cathedral as we look
down over the Scotland Hills. On the left we pass the polo
ground of the Canterbury Cavalry Depot, partly fenced by an
old brick wall which an Earl Cowper intended building round
the hill-top estate, on which he contemplated erecting a mansion.
Local folk tell a tale of this wall, that the nobleman introduced
" foreign " labour, and Canterbury objected so emphatically
that the wall was never completed and the projected mansion
abandoned. Stretches of the wall — part hidden by the grove
of trees and shrubs — and a red brick gateway on the Sandwich
road are all that remain of the scheme. By shady up-and-
down byways, through Trenleypark Woods, or the varied
Sandwich road, We may visit a cluster of pleasant villages. On
the main' road, scattered along the left bank of the Little Stour,
is Littlebourne, with picturesque old oast-houses and pretty, if
sophisticated, glimpses of the stream from the bridge. East-
ward a mile, keeping to the river, on which at various points
trout fishers may be seen patiently luring the fish to their
hooks, we come to Wickhambreux — variously spelt and locally
known as Wickham — another little Stour village, with its church
at the corner of the small green which looks like a trim village
lawn pleasantly shaded by limes and chestnuts. North-west of
both these, villages are pleasant byways and footpaths through
broad stretching unhedged meadows on the hill-side ; north-
eastward the open road leads down to the Stour marshes, and
so to Grove Ferry and the Great Stour, with which our smaller
iv A HAWTHORN HEDGE 73
stream runs irregularly parallel until they join at East Stour
mouth. In this little village and its western neighbour we have
places the names of which have become misnomers, the mouth
of the Stour being now, as the crow flies, some miles to the
east, and, as the river flows, twice as far.
Returning to Wickhambreux — one of the several Frenchified
names in this district — we find ourselves scarcely out of it
before we reach its immediate neighbour, Ickham, consisting
mainly of a long, straggling village street, with the church
standing back from it, a church worth recalling as having been
the living of Meric Casaubon, the sixteenth-century classical
scholar, son of one more famous, Isaac. The conjunction of
the names Ickham and Wickham suggests an old counting-out
rhyme which may well have originated in this neighbourhood : —
" Ickham, pickham,
Penny Wickham,
Cockalorum jay,
Eggs, butter, cheese, bread,
Hick, stick, stone dead ! "
From Ickham a footpath may -be followed across the fields
to Wingham, reaching the centre of the village near the large
church, but in the month of May it is well to go by road, for
on leaving the village the hopfields on our left are protected
from the wind by a hawthorn hedge of unusual height and
trimness. For probably a third of a mile we follow this thin,
flat hedge of about twelve feet high, and with great stretches
of it in bloom it makes a highly pleasing guard to the
growing hops. Wingham, too, is perhaps seen at its best as
approached from the western high road ; it stands on the
further bank of a small tributary of the Little Stour, its houses
well set among trees amid which some large copper beeches
make a notable bit of colour. Following the Z-shaped road,
we pass the church and several timbered houses — some
obviously old and some all too trimly planned. Here was
anciently an ecclesiastical college, and here a memorable
marriage took place on Michaelmas Day, 1360, when Elizabeth
Plantagenet, widow of the Earl of Kent, eight years after
having taken the vows at Waverley Abbey, in Surrey, married
Sir Eustace Dabrieschescourt. The eloping nun and her
young husband were "personally convened before the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury for the said transgression, at his manor
74
AN OLD ROMANCE
CHAP.
house of Haghfield, upon the seventh ides of April," his Grace
enjoining a series of penances which the lady lived to practise
for over half a century, so that she must have been but a young
widow when she entered Waverley. The story is told with
eighteenth-century innuendo by Horace Walpole in one of his
papers in the World. From this place, too, set out " Best's
son, the tanner of Wingham," to join the forces of the rebellious
Cade at Blackheath.
Southward hence lies Goodnestone with its splendid park,
a footpath through which marks the olden track of the
eastern Pilgrims' Way. The village, which is set in the
park, will have pleasant memories for lovers of Jane Austen,
■
ST
. *in
-
Ploughing near Wingham. Ash Church in the distance.
who visited her brother Edward Austen Knight at the neigh-
bouring Rowling House, and engagingly wrote of the social life
and " formal dances " of the neighbourhood. Writing from
Godmersham — also her brother's house — in 1813, she says, " I
am mistress and miss altogether here, Fanny being gone to
Goodnestone for a day or two, to attend the famous fair, which
makes its yearly distribution of gold paper and coloured persian
through all the family connections."
Following the Pilgrims' Way from Goodnestone we may go
to scattered Adisham, chiefly notable for its church, consider-
ably restored, which was founded as long ago as the seventh
century. From here many roads will take us up over the
IV
A FAMOUS BOOKMAN
75
broad and swelling chalk downs with distant windmills, and
great stretches of sheep-dotted pasture and of unhedged arable
land, giving us broad views in many directions, or, following
the line of the railway, we may go to Nonington, and for
the sake of its magnificent trees to Fredville Park, bisected
by a delightful foot-path way. Hence by Wollage Green,
or Womenswold, are beautiful ways to the southern end of
Barham Downs ; the first takes us up through Woolwich Wood
and the second through the parkland of Denne Hill. Before
going Canterburywards along Barham Downs, with their many
1 l->u-^\
Wingham.
historical associations, we may cross the main Down to the
twin villages of Wootton and Denton. The first of these was
the birthplace of Sir Egerton Brydges, poor poet, indifferent
novelist and admirable bookman, whose bibliographical works,
which he belittled, are remembered with gratitude, while his
verses and fiction, which he belauded, are forgotten. A winding
mile— and steep descent — takes us to Denton, set on the
Folkestone high road, but looking from above like a neat
village in an extensive park. Here Brydges resided for some
years, but Denton is chiefly memorable because Tappington in
this parish, the residence of Richard Harris Barham's father,
76
A PLACE OF MANY LEGENDS
CHAP.
was the original of the Tappington Everard of the " Ingoldsby
Legends." Thomas Gray stayed at Denton in the summer of
1766, writing of it to a friend : " My residence was eight miles
east of Canterbury in a little quiet valley on the skirts cf
Barham Down. In these parts the whole soil is chalk, and
whenever it holds up, in half an hour it is dry enough to walk
out."
Denton.
Going from the small village to Tappington we pass the
church beautifully set among woodland on the left. The old
manor house of the Barhams has its chief interest to-day as
the — of course wholly imaginary — scene of various of the
legends so ingeniously devised by the humorous clergyman.
When the " Ingoldsby Legends " were published some critics
objected firstly that there was no such person as 'I nomas
Ingoldsby and — with the duplicity of legal wording — if there
were such a person then there was no Tappington Everard.
In a preface to the second edition of his strange fictions the
author said :
IV
TAITINGTON EVEKARD
77
"In onltr utterly to squabash and demolish every gainsayer, I had
thought at one time of asking my old and esteemed friend, Richard Lane,
to crush them at once with his magic pencil, and to transmit my features to
posterity, where all his works are sure to be ' delivered according to the
direction' ; but somehow the noble-looking profiles which he has recently
executed of the Kemble family put me a little out of conceit with my own,
while the undisguised amusement which my ' Mephistopheles Eyebrow,' as
he termer1 it, afforded him, in the 'full face,' induced me to lay aside the
%
Tappington.
design. Besides, my dear sir, since, as has well been observed, ' there
never was a married man yet who had not somebody remarkably like him
walking about town,' it is a thousand to one but my lineaments might, after
all, out of sheer perverseness, be ascribed to anybody rather than to the real
owner. I have, therefore, sent you, instead thereof, a very fair sketch of
Tappington, taken from the Folkestone road (I tore it, last night, out of
Julia Simpkinson's album) ; get Gilke's to make a woodcut of it. And
now, if any miscreant (I use the word only in its primary and ' Pickwickian '
sense of 'Unbeliever') ventures to throw any further doubt upon the
matter, why, as Jack Cade's friend says in the play, ' there are the
chimneys in my father's house, and the bricks are alive at this day to
testify it ! ' "
Which shows that Ingoldsby did not trouble to verify his
quotation.
73 MILESTONES ON THE DOVER ROAD chap.
The legends are written at large in the works of Thomas
Ingoldsby and must not detain us in the neighbourhood of
the house which Barham made the home of the family which
he founded by the name of Ingoldsby. It is, however, difficult
to get away from these fictional " legends " in eastern Kent.
Returning from Denton, we pass by the noble extent of Broome
Park, with its grand beeches — there are delightful foot-path
ways through it — and reach the Dover Road on the Canterbury
side of the " half-way house." Here, going towards the city,
we pass along the broad highway of an old Roman road
crossing the downs near their summit, along which are
tumuli and earthworks, pointing to the antique use of the
high ridge. As we go towards Canterbury we have the sum-
mit of the down to the right with delightful open roads
and field-paths for those who can appreciate the beauty
of lonely ways in a windswept country with glimpses now of
a windmill, and now of a high perched water tower. To the
left we get glimpses into the Elham Valley— along which a
railway runs for the use of those who prefer the lazier way
of seeing the country — with pleasant villages at which we
shall peep presently. Barham Downs, or that tract of the old
road to which the name is generally applied, extends roughly
from the eighth to the twelfth milestone from Dover — for
the inexorable and awful statement of Mr. F.'s aunt is still true :
" There's mile-stones on the Dover road." The district is
particularly rich in ancient barrows which have afforded many
interesting relics for the better reading of the otherwise
unrecorded past.
Here it is supposed that Caesar, having penetrated thus
far from Deal, fought and overcame his island enemies and
here he formed huge camps, the remaining earthworks being
regarded as some of those thrown up by his legions. Here, in
1 2 13, King John collected an army of 60,000 men when excom-
municated by the Pope and threatened by invasion from France.
Here, half a century later, on further threats of invasion from
over channel, Simon de Montfort assembled a general muster
of the national forces; here the Cavaliers mustered in 1642
and here only a century ago was formed a great camp at the
time that Napoleon was collecting an army on the heights
above Boulogne and the whole of the southern coast of
England, from Essex to Cornwall, was alert with anticipations
iv THE COMING OF A QUEEN 79
of a descent on the part of the great military bogey of the
Continent. Two years before invasion by Napoleon seemed
imminent, on the outbreak of the war, Wordsworth had ad-
dressed a spirited sonnet " To the Men of Kent " :—
" Vanguard of Liberty, ye men of Kent,
Ye children of a soil that doth advance
Her haughty brow against the coast of France,
Now is the time to prove your hardiment !
To France be words of invitation sent !
They from their fields can see the countenance
Of your fierce war, may ken the glittering lance,
And hear you shouting forth your brave intent.
Left single, in bold parley, ye, of yore,
Did from the Norman win a gallant wreath ;
Confirmed the charters that were yours before ; —
No parleying now ! In Britain is one breath ;
We all are with you now from shore to shore :
Ye men of Kent, 'Tis victory or death ! "
Not always has it taken war or threat of war to cause the
gathering of great numbers of folk on these heights.
Here Charles I. rode out on a beautiful day in May, 1625, to
welcome the coming of his Queen Henrietta Maria after the
" rough passage in her transfretation to Dover " — and to recall, it
may be, that escapade of little more than two years earlier,
when he had ridden this way, as we have seen, on his
journey incognito to spy out a possible bride in the Spanish
Infanta. Then he had ridden in secret with a couple of
companions, now he came attended by his brilliant Court, for,
as James Howell puts it in his " Epistolae Ho-Elianae," " there
was a goodly train of choice ladies attended her coming upon
the bowling green on Barham Downs, upon the way, who
divided themselves into two rows, and they appeared like so
many constellations ; but methought that the country ladies
outshined the courtiers." The women of Kent might well feel
gratified at the commendation of the epistler. No one who
loiters about the downs here but will recognise — climatic con-
ditions affording Queen's weather— that it was a splendid
meeting-place for the royal consorts whose life together was so
early to be dashed by trouble. Now, we have no bowling
green up here, but 'Howell was perhaps describing the
close turf of the downs rather than an actual place on which
bowling was played. Now that " bowling green " affords one
8o
A PRETTY VALLEY
CHAl.
of the most picturesquely situated of golf links, with a beautiful
view across the narrow Elham valley in which may be seen,
just below the links, almost hidden in varied foliage and
reached by a quarter of a mile avenue of pines and beech, the
village of Bishopsbourne. A mile further down the valley is
Kingstone (Kingston in the Ordnance Survey) also prettily
grouped in trees, whilst a further mile along, well nigh hidden
by valley foliage, is the village of Barham, from which the downs
derive their name. It seems curious that the high Canterbury
and Dover road should for so many miles be free of villages or
even hamlets, while to the west, and roughly parallel with it, is
a long series of villages, more especially as according to the
authorities the present highway is the ancient Roman Watling
Street. Water is, however, more necessary to man than high-
ways, and the villages named are planted along the Little
Stour, certainly one of our county streams which, though it
iv "JUDICIOUS HOOKER" 81
has no large town, offers the most pleasing variety in these
small centres of rural activity.
Barham and Kingston are villages typical of this dis-
trict but neither need detain us. It is at Bishopsbourne,
quiet, rustic little place as it is to the eye, that we come in
touch with an interesting bit of history. Its massive square-
towered flint church, with tiled roof, set in a small, tree-sur-
rounded God's acre, seems a fitting place to have memories of
the great churchman who gave up preferment and London life
that in rural retirement he might devote himself to the writing
of a great work. The fine sombre yews and copper beech,
the graceful birches and the magnificent chestnuts, humming
in blossom time with myriad bees, make an unforget-
able setting for the village church, and the church itself
attracts us the more in that it was to this humble living that
Richard Hooker was preferred by Queen Elizabeth in 1595,
and hither he came to write the later books of his treatise,
" Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity." Hooker's history has
been told in one of Izaak Walton's " Lives," those master-
pieces of biography in brief, and from the angler's beautiful
book a few passages may well be recalled in the place where
Hooker worked during the last six years of his life and where
he lies buried. As his epitaph runs —
" Though nothing can be spoke worthy his fame,
Or the remembrance of that precious name,
Judicious Hooker ; though this cost be spent
On him that hath a lasting monument
In his own Books, yet ought we to express,
If not his worth, yet our respectfulness."
And our respectfulness shall be expressed for us by two of
the most diverse men — Izaak Walton and John Keble —
" This parsonage of Bourne is from Canterbury three miles, and near to
the common road that leads from that city to Dover ; in which parsonage
Mr. Hooker had not been twelve months, but his books, and the innocency
and sanctity of his life, became so remarkable, that many turned out of the
road, and others, scholars especially, went purposely to see the man whose
life and learning were so much admired : and alas ! as our Saviour said of
St. John Baptist, ' What went they out to see ? a man clothed in purple
and fine linen?' No, indeed : but an obscure, harmless man ; a man in
poor clothes, his loins usually girt in a coarse gown, or canonical coat ; of a
mean stature, and stooping, and yet more lowly in the thoughts of his
soul ; his body worn out, not with age, but study and holy mortifications ;
G
82 A REMARKABLE RELIC CHAP.
his face full of heat-pimples, begot by his unactivity and sedentary life.
And to this true character of his person let me add this of his disposition
and behaviour : God and Nature blessed him with so blessed a bashfulness
that as in his younger days his pupils might easily look him out of
countenance ; so neither then, nor in his age, did he willingly ever look any
man in the face, and was of so mild and humble a nature that his poor
parish-clerk and he did never talk but with both their hats on, or both off
at the same time."
A man of a disposition scarce less retiring, the author of the
" Christian Year," visiting Hooker's tomb just ninety years ago,
wrote the following Wordsworthian lines.
" The grey-eyed morn was sadden' d with a shower,
A silent shower, that trickled down so still,
Scarce droop'd beneath its weight the tenderest flower,
Scarce could you trace it on the twinkling rill,
Or moss-stone bathed in dew. It was an hour
Most meet for prayer beside thy lowly grave,
Most for thanksgiving meet, that Heaven such power
To thy serene and humble spirit gave.
' Who sow good seed with tears shall reap in joy.'
So thought I as I watch'd the gracious rain,
And deem'd it like that silent sad employ
Whence sprung thy glory's harvest, to remain
For ever. God hath sworn to lift on high
Who sinks himself by true humility."
It was at the rectory nearby that Hooker died, and there he
had his many talks with Hadrian a Saravia, a prebendary of
Canterbury Cathedral, a notable divine of mixed Spanish and
Flemish parentage and of wide experience, who became one of
the translators of the authorised version of the Scriptures, and
with whom we shall meet again in our Kentish wanderings.
Within the church here the most notable thing is the monu-
ment to Hooker, but in pre-Reformation days the place boasted
a remarkable "relic " purporting, according to its donor, to be
a bit of the stone on which the Archangel Gabriel descended
when he saluted the Virgin Mary.
About a mile or so from Bishopsbourne, towards Canterbury,
is one of the largest of the Little Stour villages — Bridge, which
probably owes its name to the fact that it was here that the
Wading Street crossed the stream. The pleasantest way to
bridge is through Bourne Park — with a glimpse of the tower of
Hooker's church — in which the river widens into a lake before
the mansion. It is believed to have been in Bourne Park, in
IV
OLD ENGLAND'S HOLE"
83
a hollow known as "Old England's Hole," that Ccesar com-
pleted his first great victory over the Britons and established
himself firmly on Barham Downs, and, to present something in
the nature of anti-climax, it was here that the notablecricket match
JL
"<&&.'.'.
\ i
-£ ■ .
/ /
\
u
Bishofsboume Chut ch.
referred to in the previous chapter took place. From Bridge to
Patrixbourne extends the estate of Bifrons, which may be skirted
by road, still following the course of the Little Stour, but through
which the more leisurely visitor may go by footpath — and park-
G 2
84
MODERN "TUDOR"
CHAP.
land footpaths are among the most pleasing of byways. Patrix-
bourne is chiefly noticeable for its small Norman-spired church,
with many features of interest. Its beautifully carved external
stonework and windows are only excelled in Kent by those at
Barfreston. Some of the scattered "Tudor" cottages cannot
fail to arrest the attention of passers by. The most notable,
i'
A -
.
^%Afe
im
- .
. t'St ■■ -i
"
/"'-it,'
Patrixbourne Church.
inquiry elicits, were timbered and carved only about forty years
ago by an early appreciator of the old-time timbered dwellings
which we have all now come to admire. Some of the carvings
seem modelled on those of the old house at the corner of
Lady Wotton's Green in Canterbury. Almost opposite these
cottages may be had a glimpse of grounds in which the curious
but scarcely lovely art of the topiarian is shown in many
iv A DESERTED HIGHWAY 85
examples. Where the road forks right and left for Beakes-
bourne and Canterbury there stands on the little triangle a
splendid pine, which should afford a hint to other places with
such deltas, where the tiniest no-man's land may be hand-
somely beautified for every man's benefit.
Due south from Canterbuiy runs another of those roads
which are the most enduring marks of the Roman occu-
pation, but where the Watling Street remains a well-used
highway, its neighbour the Stone Street has, so far as con-
siderable traffic is concerned, fallen into desuetude. Farm
fields, fringed with flowering hedgerows, with hopfields nearer
the city, and with occasional stretches of woodland, remain in
the memory after a journey along this ancient highway. Here
during a ten-minutes' rest I have seen a dozen different kinds
of birds, and a hare loping across the road as though human
traffic were but an occasional incident disturbing the peace of
" Things
That glide in grasses and rubble of woody wreck ;
Or change their perch on a heat of quivering wings
From branch to branch, only restful to pipe and peck ;
Or, bristled, curl at a touch their snouts in a ball ;
Or cast their web between bramble and thorny hook."
Again it is noticeable that the villages lie away from the
thoroughfare, and again the keeper to the highway, though he
may have pleasant prospects over the country, misses the
infinite variety of the byways. Beautiful are the lanes and
roads, the many woodland ways and field-paths that are open
to us here, to be reached by any of the turnings off the Stone
Street, east or west. The villages and hamlets are widely
scattered, and many miles may be covered without the pedes-
trian seeing anything but old-time farmsteads and occasional
cottages, old and new. The villages east of our road, Nack-
ington, Lower and Upper Hardres, and Stelling, have little to
tell of history, though at Upper Hardres it is remembered that
Henry VIII. left his hunting-knife at the neighbouring mansion
in gratitude for hospitality received on one of his journeys to
or from France, and that the Hardres of that day brought
back and fixed in his wall the gates of Boulogne as a trophy,
after being at the siege of that town. The bricks are not alive
at this day to testify.
86 THE NAMING OF PLACES chap.
To the west of Stone Street, within the arbitrary radius of a
few miles of the Cathedral City which we are here following,
are the villages of Petham and Waltham, neither of which has
anything of special note to tell us, except that tradition points
in the neighbourhood of the former to ancient entrenchments
as marking the place to which the Britons retreated after the
Roman soldiers had defeated them in the neighbourhood of
Earham Downs. Not far from Waltham is a hamlet named Sole
Street — one of the several instances of duplicated names in
our county, for another place with the same name will be found
near Cobham. Sole signifies a dirty pond of standing water,
and " Street " is a common place-name in this immediate
neighbourhood, for it will be recognised, especially by the
sojourner in the smaller places, that such names have a way
of grouping themselves. We have noticed that on the Little
Stour, out of a succession of five villages, Bishopsbourne,
Bridge, Patrixbourne, Beakesbourne, Littlebourne, four of
them have the same termination, pointing, it may be, to the
time when men moved within but a small radius, when places
were differentiated as persons were by a mere change in the
prefix. A mile or so west of Sole Street, neighbouring
Waltham, is Crundale, to the rectory of which is attached a
theological library left by will nearly two centuries ago, while
a beautiful and diversified footpath walk of three or four miles,
with charming views, may be taken to Wye.
Returning up Stone Street, or branching off from Petham by
Garlinge Green, we may cross by Chartham Downs to the next
great road from Canterbury, that leading to Ashford. Here
we reach the lovely valley of the Great Stour, a valley in which
have developed such large centres as Ashford and Canterbury
and many places of minor historical or commercial importance,
but more attractive to the seeker after rural quiet and beauty.
Leaving part of the road along this portion of the Stour Valley
to be dealt with when we take Ashford as our centre, we may
follow it in leisurely fashion from Chilham, situated six miles
from Canterbury, at the northern end of Chilham Park — itself
like an extension of the larger Godmersham Park, and notable
for its populous heronry. It is a lovely bit of country, offering
walks of varied character up the hills on either side of the
valley, and especially for those who like woods by footpaths
and byways through the Denge Woods, which stretch in an
IV
A HILL-TOP VILLAGE
87
irregular fashion most of the way from Chilham to Petham.
From a dozen points in the immediate neighbourhood good
views are to be had.
Chilham, with its timbered houses, its very picturesque village
"square," its church and the entrance to the park, all brought
into one charming coup d'oeil, is itself interesting in that here are
the remains of an old Norman castle, successor of a Roman build-
ing ; for the tradition that this was the place where the Romans
and Britons fought is strengthened bythefinding of many remains.
Chilham.
Here the Romans had a camp, and a mound on the right bank
of the river is not only attractive as affording a grand view of
the valley, but also because its name — variously rendered — is
said to be corrupted from that of one of Caesar's tribunes killed
in the neighbourhood. The mound is known as Julaber's or
Julliberrie Grave, but examinations which have been made
have not revealed any remains to indicate that it was a burial
place.
The valley road from Chilham follows the winding Stour,
taking an almost abrupt turn about a mile before we reach
Chartham. where the student of tumuli and entrenchments
88 LEGAL QUIBBLING chap.
finds further materials awaiting him. Near Chartham is the
hamlet of Horton, the one-time church of which has been
converted into an oast-house ! Beyond Horton, keeping to the
Stour, we reach one of Kent's three Miltons, the tiny Milton-
next-Canterbury, with a population of probably less than a
score of persons. A mile or so further, at Thanington, we
reach almost to the suburbs of the city. Here took place a
Tudor tragedy. Judge James Hales, born in Canterbury, had
much to do with his native county, being among those who
received Anne of Cleves- at Dover, and among those most active
against Kentish Nonconformists, and when, after Queen Mary's
accession, he got into disgrace, he ended by going mad and
drowning himself in a shallow stream hereabouts. A case in
which his widow sued for trespass done to a leasehold estate
which had belonged to him gave rise, to much legal quibbling,
amusing to the non-legal mind. In Plowden's " Report " may
be read :
" Sir James Hales was dead, and how came he to his death ? It may be
answered by drowning ; and who drowned him ? Sir James Hales ; and
when did he drown him ? In his life-time. So that Sir James Hales being
alive caused Sir James Hales to die ; and the act of a living man was the
act of a dead man. And then after this offence it is reasonable to punish
the living man who committed the offence and not the dead man."
A more attractive way of returning to Canterbury is by
crossing the Stour a mile or so beyond the Chilham turning,
going through Shalmsford Street, past the great County
Asylum and keeping to the higher ground, with wide out-
look over the valley and towards the City. Another pleasant
way is by Chnrtham Hatch, which lies up the hill to the
north, and so through Howfield Wood by the old Pilgrims'
Way from the west, nearby the tiny hamlet of Petty France.
As we emerge from the wood looking downward to the Stour
we see the old Tonford or Tuniford Farm, with remains of an
ancient mansion, inviting to the curious in old domestic archi-
tecture. One of Thomas Sidney Cooper's early pictures painted
here, " Banks of the Stour, Tonford, with Cattle," moved one
of the artist's Canterbury admirers to a sonnet :
" A Summer's noon — a cool, translucent stream,
Shallow, rush-fring'd, tempting the vagrant cows,
White, brinded, black, with smooth or horned brows —
Gracefully grouped, the placid creatures seem
IV
A PILGRIMS' HALT
89
In mute enjoyment's ruminating dream ;
A withered trunk spreads to entrasted boughs
Over the scene where freshest verdure glows —
Whilst far away the Christ Church turrets gleam.
Beautiful work ! in art and feeling true —
A lovelier transcript of the face divine
Of nature hacking in the sunny shine,
The gifted hand of Genius never drew ;
Ileart-felt, home-breathing — here all charms combine
Till wonder smiles at the familiar view."'
Harbledown may almost be visited as part of Canterbury, a
small village set on a hill-side, with the roadway between two
""&. ■'■'
\ -v. \, i- ' It • ] /
1S-
Tlii- Cathedral from Harbledown Hill.
high banks at the top, and on either bank a church — the parish
one to the north — affording especially fine views. The old
Hospital fronting the southerly church was built originally by
Lanfranc for lepers, and here was a regular stopping place for
Canterbury Pilgrims, Harbledown being the Bobbe-up-and-
doun of Chaucer, and though the Hospital has been rebuilt,
it still contains links with the past, but it can no longer
boast of having Becket's shoe, from which holy water was
sprinkled on passing pilgrims. Near by the Black Prince's
Well, which that noble warrior visited, may be seen. At
Harbledown lived the painter on whose canvases are fixed so
90
THE "VILLE" OF DUNKIRK
CHAP.
many scenes from the neighbourhood, that celebrated son of
Canterbury, Thomas Sidney Cooper.
Passing from Harbledown up the main London Road, we rise
with wide woodlands stretching on either hand to the " ville,"
as it was once called, of Dunkirk, but a pleasanter way for the
pedestrian is by a zigzagging road and then by a footpath
through the woods, reaching Dunkirk at its high-perched church.
The name is so strange a one for an English village that it is
said to be not very long since letters addressed here arrived
occasionally via the French Dunkerque. The story runs
that the " ville " received that name — one less surprising
when we have visited the "ville de Sarre," the Scotland
Boughton Church and Boughton Street J"ro»i near Selling Station.
Hills and Petty France, all within a few miles of Becket's
shrine — from smugglers who made their hiding places in
the extensive woods which still stretch for miles to the north-
east and south. From Dunkirk a straight, steep hill, from the
summit of which is afforded one of the many magnificent views
which break upon us in wandering about this well favoured
county, descends to Boughton Street — the Boughton-under-
Blean of the "Canterbury Tales," in one of the most fertile
bits of the country. The small village of Blean lies away to
the north-east, but the extensive woods, though sub-divided
under various local names, are known collectively as the Blean
Woods. Little more than a mile to the north of Boughton,
IV
MAD TOM
9i
prettily situated on the hillside overlooking the Graveney
Marshes, is the village of Hernehill.
It was in this district that the latest Kentish " rising " took
place when a Cornishman, John Nichols Tom, who had
settled in Canterbury sonic years earlier, set up as a new
Messiah and gathered a number of credulous country folk
about him. At the end of 1832 Tom, having assumed the
style and name of Sir William Percy Honeywood Courtenay,
stood for Parliament as candidate for Canterbury and actually
Hernehill.
polled 375 votes, though a few days later, as candidate for East
Kent, he had again to retire with only four. Having been con-
victed of perjury as witness in a trial of smugglers he was found
insane and kept in an asylum for four years. In August, 1837,
he was released and shortly afterwards began preaching com-
munistic doctrines and declaring that he was the Messiah. He
was described as a man of fine presence with a remarkable
resemblance to the traditional representations of Christ,
injudicious comment on which fact may have led his disordered
wits on the way of imposture. A number of " disciples "
gathered around him and he armed them in primitive fashion
92
THE BLEAN WOODS
CHAP.
and mounted on a white horse with a flag bearing a lion led
them about the neighbourhood. All was at first but harmless
if distressing mania. Then came a charge of enticing farm
labourers from their service, and the shooting by the fanatic of
one of the constables who sought to serve the warrant. The
same day — May 31st, 1838 — soldiers were marched out from
Canterbury and the rioters were found in the woods between
Dunkirk and Hernehill. Tom ran forward and shot an
officer, while one of his followers killed the wounded man.
The soldiers were ordered to fire and charge with the bayonet,
and " Courtenay " and eight of his mad band were killed on
■*" 0
Lino Tide at Whit stable.
the spot, the place where he fell being henceforward known as
" Mad Tom's Corner."
These extensive Blean Woods afford endless variety of walks
and of views where they are intersected by roads and footpaths
— though it is not always easy to recognise the difference
between a public footpath and a gamekeeper's track, and
warnings to trespassers are to be met with over the whole
tract of scattered woods and densely planted game covers of
oak, pine, sweet chestnut and other trees. Without ignoring
the warnings the pedestrian may do many miles of exploring
woodland ways between Dunkirk and Heme. From Canterbury
two main roads run over this hilly rise north, touching the woods
at various points, the one through Blean to Whitstable, the
iv ORIGIN OF WHITSTABLE 93
other via Sturry to old Heme and so to the newer Heme Bay.
Both Whitstable and Heme Bay have fallen into the hands of
developers of sea-side resorts and flourish as holiday places
within easy reach of London. The first of these places was
used in Elizabeth's time by those journeying from London to
Canterbury and Dover. 1'aul Hentzner, in 1597, records that
he came thither I >\ water (vid Queenborough) and walked hence
to Canterbury.
Whitstable, just beyond the mouth of the Swale which cuts
Sheppey from the mainland, is the more venerably picturesque
with its small, old irregular dwellings along the front, its
boat-building yards and its fleet of oyster dredging boats. It
is of oysters that one thinks as soon as the place is mentioned
and it is out here, in the wide estuary of the Thames, that the
famous oyster beds are situated — famous since the time of the
Romans, though some of their bivalves were taken from the
neighbourhood of Richborough. There is yet the appearance
of something of the unsophisticated fishing village about parts
of Whitstable but villadom is invading it and on either side the
cliffs are marked out for future roads — roads only known as
such by the name-posts marking their limits. An anonymous
writer in the " Gentleman's Magazine " half a century ago
recovered an amusing legend as to the origin of Whitstable
which may well be given as he set it forth :
"While strolling on the Kentish coast last summer I halted at a roadside
inn, in what I found was styled ' West end of Heme.' I inquired, among
other matters, the distance to Whitstable, and received the desired informa-
tion from the portly, goodnatured-looking mistress, with the addition, ' Ah,
sir, that's a queer place ; you'll see all the houses stuck up and down the
hill, just as the devil dropped 'em, as folk say here.' I naturally asked the
particulars of this diabolical feat, and in answer was favoured with the
following tale, which I do not give in the good lady's own words, lest I
should wound the amour propre of the respected citizens of Durovernum,
for, according to her, ' it was all along of the wickedness of the Canterbury
people/ of which some instances were supplied.
Canterbury, as all the world of Kent knows, is ' no mean city ' now ;
but six centuries ago, when it was the resort of thousands of pilgrims, it was
so glorious that it excited the wrath of the foul fiend, and its inhabitants
being as bad as Jerome describes the people of Jerusalem to have been when
.that city too was famous for pilgrimages he sought and obtained permission
to cast it into the sea, if the service of prayer and praise usually performed
by night and by day at the tomb of St. Thomas the Martyr should be once
suspended. Long and eagerly did Satan watch ; but though the people
grew worse and worse daily, the religious were faithful to their duties, and
A Jotting in Whitstable.
ch iv A DEVIL'S ARMFUL 95
he almost gave up the hope of submerging the proud city. At length,
however, his time came. A great festival had been held at which the
chaplains at the saint's tomb had of course borne a prominent part, and
when night came, utterly exhausted, they slept— all, and every one.
The glory of Canterbury was now gone for ever. Down pounced the
fiend and endeavoured to grasp the city in his arms ; but though provided
with claws proverbially long, he was unable to embrace one half, so vast
was its size. A portion, however, he seized, and having with a few strokes
of his wings reached the open sea, he cast in his evil burden ; thrice
he repeated his journey, portion after portion was sunk, and the city was
all but annihilated, when the prayers of the neglected St. Thomas pre-
vailed, and an angelic vision was sent to Brother Hubert the Sacristan,
which roused and directed him what to do. 1 Ie rushed into the church, and
seizing the bell-rope, he pulled vigorously. The great bell, Harry, which
gives its name to the centre tower of the minster, ordinarily required the
exertions of ten men to set it in motion, but it now yielded to the touch of
one, and a loud boom from its consecrated metal scared the fiend just
as he reached the verge of the sea : in despair he dropped his prey and
fled, and Canterbury has never since excited his envy by its splendour.
There was a remarkable difference in the fate of the different parts of
Satan's last armful, from which a great moral lesson was justly drawn by
my informant. Those very few houses in which more good than bad were
found were preserved from destruction by falling on the hill-side, and they
thus gave rise to the thriving port of Whit stable ; while the majority, where
the proportions were reversed, dropped into the sea a mile off, and there
their remains are still to be seen ; but antiquaries, if ignorant of the facts of
the case, have mistaken them for the ruins of Roman edifices submerged by
the encroaching ocean."
Little more than four miles of cliff walk brings us to
Heme Bay. The "cliffs" are mostly of clay and of but
insignificant height after leaving the Tankerton suburb of
'^Yhitstable, where at low tide a long spit of land runs north-
ward, and is known as Street Stones, marking, according to
some conjectures, part of the village swallowed by the sea, or
marking, if we accept the veritable history just quoted, part of
the devil's armful of Canterbury so unceremoniously dumped
in the sea. Heme Bay is a modern resort with a pier nearly
three-quarters of a mile in length — successor to one on which
sail-propelled tram-trucks ran. The stone balustrading at the
pier entrance formed part of the parapet of the old London
Bridge, demolished in 1832. "Canterbury ys V myles fro the
se flat north agaynst Heron," says Leland, but it is an under-
estimate even for the flying crow, and must have been less so
in Leland's time, thanks to the subsequent erosion of the coast.
For as recently as 18 18 Heme Bay hamlet was described as
96
RECULVER
CHAP.
being on a jutting point of land. Now there is no such point.
Leland referred to the inland village of Heme.
From Heme Bay we have an admirable view of the four
mile distant twin towers of Reculver, and beyond dimly may
be seen the coast of Thanet and its terminal point at Margate
Pier. Over the higher cliffs — the clay as we near Reculver
giving place to sandstone — it is a pleasant walk, though coastal
erosion has made it necessary to take a goodly detour inland,
the footpath at one place having disappeared within the past
four or five years.
To-day at Reculver there is little to be seen but the
towers of the old church, towers from the summit of which
B
Heme Bay.
magnificent views are to be had, extending from the Essex
coast and the isle of Sheppey in one direction and in the other
over the green marshes with swaying reeds where once ships
sailed between the mainland and Thanet to that isle and
Margate. Many centuries have passed since this was the
Roman station of Reculbium, since Ethelbert had a palace
here to which he retired on giving up that at Canterbury to
the monks who had won him over to Christianity. Of the
Roman station but an ancient bit of wall remains ; Saxon
palace, monastery, and surrounding town have all gone to the
destroying sea, which but a few miles south has retreated, leav-
ing miles of land fronting the one-time port of Fordwich and
leaving Reculbium's " twin " station Rutupiae far inland.
Little more than half a century ago, before the old ruins were
IV
THE SKULLFINDER
97
more fully protected by the Brethren of the Trinity House,
many ghastly relics were washed out of the crumbling church-
yard. Quite recently acorns — one with its cap still adhering—
ebon with age were brought up from the bottom some distance
from the shore, but the graves are no longer rifled by the sea,
as they were when Douglas Jerrold, sojourner at the ancient
village of Heme, wrote his essay, " A Gossip at Reculvers " :
Jj^L;*
The Readier.
" One day, wandering near this open graveyard, we met a boy, carrying
away, with exulting looks, a skull in very perfect preservation. He was a
London boy, and looked rich indeed with his treasure.
' What have you there ?' we asked.
' A man's head— a skull,' was the answer.
' And what can you possibly do with a skull ?
'Take it to London.'
' And when you have it in London, what then will you do with it?
4 I know.' . ,
' No doubt. But what will you do with it ?
And to this thrice repeated question, the boy three times answered,
' I know.'
H
08
A GRIM MONEY-BOX
CHAP.
' Come, here's sixpence. Now, what will you do with it ? '
The boy took the coin — grinned — hugged himself, hugging the skull the
closer, and said very briskly — ' Make a money-box of it.'
A strange thought for a child. And yet, mused we as we strolled along,
how many of us, with nature beneficent and smiling on all sides, how
many of us think of nothing so much as hoarding sixpences — yea,
hoarding them even in the very jaws of desolate Death."
It is not quite a hundred years (1809) since the church at
Reculver was demolished, the materials being partly utilised
for Hillborough church a couple of miles away and partly
acquired by various people who could put in any claim. The
epitaph of the church was quaintly entered in his books by the
parish clerk — "the last tax that Mr. Nailor (vicar) took was
these words, ' Let your ways be the ways of rightness and your
path the path of peace,' and down come the church, and whot
was is thoats about is flock that day no one knows." The
very year following this wanton destruction the Trinity House
began protecting the ancient towers against the sea, as they
were recognised as a valuable landmark for sailors. They
were something more than landmarks in the middle ages, for
then it is said that the sails of vessels were reverently dipped
in passing.
To the original twin towers built here attaches the legend
that they were erected by the survivor of twin sisters during
iv A PEACEFUL VILLAGE 99
the Wars of the Roses. These sisters, one abbess of a convent
near Faversham, were going by sea to make an offering at the
shrine of the Virgin at Broadstairs, when their vessel was
wrecked off Reculver and one of the sisters died. The
survivor, to perpetuate the memory of her sister and as a
warning to mariners, caused the ancient church to be repaired
and the two towers to be erected. So says tradition. Those who
prefer an alternative story may turn to the " Ingoldsby Legends "
and read it at length in " The Brothers of Birchington."
Directly inland from Heme Bay something short of two
I ,
Approach to Reculver from Herne.
miles lies the " beautiful village of Heme " : " this demure, this
ancient, village. It seems a very nest — warm and snug, and
green — for human life ; with the twilight haze of time about it,
almost consecrating it from the aching hopes and feverish
expectations of the present. Who would think that the bray
and roar of multitudinous London sounded but some sixty
miles away ? The church stands peacefully, reverently, like
some shy visionary monk, his feet on earth — his thoughts with
God. And the graves are all about ; and things of peace
and gentleness, like folded sheep are gathered round it."
The church, about which the main road makes a curious
detour, is worthy of more than passing mention, for it was here
H 2
ioo A BISHOP'S FAREWELL ch. iv
that Nicholas Ridley, bishop and martyr, held his first cure,
and here, for the first time in English it is said, he caused the
" Te Deum " to be sung. When nearly twenty years later under
sentence of death during the Marian persecutions the Bishop
remembered his first cure and wrote : —
"From Cambridge I was called into Kent by the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, Thomas Cranmer, that most reverent Father and man of God, and of
him, by and by, sent to be vicar of Heme, in East Kent. Wherefore,
farewell Heme, thou worshipful and wealthy parish, the first cure whereunto
I was called to minister to God's word. Thou hast heard of my mouth oft-
times the word of God preached, not after the Popish trade, but after
Christ's Gospel. Oh ! that the fruit had answered to the seed. And yet
I must acknowledge me to be thy debtor for the doctrine of the Lord's
Supper, which at that time God had not revealed unto me ; but I bless God
in all that godly virtue and zeal of God's word, which the Lord, by preach-
ing s.f His Word did kindle manifestly both in the heart and life of that
godly woman Lady Fiennes ; the Lord grant that His Word took effect
there in many more.'"
A mile and a half due west of Heme we come again upon
traces of another bishop and martyr, for it was at the Archiepis-
copal palace of Ford that Cranmer was arrested to enter upon
that troublous imprisonment which ended at the stake. Of
the palace, long the residence of Canterbury's archbishops,
there are but scanty remains to be seen, but the many byways
lying between the coast about Heme Bay and the Sturry and
Thanet road offer beautiful views, now in quiet lanes and
now over wider stretches of unhedged fields. As we near
Chislet the broad marsh country towards Thanet affords an
extensive view, without hedges but dotted here and there with
trees, and now and again showing amid larger clumps the roofs
and chimneys of small cottages and farmsteads. Here in these
marshlands may be heard the pathetic " ewe-ewe " cry of the
curlew, or the " seven whistlers," as it is termed by Kentish
fishermen. From Chislet, with its striking church with central
tower, we may join the main road at Upstreet and so return to
Sturry near Fordwich, whence we began this zig-zagging around
the Canterbury district, or turning east we may shortly reach
Thanet. Here, as in other places in this district, some of the
dispossessed French religious seminaries have made a settle-
ment— and their black-coated students are to be met with on
many of the roads around Canterbury.
CHAPTER V
THE ISLE OF THANET
William Caxton — one of the sons of whom Kent may well
be proudest — wrote in 1480 of the Isle of Thanet, " Thanatos,
that is Tenet, is a ylonde besydes Kent and hath the name
Thanatos, of deth of serpentes, for ther ben none. And the
earth thereof sleeth serpentes yborn in other londes. Ther is
a noble corn lond and fruytful. Hit is supposed that this
Llonde was haalowed and blessed by St. Austyn, the first
Doctour of Englishmen, ffor ther he arrived first." The
legend that there are no snakes in Thanet, and that such
reptiles, if imported, promptly died long persisted, and is
referred to by several old writers. It looks as though St.
Augustine's arrival had driven them hence as St. Patrick's ban
cleared them out of Ireland.
To-day the Isle of Thanet suggests to most people little
beyond the fact that its shores are occupied by popular
holiday resorts, and certainly its coast is so much marked by
such places that it well may be in the course of a few genera-
tions that they will have merged the one in the other, until
from the marshes west of Birchington to the marshes west of
Ramsgate will be one " endless meal of brick." Birching-
ton, Westgate, Margate, Broadstairs, Ramsgate — town follows
town with extraordinary closeness, with " expatiations " into
inland villages until the whole district has become a veritable
playground for London's holiday makers. Those who are ready
to dismiss the Isle as this and this alone do an injustice to it
and to the varied interests that it has to offer. To one who has
io2 INLAND THANET cu. v
wandered much about the few miles of inland Thanet, the most
memorable things are the wide stretches of green or golden corn,
the incessant singing of innumerable larks. In picturesque-
ness and variety Thanet may not vie with some other parts
of the county, but there are magnificent wide views from the
high ground in the middle of the Isle, where we see the boat-
dotted sea to the north and a wide stretch of marshland, tree-
and-farm dotted, extending south and west for miles, backed
by the chalk downs of the Dover and Folkestone district. To
the west on a clear day may be seen the tower of Canterbury
Cathedral, so that in one view we may get the ground where
St. Augustine landed and the great centre for over a thousand
years of those who have occupied his chair. For those who
like the bracing winds that come in from the North Sea there
is a delight in Thanet's chalk cliffs which rise at the North
Foreland to their greatest height between the two most
populous towns.
Where wide and well-dyked marshes spread between
Reculver and Birchington, was a few centuries ago the inlet
of the sea which cut Thanet off from the mainland, so broad
and deep that in the sixteenth century folk were still living
who had seen goodly vessels pass. Then the only crossings
were by St. Nicholas Wade and at Sarre, where now the roads
diverge for Margate and Ramsgate. Following the first of
these we come to the small scattered village of St. Nicholas-at-
Wade, with across the fields a couple of miles or so to the east
the village of Acol. The Ordnance Survey map shows an
unfenced and unmetalled road from St. Nicholas to Acol,
passing near the Beacon — a tall, square, pointed column,
which is a familiar landmark from all sides, standing in the midst
of open fields ; but the unlucky pedestrian or cyclist who
follows it after journeying for about a mile finds the rough
roadway end abruptly in a cornfield, with the alternative of
returning to St. Nicholas and journeying round by a main road,
of following the " lynch " dividing the crops, or of boldly
pushing through the growing corn towards a road, indicated a
quarter of a mile away by the finger-post showing above the
sea of grain.
In the neighbourhood of Acol, on the way south to Minster,
on the top of the hill is an extensive old chalk-pit, which we
may imagine to be the scene of " The Smuggler's Leap," on
■-
104
THE SMUGGLER'S LEAP
CHAP.
which Ingoldsby made his story, showing how Exciseman Gill
was willing to give his soul for a horse that would allow of
his overtaking Smuggler Bill. The smuggler was overtaken as
he took his fatal leap, and the demon horse vanished. The
legendist adds a variety of impeccable morals :
" Another sound maxim I'd wish you to keep,
To mind what you're after, and — ' Look ere you Leap.'
Above all, to my last gravest caution attend —
Never borrow a horse you don't know of a friend ! ! ! "
Ramsgate from the Pier.
The inch of story out of which Barham made his ell of
legend, runs : —
" Near this hamlet (Acol) is a long, disused chalk -pit of formidable
depth known by the name of ' The Smuggler's Leap. ' The tradition of the
parish runs, that a riding officer from Sandwich, called Anthony Gill, lost
his life here in the early part of the present (eighteenth) century, while in
pursuit of a smuggler. A fog coming on, both parties went over the
precipice. The smuggler's horse only, it is said, was found crushed
beneath its rider. The spot has, of course, been haunted ever since."
_ Another tradition is associated with this great disused chalk-
pit, the bottom of which now makes a goodly ploughed field,
and the road-edge of which is so deeply grown with ivy that it
might almost be passed unrecognised. When Egbert had had
EGBERT'S ATONEMENT
i°5
his cousins murdered and had taken the Kingship, a mysterious
light showed where the bodies were buried under his very
throne in his palace at Eastry. The King was alarmed, and,
having consulted the Archbishop as to what he had best do,
sent to ask forgiveness of the sister of the murdered men, and
to offer what restitution he might. The Princess Domneva
Eastry.
demanded as much land for a monastery as a hind, at one
course, could cover. Egbert was willing to be let off thus
easily, and the hind was released near Westgate, and ran by
Woodchurch and near Acol, across Thanet. Thunor, one of
the King's men who had murdered his rivals, sought to stop
the hind by riding across its course, " but whilst he was thus
acting, the wrath of Heaven came upon him, the earth opened,
swallowed him up, and he went down with Dathan and Abiron
io6 THE KIDNAPPERS chap.
alive into hell, leaving the name of Tunorsleap, or Thunor-
Hyslepe, to the fields and place where he fell to perpetuate the
memory of his punishment."
The ground thus miraculously bounded was granted to
Domneva, who founded on it the Monastery of Minster. The
way that the deer went, now only to be vaguely guessed at,
was long known as St. Mildred's Lynch ; St. Mildred, the
daughter of Domneva, being a Thanet person, second only in
importance to Augustine.
Lynch, or linch it may be said, is a local word for a raised
way, generally the grassy ridge separating fields in a hedgeless
district, such as is the greater part of this Isle of Thanet. The
legend was recorded in monkish Latin verses, which have been
Englished as : —
" Domneva's monk distinguished Thanet bears
The deer's famed course the holy island wears,
Cursed be the man who violates the bound,
Another Thunor's leap shall the vile wretch confound."
As we approach Birchington, whether from St. Nicholas or
from visiting the neighbourhood of Acol in quest of ancient
ghosts, to the right above the trees of Quex Park is to be seen
a tall tower, one of the two erected by former owners of this
ancient estate. The old family of Quekes, or Quex, " ended
in the sixteenth century in a daughter," who married a Mr.
Crispe, who so well adapted himself to his new Thanet estate,
that he not only became sheriff of the county but in the Isle
itself was known as " Regulus Insulae Thaneti." A later
owner of the estate of the same family had a lively experience,
when an energetic Royalist, " the brave Captain Golding," a
Thanet man, it is said, suddenly descended on the coast near
Birchington, landed a party of Englishmen and others, hurried
them up to Quex Park, took Mr. Henry Crispe out of his bed,
hurried him to the shore and carried him off to Flanders,
refusing to release him until three thousand pounds ransom
had been paid. Crispe's family sought to raise this sum but
could not get the necessary licence to pay it, for Cromwell had
his suspicions that Mr. Crispe was in collusion with his captors,
and that the whole scheme was an elaborate way of raising
money on behalf of Prince Charles. If these suspicions had
been justified, Crispe would no doubt have returned quietly
v SAD NEWS FROM KENT 107
when the affair had blown over, whereas he was kept for eight
months a prisoner at Bruges, and was then only released on
the money being raised by the sale of part of his lands.
We have an account of the event in a letter from the nephew
of the " prisoner," which was printed in a contemporary pam-
phlet, amply entitled "Sad News From Kent, shewing how
forty armed men, desparate fellows, plundered Sk Nicholas
Crispe's house, after which they set a watch over his servants at
twelve o'clock at night, July 18th, 1657, and carried them to the
waterside to be transported to Dunkirk. With Sir Nicholas
Crispe his escape from them upon terms. Sent in a letter by
young Mr. Crispe, of Dover, to his kinsman in London,
Mr. Kathern, who desired the truth might be published to
prevent mis-informations." Air. Crispe tells the story of the
raid in a straightforward fashion, as though the experience of
preceding years had thoroughly accustomed folk to romantic
adventures : —
"Cousin Kathern, — My kind love remembered unto you and my
cousin your good wife. I know you have heard of that sad news from
Queax. There came about forty men well armed with carbine, pistol
and sword, and poleax every man there, it is thought they came from
Dunkirke, thus coming to the house they quickly broke the lock of the
outward gate, so entering into the outward court, they secured all the
servants lay without the doors, then came to the dwelling-house, and
knocked very loud, one asking who was there, being about 12 o'clock
at night, they told him they must come in, and the party that spake to
them but being newly laid down in hiscloafhes, before he could come down,
with four blows at the hall-door with a two-handed sledge the door gave
way and entered the hall before him, secured him and the rest of the
servants immediately that lay within the house, then caused the maid to
show them my uncle's chamber and Sir Nicholases, when they were
entered there they told them they wanted money and that they well could
supply their wants, which was done after 3 hours' time in the plunder-
ing the house, and what they could get, they then told my uncle and Sir
Nicholas that they must go along with them, and to that purpose carried
the coachman to put horses in the coach to carry their plunder and uncle
and Sir Nicholas to the waterside, and on their way they had a parlie with
Sir Nicholas about leaving him behind ; it was agreed immediately that
him engaging to pay them 1000 pounds in 28 days' time at Bridgs to
one they named ; that he should be free to come home again ; which was
done. So Sir Nicholas returned home again, but my old uncle they have
inhumanely carried away in his old age, and as yet we hear not any word
of the least there of how he doth or where he is. Thomas Smith the
butcher went voluntarily along with him. I could not well sooner give
you this account, for we knew not the certaine truth of things till my
father came home about the middle of last week. My father, wife, and self
108 A BELL LEGEND chap.
present our kind love unto you. I am sure if he return not speedily we
shall want him dearly for he is very good towards my aged parents. In
haste with thanks for all your favour, I remain,
Your affectionate Kinsman to command,
Henry Crispe.
I pray at your leisure convey this letter to my father-in-law's Lodging."
It is a story of kidnapping made to the hand of some writer
of romance. The Captain Golding who performed the act of
brigandage was a man who feared no risks in his loyalty to the
exiled Prince, for, being in command of a valuable merchant
ship, he scorned to remain under the rule of the Common-
wealth, so ran away and sold the ship and cargo — the fact that
they did not belong to him weighing nothing, of course — and
handed the proceeds over to Charles. Here, at Quex Park,
the scene of Golding's bold raid, William of Orange was wont
to stay when en ?-oute for Holland.
Birchington is just a pleasant holiday resort — still in the
making — where from this side we first touch at the chalk
" cliffs," to dignify them with a big name. Many of the breaks
and caves in these cliffs are said to have been utilised by the
smuggling fraternity in the good old days. Of its eastern
neighbour, the neatly-planned Westgate, it may also be said that
it is simply a pleasant, trim, holiday resort. Both places have
sprung into popular favour within the last twenty or thirty
years, and bear the stamp of their modernity. Birchington
is a place of pilgrimage for all admirers of the dual genius
of Dante Gabriel Rossetti — thither he went early in 1882,
broken in health, and there he died and is buried, and his
memory perpetuated in stained-glass windows in the church.
Inland from Westgate lies the old manor of Daundelyon,
Daundelion, or Dent-de-Lion — the family of which name was,
centuries since, extinct, and the mansion destroyed. It was
one of these Daundelyons who gave one of its bells to St. John's
Church, Margate :
"John de Daundelyon with his great Dog
Brought over this bell on a mill cog."
It is explained that " the Dog " was probably the name of
the vessel, but the jingle suggests rather that John was com-
panioned by a canine friend, for a cog seems to have been the
kind of boat in which the bell was brought from Flanders.
v MERRY MARGATE 109
The Daundelyon estate was for a time the property cf
Charles James Fox, and later, before the dose of the eighteenth
century, became much frequented by visitors to Margate :
" Alcoves, shrubs, flowers, a bowling green, a platform for
dancing, an orchestra, and other accommodations are erected
here for the entertainment of company, who often drink tea at
this delightful spot, and during the season have a public
breakfast on Wednesdays and Saturdays, with dancing and
other amusements, under the superintendence of the master of
the ceremonies." Later, Margate's visitors found their pleasures
on the " front " rather than inland, and the old place was
happily allowed to fall back into quietude.
It was in the mid-eighteenth century, when the virtues of sea
bathing had recently been discovered, that Margate began to
come into popularity as a resort for holiday-makers from London.
Towards the end of that century a Margate Quaker, by name
Benjamin Beale, introduced bathing-machines — not, as is
sometimes said, for the first time in England— and the
popularity of the place has so gone on increasing that it would
be idle to attempt a description of the town, scattered upon
the cliffs and running far inland. In olden times it afforded a
place of debarkation for the Continent, but it is, as a holiday
resort, a place where thousands of people can go and have all
the miscellaneous entertainment which is associated with the
general idea of a holiday by the sea. In the eighteenth century
it was a place to which the cit went, pretending to be a gentle-
man— " haughtily bending the head backwards, through the
dread of being' thought to have contracted a sneaking
stoop behind the counter " ; while the impecunious nobleman
went there to economise. Already, when Thomas Gray visited
it in the spring of 1766, he could describe it as " Bartholomew
Fair by the Seaside." We get glimpses of the place, of the
extortions practised on London visitors, in " An Excursion
to Margate in the month of June, 1786." Hardwicke Lewis,
Esq., as the title-page of the brochure informs us, was the
author of this imitation of Sterne's " Sentimental Journey "
and he describes, without any softening, the state of the
passengers who journeyed to Thanet by the hoy, and of their
arrival : —
"After tumbling and rumbling, tacking and retacking, we reached
Margate, to the great joy of Neptune's patients, who were as tired of his
no THE OLD MARGATE HOY char
prescription as if fees had been paid for it ; the few who were not affected
by the tow'ring motion experienced from hunger pains that need not be
described ; their stores being in the cabin, partook of scents that 'all the
perfumes of Arabia could not sweeten ' : For my part, I fasted from food to
glut on affliction, and 'wished no other relish.' It was impossible to land
at the Pier, through the lowness of the tide ; boats put off therefore to our
relief— for, to say truth, the Margatians are a friendly sort of people, when-
ever they can use a wrecking-hook, or make demands upon the purse."
Another and far better writer journeyed to Margate in the old
hoys which did duty for nearly two centuries, as we learn from
the Water Poet, who tells us that in 1637 "A Hoy from
Rochester, Margate in Kent, or Feversham and Maidstone
doth come to St. Katherine's Dock." These about the year of
Waterloo gave place to the steam packet. That later writer
was Charles Lamb, who has left us an account of the voyage
in a delightful essay, telling how Elia and his cousin Bridget
journeyed from London, of some characters they met on board,
and of how one of the company pointing out Reculver was
therefore considered " no ordinary seaman."
"Can I forget thee, thou old Margate Hoy, with thy weather-beaten,
sun-burnt captain, and his rough accommodations — ill-exchanged for the
foppery and fresh-water niceness of the modern steam packet? To the
winds and the waves thou commntedst thy goodly freightage, and didst ask
no aid of magic fumes, and spells, and boiling cauldrons. With the gales
of heaven thou wentest swimmingly ; or, when it was their pleasure,
stoodest still with sailor-like patience. Thy course was natural, not forced,
as in a hot-bed ; nor didst thou go poisoning the breath of ocean with
sulphureous smoke — a great sea chimrera, chimneying and furnacing the
deep ; or liker to that fire-god parching up Scamander.
Can I forget thy honest, yet slender crew, with their coy reluctant
responses (yet to the suppression of anything like contempt) to the raw
questions, which we of the great city would be ever and anon putting
to them, as to the uses of this or that strange naval implement ? 'Specially
can I forget thee, thou happy medium, thou shade of refuge between us and
them, conciliating interpreter of their skill to our simplicity, comfortable
ambassador between sea and land ! — whose sailor-trowsersdid not more con-
vincingly assure thee to be an adopted denizen of the former, than thy white
cap, and whiter apron over them, with thy neat-lingered practice in thy
culinary vocation, bespoke thee to have been of inland nurture heretofore —
.1 master cook of Eastcheap ? I low busily didst thou ply thy multifarious
occupation, cook, mariner, attendant, chamberlain : here, there, like another
Ariel, flaming at once about all parts of the deck, yet with kindlier minis-
trations, not to assist the tempest, but, as if touched with a kindred sense
of our infirmities, to soothe the qualms which that untried motion might
haply raise in our crude land-fancies. And when the o'er-washing billows
v "THE GREAT SEA CHIMERA" in
drove us below deck (for it was far gone in October, and we had stiff and
blowing weather) how did thy officious ministerings, still catering for our
comfort, with cards, and cordials, and thy more cordial conversation,
alleviate the closeness and the confinement of thy else (truth to say) not
very savoury, nor very inviting, little cabin ?
With these additaments to boot, we had onboard a fellow-passenger,
whose discourse in verity might have beguiled a longer voyage than we
meditated, and have made mirth and wonder abound as far as the Azores.
He was a dark, Spanish-complexiqned young man, remarkably handsome,
with an officer-like assurance, and an insuppressible volubility of assertion.
He was, in fact, the greatest liar I had met with then, or since. He was
none of your hesitating half story-tellers (a most painful description of
mortals) who go on sounding your belief, and only giving you as much as
they see you can swallow at a time — the nibbling pickpockets of your
patience — but one who committed downright daylight depredations upon
his neighbour's faith. He did not stand shivering upon the brink, but was
a hearty, thorough-paced liar, and plunged at once into the depths of your
credulity. I partly believe, he made pretty sure of his company. Not
many rich, not many wise, or learned, composed at that time the common
stowage of a Margate packet. We were, I am afraid, a set of as un-
seasoned Londoners (let our enemies give it a worse name) as Alderman-
bury or Watling Street, at that time of day could have supplied."
The old Margate Hoy-=-journeying immortal in the pages of
Charles Lamb — was replaced in the Thames and its estuary
by the "great sea chimera" of the steam packet and in the
early " forties " of the nineteeth century many are the references
to the Red Rover commanded by Captain Large — it is referred
to by Barham in the " Ingoldsby Legends " and in the twenty-
fourth of " Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures " we learn how Job
and Margaret Caudle took the dear children to Margate by
the Red Rover ; how Job — a good sailor — behaved " like a
brute " to his wife — who was a bad sailor — and how that good
lady's ire was aroused by a rencontre with Miss Prettyman on
the jetty.
It has been shown that the sentimentalist visiting Margate
drew attention to the Margatians fondness for the " wrecking
hook " and for making demands on the purses of visitors, but
the place was then in a transition stage towards its position as
a mere holiday resort. The old inhabitants of Thanet are said
to have been amphibious creatures, making a couple of fishing
voyages and returning home for harvesting operations in their
fruitful isle.
The old-time inscription round the chancel of one of the
112
THE USEFUL ASS
CHAP,
Thanet churches — that of Monkton —
" Insula rotunda Thanatos quam circuit unda
Fertilis et munda nulli est in orbe secunda."
has been thus roughly rendered by an eighteenth century visitor —
" Round is rich Thanet's sea-encircled isle
Whose happy fields with richest verdure smile."
But tradition says that, besides being fishermen and farmers
the men of Thanet had no objection to doing a bit of smug-
gling when occasion offered, and a century-old Margate adver-
»---'-•,.
-:;.wS
Srfi'-"'
Margate in December.
tisement of an ass-hirer whose donkeys were alternately em-
ployed by ladies and smugglers ran—
" Asses here to be let ! for all purposes right —
To bear angels by day and spirits by night."
Margate faces north, and leaving it by the chalk cliffs which
rise to upwards of fifty feet from the shore we come to Kings-
gate hamlet by the North Foreland, a place which, known
originally as St. Bartholomew's Gate, gained its present name
because King Charles II. landed here in 1683. Here was
long since an old portcullis and gate inscribed "God Bless
Hart'lem's Gate," followed by the distich
" Olim Porta fui Patroni Hartholomaei,
Nunc Regis Jussu regia Porta vocor,"
v GRAY AS SATIRIST 113
which our eighteenth century sentimentalist Englished thus,
" Kings-Gate's my name, to Royal Mandate true,
Yclep'd in former Times Bartholomew"
The sentimentalist continued,
" So charming is this scite, which afforded Maria a short respite from
sorrow, that we were loth to quit it. Before we ordered the carriage,
I presented her with a few lines, said to have been written by Gray on the
spot : If they were so, it will afford some idea of his being a sort of poet ;
for they have sense and meaning as well as jingle — His other works are
too sublime for human comprehension, and are vastly, like Swift's song, by
a person of quality ; which seems to mean prodigious things, but is errant
nonsense — let me except a few pretticisms in the favorite Elegy."
The half dozen stanzas thus praised refer to the sham
ruins which Lord Holland raised here in accordance with the
queer taste of his time, and are marked by little beyond savage
satire,
" Old and abandoned by each venal friend
Here Holland took the pious resolution,
To smuggle a few years, and strive to mend
A broken character and constitution.
On this congenial spot he fixt his choice,
Karl Godwin trembled for his native land,
Here sea-gulls scream, and cormorants rejoice,
And mariners, tho' shipwreck'd, dread to land.
Here reigns the blust'ring north and blighting east,
No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing ;
But nature cannot furnish out the feast,
Art is invok'd new horrors still to bring :
Lo ! mould'ring towers and battlements arise,
Arches and turrets nodding to their fall,
Unpeopled palaces delude the eyes
And mimic desolation covers all.
Oh ! cried the sighing peer, had Bute been true,
Or Mansfield's promise not bestow'd in vain,
Far other scenes had bless'd our happier view,
And realiz'd the ruins which we feign —
Piirg'd by the sword, and purified by fire,
Then had we seen proud London's hated walls
Owls would have hooted in St. Peter's choir,
And foxes stunk and litter'd in St. Paul's."
To the south of Kingsgate is the famous North Foreland, the
high chalk cliff surmounted by a lofty lighthouse — successor of
1
ii4 A NAVAL BATTLE chap.
an olden beacon for warning shipmen off the dangers of the
Goodwin Sands — the light of which is said to be visible thirty
miles away. It was here off the Foreland and north of the
Goodwins, in May, 1666, that Admiral Blake, supported by
Prince Rupert, engaged in a fight, " the longest and most
stubborn that the seas have ever seen," against the Dutch
under De Ruyter, a fight which necessitated the remnant of
the English fleet seeking the harbourage of the Thames, and
caused De Witt to declare " that English sailors might be killed
and English ships burned, but that there was no conquering
Englishmen." Six weeks later the fleets encountered again
within sight of the Foreland, and by gaining a signal victory
the English went far to justify De Witt's tribute. At an old
house in Sandwich many years ago were discovered some old
panel pictures — now hanging in the Guild Hall of that ancient
Cinque Port — showing a fight between the English and Dutch
fleets which may well have been the encounter which took
place here.
To the south of the Foreland we come to another of the
pleasant summer resorts that line the Thanet cliffs, Broad-
stairs, a quieter place than its more populous neighbours, and
one that is remembered as another of those with Dickensian
associations, for Boz was as enthusiastic about the county
of his adoption as the most enthusiastic of those who pride
themselves on their technical title to being Men of Kent. At
Broadstairs, " one of the freshest and freest little places in the
world," after having occupied earlier lodgings in the High
Street, Dickens rented the quaintly-shaped Fort House, later
named Bleak House from one of his stories, though it was not
the original from which that novel took its title.
Many are the references to Broadstairs in Dickens's corre-
spondence : " The general character of Broadstairs as to size
and accommodation was happily expressed by Miss Eden, when
she wrote to the Duke of Devonshire (as he told me) saying
how grateful she felt to a certain sailor, who asked leave to see
her garden, for not plucking it bodily up and sticking it in his
button hole. You will have for a night-light in the room we
shall give you, the North Foreland lighthouse. That and the
sea and air are our only lions." The shallow shore which
makes of the Thanet coast so admirable a bathing-ground is
well indicated in the summary description of Broadstairs
DICKENS AT BROADSTAIRS
115
embodied in an
Places " :-
article Dickens wrote on " Our Watering
" The ocean lies winking in the sunlight like a drowsy lion ; its glassy
waters scarcely curve upon the shore ; the fishing boats in the busy harbour
are all stranded in the mud. Our two colliers . . . have not an inch of
water within a quarter of a mile of them and turn exhausted on their sides,
like faint fish of an antediluvian species ; rusty cables and chains, ropes and
rings, undermost parts of posts and piles, and confused timber defences
against the waves lie strewn about in a brown litter of tangled seaweed and
fallen cliff. . . . The tide has risen ; the boats are dancing on the bubbling
water ; the colliers are afloat again ; the white bordered waves rush in. . . .
x
JAjXufU^->i^^
Broaiis/airs.
The radiant sails are gliding past the shore and shining on the far horizon ;
all the sea is sparkling, heaving, swelling up with life and beauty this bright
morning. "
Broadstairs is said to have had its name from the broad way
down to the shore, once defended by a strong gate and port-
cullis, but it is also said to have been anciently Bradstow. Inland
is the pleasant village of St. Peters' with its stories of smugglers,
and underground hiding-places, and southwards we come over
the open down to Ramsgate, occupying the south-eastern corner
of Thanet. The ancient British name of Thanet, we are told, was
Ruim, and hence Ramsgate, which suggests that in this tripper
1 2
n6 AN ANCIENT CUSTOM chap.
paradise we have, perhaps, the first settled place on the one-time
island. Here, again, we are in a populous pleasure place
familiar to many thousands of visitors. In the time of Eliza-
beth there were but five-and-twenty houses, but to-day it almost
rivals Canterbury in size, having developed very rapidly in the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, especially since the im-
proved service by rail and sea placed the sands and bracing air
of this easternmost part of Kent within easy reach of London.
The ancient Christmas custom of " hodening," here, the
carrying round of the head of a dead horse, by a bell-ringing
and carol singing company, was supposed to be the survival
of a festival commemorating the landing of the Saxons under
Hengist and Horsa, the head presumably being an example
of the pun made obvious. The term hodening or hoodening
is still used in some parts of the isle to denote Christinas Eve
carol-singing. A Thanet clergyman, thirty years ago, noted the
old custom thus : " I made enquiry of an old retired farmer in
my parish (Monkton) as to the custom called Hoodning. He
tells me that formerly the farmer used to send annually round
the neighbourhood the best horse under the charge of the
wagoner, and that afterwards, instead, a man used to represent
the horse, being supplied with a tail, and with a wooden
(pronounced ooden or hooden) figure of a horse's head, and
plenty of horse-hair for a mane. The horse's head was fitted
with hobnails for teeth ; the mouth being made to open by
means of a string, and in closing made a loud crack. The
custom has long since ceased."
From Ramsgate we look south-westward over Pegwell Bay,
where, through the silted-up sand, the Stour, after innumerable
twistings during the finish of its course, finds its way to the
sea. Pegwell itself — famous for its shrimps — forms now but
a western extension of Ramsgate. At the back of it is
Ozengell Hill, the highest point in Thanet, and one affording
a magnificent view, with the village of Manston on its western
slope. The railway is cut through the southern side of this
hill, and when it was made a number of Saxon graves, dating
from the fifth and sixth centuries, were found in the chalk, and
also some Roman graves, showing that the two races lived here
simultaneously. Keeping inland from the Bay we approach,
with a wide view over the marshes of the Stour valley, a place
crowded with memories, if the conjectures of the historians be
v THE MAKING OF ENGLAND 117
correct. Here, along this southernmost part of the Isle of
Thanet, we come to Ebbsfleet — the point at which Hengist
and Horsa are said to have landed with their Saxons in
a.o. 449, five centuries after Caesar had landed with his legion-
aries a few miles further to the south, the point at which, as
John Richard Green has put it, "English history begins." And
not only the Saxons, but here also, in 597, landed after their
long journey from Rome the tall Augustine and his forty
monks. Pleasant marsh-meadows dotted with trees and fed
over by innumerable sheep, a few scattered cottages with the
distant sea, the line of Ramsgate's chalk cliffs, and nearer and
whiter the low buildings of a coastguard station by the sea-wall
beyond the reclaimed meadows with, a little inland off the road,
a farm in which the name still survives— such is Ebbsfleet ; a
place over which the mind may ponder, but which has nothing
to show the eye directly associated with the memorable past.
However, as Green, the first of picturesque historians, puts it, "a
higher sense than that of beauty draws us to the landing-place
of our fathers." Even the country immediately surrounding
must have changed greatly since the coming of Augustine, for
centuries later the sea covered much of these marshes so that
ships bound for the estuary of the Thames passed over them
and up between Thanet and the mainland to the open water
again, while ships of some size could go up the now narrow Stour
to Fordwich, if not to Canterbury itself. Doubts have been
thrown on the statement that Hengist and Horsa landed at
this place, but, as Green has pointed out, everything in the
character of the ground confirms the tradition which fixes this
spot at Ebbsfleet. The Jutes who came in three "keels"
under the leaders whose names are ever twinned in our
memory, would be wise in landing on Thanet, divided as it
was by the inlet of the sea from the mainland, for, securing the
island they had, in modern military language, a safer base
from which to conduct their campaign than they might have
found on the mainland of Kent, for though they came first as
allies to aid in driving off the Picts, they soon came in such
numbers that they may well have been looking forward to the
quarrel with those who had invoked their aid which was to
help them to a permanent footing.
The Jutes had been in the country for nearly a century and
a half, had made of the country England, when the second
nS PUN-MADE HISTORY chap.
notable landing took place, and the missionary Augustine came
to win the country for the religion of Christ. The coming of
Augustine was — the story is summarised in all the history books
—the result of Gregory, then Deacon, and afterwards Bishop of
Rome, seeing English slaves offered for sale in the Roman
market-place, and having an opportunity of happy pun-
making. "From what country do these slaves come?"
Gregory asked. The slave dealer answered, " They are
Angles." " Not Angles but Angels, with faces so angel-like,"
said the Deacon, adding, " From what country do they come ? "
"They come," was the reply, "from Deira." " De ira, ay,
plucked from God's ire and called to Christ's mercy," com-
mented Gregory, " and what is the name of their king ? "
" Aella," said the slave merchant ; and again Gregory found it
a word of good omen, "Alleluia shall be sung in Aella's land,"
he said. It was more than ten years after Aella's death that
Gregory's promise was fulfilled, and he as Bishop sent
Augustine to the land of the Angles with interpreters from
Gaul. Ethelbert, then King, was married to Bertha, a Christian
Princess from Gaul, and he gave the missionary monks a
hearing, in the open air it is recorded for fear of magic. The
place of meeting, where Augustine preached his first sermon,
is supposed to have been on the chalk downs, above what is now
Minster — near, perhaps, to the place where later Domneva's
hind was to mark out Minster's limits. The King, surrounded
by his wild soldiers, sat on the bare ground, and in front
was the devoted band of monks dominated by Augustine, " a
man of almost gigantic stature, head and shoulders taller than
anyone else," with, as their insignia, a silver cross and large
board, on which was painted a figure of Christ. Augustine
preached and Gaulish interpreters translated for the benefit of
the English, but Ethelbert, though no doubt partly prepared
for the new faith by his wife and her attendant bishop, was
not immediately converted. He gave the new comers per-
mission to exercise their religion in his town of Canterbury,
and later, on his conversion, gave them his palace there, and
removed to Reculver.
It is the Jutish chieftains, Hengist and Horsa, and the
Christian missionary, Augustine, who are chiefly remembered
when we visit this quiet stretch of marshland meadows between
the modern gaiety of Ramsgate and the ancient dignity of
v A MIRACULOUS STONE 119
Sandwich. In old days, when Christianity ruled mainly
through the personalities of the saints, a well-remembered
celebrity was St. Mildred — at Westgate there is St. Mildred's
Bay, at Acol the little church is dedicated to St. Mildred — a
woman " endued with such God-like vertue," as the old chronicler
declares, that she lay "in a hot oven three hours together"
without suffering any inconvenience, and one whose name was
remembered, as we have seen, in St. Mildred's Lynch, and who
left more than her name at Ebbsfleet, for a stone was long
since pointed out as that on which she had placed her foot at
landing, and this stone was said to have the power, if ever
removed from its site, of miraculously flying back to its place.
It was- also sometimes said to be the stone on which St.
Augustine set his foot. But the stone has long passed into
mere tradition. When the Saints went out of favour in England
then miracles ceased — as though by a further miracle.
From Ebbsfleet a straight road goes to Sandwich, with
the Stour running south past Richborough on the right, and
running north on the left, for the road passes up a great loop
which the river takes before turning north by Sandwich, to take
its final convolutions before reaching Pegwell Bay. Here was
the old Roman Stonar, and here was salt-making carried on,
where now are made the concrete blocks lor use in the great
naval harbour at Dover. Before crossing the Stour again into
Kent proper, we may turn to the right off the Ramsgate and
Sandwich road, just beyond the coastguard station, and, passing
Ebbsfleet Farm on our left, go over the level crossing — with a
most ingenious stile for the passage of bicycles — and by shady
roads and a hop-field — there are but few of the typical Kentish
bines in Thanet — reach the scattered village of Minster, once a
famous ecclesiastical centre, now a place to which Ramsgate
and Margate holiday-makers journey in brakes for an afternoon's
jaunt. Not that there is much to be seen there, beyond the fine
old church, the trumpery spire of which, surmounting a square
tower, is a familiar landmark. The church, which is happily
one of those left open daily for the inspection of visitors, has a
number of flat Roman bricks in its tower, and though much
restored has many features of interest. Here Meric Casaubon,
the scholar-son of a great scholar, held the living for a time.
On his ejection, in 1644, he had a notorious successor in
Richard Culmer, the divine who broke the glass of Canterbury
120 "BLUESKIN DICK" CHAP.
Cathedral. His new parishioners greatly resented Culmer's
appointment, and when he went to read himself in they had
locked the church door and hidden the key. Culmer broke a
window, and got in thus. After the ceremony the irate Minster
folk opened the door, dragged him out, and beat him unmerci-
fully, jeering at him as a thief and a robber. On his seeking a
parish servant, he was refused any girl who wras not illegitimate.
He broke the stained glass of the church, and looking on the
wooden and iron crosses which surmounted the spire as
" monuments of superstition and idolatry," he himself, by
moonlight, fixed ladders for a couple of workmen to remove
the symbols. His parishioners pointed out that he was only
doing his work by halves, as the church itself wras built in the
form of a cross, and he himself was the greatest cross in the
parish. So bitter was the struggle against " Blueskin Dick " —
so named because he wore a blue gown, having an objection
to black — that the parishioners spent ^300 in trying to get
him removed ; they even offered him the income of the living
for life, and to pay for another minister themselves, if he would
go away, but he refused, and remained until the Restoration.
It must have been a lively sixteen years in the experience of
the village !
An ancient monastery flourished long until the Danes under
Sweyn destroyed it and its inmates, when the body of its
patroness, St. Mildred — which had escaped destruction — was
carried off to St. Augustine's at Canterbury. The story runs
that — even as the stone on which she had set foot at Ebbsfleet
— the body refused to be removed until it at length yielded to
the prayers of the Abbot of St. Augustine, who made off with
the precious relic by night for fear of the opposition of the
good folks of the island which had so long been St. Mildred's
particular province. In this instance the prized relics had been
given to St. Augustine's by Knut, the son of that very Sweyn
who had destroyed Minster and burned the Abbess and her
nuns in their buildings ; but it is curious to find that in the
days when miracles were wrought by the remains of saints
the dignitaries of one church or monastery were not above
purloining relics from each other's keeping ; if the thing could
be managed it not only brought new honour to the enriched
shrine but sometimes meant new dignity for the purloiner.
It is only in tradition, and in tradition hidden in many
PEACEFUL MINSTER
121
Dooks rather than revealed on the tongues of men, that
Minster now suggests anything of its old-time importance : of
the days when it was a port on the arm of the sea which ran up
to that other ancient town, of which but the twin towers stand
at Reculver ; of the days when Romans and Saxons successively
occupied the neighbourhood ; of the days when the island tc
which it was the principal gate became a stronghold of the
newly-come religion ; or of the days when the Danes descended,
destroying all before them. Now, Minster is a quiet little
village, with occasional bustle at its railway station — junction of
£^|VOV««OM. 1*t ofe'
Sarre Wall.
the Ramsgate and Deal lines— situated with a wonderful view
over the marsh-land, and with animation in its narrow streets
and about its church when the brakes drive in from Ramsgate.
Up from the town, past the high-perched workhouse and its
vis-a-vis cemetery, runs the road over St. Mildred's Lynch and
past the chalk pit of gruesome memories, to Birchington,
through broad stretches of farm crops divided by lynches, no
longer visible when the crops are growing — for it is still partly
true of Thanet as it was when an ancient writer described the
Isle as " all cornfields and very little enclosure." Leftwards
the roads lead to the pleasant village of Monkton, and so to
Sarre and out of Thanet. Sarre, as the westerly gate of
122 THE PHILOSOPHER'S STONE ch. v
Thanet, was at one time a place of some importance. To the
ford here came the monks from Canterbury to visit their
churches and estates in the fertile island, and here, probably,
crossed many of those pilgrims from the Continent who had
landed at Minster. Now Sarre is a pleasant village of old, red-
brick houses, at the foot of the rising ground of Thanet, with
its straight road or " wall " crossing the marsh-lands to the next
gradual hill rising to Upstreet and so to Canterbury. Perhaps
the most notable things about the village to-day are the
inscriptions at either end, French fashion, on pieces of wood
on house-walls — on the east " Ville de Sarre," on the west
" Ville of Sarre " —and the fact that the sojourner here can,
within two or three miles, enjoy such great diversity of country
as is to be had in the cattle-dotted marshes, the hedgeless
fields of Thanet, or the hilly and hedged lanes to the west of
the marshes.
At some unnamed spot in Thanet was born Thomas
Charnock, a sixteenth century experimentalist, who had the
misfortune to be pressed for a soldier when he was within
but a short month of discovering the elusive secret of
the philosopher's stone. It must have been an insult added
to injury to have to fire lead that, had he been left to his
peaceful avocations, might have been converted into a metal
more precious !
CHAPTER VI
SANDWICH, DEAL, AND THE COODWINS
Leaving Thanet near the point where its oldest associations
are clustered about the quiet neighbourhood of Ebbsfleet Farm
we may follow the main road along the narrow peninsula
which the Stour convolutions make of the southern portion of
the isle and so reach Sandwich, but by doing so we should miss
a place which was of importance centuries before Ebbsfleet
saw the landing of the Christian missionaries or the Saxon
ally-invaders. Where we find the south-flowing Stour on our
right and the north-flowing Stour on our left we are in the
neighbourhood of some of the most interesting ruins which our
country has to show, ruins which have yielded up treasures to
many museums and about which volumes have been written.
The old remains lie half a mile or so away from us at this point
to our right, on the rising ground immediately beyond the river
and the railway, here running parallel. The massy walls
remaining are mostly hidden from railway passengers carried
within a few yards of them and may not seem much to the
uninitiated, but they represent one of the great strongholds built
along the Saxon shore by the Romans, and not only that but
they form the most extensive remains of the Roman occupation
of England which the country has to show. The ruins are all
there is now of the important Roman station of Rutupiaa.
From that station, guarding the southern entrance to the
channel which cuts off the Isle of Thanet from the mainland,
was visible the station of Reculbium at the northern end.
124 THE COUNT OF THE SAXON SHORE chap.
Rutupise, nearer to the coast of the Continent and guarding the
shore between Thanet and the high chalk cliffs to the south
was the more important. Its story, as rendered up to
excavators and archaeologists is written at length in the trans-
actions of the Archceologia Cantiana, and in Roach Smith's
earlier volume dealing with old Roman stations in Kent
and other works. Here have been recovered many ancient
relics and an extraordinarily large number of coins throwing
much light on the Roman rule, which have taken their
places in various museums. Of such coins there is practic-
ally a sequence illustrating the whole period of the Roman
occupation.
Some massive ruined walls as much as thirty feet high,
rising from cultivated fields on an eminence on the right
bank of the Stour, are all that the visitor sees. It needs
the knowledge of the past, the realisation of the change which
has been occasioned by the retiring of the sea, to form any
idea of the time when these walls formed but portions of a
great frontier fortress, when the Roman triremes were brought
close to the place and when the oysters taken in the immediate
neighbourhood were delicacies for the Roman epicure. Then
the hill on which the ruins now stand overlooked the waters of
the sea where now it looks eastward to sandy flats and westward
to the diversified marshland of Ash Level. Within the massive
walls of Richborough it is probable lived the Count of the
Saxon Shore — the " Comes Limitis Saxonici per Britanniam "
— whose duty it was to see after the safeguarding of the coast
from the Wash to Southampton. Though primarily a fortress
there can be little doubt that there was an ancient town at
Rutupiae, for not only was the site one of great military
strength, but near to the immediate south we may trace the
amphitheatre in which the legionaries of the Count of the
Saxon Shore probably indulged in their games.
More than half a century ago, a Deal versifier, by name
G. R. Carter — perhaps a relative of the eighteenth century
Elizabeth Carter — -wrote several sonnets to Richborough Castle,
one of which may be cited as an example of local talent though
its closing couplet is somewhat suggestive of the art of sinking
in poetry.
"Throned on the bosom of a sunny hill.
Behold the wreck of Rome's imperial sway !
vi STREETS OF CORN 125
The ivy to its walls is clinging still,
A gloomy mourner o'er its latest day ;
But sweetest summer-birds attune their lay
Around the Stour that flows beneath its brow,
And flowers are kissed to slumber by the ray
Which tints the clouds with crimson glory now;'
And consecrated are the dreamless brave
O'er whom this castle lifts its mouldering pride,
Their dirge seems uttered by the rippling wave,
Their requiem by the plaintive winds is sighed.
Oh ! thus, when death relieves me from my cares,
I fain would have a tomb sublime as theirs."
Possibly the first stronghold erected by the Romans in
England, Richborough, was a place of importance during the
four hundred years of their stay and remains one of the most
eloquent witnesses to a distant and interesting past An old
writer describing the site of the Roman city said that time
had devoured every trace of it " and to teach us that cities are
as perishable as men, it is now a cornfield, when the corn is
grown up, one may see traces of the streets intersecting each
other, for wherever the streets have run, the corn grows thin."
I cannot substantiate the pretty story, not having been able to
recognise any such thin lines through the flourishing crops.
Wide stretches of peas, potatoes and corn reach almost to the
walls on three sides, while on the fourth the steep bank masked
by many trees dips down to the level marsh. A stout fencing
has been erected where the wall has crumbled — or been taken
away for road making. On payment of a small fee permission
may be had to enter the great enclosure where sheep are
pastured, to visit the strange subterranean way, and to examine
the great walls twelve feet thick, so stoutly built of flint and
stone with courses of red tile that when some of the materials
were being removed the vandals responsible found it too
strong for working. These grand ruins can be visited by
field-paths from Ash or Sandwich, or from the hamlet of Salt
Pans on the Ramsgate Road where a ferry takes us across the
Stour and following the marsh dykes brings us to the level
crossing on the railway and to the path leading up the steeper
side of the height on which the ruins stand. The last is
perhaps the most impressive approach.
Sandwich, quaint old Cinque Port of tortuous streets and
ancient houses, suggestive by its very name of a dim, historic
past, and of modern golf links, lies on the right bank of the
126
OLD TIME TOLLS
CHAP.
Stour at its extreme southerly bend. As we approach it,
the town, dominated by the curiously topped tower of St.
Peter's Church, has the look of a foreign city. Over the
**&&m.
^S-i^rLoT-t-^o
The Barbican, Sandwich.
J*
river is a toll bridge and a quaint (restored) barbican spans the
road, upon the wall of it being set out an elaborate scale of
tolls, providing for payment from drivers of " Berlin chaises,"
"chairs," and "calashes." As the scale is dated 1905 these
vi A TORTUOUS TOWN 127
vehicles of the past seem to belong to the present. Long gone
are the days when Swift penned his warning to writers —
" Beware of Latin, authors all
Nor think your verses sterling,
Though with a golden pen you scrawl,
And scribble in a berlin."
Now the author passes untolled on a bicycle, wondering
whether the tollman would be able to differentiate a calash
from a berlin. Motors are ignored on the scale, ranking
presumably as " locomotives."
North, Sandwich looks over the flats by ancient Stonar and
more ancient Richborough to Ebbsfleet and Thanet ; east it
looks over sandy levels to where the retreating sea has gone,
and all about these level river and shore meadows is now
played the royal and ancient game of golf. On approaching
Sandwich as we are now doing from the north the way in which
all sorts and conditions of people play the great game is at
once made strikingly manifest. Girls not yet in their 'teens
are playing here ; there is a burly drayman — it is the dinner
hour — refreshing himself, with his leathern apron tucked up
cornerwise to show he is off duty, handling his iron with
vigour and precision. We might be in the town of St.
Andrews, patron saint of golf, by the way in which all ages
and all classes follow the game. Out towards the sea are the
more notable links. Probably few of those who come hither
to indulge in the game are aware that in the sand dunes
between here and Deal it was anciently the pleasant custom
to bury thieves alive. Women criminals were drowned in the
Guestling stream. The Cinque Ports had their own courts
and were allowed seemingly to devise their own methods of
punishing offenders.
It is said to be a good test of a man's bump of locality if
once having visited Sandwich he can find his way through it —
say from the Canterbury to the Deal roads — without making a
misturning. The thing has been done. Dotted about the town
are old houses of Tudor and earlier times, while a portion of
worked flint wall — level as bricks — where the old guildhall
once stood shows the wonderful way in which some earlier
craftsmen did their work. Bits of carved decoration and old
128 THE OLD WITHIN THE NEW chap.
doorways and windows are to be seen in many of the streets,
while some plain and unsuggestive exteriors hide olden and
interesting bits. A one-time wayside inn (now dislicensed)
has a fine stone arched room like a bit of an old crypt, and
here tradition tells was one of the sleeping places for pilgrims
bound for Canterbury. (The curious who go upstairs will find
such a contrast between the now and then as may shock them.)
On one of the pillars is a rudely incised shield with marks that
might be meant for two crescents and a cross.
The chief " lion " of Sandwich is its plain, modern Guildhall
the outside of which scarcely suggests that the inside is well
worth a visit. Here is to be seen the ancient woodwork from
the older town hall, and here the visitor has an object-lesson in
the legal phrase " empanelling " a jury, for the removal of a
panel reveals the jury box literally set in the wall. In the upper
rooms are portraits of civic worthies and a very interesting
series of pictures illustrating a great seventeenth century sea-
fight between the Dutch and English, probably that of 1666,
referred to in the preceding chapter. These pictures were
only discovered in a house in the town in 1839. Other
old pictures recovered at the same time show the entrance
of a Stuart King and his Queen into Sandwich. On the
beams are pikes which were of old carried before the
judges at the time of the Assizes, reminding us of the fasces
used in external decoration here and at the Canterbury Court
House. Now Sandwich has fallen from something of its old
estate, and the Assizes are no longer held there, though it is the
seat of a Petty Sessions. It was here early in April — it should
have been on the first of that month — in 1845 on a man wno
had been tried for some offence being found not guilty ;
the jury in its wisdom added a recommendation to mercy !
Sandwich, raised but a few feet from the surrounding level, was
at one time walled partly with stone and partly with high banks
of earth — as Gravelines on the French coast is to-day. Now
these old defences are formed into pleasant promenades.
Once the most famous port in the kingdom, then for a time
the seat of baize manufacture and market gardening, thanks to
the influx of Flemish folk in Elizabeth's time, the town had
fallen into a condition of neglect and is said only to have
" wakened up " during the past quarter of a century or so
since the great golf revival. Market gardening is still carried
vi \\ OLD HALLAD
129
on and the name Polders, or Poulders, applied to the
country lying between here and Woodnesborough, is a survival
of a Dutch word brought in in the sixteenth century, while
other names of persons and places found in the district —
Felderland, Flemings, etc. — are doubtless traceable to the
same influence.
It was at Sandwich that there dwelt, according to the
pleasant old ballad, " A beautiful lady whose name it
was Ruth " who was beloved by a young seaman of Dover.
The lady's parents would have nothing to do with the sailor and
locked the fair Ruth away from him, until at length in despair he
went off to Spain that his love might once more be given her
freedom. In Spain a lovely lady
"with jewels untold,
Besides in possession a million of gold,"
fell in love with and married him. Ruth ran away from home
to follow her lover to Spain — only to meet him with his
gorgeous wife " in Cadiz as she walked along the street." Ruth
decided to remain in his neighbourhood and opportunely the
wife died and the reunited lovers returned to her forgiving
parents. It is a whole romantic novel in a couple of hundred
lines, at the close the seemingly humble mariner inviting Ruth's
parents — still sorrowing over her disappearance — to his wedding,
when they find in the bride their long lost daughter !
"'Dear parents,' said she, ' many hazards I run,
To fetch home my love and your dutiful son ;
Receive him with joy, for 'tis very well known,
He seeks not your wealth, he's enough of his own.'
Her father replied, and he merrily smiled,
' He's brought home enough, as he's brought home my child ;
A thousand times welcome you are I declare,
Whose presence disperses both sorrow and care. ' '
Sentimental visitors to the old Cinque Port may well spare a
thought for the true lovers who went through so much— but
had their way in the end in despite of parental opposition,
while readers of modern novels may find amusement in seeing
how old is the convention which dictates the removal of a
husband or wife who is de trop so as to round off a story with
a happy ending.
K
13°
VILLAGES AND HILLS
CHAP.
Inland from Sandwich lie many clustering villages but a
mile or two apart, approached by roads and lanes largely
through unfenced fields, most of them having much to interest
the student of history as it is written in the parish churches
and their monuments, with rich hints of Saxon and Roman
times. One of the most interesting is the nearest, Woodnes-
borough, with its suggestion of Saxon origin in its name.
Here was a colony of the Flemish baizemakers, of whom we
are reminded by the appearance of several of the old red-
brick houses and cottages. Woodnesborough, set upon a little
hill with pleasant outlook over the marsh to Ramsgate, is a
11 'oodiicsborous h.
village amid cherry orchards, hopfields and gardens. Here we
reach the ground that, varied with hill and hollow, rises
gradually to the Barham Downs. Ash to the north-west on
the Canterbury road, or Staple-next-Wingham to the west,
Chillenden — which gave one of its most notable priors to
Canterbury Cathedral — to the south-west, may be taken on
the byways to the Downs and so into the country referred to in
the Canterbury district, or a pleasant rising road from Chill-
enden may be followed round Knowlton Park and thence by
an open road with extensive views to the straggling village of
Eastry, a couple of miles south of Woodnesborough on an old
Roman road that ran from here to Dover. At Eastry King
vi BEAUTIFUL ROADS 131
Ethelbert had a palace, and here it is said that King Egbert
had his cousins murdered and buried under his throne as the
least likely place in which the bodies should be discovered.
The palace at Eastry was frequently visited by Thomas a.
Becket, and here he hid on the eve of his flight to the
continent, before the reconciliation which led to his return and
the great tragedy of Canterbury. With little to show beyond some
old cottages made more attractive by the near neighbourhood
of certain newer ones, Eastry is pleasantly situated on a hill.
To the south on the next hill is Betteshanger with its beautiful
park set amid beautiful country. Once a week the park is thrown
open to visitors, but at all times the roads alongside afford many
glimpses of lovely woodland and turf. The roads, indeed, are
like drives through a park, bordered as they are with great
variety of trees and shrubs and sloping banks grown thickly
with Rose of Sharon — long stretches of greenery thickly starred
with gold in flowering time. From Little Betteshanger windmill
is to be seen a magnificent view backwards to Thanet and east-
wards over Deal to the sea : all round us are wide stretching
fields of corn, of peas, of beans and of the sainfoin which
gives to so many of our summer scenes in East Kent a touch of
unaccustomed colour, the red patches showing markedly among
the varied greens and contrasting strongly with picturesque
patches of yellow where the persistent charlock has defied the
farmer. The open roads wind up and down hill, southerly to
join the Dover road and easterly to Deal and the sea, with the
squat church tower of Northbourne village, from which the
lordly owner of Betteshanger takes his title — showing prettily
grouped in trees. South-west of us is the retired village of
Tilmanstone near the pleasant Dover to Sandwich Road,
passing further to the west than the old Roman way which
takes a straighter course at more unequal heights by Studdal,
or Studdle, for the signposts offer diversity of spelling.
Coming shorewards by Northbourne, we reach Mongeham and
Sholden, which run together and on into Deal with but little
interval.
Deal to-day is a curious mixture of the old and the new, of
the fisherman's and sailor's town devoted to the sea, and of the
holiday resort depending upon the attractions of the shore ; for
there are many people like the young man in the comedy, who
only " dote upon the sea — from the beach." When the Stour
K 2
132
DEAL TO-DAY AND YESTERDAY
CHAT.
channel silted up and the old Roman Rutupias became no
longer of service as a port, Sandwich rose into prominence,
then when the sea retreated further to the east, to Deal fell
much of that sea business for which Sandwich had become
unfitted. When Thomas a Becket returned from exile, when
Richard of the Lion Heart came home from Palestine, they
landed at Sandwich, but when Anne of Cleves came to wed
with Henry VIIL, when Queen Adelaide first came to England,
it was at Deal they landed. Perhaps in some distant century
Deal will have become an inland town and its place be taken
by some as yet undreamed-of town on the Goodwins. Mean-
Deal.
while, however, the Deal of the holiday maker enjoys a
pleasantly diversified life along its sea front, old, or Upper
Deal, being left stranded inland. Originally a " limb " of the
neighbouring Cinque Port of Sandwich, Deal duly succeeded
to much of the maritime importance of the older place and to
that has now added the attractions of a pleasant front, a good
beach and one of the most interesting of outlooks over the
water, for the attraction of holiday making visitors.
It was somewhere in the neighbourhood of Deal that Caesar
brought his troops from the French coast in the year 55 B.C.
when the bellicose attitude of the islanders on the heights
above Dover made him seek a landing-place less favourable
VI
OESAR AT DEAL
133
to the defenders. This place was — the story is told at length
by Napoleon III. in his History of Julius Cccsar and by the
Rev. Frances T. Vine in his Ccesar in Kent — somewhere
between the ending ol the chalk cliffs at Walmer and the mouth
of the Stour. Caesar's own description of his landing-place
is shown to tally with Deal and according to Camden, writing
in 1586, there anciently hung in the Castle of Dover a chart
showing that the Roman leader did land at Deal and later
defeated the Britons on Barham Down. Even in Camden's time
that chart was only known by a transcription and tradition so
that it may well be accepted as evidence honorable on account
High Street, Deal.
of its age, while for the archaeologist there is to be found
further evidence in the earth all round the neighbourhood.
" And lofty Dele's proud towers are shown
Where Caesar's trophies grace the town,"
said Camden, Englishing Leland, and though the " trophies "
are not obvious to the visitor now they will be found in plenty
by the student. In the Commentaries it is recorded how
stubborn a fight the barbarians, possessing all the advantages of
knowing where the shallows were, made against the landing of
the legionaries, driving their armed chariots at full speed into
the water, and hurling stones and arrows at the foe. A
standard-bearer of the Tenth Legion seems to have borne a
134 A PERSISTENT TRETENDER chap.
notable part in changing the fortunes of the day : calling upon
the gods for the success of his venture, he cried out " leap
down, soldiers, unless you wish to betray the eagle to the
enemy ; I, at any rate, shall have performed my duty to the
state and my general." With this he jumped into the water,
bearing the eagle standard towards the enemy. His fellows at
once plunged after him, though they had long hesitated as it
had not been possible to bring the vessels close in shore.
Other deeds of heroism are recorded, and before sundown the
invader had won his footing on the land and driven the
natives to the shelter of the woods and hills to the West.
Later came the Roman advance, the capture of the Barham
ridge, and further defeats of the Britons — driven ever west-
wards.
It is difficult to-day, standing on the front and watching a
crowd of sun-burned children gazing with rapt attention at a
Punch and Judy show, to realise the old days when Deal, as a
town, was not ; when extensive woodlands came probably
far nearer to the coast ; to realise those days, nearly
twenty centuries ago, when Rome, as though prophetically,
reached out after this small island destined to an empire
greater than her own. We must investigate the sand-hills —
supposed to be artificially formed — to the north, pursue our
investigations north to Richborough, and south to Dover,
before we can grasp anything like an idea, both of the landing
of those troops from Europe's further extreme, and of the
manner in which the}' made their way through the country and
consolidated their power. Many centuries later Deal saw the
reductio ad absurdum of invasion when, in 1495, that persistent
pretender, Perkin Warbeck, made one of his ineffectual descents
on the coast as " Richard IV." The men of Deal and Sandwich
sufficed to beat off the invader, inflicting on him heavy losses
in slain and prisoners.
In the "good old days " —in time as in space, "'tis distance
lends enchantment to the view," and if we may believe our
elders, " man never is but always has been blessed " —in those
days which are, by courtesy, called good, the whole of the coast
along here was famous as a smuggling resort, and Deal was a
particularly notorious centre. We have seen that the Thanet
folk were ready to do a bit of smuggling when occasion offered,
but from Deal, all round the coast until our Kentish story
vi THE GOOD OLD DAYS
135
merges in that of Sussex, the coast has its traditions of
smugglers and their cuteness in running their wares inland ; of
their bravery in fighting the preventive officers ; of the way in
which gentry and squires, aye, and even those who dwelt within
the shadow of the old church towers, profited by the illicit
transactions of those who spent their lives in support of the
saying that stolen fruit are sweetest (and most profitable).
The old Admiralty House, little more than a hundred years
ago, is said to have had a room where, within a few feet of the
seat of authority, smuggled goods were housed, and here it is said
on one occasion the wife of the chief official kept a wounded
smuggler perdu until he was nursed back to a state of health
in which he could make good his escape. There is a curious
kink in the nature of a large number of people by which they
glory in doing mild illegalities — evading the income-tax which
they themselves have imposed through their representatives ; in
smuggling small things from abroad that they may have them
the cheaper, or in buying things that someone else has smuggled
for the same reason. In the palmy days of smuggling those
who ran the risks of running a cargo generally did so as much
to the benefit of ostensibly law-abiding receivers of smuggled
goods as to their own. The old point of view was taken down
a few years ago from a Deal man of eighty-eight : " Good
times them, when a brave man might smuggle honest. Ah !
them were grand times ; when a man didn't go a-stealin' wi' his
gloves on, an' weren't afraid to die for his principles." His
" principles," of course, being those of the folk who found how
profitable Free Trade was in Protectionist days. The " cut-
throat town of Deal," as a seventeenth-century lady who could
have but unhappy memories of the place wrote, has long ceased
to be a smugglers' centre. But though traditions of the
smuggling days are to be picked up now and again, it is mostly
in the pages of the writers of eighteenth-century fiction that
those days are made to live.
One smuggling story may be given from that storehouse of
local lore The Kentish Garland.
" During the French War an eminent banking firm of Hebraic origin
carried on a flourishing connexion between the rival interests of France and
England : needless to state that each belligerent was totally unaware of the
services rendered to the opposing nation. A large swift vessel, propelled by
sails and tht oars of hardy Deal boatmen, carried to the former country
136 THE BANKER "DONE" chap.
despatches from the English Government for their French spies, and to the
French Government a cargo of English guineas, which at that time fetched
thirty shillings ; and having safely disposed of this freight, the ship was
laden in return with silk, brandy, lace, and tobacco, also letters from the
spies : the latter were duly delivered to our authorities, and the former dis-
posed of in and out of our county at a considerable profit. The captain
was much trusted by his employers, and on one voyage he was informed his
cargo was the largest he had carried — from ten to thirty thousand guineas.
The head of the honourable firm anxiously awaited the return of his faithful
servant, who appeared with a very rueful countenance, and informed him
that, being chased by a government vessel, and fearful of being overhauled,
they had cut the throats of the bags, and the yellow-boys were at the bottom
of the sea! The banker raved, and demanded the spot where the cata-
strophe had occurred ; the information rather reluctantly given, specified a
spot close to the French coast, and the honest Hebrew, instinctively feeling
that he had been ' done,' communicated with his French agents. Divers
descended and brought backs the bags, not, however, with their throats cut,
but intact, save that, in place of their original contents, a stone was in each
of them ! All parties being engaged in an illegal transaction the only
revenge the banker could take was by dismissing the captain from his
employment, who laughed in his face, when he literally danced and swore
with rage. The crew, who shared in their chiefs disgrace, seemed rather
' flush ' of money for some time, while the captain first bought a piece of
ground and built himself a house ; in a short time he got a few more
houses, land followed, and .... in the second generation his descendants
were squires, and parsons, and justices of the peace."
At the north end of what is now the Marina — for Deal is
stretching out to the sand-hills on the north and to Walmer
on the south — used to stand Sandown Castle, one of the series
built along the coast in the time of Henry VIII., when the
condition of affairs on the Continent was such as to bring in-
vasion of England within the range of probabilities. Sandown,
now a thing of the past, is mainly memorable as having been
the final scene of incarceration and of the death of Colonel
John Hutchinson, that one of the heroic band of regicides
who lives immortal in the biography written by his wife.
Hutchinson's principal achievement was his stubborn defence of
Nottingham against the Royalists. Though he had made
submission to the restored Charles II. he was soon imprisoned
on a specious pretext and about four months before his. death
(Sept. ii, 1664) was removed to the ruinous and unhealthy
castle on this shore. Lucy Hutchinson, who had sought per-
mission unavailingly to share her husband's imprisonment, took
lodgings in " the cut-throat town of Deal," as she stigmatised it,
and had to walk daily to and from the castle, but she was
vi A FEMALE CRICHTON 137
away at the Nottinghamshire home when he died, leaving as
his last message to the wife who had shared his fortunes : " Let
her, as she is above other women, show herself in this occasion
a gooil Christian, and above the pitch of ordinal)' women.''
Of the biblical monument which she raised to her husband's
memory — not published until nearly a century and a half
after his death — Green neatly says "the figure of Colonel
Hutchinson stands out from his wife's canvas with the grace
and tenderness of a portrait by Van Dyck."
Hutchinson had something of the taste of the virtuoso and
we learn from bis wife that while imprisoned here at Sandown,
" When no other diversions were left him he diverted himself
with sorting and shadowing cockle-shells, which his wife and
his daughter gathered for him, with as much delight as he used
to take in the richest agates and onyxes he could compass,
with the most artificial engravings." There is something
pathetic in the man of action in the prime of life — Hutchinson
was not fifty at his death — thus having to occupy himself with
the childish occupation of sorting shells.
At Deal was born in 1 71 7 Elizabeth Carter, a notable worthy
in eighteenth century literary circles, a lady who did two
remarkable things in that she gained commendation of her
learning from Samuel Johnson and in that she made a sum of
one thousand pounds through a translation of Epictetus. By
extraordinary perseverance she is said to have mastered Latin,
Greek, Hebrew, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Portuguese
and Arabic, and besides such linguistic attainments " she took
a great interest in astronomy, ancient and modern history, and
ancient geography, played both the spinnet and German flute,
and worked with her needle to the last days of her life " ! That
Mrs. Carter — the eighteenth century gave the courtesy title to
spinsters of mature years — was no mere blue-stocking we learn
from a famous remark of Johnson's : " My old friend Mrs. Carter
could make a pudding as well as translate Epictetus from the
Greek and work a handkerchief as well as compose a poem/'
The greater part of the good lady's long life was spent in her
native town — with excursions to London and the Continent —
but her house has long since gone. Though she died in her
eighty-ninth year while on a visit to London and was buried
there, a monument was duly erected to her memory in Deal
Chapel, of which her father had been perpetual curate.
138 ,: THAT FATAL TOWN" chap.
A mile south of Sandown, but well within the town, is Deal
Castle itself, another of the Tudor defences, which have been
described as glorified blockhouses, and one still in use as a
residence, set in a hollow near the shore and looking now
rather like a superior piece of castle building erected by some
giant children at play and left untouched by any tide but that
of time, than a place for preventing the landing of an enemy.
Deal Castle lacks the associations of the passed Sandown or of
its neighbour at Walmer, another survivor from the times of
Tudor panic or prevention policy.
When some two centuries ago a great storm swept the coun-
try and did more damage than the great fire of London of a few
years earlier, the townspeople of Deal gained an unenviable
notoriety. Hundreds of shipwrecked mariners — a thousand
according to Defoe — had reached the temporary safety of the
Goodwin Sands but the Deal boatmen would not put off to
their rescue, contenting themselves with gathering from the
waters floating valuables and leaving the men to drown with
the next tide. Well might Defoe, the historian of the Great
Storm, write
" If I had any Satire left to write,
Could I with suited spleen indite,
My verse should blast that fatal town,
And drown'd sailors' widows pull it down ;
No footsteps of it should appear,
And ships no more cast anchor there.
The barbarous hated name of Deal shou'd die,
Or be a term of infamy ;
And till that's done, the town will stand
A just reproach to all the land."
The charge of inhumanity has long since lost any point, and
the men of Deal, picturesque loungers about the old capstans
along the shore as they seem on a sunny afternoon, are when
roused by storm ready and daring in their efforts to succour
unhappy vessels driven on the Goodwins.
" Full many lives he saved with his undaunted crew,
He put his trust in Providence, and cared not how it blew."
This epitaph on a Deal worthy might be applied to many of
his fellows, ever ready to launch their boat to the rescue of
those in peril on the sea.
Walmer has become a kind of southern suburb of Deal, and
vi WALMER CASTLE 139
Walmer Castle, partly hidden by trees and climbing ivy so that
it seems a massive bower of greenery fronting the sea, is a few
hundred yards from the shore at the point where the chalk cliff
runs down to the level ground. A range of massive, squat build-
ings, trimly ivy-clad to the tops of their castellations and masked
on either side by trees, such is the old time seat of the Lord
Warden of the Cinque Torts, the ornamental representative of
that Count of the Saxon Shore on whom in past times so
much depended. Within a century the sinecure office of
Lord Warden was held by William Pitt, the great Duke of
Wellington, W. H. Smith, M.P., and the present Lord Curzon.
Now it is held by the Prince ol Wales, and the Castle is not
occupied but has become a show place where may be seen
many things recalling to memory the notable Wardens, and
especially those most notable of them all, William Pitt and the
great Duke of Wellington. It was while Pitt was residing at
Walmer Castle in 1802 that his birthday was celebrated by a
dinner for which occasion Canning wrote his song " The Pilot
that weathered the Storm." In the following year the" pilot"
was accompanied to Walmer by his niece the eccentric Lady
Hester Stanhope, and it was perhaps here that she retorted on
one of the minister's supporters who had made an unfortunate
remark upon a broken spoon being on the table, " Have you
not yet discovered that Mr. Pitt sometimes uses very slight and
weak instruments to effect his ends ? " It was only during the last
three years of his life that Lady Hester Stanhope lived with her
illustrious uncle, but she should be gratefully remembered by
visitors for having planned the gardens. Pitt himself had the
protecting plantation of beech and other trees formed, while
about the grounds are pointed out various notable individual
trees— the willow, originally a branch from the tree by Napo-
leon's grave in St. Helena, the lime under which Napoleon's
conqueror was wont to sit in the evening of his days, an acacia
said to have been planted by Queen Elizabeth and various
others with similar personal association with departed great-
ness.
Pitt was the last Warden of the Cinque Ports on whom it
fell to make preparations to repel a possible invader. When
the massing of "Napoleon's banners at Boulogne" made
it appear likely that the long- continued warfare was to cross
the Channel Pitt organised and reviewed a large body of volun-
140
THE GREAT LORD WARDEN chap.
teers drawn from the Cinque Ports and their " limbs " and
busied himself in promoting" works of coast defence generally ;
his Martello Towers along the southern part of our county
will be visited later on. Here, too, when Nelson's fleet lay
in the Downs, it is said that the great seaman came to confer
with Pitt in a room that is one of those pointed out as marked
by historic associations.
Wellington became Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in
1829 and frequently resided at Walmer Castle thenceforward
until his death on September 14, 1852. The great soldier
is indeed the Warden who has left the stamp of his personality
most strongly on the place, who is best remembered in
anecdote. " The gaunt figure of the old Field-Marshal " had
been familiarised by over twenty years' residence when
" In the night, unseen, a single warrior,
In sombre harness mailed,
Dreaded of man, and surnamed the Destroyer,
The rampart wall had scaled.
He did not pause to parley or dissemble,
But smote the Warden hoar ;
Ah ! what a blow, that made all England tremble,
And groan from shore to shore."
Longfellow's tribute to The Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports
is a literary failure when contrasted with Tennyson's noble Ode
on the Death of the Duke of Wellington, one stanza at least
of which we may recall when visiting the place with which
the story of his old age is indissolubly associated. For years
he had been here — most appropriately appointed of all the long
line of Wardens — within sight of the country of that sinister
" World- Victor " whom he had conquered :
"Mourn, for to us he seems the last,
Remembering all his greatness in the Past,
No more in soldier fashion will he greet
With lifted hand the gazer in the street.
O friends, our chief state-oracle is mute :
Mourn for the man of long enduring blood,
The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
Whole in himself, a common good.
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Vet clearest of ambitious crime,
Our greatest yet with least pretence,
Great in council and great in war,
Foremost captain of his time,
VI
THE CHANGING C0AS1
141
Rich in saving common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.
O good gray head which all men knew,
O voice from which their omens all men drew,
O iron nerve to true occasion true,
O fall'n at length that tower of strength
Which stood four-square t<> all the winds that blew !
Such was he whom we deplore.
The long self-sacrifice of life is o'er.
The great World-victor's victor will be seen no more."
.„•.
WJi
i ,V^^l^rv,
St. Margaret's Bay.
Inland and soutliwards from Walmer the chalk cliffs rise
with some suddenness, and the whole aspect of the shore has
changed when we reach the small village of Kingsdown, partly
built upon the beach and partly up a narrow lane through the
hills — steep almost as the main street of Cornish Clovelly.
Beyond Kingsdown is the bold precipitous chalk cliff leading
to Hope Point, beyond which again nestles St. Margaret's Bay.
From the chalk heights here we see inland the rolling hills,
beautiful with corn, and northwards the whole tract of low
i42 THE GREAT STORM chap.
country to Thanet — the tract from which the Roman legions,
the Saxon invaders, and then the Christian missionaries succes-
sively found their way into the country. Seawards we are
looking across the Downs — the Piccadilly of the sea, as it has
not very happily been named — to the Goodwin Sands : the
Downs famous in our annals as a naval rendezvous, the Sands
notorious for centuries for their heavy toll of wreckage and lost
life.
" All in the Downs the fleet lay moored "
sang the poet who told of the romantic attachment of Black-
eyed Susan for her William, and this roadstead has long been
famous for its comparative safety in time of storm, the force of
the waters being broken by the great stretch of the Goodwin
Sands. Roughly speaking, the Downs extend from the North
Foreland in Thanet to the South Foreland in the neighbour-
hood of Dover, and afford an anchorage extending about eight
miles by six. In the great storm of November 26, 1703, the
shipping in the Downs suffered terribly — as might be gathered
from the fact already recorded of the barbarity of the Deal folk at
that time. The great south-western gale swept men-of-war and
merchantmen from their anchorage on to the Goodwins, and
the loss could not be properly computed. According to Defoe
thirteen ships of the Navy, and probably nearly two thousand
men, were among the lost. The following letter, " coarse and
sailor-like," was written by a sailor of H.M.S. Shrewsbury, and
suggests something of the horror of the scene : —
Sir, — These lines I hope in God will find you hi good health ; we are all
left here in a dismal condition, expecting every moment to be all drowned :
for here is a great storm, and is very likely to continue ; we have here the
real admiral of the blew in the ship call'd the Mary, a third rate, the very
next ship to ours, sunk, with Admiral Beaumont, and above 500 men
drowned : the ship call'd the Northumberland, a third rate, about 500 men
all sunk and drowned : the ship call'd the Sterling Castle, a third rate, all
sunk and drowned above 500 souls : and the ship call'd the Restoration, a
third rate, all sunk and drowned : these ships were all close by us which I
saw ; these ships fired their guns all night and day long, poor souls, for
help, but the storm being so fierce and raging, could have none to save
them : the ship call'd the Shrewsberry, that we are in, broke two anchors,
and did run mighty fierce backwards, with 60 or So yards of the sands, and
as God Almighty would have it, we flung our sheet anchor down, which
is the biggest, and so stopt : here we all pray'd to God to forgive us our
sins, and to save us, or else to receive us into his heavenly kingdom.
If our sheet anchor had given way, we had been all drown'd : but I
VI CRICKET ON THE GOODWINS 143
humbly thank God, it was his gracious mercy that saved us. There's one,
Captain Fanel's ship, three hospital ships, all split, some sunk, and most of
the men drown'd.
There are above 40 merchant ships castaway and sunk : to see Admiral
Beaumont, that was next us, and all the-restof his men, how they climbed
up the main mast, hundreds at a time crying out for help, and thinking to
save their lives and in the twinkling of an eye, were drown'd : I can give
you no account, but of these four men-of-war aforesaid, which I saw with
my own eyes, and those hospital ships, at present, by reason the storm hath
drove us far distant from one another : Captain Crow, of our ship, believes
we have lost several more ships of war, by reason we see so few ; we lye
here in great danger, and waiting for a north-easterly wind to bring us to
Portsmouth, and it is our prayers to God for it ; for we know not how soon
this storm may arise, and cut us all off, for it is a dismal place to anchor in.
I have not had my cloaths off, nor a wink of sleep these four nights, and
have got my death with cold almost.
Yours to command,
Miles Norcliffe.
Fortunately the terrible incident stands alone, and though
there have been many wrecks on the Goodwins since, and many
disastrous storms, there has been nothing nearly so calamitous
to record as the great storm of 1703. Most of us visiting this
bit of the coast know the Downs as a brilliant strip of sea with
an ever-passing procession of shipping, from grey war vessels
and swift ocean-going liners to white or red sailed yachts and
brown-sailed fishing boats, but when out at sea the stormy
winds do blow, and much shipping has sought the shelter of
the Downs, it is a memorable sight.
On the Goodwins at low tide it is possible to land on parts of
the long extent of sands ; indeed, cricket has been indulged in
on them by some zealous folk ; other parts are quicksand, in
which, it is said, wrecked vessels rapidly disappear. It has been
suggested that where the sands now extend was at one time an
island, such as Thanet, and that this has been worn away by the
sea, but it wrould be curious if at the same time that the sea was
retiring from the Stour Valley it should have been eroding the
coast so markedly in the immediate neighbourhood. The legend
associating Tenterden Steeple with the swallowing up of certain
lands of Earl Godwin, and thus with the forming of the God-
win or Goodwin Sands may be better considered at the
western town. An old tradition declared that beneath the
waters in the neighbourhood of the sands could be seen remains
of Earl Godwin's castles and towns. But such tradition is not
144 THE WATER POET CH. VI
uncommon on various coasts ; it is to be met with off
Chichester, in the neighbouring county.
The quaint old versifier, John Taylor, known as the Water
Poet, who had, it must be admitted, but a pennyworth of poetry
to an unconscionable quantity of water, made A Discovery by Sea
from London to Salisbury, and early in his tremendous voyage
he had the unpleasant experience of grounding on the Good-
wins. A single shrimper, however, sufficed to do the work of
a lifeboat crew : —
" Till near unto the haven where Sandwich stands,
We were enclosed with most dangerous sands ;
There were we sous'd and slabber'd, washed and dashed,
And gravel' d that it made us half abash'd :
We look'd, and pry'd, and stared round about,
From our apparent perils to get out ;
For with a staff as we the depth did sound,
Four miles from land, we almost were on ground,
At last, unlook'd for, on our larboard side
A thing turmoiling in the sea we spy'd,
Like to a merman : wading as he did,
All in the sea his nether parts were hid,
Whose brawny limbs, and rough, neglected beard,
And grim aspect made half of us afeard ;
And as he unto us his course did make,
I courage took, and thus to him I spake :
' Man, monster, fiend or fish, whate'er thou be,
That travelest here in Neptune's monarchy,
I charge thee by his dreadful three-tined mace
Thou hurt not me or mine in any case ;
And if thou be'st produced of mortal kind,
Show us the course how we some way may find
To deeper water from these sands so shallow
In which thou seest our ship thus wash and wallow.'
With that, he (shrugging up his shoulders strong)
Spake (like a Christian) in the Kentish tongue.
Quoth he, ' Kind sir, I am a fisherman,
Who many years my living thus have won
By wading in these sandy troublous waters
For shrimps, whelks, cockles, and such useful matters,
And I will lead you (with a course I'll keep)
From out these dangerous shallows to the deep.'
Then (by the nose) along he led our boat,
Till (past the flats) our bark did bravely float.
Our sea horse, that had drawn us thus at large
I gave two groats unto, and did discharge."
Which cannot be regarded as extravagant salvage.
CHAPTER VII
DOVER AND NEIGHBOURHOOD
Following our coast on from the point at which we looked
back over the low land and out over the Downs and the
Goodwin Sands, we have a choice of routes. At low tide the
venturesome can easily get round Hope Point by the shore, a
way I have not tried ; pedestrians who prefer grand views over
land and sea may follow the cliff roads and footpath over the
short turf of the chalk heights, with some steep climbing well
repaid by the extensive views, by the beautiful air and by the
ever-singing larks, which accompany us unceasingly all round
the coast, and perhaps by a glimpse of some of the sea-birds
that make their home here. Cyclists will do well to follow the
main road by Ringwold, and from the neighbourhood of its
church, with a singular minaret-shaped turret, to look back
over the sloping valley to the sea. From Ringwold there is a
beautiful footpath over the Lynch and the Free Downs — about
the parish rights over which there has recently been some
trouble — to the village of St. Margaret's, or St. Margaret's at
Cliff as it is sometimes named. If the main road is followed—
an up and down hill course through a well-wooded tract — we
turn to the left in the neighbourhood of Martin Mill to reach
the most retired of our seaside places.
St. Margaret's, the village from which the justly celebrated
little bay takes its name, is perched high on the downs a
mile or so from the sea, but the exploiting of the beauties of
the bay will perhaps at no very distant date link the two
villages together. At present St. Margaret's is the 'church
town,' as they say in Cornwall, of St. Margaret's Bay. At the
L
146
ST. MARGARET'S VILLAGE
CHAP.
foot of the hills, on a scanty plot of ground is a group of
houses, on the top are large hotels and a coastguard, while away
over the swelling uplands are to be seen — the shadows of
corning events — notices as to eligible building sites, markings
as of roads in posse. The possible St. Margaret's Bay is,
however, a thing of speculation, and probably not of the near
future ; the actual St. Margaret's Bay is one of the pleasantest
and most retired spots on our coast, over two miles from its
Norman Church, St. Margaret's.
railway station at Martin Mill. It has indeed no parallel in
Kent. A long flight of broad, shallow steps, a wide steep
road and a steeper " zig-zag " provide means of getting from the
height to the shore where a few houses and cottages clustered
among trees nestle in almost subtropical warmth. As after
coming from the windswept headland of Hartland Point we
find flowering Clovelly almost too warm, so coming from the
windy open, chalk downs above we find St. Margaret's in a
vil ST. MARGARET'S BAY 147
summer heat. The precipitous face of the cliff where it trends
inward to form the small bay is grown with many trees and
shrubs nearly to the water, giving a luxuriant air to the whole
and contrasting strongly with the bold chalk cliffs standing,
sheerly precipitous, at either horn of the bay. Cliff paths
in either direction pass up over the short turf of the chalk to
Hope Point from which we have come, or to the South
Foreland, the twin light-houses of which show plainly a mile
or so away. Unspoiled as yet it bids fair to become popular
with those who seek a quiet holiday resort, and so perhaps
to get its character changed by the very enthusiasm of the
people who like it as it is.
The South Foreland lighthouses should be visited not only
by those interested in those twinkling points of fire by which the
seaman steers his course, but by all who would appreciate the
more extended view which is to be had from them, with the
endless procession of shipping passing to and from the
Channel. The Foreland cliffs are nearly four hundred feet
above the shore, so that the lights are seen at a great distance
— nearly thirty miles, it is said. The grand cliff footpath walk
which may be followed all the way to Dover is far preferable
to the road. The shore route is not to be recommended unless
to those who like a spice of danger, for it can only be taken
at low water and the precipitous cliffs offer no footing to any-
one who should be caught by the tide. About the chalk cliffs
here may be seen any number of gulls and guillemots, and
occasionally rare sea birds are noted in the neighbourhood.
At Dover, the door or key of England according to the con-
fused similitudinising of one of the translators of Matthew
Paris, we are in a place of mixed memories, a place which
probably fifty people pass through for every one who pauses
there sufficiently long to know much about it. To the traveller
journeying to or from the Continent Dover is but a place for
changing from train to steamer, or steamer to train, and it will
not even be that if the projectors of the new " Ferry " have
their way, for then railway carriages will run straight on board
— it will be but a pausing place while changing from land travel
to sea faring. To such travellers Dover is just a town of call
dominated by cliffside barracks and a castle, a town scattered
about the hollow at the foot of the hills flanked by great cliffs
and rounded downs on either side. The sojourner in Dover
l 2
148
THE DOOR OF ENGLAND
CHAP.
finds that it is something more than that, finds that it is at once
a place of many memories worth recalling and a centre from
which in various directions interesting journeys may be made
by footpath, road or rail. It was to Dover, it will be remem-
bered, that Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette came on their
way to meet the varied experiences which are set forth in
the Tale of Two Cities, and Dover was the place at which, after
his long tramp, little David Copperfield made himself known
to his aunt. It is to Dover that a large proportion of travellers
to and from the Continent come that they may cross the inter-
vening water at its narrowest ; it was Dover that was the port
of connection with Gaul before the coming of the Romans ;
"■•
Dover.
and it was at Dover that Caesar would have landed if the
Britons had permitted. In those distant days the sea penetrated
some distance inland along the small valley of the stream, the
Dour, from which the town takes its name but now the creek
has got silted up, what level ground there is having been utilised
for building houses and docks. Now the town is protected by
the great naval harbour works still in construction. Beyond
Sandwich we might have seen the huge concrete blocks made
for these works, each single block the size of the railway truck
on which it was borne ; as many miles west of Dover may be
observed the gathering of the shingle used for the same purpose.
The great stretch of the harbour needs to be looked at from
VII
"THICKSET WITH TOWERS"
149
above for the proper appreciation of the magnitude of the under-
taking—from either the Castle Hill or from the western heights
towards Shakespeare's Cliff. From any of these bold eminences,
too, we have a fine view of the town, and a glimpse of the
French coast opposite.
Most sojourners in Dover are first drawn to the Castle, as
they have been for several centuries, for, as in 1597 the young
German lawyer named Paul Hentzner wrote, " upon a hill, or
rather rock, which on its right side is almost everywhere a
precipice, a very extensive castle rises to a surprising height,
SSjfk*
Dover Castle, Town ami Harbour from the Railway.
in size like a little city, extremely well fortified, and thickset
with towers, and seems to threaten the sea beneath." Though
the Romans had an important station here, the only obvious
link with them is in the pharos still standing at the end of St.
Mary's Church in the Castle precincts — companion to one
which probably stood on the opposite hill. Of the Roman
Castle patient archaeologists are hard put to it to trace out
the design, but in the existing edifice with its various towers,
its underground passages, its armouries we have a very fine
specimen of the Norman Castle, with however, of course,
many modifications during modern times. From the top of
150 DOVER CASTLE chap,
the Keep we may get yet another splendid view, embracing a
goodly stretch of the French coast as well as of the British
cliffs to the north and west ; may see the coasts-linking
steamers reduced to toy dimensions in perspective cutting
their way across the Channel, and the trailing smoke of other
vessels showing where the narrow seas lead onward to the
ocean.
From the earliest times, from the days when the Romans
erected the pharos to guide their vessels to the nearest point
of land from Gaul, Dover has been the scene of momentous
arrivals and departures innumerable. Here for many centuries
England has welcomed the coming and speeded the parting guest.
Sometimes there has been a dramatic touch in the welcome,
as when in 1416 the good Duke Humphrey of Gloucester,
warden of the Cinque Ports and constable of Dover Castle,
welcomed the Emperor Sigismund. According to the story,
he rode into the water with a naked sword in his hand and
obtained from the powerful visitor a promise that if permitted
to land he would neither exercise nor claim any jurisdiction in
England. The scene is illustrated, with other incidents in the
history of Dover, in the windows of the new Town Hall.
The reception reminds us of the way in which the men of
Kent dictated their terms to the Conqueror. Sometimes there
is a touch of humour rather than of purpose about the stories
told of these royal and imperial visits, for it runs that when
Queen Elizabeth came to Dover the worshipful Mayor,
standing on a stool, began a loyal address with " Most
gracious Queen, welcome ': He was allowed to proceed
no further for her imperious Majesty unceremoniously broke in
with : —
" Most gracious fool
Get off that stool."
According to tradition good Queen Bess must have had a
Silas Wegg-like tendency to drop into poetry on the slightest
provocation and to have been particularly fond of dubbing her
loyal lieges fools — the jingle which she is supposed to have
improvised on visiting Coventry ends in the same tenour.
Her judgment as to the capacities of her subjects seems to
have been much the same as that which Carlyle had of his
contemporaries, though in her time it was something less than
vii QUEEN ELIZABETH'S POCKET PISTOL 151
forty millions who were " mostly fools." Another traditional
association of Queen Elizabeth is to be had where in the
neighbourhood of the Castle the visitor is shown a highly
decorated brass cannon twenty-three feet long popularly known
as "Queen Elizabeth's pocket pistol." The gun, really a present
from the Emperor Charles V. to King Henry VIII., was cast
at Utrecht and bears the inscription
" Breeck sevret al mure endewal
Bin ic geheten
Doer Berch en dal boert minenbal
Van mi gesmeten."
which has been Englished :
"O'er hill and dale I throw my ball
Breaker my name of mound and wall."
Dover has had to suffer in olden war-time from its nearness
to the Continent ; indeed, according to Camden, King Arthur
held his Court in the Castle here, and after an absence in
France had to fight the usurping Mordred for his throne. The
tradition is sufficiently strong to account for the names of
Arthur and Guinevere being attached to rooms and towers in
the Castle. Hengist and Horsa are said to have held it,
too, at one time. In the thirteenth century Dover was
the scene and centre of much fighting : when King John did
his best to allow his country to lie at the proud foot of a
conqueror, the Dauphin, in 12 16, with the aid of the barons,
tired of the vacillations of their king, secured the whole
of Kent, except Dover, only to be told by his father that
" unless he had taken Dover Castle, he had not gained a foot
of land in England." Piqued, as we may believe by the parental
reproof, the Dauphin returned from London to besiege Dover.
He had to raise the siege and return to it again with reinforce-
ments from France ; but Hubert de Burgh, the Constable, met
the coming fleet and won a notable naval victory within sight
of his stubbornly brave garrison at the Castle. Towards the
close of the same century Dover was more than once ravaged
by the French at a time when the Cinque Ports' fleet was away,
and later the King established a mint at Dover for the benefit
of the ill-used townspeople; while later still, to hasten the return
152
THE INVINCIBLE ARMADA
CHAP.
of their prosperity, it was enacted that all merchants, travellers
and pilgrims bound for the Continent should embark at the port
of Dover only.
Four centuries later watchers on the cliff about Dover might,
have seen something of another naval engagement, when the
Invincible Armada came up the Channel, followed by Drake
and his sea-dogs. "Never," says Motley, "since England was
England, had such a sight been seen as now revealed itself in
those narrow straits between Dover and Calais. Along that
low, sandy shore, and quite within the range of the Calais
fortifications, one hundred and thirty Spanish ships— the greater
number of them the largest and most heavily-armed in the
Ewell from Kearsnty Station.
world — lay face to face, and scarcely out of cannon-shot, with
one hundred and fifty English sloops and frigates, the strongest
and swiftest that the Island could furnish, and commanded by
men whose exploits had rung through the world." Of the
result of that memorable encounter it is not necessary here to
speak, but it is well that Dover should remember that the two
great fleets— the one to be destroyed, the other to triumph in
signal fashion — were drawn up in battle array within sight of
these high cliffs.
In the town itself we have a comfortable, prosperous-looking
place, rich in story, but without any special features of interest
vii THE COMET OF A SEASON 153
to show. In the graveyard of the old St. Martin's Church was
buried the satiric poet, Charles Churchill, who had died in
Boulogne at the early age of thirty-three. A brave line from
his poem, " The Candidate," served as his epitaph : —
"Life to the last enjoyed, here Churchill lies."
The whole passage may be taken as curiously prophetic of
his burial in a place through which so many thousand persons,
" travel-bound," should pass —
" Let one poor sprig of Bay around my head
Bloom whilst I live, and point me out when dead ;
Let it (may Heav'n indulgent grant that pray'r)
Be planted on my grave, nor wither there ;
And when, on travel bound, some rhiming guest
Roams thro' the Church-yard, whilst his Dinner's dress'd,
Let it hold up this Comment to his eves :
Life to the last enjoy'd, here Churchill lies ;
Whilst (O, what joy that pleasing flatt'ry gives)
Reading my Works, he cries — here Churchill lives."
Little more than half a century after the satirist had been
buried his grave was visited by a notable " rhiming guest," a
keener satirist and a far greater poet — Lord Byron — who wrote
commemorative lines entitled " Churchill's Grave ; a Fact
Literally Rendered " : —
" I stood beside the grave of him who blazed
The comet of a season, and I saw
The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed
With not the less of sorrow and of awe
On that neglected turf and quiet stone,
With name no clearer than the'names unknown,
Which lay unread around it ; and I ask'd
The Gardener of that ground, why it might be
That for this plant strangers his memory task'd,
Through the thick deaths of half a centuiy ?
Thus spoke he, — ' I believe the man of whom
You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,
Was a most famous writer in his day,
And therefore travellers step from out their way
To pay him honour, — and myself whate'er
Your honour pleases : ' — then most pleased I shook
From out my pocket's avaricious nook
154 SHAKESPEARE'S CLIFF char
Some certain coins of silver, which as 'twere
Perforce I gave this man, though I could spare
So much but inconveniently : — Ye smile,
I see ye, ye profane ones, all the while,
Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.
You are the fools, not I — for I did dwell
With a deep thought and with a soften'd eye
On that Old Sexton's natural homily,
In which there was Obscurity and Fame —
The Glory and the Nothing of a name."
The barracks, batteries and military works with which many
parts of the heights about the town are covered and honey-
combed need neither detain us nor move us to the con-
temptuous indignation of a Cobbett, but it is not possible to be
long in or about Dover without being made aware that it is a
garrison town.
To the south-west rises a height which, from some
unknown date, has been called Shakespeare's Cliff, on the
assumption that it is the " horrible steep " referred to in that
wonderful scene in King Lear, in which the blinded Gloucester
seeks to destroy himself, and is pathetically deceived by his
son Edgar. It has been disputed whether the cliff to which
Shakespeare's name is attached was ever seen by him and
whether the description applies to it, but the disputation is
idle in that Edgar is describing a precipice as seen in the
mind's eye and is doing so with intended exaggeration. From
the same spot a few minutes later he pretends to be gazing
upwards —
" Look up a-height ; the shrill-gorged lark so far
Cannot be seen or heard."
The scene is laid in " fields near Dover," and the description is
sufficiently near to satisfy any but the most literal. Whoever
it may be that first identified this cliff with Shakespeare's
scene, the identification has appealed to popular sentiment,
and Shakespeare's Cliff it is likely to remain as long as a
Shakespeare-reading civilization endures. It is a steep climb
up past the coastguard station to the "dread summit of this
chalky bourn" — the top of the cliff is 350 feet above the
sea level — and, despite the quidnuncs, most devout Shakes-
peareans"1 will wish to recall the opening passage of the
memorable scene : —
VII
A GREAT SCENE
155
Gloit. When shall we come to the top of that same hill ?
Edg. You do climb up it now : look, how we labour.
Glou. Methinks the ground is even.
Edg. Horrible steep.
Hark, do you hear the sea ?
Glou. No, truly.
Edg. Why, then your other senses grow imperfect
By your eyes' anguish.
t'ift
._>*sr*^
Shakespeare's Cliff.
Glou.
Edg.
Glou.
Edg.
So may it be, indeed :
Methinks thy voice is alter'd, and thou speak'st
In better phrase and matter than thou didst.
You're much deceived ; in nothing am I changed
But in my garments.
Methinks you're better spoken.
Come on, sir ; here's the place : stand still. How fearful
And dizzy 'tis to cast one's eyes so low !
The crows and choughs that wing the midway air
Show scarce so gross as beetles : half way down
Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful trade !
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head :
156 THE CHANNEL TUNNEL chap.
The fishermen that walk upon the beach
Appear like mice ; and yond tall anchoring bark
Diminished to her cock ; her cock, a buoy
Almost too small for sight : the murmuring surge
That on the unnumber'd idle pebbles chafes
Cannot be heard so high. I'll look no more,
Lest my brain turn and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.
Glon. Set me where you stand.
Ed%. Give me your hand : you are now within a foot
Of the extreme verge : for all beneath the moon
Would I not leap upright.
Glou. Let go my hand.
Here, friend, 's another purse ; in it a jewel
Well worth a poor man's taking : fairies and gods
Prosper it with thee ! Go thou further off ;
Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.
Edg. Now fare you well, good sir.
Glou. With all my heart.
Edg. Why I do trifle thus with his despair
Is done to cure it."
The cliff which Edgar is supposed to have been describing has
three practical interests attaching to it besides its sentimental
association with the name of Shakespeare — through it runs a
railway tunnel three-quarters of a mile long, and through it
(when the English people, as a gallant Admiral has twitted them,
have thrown off fear) will be run the loop tunnel which will take
trains down to the Channel Tube and so to France. Long
talked about, often delayed, the "Tunnel " seems an inevitable
coming event as soon as timid opposition shall have been worn
away, and as at present designed it will start from England in
a great loop beneath this cliff and the neighbouring heights.
The third utilitarian interest attaching to Shakespeare's Cliff is
that at the southern end of the present tunnel may be seen
evidence of the borings that have been made to prove Kentish
coal a matter of consideration. Some of us would find no grati-
fication in the converting of this corner of Kent into a new Black
Country and look with equanimity on the but qualified success
that has been attained. The promoters of the scheme have done
their best to prove that old Lambarde was wrong, for speaking
of Kent he says, " There is no Minerall or other profit digged out
of the belly of the earth here." He had apparently forgotten
that the " minerall " known as Kentish ragstone was largely used
in building Kent's many churches, and that when Westminster
vii A WALK BY THE SHORE 157
Abbey was a-building the King commanded that Kentish stone
was not to be used for any other purpose until the Abbey was
completed.
The road from Dover to Folkestone is variedly beautiful,
passing as it does between sloping chalk hills. Another steeper
and more attractive way takes us up over the cliffs — Shakespeare's
Cliff, Abbot's Cliff — attaining a height of 524 feet before the
sharp descent into Folkestone begins, and yet another way for
those who like the fascinations of shore walking is round by the
foot of the cliffs, one of the most delightful and varied journeys
of the kind to be taken. It is a rough walk of about ten miles
but the views of the successive cliffs, the fallen portions on the
shore, and, as we get nearer to Folkestone, the floriferous
Undercliff and Warren, amply repay the stout walker for the
roughness of the journey. There are, too, several opportunities
of leaving the shore and attaining the heights by steps and zig-zag
paths, should the pedestrian wish for surer footing than the beach
affords, but this stretch is quite unlike any other shore walk
which our county has to offer and is one in which those with
a taste for geology and botany may find much delight. For
those to whom the whole distance is over much a portion
of the shore may be examined, say, from near Shakespeare's
Cliff to the steps known as Peter Becker's Stairs, and the
Warren may be visited from Folkestone.
Inland from Dover lie many pleasant places to be reached by
those in search of open hilly fields, pleasant footpaths and rustic
lanes. Northwards by the Castle Hill we may go on, passing near
the place where the extensive buildings of the transplanted Duke
of York's School are being erected on a grand and healthy height,
and so to Guston, Whitfield and East and West Langdon,
villages situated on high ground which boast of being so healthy
that they have long been celebrated as places inhabitants of
which have attained great longevity. From West Langdon a
pleasant up and down road through corn and clover takes us
by a small place rejoicing in the name of Little America, and
really the small homestead set in a clearing backed by trees
and fronting the " rolling " farmlands so suggests the new world
that it is easy to believe American visitors driving out here
from Dover find the place "just cunning." Beyond is the
broad extent of W^aldershare Park with an old-fashioned
Belvidere from the summit of which is to be obtained a mag-
158 SIBERTSWOLD CHAP.
nificent view. An early nineteenth century writer put it thus :
" here might pleasure roam in sylvan scenes, or contemplation
muse on Nature's fairest features ; or thence expand the enrap-
tured thought to worlds of brighter glory, beyond the verge of
this terrestrial orb." Several private roads and footpaths cross
the beautiful park with its grand and varied trees, but the
cyclist finds himself refused admission and if he would see more
than the fringe of the park and would avail himself of the
privilege of climbing the Belvidere he had best leave his cycle
at Eythorne, at the northern corner, near which a footpath gives
access to the park. Malmains Farm in the neighbourhood
perpetuates the Norman family who held Waldershare for the
first three centuries after the Conquest. By the roadside along
the west of the park, by a pleasant strip of beech-trees may
be seen in June many flowers of the beautiful and not very
common white helleborine — one of perhaps a dozen different
kinds of rare and common orchises which may be found about
this Dover district by the patient botaniser. The Undercliff
towards Folkestone is particularly rich in different species of
these fascinating plants.
Reaching the south-western corner of Waldershare Park we
come to one of the most interesting of our churches at Coldred.
The small edifice, dedicated to St. Pancras, is placed within
entrenchments supposed to have been thrown up by the
Romans — several of the churches in this part of Kent are thus
situated — and but for a neighbouring farmhouse stands alone
at some distance from the village, which, according to tradition,
owes its name to Ceoldred, King of Mercia, who came hither
in the eighth century to help the Men of Kent against the
West Saxons.
A couple of miles north of Coldred, past Sibertswold — which
has become corrupted into Shepherds Well — lies the small
village of Barfreston, with a church which will well repay the
visitor, whether he approach it from Canterbury or Dover. It
is equally accessible from either of these places, being some-
thing less than a couple of miles from Shepherds Well station.
According to Sir Francis Burnand, in his amusing Zig-zag
Guide Round and About the Bold and Beautiful Kentish Coast,
I should perhaps say that it is equally inaccessible from both,
for the humorist makes much fun about the difficulty of
reaching Barfreston. That, however, is but the way of the
VII
A BEAUTIFUL NORMAN CHURCH
ISO
humorist, for any walker equal to a journey of three miles or so
can go to and from the quaint church by a pleasant road
partly through open fields, passing on the way some fine old
yew trees, suggesting that this was one of the pilgrim routes
converging on Canterbury.
Detail of South Door of Bar/rest on Church.
Standing on a knoll projecting from the hillside, the tiny
church of Barfreston is a rare specimen of Norman architecture
which must appeal even to those least susceptible to such. Its
beautifully . carved doorway, its rose window, its numerous
carved heads and grotesques take the eye at once, and inside
there are matters no less interesting — wreathed pillars and
160 CHURCH IMPRESSIONS chap.
remains of frescoes. Though restored nearly seventy years ago
the little church is not one of those spoiled in restoration. It
is a place about which to linger, for it shows us more than any
other existing church of the kind the loving work which our
forefathers devoted to their places of worship, even where these
were in but sparsely populated centres, for it does not seem
likely that the village of Barfreston was ever a large one. Now
the little hillside church, in its small God's acre, tells us much
of the distant days — probably the twelfth century — when it was
erected. As Sir Francis Burnand — dropping into seriousness
— says, " To all to whom the tranquil delight of an ancient
church is dear, to all who revel in a daydream, to all who love
to be silent, to ponder, and, undisturbed by verger, by pro-
fessional explainer, or by any other sort of bore, to sit, to rest,
and to be thankful, Barfreston Church on a warm, sunny day
in August offers the very haven where they would be :
' I have been there and still would go.' "
In a quiet, retired church like this, bearing in its every stone
evidence of the deep faith in which it was wrought, set amid
fields on a hillside with nothing but a few quiet dwellings near,
religion seems to wear another aspect than that which it bears
even in an antique pile like Canterbury Cathedral. There it is
the traditions of which we think, of the princes of the church,
of the great tragedy, and of many splendid scenes of which the
edifice has been the centre or background. Here it is as
though the men had built the church as an expression of the
religion which was in them, rather than with any idea of
splendour. There we are made to feel at every turn that we
are in a show place. Here we seem to get nearer to the spirit
which first animated man in the building of churches.
From Barfreston we may return to the Dover and Canterbury
road in the neighbourhood of Sibertswold, and so get back to
Lydden at the head of the short valley of the Dour. It was
perhaps in this neighbourhood, coming from Barham Downs,
that the German traveller, Hentzner, had an unpleasant experi-
ence in a narrow escape from thieves — or ghosts ! He and his
companions had set out on post horses, presumably at night,
for it was two or three o'clock in the morning when they reached
Dover.
vii JACK-A-LANTERNS 161
" In our way to it, which was rough and dangerous enough, the
following accident happened to us : our guide, or postillion, a youth, was
before with two of our company, about the distance of a musket shot ; we,
by not following quick enough, had lost sight of our friends ; we came
afterwards to where the road divided ; on the right it was downhill and
marshy, on the left was a small hill : whilst we stopped here in doubt,
and consulted which of the roads we should take, we saw all on a sudden
on our right hand some horsemen, their stature, dress and horses exactly
resembling those of our friends ; glad of having found them again, we
determined to set on after them ; but it happened, through God's mercy,
that though we called to them, they did not answer us, but kept on down
the marshy road at such a rate, that their horses' feet struck fire at every
stretch, which made us, with reason, begin to suspect they were thieves,
having had warning of such ; or rather, that they were nocturnal spectres,
who, as we were afterwards told, are frequently seen in those places :
there were likewise a great many Jack-a-lanterns, so that we were quite
seized with horror and amazement. But fortunately for us our guide soon
after sounded his horn, and we, following the noise, turned down the left-
hand road, and arrived safe to our companions ; who, when we had asked
them if they had not seen the horsemen who had gone by us, answered,
not a soul. Our opinions, according to custom, were various upon this
matter ; but whatever the thing was, we were, without doubt, in imminent
danger, from which that we escaped, the glory is to be ascribed to God
alone."
I have not seen Hentzner's " spectres " in the neighbourhood
on day-time visits, — perhaps those interested in psychical
research might have better luck at night, for man is a more
timid creature in the dark and spooks are mostly born of dark-
ness and timidity.
Lydden, scattered along the roadside in a hollow of the chalk
hills, is between the fourth and fifth milestones from Dover.
Those who like the highway may follow the course of the Dour
to its outlet at the town to which it gives a name. Doing
so we pass through Ewell where King John retired from Dover
after disgracefully resigning his crown into the hands of the
Papal Legate, and where the Knights Templars had a resi-
dence. Those who prefer the more alluring byways and heights
have choice of the hills north and south. North, by a steeply
rising unfenced road fringed with the pale yellow rock-rose —
with a glimpse into the deep railway cutting and the mouth of
the tunnel— leads to Coldred ; while south-westerly a pleasant
lanes goes to Alkham, pleasant, that is, for those who like the
varied ups and downs of the chalk hill country. Enquiring
the way on my first visit to this retired village I was
told at Lydden "it is about two miles — it will take you
M
162 THE HAPPY VALLEY ch. vn
half an hour." "But I have my bicycle," I objected. "Oh,
yes, I know," came the retort, "but it'll take you quarter of
an hour to push it up, and another quarter to get it down."
This was fairly accurate, though there is a short level stretch at
the top. The descent into Alkham is by a beautiful, steep,
partly grassy and overshaded lane, and arrival in the village
reminds one of arrival in some Swiss hamlet. Indeed, if
Alkham were not so near to home it would surely attract many
visitors. It is a small place, the houses scattered about the
hillsides in a little Happy Valley with lovely country meadows,
woodlands and lanes on every side ; with some of the cottages
so perched on the hillside that the gardens are laid out terrace-
wise. For those who like a quiet country village Alkham will
be found one of the most fascinating that our county, despite
its richness in such, can offer ; it needs no old associations, no
traditions, its beauty is all-sufficient and is such as to draw us
again and again, to live in our memory as a haunt of ancient
peace. About midway between Alkham and Dover and visit-
able from either are the remains of St. Radigunds Abbey (some-
times called Bradsole Abbey) a twelfth century establishment.
The fine gateway has unfortunately suffered from " restoration "
but the ruins, largely incorporated in farm buildings, will well
repay the visitor not only on account of their extent but as
showing how in days when men are not supposed to have
studied the picturesque in scenery the monks yet frequently
fixed the sites of their places where beautiful country lay before
their eyes. A pleasant footpath may be followed from the
Abbey to Copt Hill and thence the open road be taken back to
Dover, " inhaling great draughts of space " as the poet of the
open road has put it.
CHAPTER VIII
FOLKESTONE AND HYTHE
Though the older streets of Folkestone possess yet some
of the attractiveness of the old-time fishing village, and though
the town is advertised as one of the " beauty spots " of England,
its attractiveness to some of us lies less in itself than in its being a
centre whence may be made many excursions to places of interest
and of most varied beauty. Yet there is a beauty about the
panorama of the town approached by road either from the
summit of the hill as we reach the declivity down which the
way from Dover twists, or from the north, where the road
through the opening between the conical Sugar-Loaf Hill and
Caesar's Camp gives a wide view of the valley on the sea side
of which the red-brick town is clustered. Approached thus,
Folkestone is really beautiful, the more sudden entry between
the bare downs made by the railway gives quite another
impression. So steep are the sides of the conical hill and of
the broader Caesar's Camp that the small boys butterfly hunting
on them look as though their footing must be most precarious,
and the nervous observer expects momently to see them roll
over and over until stopped by the hedges below. The
cattle seem to be emulating the surer-footed goats as they
walk along narrow paths which they have made to and fro
along the side of the hill until the whole front of Caesar's
Camp looks as though cut into a series of tiny grassy terraces.
The view from Caesar's Camp — which is by some authorities
believed not to have been a camp of Julius Caesar's, though
admitted that it may have been formed by one of his successors
— is a magnificent one across the downs east and west and
M 2
164
CESAR'S CAMP
CHAP.
over green fields, and the pleasant orchards cf Cherry Garden
Valley to Folkestone and Sandgate and the hills about Hythe,
Fishermen's Quarter, J-'olkestone.
with a mile and a half in front of us the waters of the Channel.
On this high point it is suggested that the Romans probably had
another pharos for the guidance of their vessels crossing the
VIII
A WIDE VIEW
165
narrow seas from Gaul. The road which keeps along the
high ground at the back of Caesar's Camp and its companion
High Strict, Folkestone.
hill offers an ever changing panorama as we go on past the
Folkestone Water Works to Paddlesworth or to where the
Elham Valley begins.
1 66
ENRINGED BY HILLS
CHAP.
Reaching Folkestone we find that its appearance of flat-
ness as seen from the heights was only appearance, for it is
disposed about irregular cliffs at the shore side and is not
without variety. It is a plea-
sant, prosperous seaside town
so favoured by its situation,
facing south and enringed by
hills, that it has won repute
as a mild health resort in our
unpleasanter seasons and as a
holiday place in summer time ;
its streets, its front and its
Lees — or cliff walk — all bear
witness at once to its popu-
larity and to its prosperity,
while down at the harbour
with the coming and going
of the Boulogne steamers—
the French town is dimly
visible in favourable weather
— there is always matter to
attract the lounging idler. Up
on the Lees — to be attained
by a lift from the beach — is
a memorial to Folkestone's
most famous son, William
Harvey, the discoverer of the
circulation of the blood. Har-
vey, quaintly described by
Fuller as the eldest of "a
week of sons," was born April
i st, 1578, and the memorial
was erected to commemorate
the tercentenary of his birth.
The Lees, rough shrub-grown
cliff offering breezy views from
the top and sheltered nooks
below, is a favourite promen-
ade to the west, while to the east round the cliff point to
Eastwear Bay are the greater stretches of the cliff-side Warren,
happy hunting grounds for the botanist, entomologist, fossil
An Alley in Folkestone.
VIII
HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS
167
hunter, and geologist — where the botanist may depend upon
finding various specimens of the orchis family.
Folkestone from the Harbour.
An ancient place with Csesarean and Saxon traditions and
a "limb" of the Cinque Port of Dover, Folkestone as we
see it to-day is quite modern. Though the building of
168 FOLLOW-MY-LEADER chaf.
" pleasant "houses " was noted in the early part of the nine-
teenth century, though somewhat later it was described as
a place " which its maligners call a fishing town, and its
well-wishers a watering-place," it was not until the opening of
the railway, in 1844, that the town began to gain its modern
repute and the patronage of holiday-makers to any extent. It
had been an important fishery village for a long time, and in
the days when Free Trade had not attained the dignity of
capital letters was a notorious centre for smuggling enterprise.
The old church has many interesting features, including a
window placed there by medical men as a memorial to
Harvey, who used to call his native place the " Montpellier
of England."
It is believed that some human remains found about twenty
years ago were actually those of St. Eanswith, a grand-daughter
of Ethelbert, to whom the church is dedicated. Eanswith had a
nunnery here, but Danish ravages and the encroaching sea played
havoc with the oldest Folkestone, over the history of which
historians fumble and theorise. Near St. Eanswith's Church
stood Folkestone Castle, supposed to have been founded by
Ethelbert's son Eadbald, a reactionary prince who reverted
from Christianity to heathenism "and in the old heathen
fashion took his father's wife for his own." The Kentish men,
according to Green, followed Eadbald to the altar of Woden
as readily as they had followed Ethelbert to the altar of Christ,
but Eadbald's daughter Eanswith was to found a nunnery
here — the first religious house for women in England — gain
canonisation and become a kind of patron saint of Folkestone.
A small church dedicated to her will also be found in the
marshland to the west.
Folkestone has given its name — in some parts of our county
— to heavy rain-clouds, which are known variously as " Folke-
stone girls," " Folkestone lasses," and " Folkestone washer-
women " ; why the womenfolk of the place should have come to
be specially identified with the rain-clouds driving in from the sea
is not recorded. The way in which the phrase is used would
make plain to the hearer what was meant, but " Folkestone-
beef" might puzzle many people. It is dried dog-fish. These
congeners of the shark — minus their sinister heads and betray-
ing tails — are sometimes sold under plausible aliases to inland
housewives. The dog-fish is a good food-fish, though prejudice
VIII
FESTOONS OF FISH
is against its general use honestly under its own name.
Buckland wrote : —
169
Frank
" Most of the fishermen's houses in Folkestone Harbour are adorned
with festoons of fish hung out to dry ; some of these look like gigantic
whiting. There was no head, tail, or fins to them, and I could not make
out their nature without close examination. The rough skin on their
reverse side told me at once that they were a species of dog-fish. I asked
•rvT-v.
The Old Town, Folkestone
what they were? 'Folkestone-beef,' was the reply. 'What sort of fish
is this ? ' ' That's a Rig. ' ' And this ? ' ' That's a Huss. ' ' And this other ? '
' That's a Bull Huss. ' 'This bit of fin ? ' ' That's a Fiddler. ' ' And this
bone ?' ' That's the jaw of Uncle Owl,' etc., etc.
Here, then, was a new nomenclature ; but I determined to clear up
the matter, so, day after day, when waiting in the harbour for the trawl
boats to arrive, I took down my two volumes of ' Yarrell's British Fishes.'
A class was soon assembled, and turning over the pages one by one, I asked
the name of the fish. In this way I got a curious collection of local
iyo FOLKESTONE BEEF ch. viii
names. I give now only the dog-fish kind. A 'rig' is the 'common
tope,' Yarrell ; a ' bastard rig' is the ' smooth round,' Yarrell ; the ' huss
or robin huss ' is the small spotted dog-fish ; the ' bull huss ' the large
spotted dog-fish ; the ' fiddler' is the angel, or shark ray ; ' Uncle Owl's
jaw ' belongs to a species of skate.
I must here bear testimony to the excessive civility and really gentle-
man-like conduct of the Folkestone fishermen ; at first they were shy of me,
and tried to cram me with impossible stories, etc. ; but we soon became the
best of friends, and I really believe I have made some true friends among
these rude but most honest and sterling men.''
We have seen that at Deal King Henry VIII. built certain
castles with the object of repelling the advances of would-be
invaders. At Folkestone we come to the first of the martello
towers which Pitt designed for the same purpose when Napo-
leon seemed inclined to bring his conquering eagles across the
straits. In the Monthly Mirror of September, 1805, we find :
" The martello towers are at length begun to be adopted by
Government in the neighbourhood of Folkestone. Four of
them are in great forwardness, within a quarter of a mile of the
town, just at the bottom of the hill, where they command the
beach, and cross each other at right angles, so as to produce
great havoc on an invading army." Much fun was poked at
these ugly defences, but they never had to withstand any more
serious enemy. With the great change that has taken place in
matters of warfare, the improvements in gunnery, the towers, of
course, have become useless from a military point of view.
Most of those remaining dotted along the southern coast here
— ugly memorials of something approaching national panic —
are now utilised as holiday residences, not, it is easy to believe,
without certain drawbacks. *
Sandgate — or Sangate as it was termed of old, thus approxi-
mating to the Sangatte of the opposite coast — a little to the
west of Folkestone, is another and smaller pleasant holiday
resort, one that has special attractions in that it lies at the foot
of the hills, along which delightful walks may be had inland,
and from which beautiful views are obtainable. Sandgate
Castle, another of the eighth Henry's buildings, has been so
transmogrified as to have " very little of the masterpiece left."
To the north-west of Sandgate lies the extensive Shorncliffe
Camp, formed first during the Napoleonic scare, and now one
of the most important places of the kind in the kingdom. On
this coast the military are in evidence all along ; from Dover
B
"2
172 A GRIM CRYPT chap.
garrison we reach the famous Shorncliffe Camp ; at Shorncliffe
we are but a short distance from Hythe, with its School of
Musketry and busy rifle ranges by the shore, while towards the
other side of the marsh country we reach Lydd, not only
notable for its Artillery and Engineers' camp, but as having
added a new word to the language in the name of a certain
high explosive. At Sandgate, some years ago, there occurred
a serious landslip, the results of which were for a long time
visible in the broken road and fissured houses.
At Hythe, still further west, we reach the last place in our
county where the hills come down near the coast — westward is
the ever widening stretch of marshland which continues into
Sussex, and, broken only by the small eminence on which Rye
stands, extends onward to the spur dominated by Winchelsea.
Hythe, another of the Cinque Ports, has had its harbour so
silted up that the old hillside town is some distance from the
beach. It is itself successor of the Roman Lemanis — now
Lympne — a port which the retiring sea has left considerably
inland, about three miles to the westward. The " neat and
cheerful appearance " of Hythe, which an old chronicler noted,
is still remarkable. The visitor, either making a stay here or
passing through in leisurely fashion, has several things to attract
his attention. The streets run along the foot and up the slope
of Quarry Hill, the connection of street with street being some-
times by long gradients and sometimes by steps. The old church,
high perched, draws many sightseers to its gruesome " crypt,"
in which are stacked and arranged on shelves the remains —
skulls and a medley of bones — of thousands of people. " They
are supposed to have been the remains of the Britons, slain in
a bloody battle fought on the shore between this place and
Folkestone with the retreating Saxons in the year 456 ; and to
have attained their whiteness by lying for some length of time
exposed on the seashore. Several of the skulls have deep
cuts in them, as if made by some heavy weapon, most likely of
the Saxons." This is but one theory. Anyway, the visitor not
unwilling to look upon things with
' ' an eye
That hath kept watch on man's mortality,"
may see here such an assembly of " poor Yoricks " as has not
many parallels. The squeamish had best stay away. And
yet the very number of the skulls, the very size of the piled-up
VIII
ALAS, POOR YORICK !
173
miscellany of bones, seems to impart a less painful feeling than
the consideration of a single skull. Hamlet himself would
have felt less moved to moralising by a multitude of skulls than
by the famous one turned up at the burial of Ophelia. The
attractiveness of the morbid might inspire a Hervey or a
Zimmermann with an essay — let us into the open again.
Before leaving the church, however, it would be well to visit
£$k
0~<-<-<-4-OW
Hy the from the Canal.
the grave of an Essex worthy buried here- -a worthy whose
name is associated with the hopeful rather than the depressing.
Here is buried Lionel Lukin, a man whose name may not be
widely familiar, but who deserves to be remembered as the first
inventor of the " unsubmergible " lifeboat.
Lionel Lukin who was born at Dunmow — famous for its
porcine rewards for marital forbearance — was a fashionable
174 THE FIRST LIFEBOAT chap.
coachmaker in London in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
He is described as a man of fertile mechanical genius, who, after
various experiments, took out a patent in 1785 for an "im-
proved method of construction of boats and small vessels, for
either sailing or rowing, which will neither overset in violent
gales or sudden bursts of wind, nor sink if by any accident
filled with water." The specification goes on to show that this
is done by fitting "to the outside of vessels, of the common or
any form, projecting gunnells sloping from the top of the
common gunnell in a faint curve towards the water, so as not
to interfere with the oars in rowing, and from the extreme pro-
jection (which may be greater or less, according to the size and
the use which the boat or vessel is intended for) returning to the
side in a faint curve at a suitable height above the water-line.
These projecting gunnells may be solid, of any light material that
will not absorb water, or hollow and watertight, or of cork and
covered with thin wood, canvas, tin, or other light metals,
mixture, or composition. The projections are very small at the
stem and stern, and increase gradually to the dimensions
required." Inside, at stem and stern, and under the seats,
cork or other water-repelling material was also to be used.
Lukin interested the Prince of Wales and various admirals in
his plan, but none of them could be induced to take official
steps to test its utility, so he lent his boat, the Experiment, to
a Ramsgate pilot that it might be tested in rough seas. She
crossed the Channel several times in weather in wrfich other
boats would not venture out, and then disappeared — it being
suggested that she had been confiscated in a foreign port as a
smuggler ! A few years after Lukin had sought to establish his
lifeboat, another inventor built one substantially on Lukin's
lines— and was rewarded with a Parliamentary grant. Lukin
died, and was buried at Hythe in 1834, at the great age of
ninety-two. Besides his tomb in the churchyard, there is a
memorial window in the church.
West and north of Hythe rise well-wooded hills with roads
and lanes leading to many pleasant retired villages set on the
heights and in the hollows of the downs. To the south-west is
the beginning of Romney Marsh, the portion nearest the town,
being given up to rifle-butts, has warning War Office notices
and red flags indicating the danger of walking on it at practice
time. About the flat, shrub-dotted ground may be found an
VIII
PLOTTING MURDER
175
abundance of the cheerful blossoms of the thrift, and along
here rather later, as indeed along most parts of the Kentish
coast, though in some less plentifully, may be found, too, the
striking yellow-horned poppy, the long seed-pod " horn " being
something like that of the plant's Californian cousin, the
eschscholtzia of our gardens. Along the coast, towards Dym-
church, are to be. seen a number of the ugly martello towers.
Just north of Hythe is Saltwood, with its picturesque castle,
in which, according to tradition, there met the four knights —
Reginald Fitzurse, Hugh dc Moreville, William de Tracy and
Richard le Bret — who had stolen privily away from the Court
of King Henry in Normandy to act upon his hasty words : " In
Dymchurch.
the darkness of the night — the long winter night of the 28th of
December — it was believed that, with candles extinguished,
and not even seeing each other's faces, the scheme was con-
certed." Early next day they mounted their chargers and rode
along the Stone Street due north to Canterbury and the
achievement of their murderous resolve.
Though Saltwood Castle dates from the eleventh century,
its fine gate-house was built in the fourteenth by Archbishop
Courtenay. There have been many alterations, some of which
were occasioned during the reign of Queen Elizabeth owing to
that rare visitant in these parts— a destructive earthquake. The
Castle is open to the public once a week and is well worth
visiting for, among other things, the fine view obtainable.
i76 ONE OF THE BLUE STOCKINGS chap.
Beautiful byways may be followed hence to Postling, lying on
the slope against the downs, with — immediately in front of us
as we approach — the noble cluster of trees surmounting Tols-
ford Hill, a landmark plainly visible from the platform of Hythe
railway station and from other points for miles around. On
our way to the small village of Postling, with its interesting old
church, we come to the cross roads known as Postling Vents —
" vent " or " went " is a not uncommon Kentish word
signifying ways.
To the west of Postling on the hillside is the finely situated
Horton Park or Monks Horton. It was at Monks Horton
(sometimes named Mount Morris) that that " handsome, fat,
and merry" creature Elizabeth Robinson, afterwards Mrs.
, '
Postling;.
" Blue-Stocking " Montagu, lived with her parents, and whence
she wrote many of her entertaining letters. Here, at the age
of fourteen, she was party to a " summons " issued to a
neighbouring old bachelor who was " very much our humble
servant, and would die, but not dance, for us."
" Kent.
"To J. B., Esq.
"Whereas, complaint has been made to us Commissioners of Her
Majesty's Balls, Hops, Assemblies, &c, for the county aforesaid, that
several able and expert men, brought up and instructed in the art or
mystery of dancing, have and daily do refuse, though often thereunto
requested, to be retained and exercised in the aforesaid art or mystery, to
the occasion of great scarcity of good dancers in these parts, and contrary
to the laws of gallantry and good manners, in that case made and pro-
vided ; and whereas, we are likewise credibly informed that you,
J. B., Esq., though educated in the said art by that celebrated master
— Lally, senior, are one of the most notorious offenders in this point, these
vin AN OVERTURNED COACH 177
are therefore in the name of the Fair Sex, to require you, the said
J. B. Esq., personally to be and to appear before us at our meeting hoklen
this day at the sign of the Golden Hall, in the parish of Horton, in the
county aforesaid, between the hours of twelve and one in the forenoon, to
answer to such matters as shall be objected against you, concerning the
aforesaid refusal, and contempt of our jurisdiction and authority; and to
bring with you your dancing shoes, laced waistcoat and white gloves.
And hereof fail not, under peril of our frown, and of being from henceforth
deemed and accounted an old batchelor. Given under our hands and seals
this eighth day of October, 1734, to which we all set our hands."
It may be wondered if the " all " comprised Mr. Matthew-
Robinson's whole dozen of sons and daughters.
Two years later the sprightly Elizabeth had to tell of
adventures when Lady T- ■ had bespoke a play at a town
eight miles away (Ashford or Folkestone). After the play
there was supper at an inn and at two in the morning they set
out for their respective homes and " before I had gone two
miles I had the pleasure of being overturned, at which I
squalled for joy, and to complete my felicity, I was obliged to
stand half an hour in the most refreshing rain, and the coolest
north breeze I ever felt ; for the coach braces breaking were
the occasion of our overturn and there was no moving till they
were mended. You may suppose we did not lose so favour-
able an opportunity of catching cold ; we all came croaking
down to breakfast the next morning and said we had caught no
cold, as one always says when one has been scheming, but I
think I have scarce recovered my treble tones yet." Her
letters afford very lively reading, for though she preferred
London to Horton, " Handel and Gaffarelli to woodlarks and
nightingales " (in December !), she found time in the country
for keeping up correspondence with various friends : " here we
sleep with our forefathers and all the acts that we do, which
are to eat, drink, sleep, and die, are they not written in the
Book of the Chronicles ? "
A couple of miles beyond Postling we reach one of the
pleasantest villages among these chalk hills at Lyminge, though
the activity of the modern builder is not improving the interest-
ing old place. The church, and the monastic remains without
it, are full of interest, for Ethelburga who had married the King
of Northumbria and won him to Christianity, returned after
his death to the kingdom of her brother, Eadbald, and founded
her nunnery and built a basilical church here at Lyminge.
N
178 A BEAUTIFUL VALLEY chap.
Ethelburga it is believed utilised in her buildings much of the
material left by the Romans, who appear to have had a noble
villa here, about a mile east of the Stone Street which runs
from Lympne to Canterbury. The church was built by St.
Dunstan in the tenth century and he in turn utilised much of
the material of St. Eadburg's (or Ethelburga's) earlier edifice.
Roman bricks and herring-bone masonry are among the
notable features of a particularly interesting church. The
charters relating to Lyminge which are preserved in the British
Museum are among the earliest and most important that
remain relating to ecclesiastical matters in Saxon times. The
church is happily — as fortunately so many of our old Kentish
churches are, and as all should be — open to visitors every day.
At Lyminge we are in the Elham Vale, and Elham itself lies
a couple of miles further to the north-east. Anciently a
market town Elham has no special attractiveness though it
has given its name to a beautiful valley which breaks through
the chalk here in a southerly direction to Folkestone, and
northerly at the western foot of the Barham Downs towards
Canterbury. In the church is a library bequeathed a century
ago by one Dr. Warley, of Canterbury — a library peculiarly rich
in seventeenth century biblical rarities, and one which no student
of the Civil War period can afford to overlook. Following the
valley southward we come, less than two miles from Lyminge,
to Etchinghill scattered along the roadside. Here the chalk
hills rise rapidly on the east and we have a choice of ways.
Eastward, by about two miles, rising two hundred feet,
through beautiful lanes is Paddlesworth, but southward,
too, there are attractions, for the road goes through Beach-
borough Park, and on an eminence here is a summer-house —
no one journeying to Folkestone by rail can fail to have seen
it — whence a magnificent and extensive view over the country
and sea may be had. Visitors are allowed the privilege of
climbing to the summer-house that they may enjoy the wide
prospect. Beachborough has remained in one family for over
three centuries and in the time of the Civil War the then head
of the family, Sir William Brockman, was one of the Men
of Kent who signed the Petition which led to the Kentish
struggle of 1648, and one of the defenders of Maidstone in
its short contest with Fairfax.
Point after point here might be cited as offering views over
VIII
HILLS AND WOODLAND
179
the country of hills and woodland, with the sea beyond,
views that might have suggested some of Mr. A. C. Swinburne's
wonderful descriptive passages.
" Hills and valleys where April rallies his radiant squadron of flowers
and birds,
Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of fluctuant sea that the
land engirds,
Lyminge.
Fields and downs that the sunset crowns with life diviner than lives
in words. . . .
Higher and higher to the north aspire the green smooth-swelling un-
ending downs ;
East and west on the brave earth's breast glow girdle-jewels of
gleaming towns ;
Southward-shining, the lands declining subside in peace that the
sea's light crowns."
N 2
180 WINDING LANES CH. VIII
Through Newington, with its lofty towered church, and
Cheriton Street, we may follow the valley to Folkestone — with
Caesar's Camp and Sugar-loaf Hill rising boldly on our left,
or taking the second turning to our right after leaving
Newington may go by Cheriton Church along a beautiful
winding road to the sea at Seabrook between Hythe and
Sandgate.
Other villages lie northwards of the strip of coast from
Eastwear Bay to Romney Marsh that we have been sauntering
about in this chapter. There is Paddlesworth, with its Norman
church perched over six hundred feet above the level of the
sea and surrounded by narrow, winding, tree-shaded lanes,
leading in any direction the wanderer listeth. North of
Paddleswrorth a couple of miles or so is beautiful little
Acrise and so by a narrow, unfrequented road through
delightful country of farmland and woodland we may go on
to the Tappington and Denton of our Canterbury district.
Rejoining the main road near Denton Church and turning to
the right we may come back Folkestonewrards over Swingfield
Minnis, or taking the turning beyond the tenth milestone
from Canterbury may go to Swingfield itself and visit the farm
of St. John's with its remains of an ancient chapel. With
respect to the name Swingfield Minnis, it may be pointed out
that Minnis is a Kentish word with various meanings. It is
defined in Parish and Shaw's invaluable Dictionary of the
Kentish Dialect as " A wide tract of ground, partly copse and
partly moor ; a high common ; a waste piece of rising ground."
Swingfield Minnis is no longer common.
Beautiful winding ways through much woodland take us
from Swingfield village to the fascinating little Alkham
described in the previous chapter. From Swingfield, too,
other devious byroads may be taken, — by those who prefer
them to the generally less attractive high roads — through
characteristic chalk down country by Hawkinge — the lonely
church of which was rifled by King John — and by Capel
(Capel le Feme as it is prettily named) to the high Dover and
Folkestone road.
light on the Stour,
C H A P TER I X
ROMNEY MARSH
The flat tract of land stretching from Sandgate on the east
to the Sussex border on the west and practically converted into
an island by the thirty-mile long military canal which begins by
the former place and joins the Rother little more than two
miles to the north-east of Rye, is a place of peculiar fascination.
Of the narrowest between Sandgate and Hythe this tract
broadens out to nearly a dozen miles at its widest and is nearly
half as long again at its longest. Commonly spoken of as
Romney Marsh, it is really divided up under various names —
Romney Marsh, Walland Marsh and Denge Marsh, and on it
will be found some interesting towns and villages, many old
parish churches, some with but very few parishioners, and on
it also is the well-known point of Dungeness. To most people
visiting Dungeness for the first time unprepared there is a
surprise in store — knowing or knowing by repute the chalk
headlands of the North and South Forelands, Shakespeare's
Cliff and Beachy Head, they mostly regard the cape that comes
between the two last named as being of a similar nature. They
find instead a spit of shingle beach running out into the sea—
and growing, they are told, at the rate of a yard or so every
year— flat loose shingle sparsely grown with foot-high shrubs,
1 82
DUNGENESS
CHAP.
spotted in June with golden dabs of flowering broom and
singularly spired over with beautiful foxgloves. The Ness lies
.
j?
TfytJZ
/
±i=*R
ffiiA^crM
Romney Marsh and thz Church at Lympne.
nearly four miles from Lydd, the most southerly town of our
county, and is best approached by the railway which runs from
that town past Lloyd's Signalling Station to the near neigh-
ix A LONELY SHORE 183
bourhood of the massy Dungeness Lighthouse, twenty miles
from the cross-channel light on Cap Grisnez, of the relations
of which lights Mr. George Meredith has sung —
" Where Grisnez winks at Dungeness
Across the ruffled strip of salt."
Lambarde describes Dungeness as "Neshe, called in Saxon
nesse, which seemeth to be derived of the Latine Nasus, and
signifieth a Nebbe or Nose of the land extended into the Sea,"
and he goes on to say " before this Neshe lieth a flat into the
Sea, threatening great danger to unadvised Sailers." It has
always been a notoriously dangerous point for shipping.
Those who prefer pedestrianism will find the walking over the
loose stones more than a little tiring, for the " roads " of the
map are but tracks across the beach. " Backstays," broad
pieces of wood attached snowshoewise to the soles of their
boots, are used by some of the people of the district. Whether
reached afoot or by rail the spot well repays the visitor. It is
quite unlike anything else that our county has to offer
and, whether approached from the woodlands north of the
Marsh or by the road that runs near the sea-front from Hythe,
offers a great contrast to the scenery through which we have
been passing. Near to Lydd large tracts of turnips in full
bloom appear a veritable Field of Gold. But soon the cultivated
fields give place to rough grass and this in turn to the gorse,
broom, foxgloves and other flowers that find sustenance and
flourish amid the stones. Some dotted coastguard stations,
some batteries and two or three isolated houses, along the south
and eastern sides of the Ness are all the buildings besides
those of the signalling station and lighthouse. The railway
station is little more than a shed and tickets taken at Lydd are
collected before we set out upon the brief journey. West of
the station about a couple of miles is an inn, and north-east of
it about a mile is another, so that the visitor spending some
time in this comparative solitude may find refreshment without
having to wait for an infrequent train back to Lydd, or without
having a lengthy walk to the next coastal town — Rye, about ten
miles west, or New Romney, about six miles and a half north.
To the lover of quiet with wind and waves, where his solitude
is little likely to be broken in upon by his fellows, anywhere on
1 84
A LEVEL BEACH
CHAP.
these miles of Denge or Dunge beach may be cordially
recommended. The appearance of the beach is of a level, its
highest point is but twenty feet above the sea. There was at
Lydd.
one time a project for establishing a harbour near Dungeness
but it has not been proceeded with. Should the scheme ever
be carried out and roads make the district accessible it may
well be believed that a bracing holiday resort would spring up
IX LYDD AND LYDDITE 185
about it ; even on summer nights the air here is described as
"hand-cold." The whole of this tract is said to abound in
hares, and is a popular coursing ground, though the loose stones
make poor running for the dogs.
Returning from Dungeness over the beach and marsh to
Lydd we may visit our county's limit by the Holmstone tract,
conspicuous for its holly trees, about a mile and a half from
the town, and thence join the road which runs from Lydd to
the first of the Sussex coastguard stations, and so reach the
former place. Lydd, a pleasant marsh town, is a member of
the Cinque Port of Romney and though the sea has left it two
and a half miles inland it may still be regarded as a fishing
place. The Ripes, or Rypes, pasture-lands running southward
to the stony beach are occupied by a military camp, where
artillery practice is carried on. Indeed the town has given its
name to " Lyddite," the high-power explosive first made here
and the composition of which as now employed in the British
Army is an official secret. Recent experiments with a new
highly powerful explosive are described as " having produced
all the effects of an earthquake for several miles around " —which
suggests that a further deadly " peacemaker " is being perfected
at Lydd.
The handsome church which stands in the middle of the
town, and shows its embattled tower from far off amid trees
as we approach, is interesting not only for its brasses but
because when Thomas Wolsey was ascending his honorous
estate, to use the words of the faithful Cavendish, he was vicar
here, and his ambition might be said to be typified in the way
in which he raised the tower of the church from more
modest dimensions to its present height. In Wolsey's time the
church belonged to Tintern Abbey.
About three miles from Lydd by a winding road, or nearly
a mile less if we take the footpath that leaves the road to the
right little more than half a mile beyond the railway bridge
and crosses the marsh fields, we come to New Romney, a
place the name of which has become something of a misnomer
by the passing of centuries — as the oldest existing roadway
over the river Thames still rejoices in the name of Newbridge.
Where old and New Romney stand — a couple of miles
apart — once ran the River Rother which now reaches the sea
1 86
"AN HYDEOUS TEMPEST"
CHAT.
to the south of Rye, finishing its course wholly through Sussex
instead of through Kent. Its mouth was so silted up at
the close of the eleventh century that New Romney was
established nearer the sea. The change in the Rother's
course is said to have followed a great storm in the time of
Edward I., the road from Romney to Appledore — known as the
Rhee wall — marking the ancient course. Romney or Old Rom-
ney was at one time an important seaport with a goodly harbour,
the resort of much shipping ; but first came the silting up of the
Lydd from Romney Marsh.
Rother Estuary, and then the deflecting of the river's course
to the west and the old Cinque Port fell from its proud
position. It appears to have been a notable place for storms
too for Thomas a Becket when seeking to escape secretly out
of England set sail from this port and could not get away
owing to the great storm raging and (saith Lambarde) " both
the town of Rumney and the Marsh received great harme in
the 8th year of the reign of King Edward the third, by an
hydeous tempest that threw down many Steeples and Trees,
ix A FAVOURABLE COMPARISON 187
and above 300 Mills and Housings here." Now the small
place sleeping quietly inland on the Marsh suggests nothing
of its important past.
This bit of country was compared by Bishop Parry to the
Roman Campagna. In his address in 1879 to the Kent
Archaeological Society, as we read in that rich storehouse of
Kent facts and fancies the Archaologia Cantiana, the then
Bishop of Dover said :
" But take our Roman-ey this Roman Marsh of ours, in one of its
calmer, brighter, happier moods. The sun, let me say, is hasting to his
setting over Fair Light, and the shadows are lengthening out llythe-
wards. A gentle evening breeze rustles peacefully among the flags along
the dyke side. The blue sky overhead was never more blue. Where are
we? Is this Kent? Are we in England at all? Or have we dropped
down somewhere upon the Campagna, outside the walls of Rome? For
lack of a ruined aqueduct your eye rests on the grey wall of Hope or
Eastbridge, or on the solitary arch of Midley. On the one side rises a tall
landmark across the plain, the Campanile of Lydd ; on the other stretches
far away the long ridge of the Alban and Sabine Hills, which folk here-
about call Lympne and Aldington. Rut I know better, for while my
friend the Marsh Rector and I are still arguing the point, there comes
creeping along the road to Ostia (New Romney, he calls it), a heavy
waggon drawn by the wide-horned, mild-eyed, melancholy oxen, which
every Roman artist knows so well."
There is an olden saying which describes the world as being
divided into " Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Romney
Marsh." Why the Marsh, as it is commonly called in South
Kent, was given this position it is difficult to determine, unless
it was meant to suggest its inaccessibility ; if so, nous avons
change font cela. For even the railway has invaded the district,
with its line from Appledore to Brookland, Lydd, Dungeness
and New Romney (or Littlestone-on-Sea). The embanking of
the Marsh by Dymchurch Wall was done at some' early
unknown period, but it has meant the preservation of a con-
siderable tract of valuable corn and grazing land. Cobbett
the agricultural enthusiast said that he had never before seen
such corn as he saw on Romney Marsh, and went on to ask
derisively how long it would be after the end of the world
before the American prairies had anything to show like it. If
his spirit revisits the glimpses of the moon in some miles'
square tract of wheat in Manitoba or Minnesota he must
1 88
WEALTH WITHOUT HEALTH
CHAP.
regret that derision. There is rich, deep earth on which
crops nourish exceedingly so that Romney Marsh, having
the usual drawbacks of marshland as a place for human
habitation, has come to be described as that part of
Kent conspicuous for wealth without health. As Lambarde
puts it, " the place hath in it sundry villages, although
Parish Church, Dymchurcli.
not thick set, nor much inhabited, because it is Hyeme
?nalus, /Estate molestus, Nunquam bonus, Evill in winter,
grievious in sommer, and never good ; as Hesiodus (the
old poet) sometimes said of the Country where his father
dwelt." Here, says the same topographer, anyone shall find
good grass underfoot rather than wholesome air above the
head. That the resident may find. The visitor staying by the
ix A LIBERAL CHARTER 189
shore and going about the small, scattered hamlets, the tree-
embowered old churches and farmsteads, finds die summer air
wholesome enough. In the reign of Edward IV., partly, it is
suggested, owing to the unwholesomeness of the country,
partly owing to the fact that it lay so exposed to attacks from
the sea, Romney Marsh was so suffering from want of inhabitants,
that to allure men to inhabit it the King granted many
privileges.
" Thai the Inhabitants of all the Towns within the limits of Rumney
Marsh should be incorporated by the name of Bayliff, twenty-four Jurates
and Commonaltie of Rumney Marsh in the Countie of A'ettt, having a
Court from three weeks to three weeks, in which they hold plea of all
causes and actions, reall and personal, civil and criminal ; having power
to choose four Justices of the Peace yearly amongst themselves, besides the
Bayliffe, who is armed with the like Authorities having moreover return
of all the Prince's Writs, the benefit of all fines, forfeits and amerciaments,
the privileges of Leet, lawday and toume, and exemption from tolle and
tare, scot and lot, fifteen and subsidie, and from so many other charge.^ as
I suppose no one place within the Realm hath."
However much this Charter with its fascinating legal
terminology may have had an effect in the fifteenth century,
in the twentieth it cannot be said that Romney Marsh — it is
still pronounced Rumney — is in any danger of being over-
populated, some of its twenty parishes having less than a score
of parishioners, while in some, such as Orgarswick, Blackman-
stone and others, the church has lapsed from use. The
winding roads across the marsh from hamlet to hamlet or
village have much of interest lor those who can find pleasure in
flat scenery, diversified, however, by many trees, by plentiful
wild flowers both in the fields and along the dykes — variously
known as dicks, deeks and waterings — by which the whole
marsh is so criss-crossed, that unless with someone who knows
the path it is often better to keep to the quiet road than try
the footpath way. As Tom Shoesmith says in Mr. Kipling's
story of Dymchurch Flit :
"The Marsh is just riddled with diks an' sluices, an' tide-gates, an'
water-lets. You can hear 'em bubblin' an' grummelin' when the tide works
in 'em, an' then you hear the sea rangin' left an' right-handed all up along
the wall. You've seen how flat she is — the Marsh ? You'd think nothin'
easier than to walk eend-on across her ? Ah, but the diks an' the water-
iqo A GIANT OX chap.
lets, they twists the roads about as ravelly as witch-yarn on the spindles.
So ye get all turned round in broad day-light."
How it was that the Pharisees — or Farisies, or fairies — were
all shipped from the Marsh across Channel is told in the same
delightful story in Mr. Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill. The
Marsh was seemingly at one time favoured by supernatural
beings for we have it on the word of Thomas Ingoldsby that
"a Witch may still be occasionally discovered in favourable i.e. stormy
seasons, weathering Dungeness Point in an eggshell, or careering on her
broomstick over Dymchurch wall. A cow may yet be sometimes seen
galloping like mad, with tail erect, and an old pair of breeches on her
horns an unerring guide to the door of the crone whose magic arts have
drained her udder."
The dykes by which the marsh is drained, with their rich
yellow irises, their reeds and sedges and various other aquatic
plants, offer many attractions to the field naturalist and botanist.
The extensive pastures are fed over by large numbers
of sheep — said to be a particularly hardy breed — indeed
the district is said to feed more sheep than any other in
the country of the same extent. There are, too, a goodly
number of cattle dotted about, though fewer, perhaps, than
on the Stour marshes. Says old Fuller, pointing out how the
goodness of the soil of the county generally may be guessed
from the greatness of the Kentish breed where both the cattle
and the poultry are as he puts it allowed the largest of the land :
"A giant ox, fed in Romney Marsh, was some six years since
to be seen in London, so high that one of ordinary stature
could hardly reach to the top of his back." This was probably
the same beast noted by John Evelyn in his " Diary " on
April 29, 1649 : " I saw in London a huge ox bred in Kent,
17 feet in length, and much higher than I could reach." That
some of the farm horses are particularly fine I have seen, remem-
bering especially a magnificent team of four which had taken a
prize early this summer at the Ashford show. Drawing one of
the long old-fashioned wains, and glossily groomed, their
tinkling approach advertised their merit, for the proud carter
had decorated his splendid charges with red cloth tasselled
trappings and tinkling bells. An old marsh man who was
near me as they passed said, " Well, I never. Time was
IX
A QUIET PLACE
191
when all the horses about used to he like that, but it's many
years since I've heard the bells, or seen 'em decked this way."
A Mill on Romney Marsh.
It is a quiet place, for the most part, this small fifth of the
world, even at its largest centres — the points of the greatest
192 DYMCHURCH-UNDER-THE-WALL chap.
liveliness being the musketry and artillery grounds at either end.
The sleepy inland hamlets, the restful looking farms, the old
churches showing among their groups of trees suggest quietude,
and it is pleasant to know from the old proverb, and to gather
from the appearance of the populous pasture, the rich looking
farm lands, that it is associated with comfortable wealth. Follow-
ing the road from Appledore to Romney we may visit some of
the villages on or near the road — -Brookland, on what is techni-
cally Walland Marsh, is worth visiting on account of its Early
English Church with its curiously engraved leaden Norman font
and its massive timber bell-tower, octagonal in shape and
detached from the main building. To this church belongs
a curious story accounting for the detachment of the bell-tower.
It is recorded that considerable laxity was shown in regard to
the marriage tie, and the marriage of maidens was so rare
that on one occasion a maid coming to be married at
Brookland the spire leapt down from the building in surprise
at such an unusual spectacle !
Snargate — where "Ingoldsby " Barham was once Rector — and
Brenzett are both on the Rhee Wall road, and where other
roads go right and left shortly beyond the latter place, to the
right we come to Brookland in about a mile and a half, and to
the left (in about the same distance) to Ivychurch, the
high turreted tower of which is a landmark for some distance
round.
In Dymchurch on the shore, roughly speaking in the middle
of the Marsh front — with martello towers on either side — we
have a place which has some repute as a quiet holiday
resort, though it is being challenged by the new Littlestone-on-
Sea, a seaward expatiation of New Romney, which has the ad-
vantage (or disadvantage, so much depends upon point of view)
of a railway station. Dymchurch, a quiet, scattered village
by the protecting sea-wall — Dymchurch-under-the-Wall as it is
sometimes named — is supposed to have been a Roman station
owing to a number of remains found here over half a century
ago and pointing to the early settlement of parts of the Marsh.
Indeed the great earth Wall which preserves the whole valuable
tract of Romney Marsh, and inside which the Hythe road
runs, is by some theorists said to have been thrown up during
the Roman occupation. Through the wall, which has occa-
ix SMUGGLING DAYS 193
sionally suffered during severe storms in recent years, are the
large sluices by which the Marsh is drained. The quiet village,
which with its open aspect and its broad sands finds favour
as a resort with those people who like a restful rather than
a strenuous holiday, is threatened with a colony of railway-
carriage bungalows made out of the discarded rolling stock of
the Metropolitan Railway ! In bright sunshine Dymchurch,
with its wide sea outlook from the wall, is a delightful place,
far from the madding crowd, and from it as a centre the whole
extent of the marsh can easily be explored from Hythe to
Dungeness by a pedestrian of ordinary endurance; winding roads
and (once mastered) more direct footpaths go in all directions
while inland four or five miles lie the hills which form an
always pleasant background to the Marsh ; hills on which
various landmarks are visible — here the massy church of
Lympne and there the obelisk at Bilsington.
Along the foot of these hills — cutting the marshland from the
mainland — -runs the long Military Canal from east of Hythe
to its junction with the Rother in the neighbourhood of Rye.
This canal, with its pleasant elm-shaded road alongside, has a
quiet charm and much picturesqueness to offer and the walk
along it is one full of attraction to the lover of solitude.
From Hythe to Appledore the pedestrian touches no village
or hamlet, but for rest or refreshment pleasant villages
are always accessible within a short distance on the higher
ground. The canal was formed a century ago for defensive
purposes and owes its existence to the same provocation as
that which brought about the building of the martello towers.
All round our southern and eastern coasts — as we have seen
— we are reminded of the "good old days" of smuggling and
in those days Romney Marsh was especially famous as a law-
defying district. And smuggling, as we saw at Sandwich, was
a " trade " profitable both on the outgoings and the incomings,
there were export as well as import duties to evade, and
the most notable product of the country hereabouts, wool,
was one of the most valuable to the smuggler. As early as the
reign of Edward I. wool was excepted from the " merchandises "
which might be exported, and again and again proclamations
were issued to prevent the passing abroad of this valuable
commodity. Rich flocks fed on the Marsh, yet but small
o
194
WOOL SMUGGLING
CHA1\
proportion of the wool found its way to the home market.
Indeed it is said that the bold men of this part of the county
not only exported their own wool but actually went into the
neighbouring districts and bought up Wealden wool for their
illicit trade. Within two years, at one time, forty thousand
S^rUtuAw*-
Old Roinncy.
packs of Kent and Sussex wool were landed at Calais. This
smuggling had to be carried on in a bold fashion, for wool-
packs were not things which could be easily secreted, but the
men of the Marsh held together — and even found powerful
supporters — so that the revenue officers did not have an easy
time of it. Indeed in 1688 when one of these officers with
ix CHURCHES AS STOREHOUSES 195
a posse of men had captured eight or ten " owlers," as they
were termed, with horses laden with wool, and had taken
them for committal to the Mayor of Romney, that worthy
refused to do more than admit them to bail. As a con-
sequence, when the revenue officers sought rest at Lydd they
were harried hence by the smugglers and their friends and
had to flee pursued by half a hundred supporters of the illegal
traffic, and were we may be sure mightily glad to reach Rye
with whole skins. Smugglers, many stories show the truth of
it, were far more popular with the majority of people than were
the excise officers. Much has been written about the "free
trading " as carried on in the Marsh and the adjacent districts,
the romance of the theme having appealed to several story
writers. The churches it is said were even used as storehouses
for the smuggled goods, horses were borrowed at night from
farmyards — and returned in the early morning with mysterious
presents from the free traders. We can well believe that the
sentiment so admirably put into A Smuggler's Song by Mr.
Rudyard Kipling was a century or two ago that of hundreds of
coast dwellers who could not have put it into words —
" If you wake at midnight and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind or looking in the street,
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by.
Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark —
Brandy for the Parson,
'Baccy for the clerk ;
Laces for a lady ; letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling, while the gentlemen go by."1
Fairfield Church, in a lonely part of the marsh country be-
tween Brookland and Appledore, is said to have been one of
the sacred edifices of which the smugglers made a temporary
warehouse for their goods. This church is dedicated to St.
Thomas of Canterbury from whom Becket's Barn in the parish
presumably derives its name. Snargate Church was another
storehouse for illicit traders. The stories of the coast smugglers
and of the efforts to prevent them would easily fill a volume,
but space may be found to give a portion of an Act of
Parliament passed in the reign of William III. in which it is
ordained that : —
1 " Puck of Book's Hill."
O 2
196 "THE SMUGGLER'S BRIDE" chap.
" Whereas it is a common practise in Romney Marsh and other places
adjacent for evil disposed persons to sheer their sheep and lodge wooll near
the sea-side and sometimes to bring wooll out of the country more remote
and lodge it as aforesaid where by fraud and force in the night time the
said persons do cause the same to be transported to France to the increase
of the trade of that kingdom and the destruction of the trade of England.
To prevent these practices for the future be it further enacted by the
authority aforesaid that all and every owner and owners of wool shorn or
housed laid upp or lodged within ten miles of the sea-side within the
counties of Kent and Sussex shall be obliged to give an exact account in
writing within three days after the sheering thereof of his, her, or their
number of fleeces, and where lodged or housed to the next adjacent port or
officer of His Majesties Customs or the like notice before he, she, or they
shall presume to remove any part or parcel thereof of the said number of
fleeces and weight and the name of the person or persons to whom it
is disposed and the place to which it is intended to be carried and take a
certificate from the officer who first entered the same upon penalty of
forfeiting all such wooll as shall not be so entred or otherwise disposed of
and the owner or owners also to be liable to the further penalties of three
shillings for every pound weight of all such wooll."
Despite all ordinances against it, wool smuggling out of the
country went on for long as merrily as did spirit smuggling in, and
the general liking for a bargain made the smuggling fraternity
as has been said far more popular than the revenue officers.
Turning from law to romance we may recall an olden ballad
telling the tragical story of the " Smuggler's Bride "
"Attention give, and a tale I'll tell,
Of a damsel fair that in Kent did dwell,
On the Kentish coast when the tempest rolled
She fell deep in love with a smuggler so bold.
Upon her pillow she could not sleep,
When her valliant smuggler was on the deep,
While the winds did whistle she would complain,
For her valliant smuggler that ploughed the main.
When Will arrived on his native coast,
He would fly to her that he valued most —
He would fly to Nancy, his lover true,
And forget all hardships he'd lately been through.
One bright May morning the sun did shine,
And lads and lasses, all gay and fine,
Along the coast they did trip along,
To behold their wedding and sing a cheerful song.
Young Nancy then bid her friends adieu,
And to sea she went with her lover true ;
In storms and tempests all hardships braves,
With her valliant smuggler upon the foaming waves.
ix -THE PEDLAR'S SONG" 197
One stormy night, when the winds did rise,
And dark and dismal appeared the skies,
The tempest rolled, and the waves did roar,
And the valliant smuggler was driven from the shore.
' Cheer up,' cries William, ' my valliant wife.'
Says Nancy, ' I never valued life,
I'll brave the storms ami tempests through,
And fight for William with a sword and pistol too.'
At length a cutter did on them drive ;
The cutter on them soon did arrive :
' Don't be daunted. Though we're but two
We'll not surrender, but fight like Britons true.'
' Cheer up,' says Nancy with courage true,
' I will fight, dear William, and stand by you."
They like Britons fought, Nancy stood by the gun,
They beat their enemies and quickly made them run.
Another cutter now hove in sight
And join'd to chase them with all their might ;
They were overpowered, and soon disarmed,
It was then young Nancy and William were alarmed.
A shot that moment made Nancy start,
Another struck William to the heart ;
This shock distressed lovely Nancy's charms,
When down she fell and expired in William's arms.
Now Will and Nancy love bid adieu,
They lived and died like two lovers true.
Young men and maidens now faithful prove,
Like Will and Nancy who lived and died in love."
The ballad writer it will be observed is not troubled by the
illegality of the occupation in which the faithful couple were
engaged — love and the fact that they died together justified all.
Now leaving the Marsh — the picturesqueness and charms of
which grow upon us the better we become acquainted with them
—and setting out for the villages among the hills we may repeat
some appropriate lines, The Pedlar leaves the Bar Parlour at
Dymchurch, by Mr. Ford Madox Hueffer, a poet who has lived
in the district, learned it intimately and sung of it hauntingly.
" Good-night, we'd best be jogging on,
The moon's been up a while,
We've got to get to Bonnington,
Nigh seven mile.
198
"THE PEDLAR'S SONT1 "
CHAP. IX
But the marsh ain'd so lone if you'v heered a good song,
And you hum it aloud as you cater along,
Nor the stiles half so high, nor the pack so like lead,
If you've heard a good tale and it runs in your head.
So, come, we'd best be jogging on,
The moon will give us light
We've got to get to Bonnington
To sleep to-night."
Rawlinson Farm, back view.
(w •
< • — & ■ ''"-■■ ■ '•' t"^? *-€fe
Half-timbered Utilise, Rawlinson Farm, Rolvenden.
CHAPTER X
I.VMPNE TO THE " DENS.
If Romney Marsh lias charms that grow upon us, there is
perhaps even more that is attractive — greater variety of imme-
diate surroundings and the added views — from the hills that
lie close inland from the neighbourhood of Hythe to near
Appledore at the further um\ of the demi-lune. It is a
district of open fields, of flowery edges, of woodland hollows,
and strips of shaws along the fields, of dipping and rising lanes
and small but pleasant villages, with occasional magnificent
views over the wide extent of Romney Marsh. Leaving the
narrow main street of Hythe by a broad and rapidly rising
high road trending inland we may come to this district,
or following the low road by the canal we may reach West
Hythe, the earliest successor as port, it is believed, to its
once important neighbour Lympne, now but a small village.
Inland a short distance from West Hythe there used anciently
to stand Shepway Cross, at which " our Limenarcha " or Lord
Warden of the Cinque Ports was sworn in ; here, too, the
Cinque Port Courts were held in early times. Rather
more than a mile further along are the scattered remains
of Stutfall or Studfall Castle, the Roman castrum of the port
of Lemanis, in a wild and lonely bit of country suited to the
ancient memories it conjures up. The Roman ruins broken
and overgrown as seen here and at Richborough are far more
200
PORTUS LEMANIS
CHAP.
impressive than where such remains are neighboured by modern
buildings.
The hills rise somewhat sharply along this part of our journey,
and before visiting the ruins it is well to see them from
below and to recall that this was in Roman times a port,
either a bay or, as some suppose, the estuary of the Rother
which it is thought may have flowed out here before it took to
erratic ways. Archaeologists have discussed the matter with
various theories, and readers who would learn further details of
these Roman remains — Reculver, Richborough, and Lympne
— should read the book on the subject, published in 1850 by
Lympne Castle.
Charles Roach Smith, referring for later researches to the
rich volumes of the Archceologia Cantiana. Here we must be
satisfied with a glimpse at the ruins, greatly changed it must
be remembered by landslips during the many centuries that have
elapsed since the last of the Romans left this outpost of their
empire. Now high and dry some miles inland it is difficult to
realise that Lympne was one of the great keys of Britain, equal
in importance to Dover and Richborough. It is curious
that a corruption of the Roman " Portus Lemanis " should
remain in Lympne on the heights above, but that the cast-
x FAIR ROSAMOND'S TOWER 201
ruin itself should have taken on the new name of Stutfall or
Studfali.
Lympne Castle, nowadays, means not the older Roman
castrum, but the comparatively new place close to the church
on the brow of the hill above, forming with the church a
remarkable pile which serves as a notable landmark miles
away in the marshes. This castle — long degenerated into a
farmhouse — was built in the reign of Henry V., and may have
succeeded a Norman watch-tower. Now it is being largely
added to by a new owner, and though the additions bid
fair to be in keeping with the rest, they will sadly destroy the
land-side view of the grand old church, which is, as
has been said, a fine landmark. Its massive central tower is
supposed to be the work of Lanfranc, who employed in its
building much stone from the ancient castrum below. From
the God's acre — with sheep nibbling among the tombs, a
high stemmed sundial near its entrance gate — may be had a
wonderful view seawards over the marshland, and away to
Dungeness.
Inland from Lympne a couple of miles is its nearest railway
station at Westenhanger (once Ostenhanger), near to which are
the remains of an ancient mansion where, says a wholly unsup-
ported tradition, Rosamond Clifford lived before she went to
Woodstock. According to an old writer, the house was
" moated all round, and had a drawbridge, a gatehouse and
portal with a portcullis, and the walls all embattled and fortified
with nine towers, one of which was called Fair Rosamond's
Tower." That tower, the sentimental visitor may like to know,
is one of those remaining. The house is said to have
had one hundred and twenty-six rooms, and as many windows
as there are days in the year. A worthy place for the housing
of a king's love. When Queen Elizabeth made one of her magni-
ficent progresses — costly outings as they proved to her loyal
entertainers — she stayed " at her own house at Westenhanger."
Here for a time after the fighting at Maidstone in 1648 the
Royalists kept some of their Parliamentarian prisoners. At
the beginning of the eighteenth century the greater part of the
mansion was pulled down, and a hundred years later that which
remained had become a farmhouse. At Westenhanger we are
on the Stone Street which runs straightly, through Stanford
I»l
sg&T. ■'<
// ;
%\
§
C<fcfPu3-tVX-
■>o^\
iff
Westenhanger Castle.
ch. x MACHINATIONS OF THE DEVIL 203
about a mile beyond, north to Canterbury, but for a strange
bit of wriggling up the downs by Horton Park, the formation
of which probably led to the alteration of the way.
Between two and three miles out of Stanford is Sellinge,
which may be reached by pleasant footpaths and from which
the southerly road will take us back to the hills fronting the
marsh at Court-at-Street — only a mile and a half by direct road
from Lympne. Along that direct road new residences being
built show that the hills with their magnificent southerly viewsare
attracting twentieth century summer residents, as two thousand
years ago they attracted the Romans. Here we are on the
road which connected Lemanis (Lympne) with Anderida
(Pevensey) and all along here it is recorded that remains of
Roman settlements have been discovered so plentifully as to
suggest that the road was " bordered with villas."
Court-at-Street is described by Lambarde as " Courtofstrete,
commonly Court of Strete, truly, and Beliirica (or rather)
Belcaire, anciently, that is, Hello-castrum, the Faire Castle."
Its early history can only be guessed at, now it is but a
small hamlet with memories of a remarkable imposture
belonging to the transition period when England was passing
from her allegiance to Rome to the consolidation of the
Protestant Church. The imposture may be introduced in
words written less than forty years after.
" The enemy of mankinde, and Prince of darknesse, Sathan
the Devill, perceiving that the glorious and bright shining
beams of God's holy truth and gladsome Gospell had pearced
the misty thick clouds of ignorance, and shewed (not only to
the people of Germanic, but to the inhabitants of this Island
also) the true way of their deliverance from damnable error,
Idolatory, and Popish superstition : And fearing, that if he did
not now bestirre him busily, he was in perill to lose infinite
numbers of his Subjects, and consequently no small part of
that his spirituall Kingdome : he practiced most carefully in
all places, with Monks, Friars, Priests, Nunns, and the
whole rablement of his religious army, for the holding of
simple souls in wonted obedience, and the upholding of
his usurped Empire in the accustomed glory, opinion, and
reverence.
" And for this purpose (amongst sundry sleights, set to shew
204
THE HOLY MAID OF KENT
CHAP.
in sundry places, about the latter end and declination of that
his reign) one was wrought by the Holy Maid of Kent, in a
Chappell at this town, in devise as malicious, indeed as
mischievous, and in discovery as notorious, as any whatso-
ever. But because the midst, and end of this Pageant, is yet
fresh in the knowledge of many on live, and manifested to all
men in books abroad : and for that the beginning thereof is
known to very few, and likely in time to be hid from all, if it
i/4 »^
SniaU Hythe.
be not by some way or other continued in minde : I will
labour only to bewray the same, and that in such sort, as the
maintainers thereof themselves have committed it to the
world in writing."
This Holy Maid of Kent, or Nun of Kent, who demonstrated
at Court-at-Street was one Elizabeth Barton, in 1525 a domestic
servant, about twenty years of age, at near-by Aldington.
Having suffered from fits, in which she was given to strange
utterances, she came to be looked upon as a prophetess, and in
x ALDINGTON KNOLL 205
the hands of some would-be miracle-workers proved a ready
tool. She professed to be divinely inspired and her sayings
were widely believed. She was removed to Canterbury and
later to London ; churchmen and nobles listening to her
with respect. Then in an unhappy hour she declared against
the divorce of the King and his marriage with Anne Boleyn,
and this in the long run led to her undoing. From divine
prophecy she went on to treasonable utterances, declaring that
the re-married monarch had ceased to be King in the eyes of
God. After repeated examinations by Cranmer in 1533,
Elizabeth Barton confessed to the fraud which she had been
carrying on to gain applause, and at the instigation of certain
monks and other people, and in the following spring, she and
five of her abettors were hanged at Tyburn. The chapel with
which the " Holy Maid " was associated stood on the seaward
slopes from the present hamlet on Aldington Frith, or " Fright."
Later, if Thomas Ingoldsby is to be believed, the place came
to be looked upon as the resort of evil spirits : " warlocks, and
other unholy subjects of Satan, were reported to make its wild
recesses their favourite rendezvous, and that to an extent which
eventually attracted the notice of no less a personage than
the sagacious Matthew Hopkins himself, Witchfinder General
to the British Government." The murderous witchfinder's
association with Kent does not seem to be true ; his hideous
work was mainly carried out in East Anglia, and in East Anglia
he himself suffered as he had made others suffer, and on the
same charge.
The seaward slope affords again beautiful and wide views
over the marshes diversified with woodland, and here before
turning to the right where the road forks we may pause to
repeat another of Mr. Hueffer's poems inspired by this locality,
" Aldington Knoll, The Old Smuggler Speaks " :
" Al'ington Knoll it stands up high,
Guidin' the sailors sailin' by.
Stands up high for all to see
Cater the marsh and crost the sea.
Al'ington Knoll's a mound a top,
With a dick all round and it's bound to stop,
For them as made it in them old days
Sees to it well that theer it stays.
206 ERASMUS AT ALDINGTON chap.
For that ol' Knoll is watched so well
By drownded men let outen Hell ;
They watches well and keeps it whole
For a sailor's mark — the goodly Knoll.
Farmer Finn as farms the ground
Tried to level that goodly mound,
But not a chap from Lydd to Lym'
Thought that job were meant for him.
Finn 'e fetched a chap fro' th' Sheeres,
One o' yer spunky devil-may-keeres,
Giv' him a shovel and pick and spade,
Promised him double what we was paid.
He digged till ten, and he muddled on
Till he'd digged up a sword and an skillington —
A grit old sword as long as me,
An' grit ol' bones as you could see.
He digged and digged the livelong day,
Till the sun went down in Fairlight Bay ;
He digged and digged, and behind his back
The lamps shone out and the marsh went black.
And the sky in the west went black from red,
And the wood went black — an' the man was dead.
But wheer he'd digged the chark shone white
Out to sea like Calais light.
Al'ington Knoll it stands up high,
Guidin' the sailors sailin' by,
Stands up high for all to see
Cater the marsh and crost the sea."
From the forked roads — the left continuing our westerly
journey, the right leading shortly to the village — we have
a delightful view across the field of a cluster of grey stone, red-
roofed cottages, oast-houses and a church which forms for
some distance round an admirable landmark. This is Alding-
ton. Here in 151 1 — when the "Holy Maid " was a child of
six running about some cottage garden in the neighbourhood —
came one who was a sworn foe to all miracle workers. This
was the great Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus, presented
to the living of Aldington by Archbishop Warham. Never,
says one of the biographers of Erasmus, was there a more
flagrant abuse of church funds. The scholar only held the
living for about sixteen months when he resigned it in con-
X "HURSTS" AND "TONS" 207
sideration of a pension of twenty pounds a year. And the
archbishop who had conferred the benefice naively thought it
was as well, seeing that Erasmus " could not preach the word
of God to his parishioners or hold any communication with
them in their own tongue, of which he is entirely ignorant."
Northward a short distance from Aldington are Smeeth and
Brabourne reserved for visiting when we take Ashford as a
centre.
Returning to the road from which we have our picturesque
glimpse of the church which Erasmus must so inadequately
have served, we look over the churchless parish of Hurst.
Several places have this wealden name as termination here—
Goldenhurst (an old building with secret passages), Falcon-
hurst, &c. The name may be taken as indicative of the well
wooded nature of the country round; for miles to the west we
pass through scattered woodland on the right as our road
trends nearer to the Marsh on our left. Terminations of place-
names have a way of grouping themselves in districts, and here
after Aldington we come to scattered Bonnington and then on
a hill-top to Bilsington with memories of a thirteenth century
Priory of Austin Canons, the remains of which — as is so often
the case— now form part of a farmhouse, nearly a mile inland.
Though Bilsington is scattered about four cross-roads on a hill-
top it is but a low hill, for we have descended considerably
since leaving Aldington and our road has brought us within
less than half a mile of the Military Canal and the Marsh. On
a high, open field on the marsh side of the village stands a tall
obelisk which is a distinguishing landmark from below. This
was raised to the memory of Sir William Cos way. Lord of the
Manor here, who was killed by falling off a coach in pre-railway
days. The Manor is said to have carried with it the office of
Cupbearer to the Crown.
From Bilsington pleasant wooded roads go north past small
retired hamlets and farmhouses to the valley of the East Stour
and Ashford, but keeping roughly parallel with the canal, we
pass where we come nearest to that waterway, through Ruckinge
and a couple of miles beyond reach the railway (Ashford and
Hastings Branch of the S.E.R.) at Ham Street. From here
our road loops in again past Warehome and Kenardington —
both showing picturesquely grouped in trees— on by-roads
towards the Marsh. Warehorne was at one time the scene of
208
APPLEDORE
CHAP.
a fair of some importance in the district. At Kenardington,
which is now a small village, but when the Rother came nearer
may well have been of greater importance, the Saxons are said
to have raised earthworks against the Danish invaders. The
journey from Ham Street to Appledore may be made almost
entirely by footpaths, giving more intimate knowledge of this
country where the wealden woodlands are merging into the
marsh levels.
At Appledore, which is described as the eastern point of the
' '' ' ,
£rfc
Appledore.
great Andredsweald of Sussex, Surrey, and Kent, we have corne
down near the banks of the canal again — the railway station is,
indeed, over a mile away on the marsh itself— to a large and
straggling village with a wide main street. All about, except
to the north-east, by which we have approached, extend marsh-
land levels. Over the canal is Walland Marsh extending
downwards to Lydd and Dungeness, to the south-west is the
Isle of Oxney, made by the Rother and its branches, backed by
Rye,, whilst west and north is the upper Rother level with,
x A ROMAN ALTAR 209
beyond, the wooded rising ground about Tenterden. Apple-
dore Church is an interesting old edifice near the canal.
Towards the close of the ninth century, when the Rother
still flowed out by Romney, this was presumably a place of
some importance, for here the Danish leader, Hasting, brought
his ships and established himself, building, it is said, a fort or
castle on the slope overlooking the marsh where now the
church stands. It was then that the folk of Kenardington
threw up their earthworks to keep off the harrying seamen.
The Isle of Oxney — about five and a half miles long by
three broad — is surrounded by the Rother, a branch of it known
as the Reading Sewer, and the Royal Military Canal, so that it
retains its insular character despite the changes in the channel
of the Rother. The isle is really a delightful spot with its
high, well wooded ground — over two hundred feet in the centre
— rising from the surrounding marshes ; especially abruptly
from the southern side where the main stream of the Rother
flows. As we approach from the Marsh, one of its eastern
hills shows plainly with two trees on it. The actual county
boundary there, however, is the Kent Ditch, the Rother having
become a purely Sussex river, though to the east of the isle
it flows for a short distance wholly in Kent. The name Oxney,
it is suggested, may owe its derivation to oxen-ey, or island,
that is the island on which oxen are pastured. It has long
been celebrated for its pastures, and that it maintains its
reputation may be readily believed as we wander about it,
though its sheep far outnumber its kine. The isle is divided
into two parishes, Stone cum Ebony and Wittersham. Stone,
about two miles from Appledore, was long remarkable as
having in its church, "time out of mind," an old altar, sup-
posed Roman or Brito-Roman, with oxen figured on it. This
was removed from the church to the vicarage garden by the
Rev. William Gostling, the author of a Walk in and About
Canterbury, who was appointed Vicar of Stone in 1753.
Gostling's father, a minor Canon of Canterbury, was a celebrated
chorister for whom Purcell wrote the anthem "They that go
down to the sea in ships," and of him Charles II. is reported
to have said " You may talk as you please of your Nightin-
gales ; but I have a Gostling who excels them all." Royal
puns are granted a long lease of life. Writing of the altar
about a century ago a Kentish topographer declared "the
p
210 THE ISLE OF OXNEY char
bason or hollow at top retains a blackness, as if burnt by the
fire occasioned by the sacrifices made on it."
Wittersham, towards the western end of the island ridge, has
an effective landmark in its church. It is the largest village in
the isle, and from it we may go down across the Rother valley
by Peasmarsh to Rye. Stone and Wittersham are about three
miles apart by a delightful road affording excellent views ; midway
between the two, at the Stocks, we come to four cross-roads
with oast-houses, a mill, and one of the most beautiful of
timbered cottages ; following the left turning we may go by
Iden and Playden to Rye, but keeping to our own county we
turn to the right and by a winding road descend to the northern
stream which we cross at Reading Street, of old named Ebony,
•■-
/* »i
Between Appledore ana Tenterden.
and thence in about three miles, climbing upward from the
Level, reach Tenterden. From Wittersham we may more
easily and no less pleasantly reach Tenterden by way of Small
Hythe, a place the name of which reminds us that it was in
olden times on the Rother estuary. Small Hythe with pictur-
esque old cottages is at the foot of the hills about three miles
south of Tenterden for which it was the one-time landing-
place. At Small Hythe and at Stone ferry are toll gates where
everything has to pay — "there's only one thing we let in or
out free,- and that's a dog."
At Tenterden we reach a very attractive old town which
long rested on the dignity of its fame as a member of the
Cinque Port of Rye, and as one of the first places in which the
woollen manufacture was established, in the reign of Edward III.
THE "DENS"
211
It is not many years since that Tenterden remained untouched
by the railway, the nearest station being several miles off.
Now the Kent and East Sussex Railway runs hither from
Headcorn and then along the Rother valley to Robertsbridge
Junction. At Tenterden, too, we are in the Wealden district
with the terminal " den " —signifying, we are told, " a wooded
valley affording pasturage " — familiar in numerous place names
within the area of a few miles: Rolvenden, Newenden,
Benenden, Biddenden, Halden, Bethersden, and a score
$hSftLtt*^0~
High Street, Tenterden.
of others. With its broad green-margined street, its well-
kept appearance, the town is one to impress the visitor
favourably, and it has considerable value as the centre from
which may be explored some of the most delightful out-
of-the-way wealden hamlets and villages, woodlands, parks
and lanes ; we may go along some beautiful valleys, we may
follow the course of the Rother to old Bodiam, we may explore
the isle of Oxney and we may easily reach the marshlands
which extend east and west of Dungeness, in Kent and
Sussex.
P 2
212 TENTERDEN STEEPLE chap.
" Tenterden Steeple is the cause of the breach in Goodwin
Sands," so runs an old saying arising out of the apocryphal
story which tells that when Tenterden church was built the
Abbot of St. Augustine's at Canterbury (to which it belonged),
used for the purpose stones which had been brought together
to repair the sea wall protecting Earl Godwin's now submerged
estate to the east of Deal. Fuller, after pointing out how
people laughed at the unlogical reason of the man who
declared that as the sands were firm land before the steeple
was built, and were after overflowed, and that therefore
Tenterden Steeple caused Goodwin Sands, goes on to accept
the tradition :
" But one story is good till another is heard. Though
this be all whereon this proverb is generally grounded, I met
since with a supplement thereunto. It is this. Time out of
mind money was constantly collected out of this county to
fence the east banks thereof against the eruption of the seas ;
and such sums were deposited in the hands of the Bishop of
Rochester. But, because the sea had been very quiet for many
years, without any encroachings, the Bishop commuted that
money to the building of a steeple and endowing of a church
in Tenterden. By this diversion of the collection for the
maintenance of the banks, the sea afterwards brake in upon
Goodwin Sands. And 'now the old man had told a rational
tale, had he found but the due favour to finish it. And thus,
sometimes, that is causelessly accounted ignorance in the
speaker which is nothing but impatience in the auditors,
unwilling to attend the end of the discourse."
The story thus gravely accepted by the author of " The
History of the Worthies of England " is of course nothing but
a myth, but before dismissing it we may see the goodly use
of the story which was made " by the Reverend Father Master
Hugh Latimer " in the last of his eight sermons preached
before King Edward VI. and his Council at Westminster.
" Here was preaching against covetousness all the last year
in Lent, and the next summer followed rebellion; ergo, preach-
ing against covetousness was the cause of the rebellion. A
goodly argument. Here now I remember an argument of
Master More's which he bringeth in a book that he made
against Bilney : and here by the way I will tell you a merry toy.
Master More was once sent in commission into Kent, to help
AND THE GOODWIN SANDS
213
to try out, if it might be, what was the cause of Goodwin Sands,
and the shelf that stopped up Sandwich Haven. Thither
u
%
Tenter den Steeple.
cometh Master More, and calleth the country afore him, such
as were thought to be men of experience, and men that could
of likelihood best certify him of that matter concerning the
214
AN OLD AGED MAN"
CHAP.
stopping of Sandwich Haven. Among others came in before
him an old man, with a white head, and one that was thought
to be little less than an hundred years old. When Master
More saw this aged man, he thought it expedient to hear him
say his mind in this matter; for, being so old a man, it was
likely that he knew most of any man in that presence and
company. So Master More called this old aged man unto
him, and said ' Father,' said he, ' tell me, if ye can, what is the
cause of this great arising of the sands and shelves hereabout
this haven, the which stop it up that no ships can arrive here ?
Tenterdcn from the Relvenden Road.
Ye are the eldest man that I can espy in all this company, so
that if any man can tell any cause of it, ye of likelihood can
say most in it ; or at leastwise more than any other man here
assembled.' ' Yea, forsooth, good master,' quoth this old man,
' for I am well-nigh an hundred years old, and no man here in
this company anything near unto my age.' 'Well, then,' quoth
Master More, ' how say you in this matter ? What think ye to
be the cause of these shelves and flats that stop up Sandwich
Haven ? ' ' Forsooth, sir,' quoth he, ' I am an old man ; I think
that Tenterton Steeple is the cause of Goodwin Sands. For I
am an old man, sir,' quoth he, 'and I may remember the
building of Tenterton Steeple; and I may remember when
x THE BEACON 215
there was no steeple at all there. And before that Tenterton
Steeple was in building, there was no manner of speaking of
any flats or sands that stopped the haven ; and therefore I
think that Tenterton Steeple is the cause of the destroying and
decay of Sandwich Haven.' And even so, to my purpose, is
preaching of God's word the cause of rebellion, as Tenterton
Steeple was cause Sandwich Haven is decayed. And is not
this a gay matter, that such should be taken for great wise
men that will thus reason against the preacher of God's
Word ? "
A hundred years or so ago there still hung out from the tower
lAjTfcpn-wv^
°7
Rolvenden.
of Tenterden church, at the end of a piece of timber about
eight feet long, a beacon, " a sort of iron kettle, holding about
a gallon, with a ring or hoop of the same metal, round the
upper part of it, to hold still more coals, rosin, &c." Maybe
this was one of the very beacons fired to signal the approach of
the Invincible Armada when
" Far on the deep the Spaniard saw, along each southern shire,
Cape beyond cape, in endless range, those twinkling points of fire."
At Tenterden it may be recalled, John Hoole the translator
ofTasso and Ariosto lived during his later years. Hoole —
2l6
ATTRACTIVE WALKS
CHAP.
" the great boast and ornament of the India House " according
to Charles Lamb in ironical mood — is probably very little read
nowadays and chiefly remembered by certain anecdotes in
Boswell's " Life of Johnson."
All round Tenterden as has been said are picturesquely
attractive walks by up-and-down roads, the deviousness of which
suggests that they were formed while still the Weald was cov-
ered by forest. The road to Rolvenden offers wide views over
the Rother Valley from high ground and descending to where
the Hexden Channel runs through a bit of the Level we reach
a
#5&-
£r
t ■?
■', :'.'>r.
,A|viiA t-1 »7
Bcncnden.
Newenden by the Rother where that river is the boundary cut-
ting us off from Sussex. Newenden is said by Camden to be
the Anderida of the Romans. Its position suggests that it may
well have been an important place in the days when the Rother
estuary penetrated into the Weald, but later authorities than
Camden refuse to give it the honour of being considered And-
erida, identifying that place with Pevensey in the neighbouring,
county. To the west of Newenden is Sandhurst, worth visiting
for its interesting old church perched upon a hill overlooking
the Kent Ditch (sometimes named the Kennett) which here
divides us from Sussex and on the other side of which is Bodiam.
From Sandhurst church turning back we may go north by road
X
THE BIDDENDEN MAIDS
217
round curiously named Megrim's Hill; we can return the way
we came, through the village, or may cross the fields by foot-
paths on our way to the Benenden Road. Benenden itself is
a pleasant village on high ground and beyond it Hemsted
Park claims the highest point in the Weald. The church
here is said at one time to have had a detached belfry like that
of Brookland in the Marsh — and like it to have been a smug-
glers' church. Fine tracts of woodland lie all about stretch-
Bidde>ide)i.
ing north a great part of the way to Biddenden, a village the
most notable attraction of which is the tradition of the
" Biddenden Maids."
An old account of the Biddenden Maids was sent by a
Tenterden correspondent to worthy William Hone and was by
him duly incorporated in his "Every Day Book." This
account had been printed on a broadside by local printers for
the edification of visitors drawn by the Easter custom at
Biddenden Church and is still to be purchased in the village
218 THE TRADITION chap.
in that form. That custom was the giving to strangers by the
Churchwardens of about one thousand rolls with an impression
upon them of the two " Maids " referred to in the legend,
which in the fuller account of Hone is as follows :
" In the year noo, at Biddenden, in Kent, were born
Elizabeth and Mary Chulkhurst, Joined together by the Hips
and Shoulders, and zvho lived in that state, Thirty-Four Years!!
At the expiration of which time one of them was taken ill and
after a short period died ; the surviving one was advised to be
separated from the corpse which she absolutely refused by saying
these words, ' as we came together, we will also go together,' and
about six hours after her sister's decease, she was taken ill and
died also. A stone near the Rector's Peiv marked with a diago-
nal line is shoivn as the place of their interment.
" ' The moon on the east oriel shone,
Through slender shafts of shapely stone,
The silver light so pale and faint,
Shewed the twin sisters and many a saint.
Whose images on the glass were dyed ;
Mysterious maidens side by side
The moonbeam kissed the holy pane,
And threw on the pavement a mystic stain.'
" It is further stated that by their will they bequeathed to
the Churchwardens of the Parish of Biddenden, and their
successors, churchwardens for ever, certain pieces or parcels of
land in the parish, containing abt twenty acres, which _ is
hired at forty guineas per annum, and that in commemoration
of this wonderful Phenomenon of Nature, the Rolls and about
300 quartern Loaves and Cheese in proportion, shd be given
to the Poor Inhabitants of the Parish.
" This account is entirely traditionary, the _ Learned
Antiquarian Hasted, in his account of the Charities of the
Parish, states the Land was the gift of two Maidens, of the
name of Preston : and that the print of the women on the cakes
has only been used within these eighty years, and was made
to represent two poor widows, as the general object of a
charitable benefaction. It is possible that the investigation of
the learned Antiquary brought to light some record of the
name of the Ladies for in the year 1656 the Rev. W. Horner,
then Rector of the parish, claimed the land as having
been given to augment his glebe, but was non-suited in the
x CURIOUS PLACE NAMES 219
Court of Exchequer. In the pleadings preserved in the
Church, the names of the Ladies are not stated, not being
known."
At the time when Hasted wrote his History of Kent and threw
doubts upon the quaint, local tradition the annual value of " the
Bread and Cheese Land" as it was called was about ,£31 io.y.
and the number of cakes distributed was six hundred. The
legend is now at least two hundred years old and the idea that
it may be historical cannot be scouted by those of us who
remember "The Siamese Twins,'' the "Two Headed
Nightingale," and other much-talked-of monstrosities. In the
twelfth century the Biddenden Maids won long fame as
benefactors, in the twentieth such an unhappily associated
couple would win large salaries as music-hall or show
" freaks." The present day broad-sheet gives the sisters names
as Eliza and Mary, and the portrait-stamped cakes are still to
be bought by curious visitors.
Between Biddenden and Tenterden, reached down a steep
and grassy lane, is the broad expanse of Breeches Pond,
starred in summer with many lilies, yellow and white. A
perfect spot for a hot weather swim.
The sojourner in the rural parts of our county must often
be struck by the curious names attached to farms and small
hamlets. In this district round and about Tenterden we
pass Puddingcake, Rats Castle (another near Tonbridge),
Castweazel, Arcadia, and — both near High Halden — a
Children's Farm and a Bachelor's Farm ; near Benenden
may be found a Great Nineveh and a Little Nineveh, while
a Frog's Hill near Newenden is balanced by a Frog's Hole
near Biddenden.
CHAPTER XI
ROUND ABOUT ASHFORD
If Ashford, a town — thanks to railway works and various
industries — of upwards of ten thousand inhabitants, has not in
itself much to attract attention it is a centre from which may
be reached a large number of beautiful and interesting spots.
Its position by the confluence of the East Stour with the Great
Stour makes their differing valleys, and the adjacent hills, and
the narrow valley through which together they flow towards
Canterbury, all easily accessible, while the town's position too
at the junction of railways from Canterbury, Folkestone,
Romney and Maidstone makes it a centre for those who
depend upon trains, no less good than it is for those who walk
or cycle. Within a radius, roughly speaking, of eight miles —
and no one is worthy of the name of pedestrian who cannot
manage sixteen miles a day — any one making Ashford his
headquarters may enjoy scenery of the most diverse character
and visit places of the most varied interest. The marshlands
about the East Stour, the chalk downs stretching from Wye,
the parks and woodlands to the north, the valley of the Great
Stour, "the dim blue goodness of the Weald" towards
Tenterden are all before him where to choose. The town
itself is a clean and comfortable looking place on rising ground
with a manufacturing extension over the river to the south-
east where the railway works are established. In the broad
High Street is the Market Hall, and near it the large, handsome
church of Kentish stone, with its fine central tower, having
four corner turrets ; this tower was built by one, Sir John Fogge
ftffu
at
A Corner in Ash/ord.
222 TACK CADE'S BIRTHPLACE ch. xi
in the reign of Edward IV., and over his tomb is hung his
helmet, as that of the Black Prince is hung at Canterbury.
According to Shakespeare, that " headstrong Kentishman,
John Cade " — whom pedantical authorities have made into an
Irishman — hailed from Ashford and thence set out to reform
the little world of England — " I tell thee, Jack Cade the
clothier means to dress the Commonwealth, and turn it, and
set a new nap upon it," and furthermore " Dick, the butcher
of Ashford," went with that force which the messenger to the
King so scornfully described-
" His army is a ragged multitude
Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless."
Jack Cade and his rabblement we shall meet again at
Blackheath. After the ringleader had fled he was killed we
are told in the garden of Alexander Iden, a Kentish esquire
of Ripley Court, Westwell, and near Benenden is an Iden
Green which might have disputed the title to be considered
the scene of Cade's capture with another place by Hothfield
if Cade Street over in Sussex had not already claimed the
distinction.1
If the poor honour of including Jack Cade among Ash-
ford's worthies be questioned there is no doubt that in this
town was born John Wallis, one of the greatest precursors
of Sir Isaac Newton in the field of mathematics, — a man, too,
who so mastered the art of reading ciphers that he was at once
feared and admired by both royalists and republicans in the
time of trouble. He was born here in the year that
Shakespeare died. When Wallis was fifty Samuel Pepys
recorded meeting " Dr. Wallis, the famous scholar and
mathematician ; but he promises little." When he was eighty-
five the vigorous old man wrote to the diarist, " Till I was
four-score years of age, I could pretty well bear up under the
weight of those years ; but since that time, it hath been too
late to dissemble my being an old man. My sight, my
hearing, my strength, are not as they were wont to be."
To the north of Ashford along the high land to the left of
the River Stour we have magnificent stretches of parkland
1 See Mr. E. V. Lucas's " Highways and Byways in Sussex," p. 308
A Byway in Ashford.
224
A NOTABLE GATEHOUSE chap.
and woods, with small and interesting villages but a mile or
two apart. The first great park is Eastwell, to reach which
we pass the scattered village of Kennington which is partly on
the road that runs along the lovely Stour valley to Canterbury,
but mainly occupies the rising road towards Eastwell, and
appears to be growing into a kind of villa suburb of Ashford.
Where the road forks beyond, — the right branch that which
continues up through the hills to Faversham, and the left
a winding lane towards Westwell, — there stands a striking
somewhat ornate turreted gatehouse of squared black flints
and stonework. This is the entrance to Eastwell Park and is
well worth a visit ; corkscrew stairs lead upwards to the roof
from which an extensive view may be had, and a peep taken
into the grandly timbered park. The lodge-keeper explains
that the gateway came from " the Exhibition," and tells with
bated breath that each little flint in the building cost twopence
halfpenny and that they were brought from Rome. In the
room over the gateway is a huge wall-painting on tiles showing
the battle between Alexander and Darius. This is presumably
a restored copy of an ancient work and was prepared at
Naples. On the opposite wall is a slab dated "Maidstone
1845 " on which are five uninspired verses dealing with the
picture, the first and last stanzas of which will give a sufficient
taste of their quality.
" Listen, Gentles, every one,
This is Philip's mighty son
Alexander valliant Knight
Bearing him in mortal fight
'Gainst the Persian King his foe.
Knightly deed and Knightly blow. . . „
Haply great Apelles' hand
Limned me in Grecian land
Buried long beneath the ground
In Pompei {sic) was I found
O'er these gay fantastic stones
Lay my wretched master's bones."
The closing lines are as cryptic as the attendant's remark
that the gate came from " the Exhibition."
Defoe described Eastwell Park as the finest that he had ever
xi A GRAND PARK 225
seen, and many of his successors from the glimpses allowed
them may feel inclined to echo his words. Long the seat of
the Earls of Winchilsea and at one time that of His Royal
Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, the park is rich in
warnings against trespass. Where ancient use — dating prob-
ably from the days of the Canterbury Pilgrims — has given
us the right of crossing the park from the church we are
warned that bicycles must not enter, and that dogs whether
accompanied by their owner or not will be incontinently
shot 1 while all the rigours of the " Law "- —the quotation
marks are not mine — will be brought to bear upon those
people who leave the defined footpath. It is reasonable to
suppose that a dog has as much right to be on a public
footpath as a man.
One of the Earls of Winchilsea and Nottingham distin-
guished himself in the first half of the nineteenth century as
an uncompromising opponent of all measures of political
reform and was especially bitter over the matter of Catholic
Emancipation, to oppose which on October 10th, 1828, he
presided at a huge meeting on Penenden Heath. A few
months later he wrote of the Duke of Wellington that he
" under the cloak of some coloured show of zeal for the
Protestant religion, carried on an insidious design for the
infringement of our liberties and the introduction of Popery
into every department of the state." The Iron Duke replied
with a challenge and the two noblemen fought a duel in
Battersea Fields. The Duke fired and missed, and his oppo-
nent then fired in the air and apologised for the language of
his letter. "And may all other duels have that upshot in
the end."
Leaving the gate by the Westwell lane we follow the park
wall and after a short distance come to a break in the privacy
of the domain where a short road into it takes us to Eastwell
Church standing against the timbered hillside at the very edge
of the magnificent sheet of water which is about half a mile in
length and a quarter in breadth and is beautifully surrounded
by the greenery of park turf and groups of fine trees. Pausing
1 And this though the law says that a dog may not be shot unless actually
engaged in chasing deer, game or sheep.
Q
226 RICHARD PLANTAGENET' chap.
on the bridge which crosses the narrow neck of the mere we
shall generally see a number of various wild fowl. Eastwell
Church, of rough flints and stone with old grotesque heads
above the top windows of its embattled tower, is chiefly
interesting as the burial-place of a supposed romantic figure.
Here was laid in 1550 one "Richard Plantagenet," the
reputed natural son of Richard Crookback. The story runs
that this Richard as a lad of sixteen was at the fatal Battle
of Bosworth, and on hearing the cry of " The King is
dead, long live the King ! " fled hither and lived in a mean
manner until his identity was discovered by the owner of
Eastwell who gave him permission to build for himself a
small house on the estate. This he did and here Richard
Plantagenet lived for over sixty years. A nameless tomb
in the chancel is pointed out as that in which he was
buried. Here is a subject that might well inspire a writer
of historical romance.
West of the noble park is prettily situated Westwell with an
old creeper-clad spired church that has some interesting Early
English stained glass. Here in 1574 was a case of " satanic
possession," in which a servant girl, gifted with ventriloquism
horrified the credulous, until examination before magistrates
led to her confessing the cheat and the recording of it ten years
later in Reginald Scot's " Discoverie of Witchcraft." Here in
18 14 Barham was curate, to be followed six years after by
another writer who was very popular with our grandparents,
G. R. Gleig, author of " The Subaltern " and other novels. Gleig
served as an officer at Waterloo, later took Holy Orders, and
after a year at Westwell, was presented to the perpetual Curacy
of Ash and then to the Rectory of Ivychurch, both in Kent,
and later came to be Chaplain General of the Forces. At the
north of Eastwell Park is Challock Church with a prominent
castellated tower, and north of this, a mile or so on the Maid-
stone Road, is the village of Challock Lees to be approached
by a lovely winding lane — up hill and down dale — zig-zagging
between leafy, and flower-grown hedges, festooned with wild
clematis. The four cross-roads beyond will take us one to the
village of Moldash and so to Canterbury, one to Leaveland,
Badlesmere, Sheldwich and Throwley and so to Faversham ;
Badlesmere gave his title to the rich nobleman who paid with
XI
BOUCIITON ALU 111
>27
his life for desecrating the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury
by appearing before it in arms.
Turning southwards from C'hallock we follow a lovely route
through wonderful scenery by the Challock and King's Woods
over White Hill by Soakham Down to Wye at the further side
Bought on Aluf>h.
of the Stour. Where the road forks nearly at its highest the
left branch is the more direct, but the right skirting the east
part of Eastwell Park is perhaps the more beautiful and takes
us to Boughton Aluph with its fine decorated church to be
seen well from the White Hill descent. This is but one of
Q 2
228 JANE AUSTEN AT GODMERSHAM chap.
several Boughtons in Kent, the most famous of all — thanks to
the Wotton family — lying some miles to the west of this. As
we descend White Hill, above a chalk pit on the other side of
the valley is seen a great conventional crown outline cut in
the turf of the down ; inquiry elicits that this was done by
Wye folk to commemorate the Coronation of King Edward VII.
Before crossing the River Stour, the valley may be followed
a little way northwards to Godmersham with its magnificent
park, part of the beautiful stretch of diversified woodland that
reaches from Eastwell to Chilham Castle. Godmersham is
interesting to Jane Austen's admirers as it was one of the
noble estates inherited by her brother Edward Knight and one
which she frequently visited, as her correspondence shows. In
1813 she made a two months' stay and wrote whimsically to
one of her sailor brothers then stationed in the Baltic, " I
wonder whether you and the King of Sweden knew that I was
come to Godmersham with my brother. Yes, I suppose you
have received due notice of it by some means or other. I
have not been here these four years, so I am sure the event
deserves to be talked of before and behind, as well as in the
middle." Lord Brabourne, who was grandson of Edward
(Austen) Knight, has described the place admirably.
" Godmersham Park is situated in one of the most beautiful parts of
Kent, namely, in the valley of the Stour, which lies between Ashford and
Canterbury. Soon after you pass the Wye station of the railway from the
former to the latter place, you see Godmersham Church on your left hand,
and just beyond it, comes into view the wall which shuts off the shrubberies
and pleasure grounds of the great house from the road ; close to the church
• nestles the home farm, and beyond it the Rectory, with lawns sloping
down to the River Stour which for a distance of nearly a mile runs through
the east side end of the park. A little beyond the church you see the
mansion, between which and the railroad lies the village, divided by the
old high road from Ashford to Canterbury, nearly opposite Godmersham.
The valley of the Stour makes a break in that ridge of chalk hills, the
proper name of which is the Backbone of Kent
"So that Godmersham Park, beyond the house, is upon the chalk downs,
and on its further side is bounded by King's Wood, a large tract of wood-
land containing many hundred acres, and possessed by several different
owners."
This is the grand wood which links Godmersham with East-
well, and its plantations of Spanish chestnut and silver birch
XI
THE KING'S WOODS
229
arc especially noticeable. The chestnuts are periodically cut
down for hop-pules, and a couple of seasons' growth where a
number of birches have been left standing is particularly
striking. On the banks about here the viper's buglos makes a
splendid show with its tall spikes of cymed blossoms, blue
almost as the borage, and where six or light spikes rise
1 1
W/r
CJ-vj'-l f ' <3 "Jt'^-ji \
A
Godmersham*
A«v <*'
together challenging comparison with the larkspurs of our
gardens.
Wye, lying at the foot of the chalk downs which rise to the
east of the Stour, with its dismantled windmill and its old
timbered houses, with quaintly carven heads, is a quiet enough
place to-day, though it is believed to have been an important
one centuries agone. Its liveliest times now are when race
230 APHRA BEHN chap.
meetings are held, for Wye is one of our Kentish centres
familiar to the horse-racing fraternity. The chief worthies of
the small town are AphraBehn, the seventeenth century dramatist
and novelist, John Sawbridge, Lord Mayor of London, and
zealous upholder of Wilkes, and Sawbridge's sister, Mrs.
Catherine Macaulay, the historian. Canterbury was long
regarded as having the distinction of being the birthplace of
Aphra Behn, " the first female writer who lived by her pen in
England." But Mr. Edmund Gosse some years ago ascer-
tained that she was born at Wye, for there she was baptized on
July ioth, 1640. The daughter of a local barber named
Johnson, she came to be one of the most noted authors and
wits of her time, " she was the George Sand of the Restora
tion, the chere maitre to such men as Dryden, Otway, and
Southerne, who all honoured her with their friendship " ; she
is to be remembered as the introducer of milk punch into
England, and as one of the few women whose talents in life
gained for them in death burial in Westminster Abbey. Lord
Mayor Sawbridge, who takes us from literature to politics, was
born at Olantigh — the park of which occupies much of the
hillside from here to Godmersham — where also had been born
the fifteenth century Archbishop Kempe, who rebuilt Wye
Church. Sawbridge's name is familiar to those who have
followed the story of Wilkes's life at all closely. As Sheriff of
London he five times returned Wilkes as duly elected for
Middlesex in defiance of the House of Commons, and, to
balance his townswoman's introduction of milk punch, was
said to be the greatest proficient at whist of his time. He is
buried in Wye Church.
The name of Mrs. Catherine Macaulay may not be very
familiar to readers of the present generation, but little more
than a hundred years ago she was an important personage in
the writing and controversial worlds. Like her brother, the
Lord Mayor, she was an intense enthusiast for " liberty," and
her "history" was at one time known as "the Republican
history," so that she was as extravagantly belauded by one set
of people as she was extravagantly belittled by others. When
another and a greater Macaulay was making his name as
historian, Croker wrote " Catherine, though now forgotten by
an ungrateful public, made quite as much noise in her day as
xi CATHERINE MACAULAY 231
Thomas does in ours." At about the same time Hallam
declared that Catherine Macaulay was read "not at all."
Isaac Disraeli a few years earlier had said of her "history"
that "combining Roman admiration with English faction she
violated truth in her English characters and exaggerated
romance in her Roman." A partial critic on the other
hand wrote, " Mrs. Macaulay's history is honestly written, and
with considerable ability and spirit, and is full of the
freest, noblest sentiments of liberty," while Mary Wollstone-
craft wrote of the historian as " the woman of the greatest
abilities that this country has ever produced." Walpole and
Gray praised her, Pitt " made a panegyric " of her work in the
House of Commons, Lecky described her as " the ablest
writer of the new Radical school," but posterity has well
nigh forgotten her. Still, in Wye she should be remembered,
and before parting with her it may be recalled that Dr. Johnson
was one of her sturdiest opponents.
" Sir, I would no more deprive a nobleman of his respect, than of his
money. I consider myself as acting a part in the great system of society,
and I do to others as I would have them to do to me. I would behave to
a nobleman as I should expect he would behave to me, were I a nobleman
and he Sam Johnson. Sir, there is one Mrs. Macaulay in this town a great
Republican. " One day when I was at her house, I put on a very grave
countenance, and said to her, ' Madam, I am now become a convert to
your way of thinking. I am convinced that all mankind are upon an equal
footing ; and to give you an unquestionable proof, Madam, that I am in
earnest, here is a very sensible, civil, well-behaved fellow-citizen, your
footman ; I desire that he may be allowed to sit down and dine with us.'
I thus, sir, showed her the absurdity of the levelling doctrine. She has
never liked me since. Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as
themselves ; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves. They would all
have some people under them ; why not then have some people above them?"
When the author of the " Dixonary " so disliked by the
pupils of Miss Pinkerton's Academy for young ladies on
Chiswick Mall, was at Cambridge a couple of years later, he
made merry over the lady again : " Several persons got into
his company the last evening at Trinity, where, about twelve,
he began to be very great ; stripped poor Mrs. Macaulay to
the very skin, then gave her for his toast and drank her in
two bumpers."
All about Wye towards the east roll the chalk downs — ■" fit
232 THE CHALK DOWNS chap.
emblem of the deluge ebb " —and the climbing of them is
rewarded by extensive views. Trimworth, Crundale, Wye and
Broad Downs, the different tracts are named, and by footpaths
over the turf and almost deserted lanes we may climb among
them, seeing of human habitations only an occasional farm-
house and buildings, or tiny hamlet in a hollow of the hills.
At Trimworth and in other parts of these downs, many ancient
remains have been recovered. Just east of Wye is the bluff of
the downs with its chalk pit and crown, near to which the
mounting road to Hastingleigh and Brabourne runs. From
this road with the down rising on our left and a row of wind-
blown beeches on our right, we get glimpses into the fertile
valley of chequered fields, now pasture white-dotted with
sheep, now a deeper green, or gold, where the corn is growing,
or ripening to the reaper.
To the south of Wye over this lower ground we may go by
road and field paths to the small village of Brook at the foot
of the hill, passing on our way at Withersdane St. Eustace's
Well which in the days of miracles was famous for its curative
properties, thanks to an abbot — afterwards St. Eustace — who
came from Normandy to preach the better observance of
Sunday. The story of how it got its name may best be given
in the words of the monkish chronicler, Roger of Wendover,
who tells us that the abbot
" landed near the city of Dover, and commenced the duty of his preach-
ing at a town called Wi. In the neighbourhood of that place he bestowed
his blessing on a certain spring, which by his merits was so endowed with
the Lord's favour that, from the taste of it alone, the blind recovered
sight, the lame their power of walking, the dumb their speech, and the
deaf their hearing ; and whatever sick person drank of it in faith, at once
enjoyed renewed health. A certain woman who was attacked by devils,
and swollen up as it were by dropsy, came to him there, seeking to be
restored to health bv him ; he said to her, 'have confidence, my daughter,
go to the spring at Wi, which the Lord hath blessed, drink of it, and there
you will recover health.' The woman departed, and, according to the
advice of the man of God, drank, and she immediately broke out into a
fit of vomiting ; and, in the sight of all who were at the fountain for the
recovery of their health, there came from her two large black toads, which,
in order to show that they were devils, were immediately transformed to
great black dogs, and after a short time took the forms of asses. The
woman stood astonished, but shortly ran after them in a rage, wishing to
catch them ; but a man who had been appointed to take charge of the
spring, sprinkled some of the water between the woman and the monsters,
xi A GRAND OLD YEW 233
on which they flew up into the air and vanished, leaving behind them traces
of their foulness."
A manifestation of another sort is recalled at Hinxhill, near
Willesborough, for here it is said for nearly six weeks in 1727
a field " of a marshy, peat-like texture " hurned until about
three acres of ground had been consumed to ashes yielding
smoke " and strong smell Like a brick-kiln." At Willesborough,
nearing Ashford again, there was in the eighteenth century a
hundred year old tombstone the inscription on which began
" Here lyeth entombed the Body of William Master the second
son of Michael Master Esquier. After a batchelor lyfe he came
to an untimely Abel's death at the age of twenty-six years."
The old tradition ran that William Master was killed by his
brother as they sat at dinner, because they had both been
paying court to the same lady, and William had proved
successful. It is further said that it was this tragic event which
gave Thomas Otway the theme on which he founded his
gruesome tragedy of "The Orphan."
Brabourne, situated in the lower part of the downs, is a
pleasant village with a handsome church near to which about
a century ago in place of the present yew there stood a
venerable one, measuring within an inch of fifty-nine feet in
circumference, and conjecturally said to be three thousand
years old. John Evelyn that tree-enthusiast has more than
one reference to it. Visiting Brabourne on August 2nd, 1663,
he wrote, " In the churchyard of the parish church I measured
an overgrown yew tree that was eighteen of my paces in
compass, out of some branches of which, torn off by the winds,
were sawed divers goodly planks." Kent is so particularly
rich in grand old churchyard yews that it has to suffice to
point them out but here and there.
Among the most interesting features of this church are
some ancient monuments, curious brasses to the Scott family of
Scotts or Scots Hall — long since gone — in the neighbouring
parish of Smeeth, several members of which won to prominence
from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. At the time of
the Armada the Sir Thomas Scott of that day within twenty-
four hours of receiving his orders from the Privy Council
equipped four thousand men and took them to the rendezvous
for the Men of Kent on Northbourne down. His great
234 A GREAT ELIZABETHAN chap.
grandfather Sir William had been a prominent figure on the
Field of the Cloth of Gold and had rebuilt Scots Hall so
that it rivalled the most splendid houses in Kent. This Sir
Thomas was in his day " a man of note, intelligence and
action " ; he was one of the commissioners for reporting
on the methods of improving the breed of horses in this
country ; he was one of the commissioners for draining and
improving Romney Marsh, and he was superintendent of the
improvement of Dover harbour — one of the many energetic
and capable men who did so much to make the Elizabethan
period an age of extraordinary national development. Here it
must suffice to recall him in some curious elegiac verses, written
it is surmised by his better remembered kinsman Reginald :
" Here lyes Sir Thomas Scott by name ;
Oh happie Kempe that bore him.
Sir Raynold, with four knights of fame,
Lyv'd lyneally before him.
His wieves were Baker, Heyman, Beere,
His love to them unfayned.
He lyved nyneand fifty yeare,
And seventeen soules he gayned.
His first wief bore them every one :
The world might not have myst her.
She was a very paragon
The Lady Buckherst's syster.
His widow ly ves in sober sort.
No matron more discreeter ;
She still reteiynes a good report,
And is a great housekeeper.
He (being called to special place)
Did what might best behove him.
The Queen of England gave him grace
The King of Heav'n did love him.
His men and tenants wail'd the daye,
His kinne and countrie cryed ;
Both young and old in Kent may saye
Woe work the day he dyed.
He made his porter shut his gate
To sycophants and briebors,
And ope it wide to great estates,
And also to his neighbours.
xi A I'ERFFXT MAN 235
His House was rightly termed Hall
Whose bred and beefe was redie ;
It was a very hospitall
And refuge for the needie.
From whence he never stepped aside.
In winter nor in summer ;
In Christmas time he did provide
Good cheer for every comer.
When any service should be doun,
I [e lyked not to lyngar ;
The rich would ride the poor wold runn,
If he held up his fingar.
He kept tall men, he rydd great hors,
He did write most finely ;
He used fewe words, but cold discours
Both wysely and dyvinely.
His lyving meane, his charges greate.
His daughters well bestowed ;
Although that he were left in debt.
In fine he nothing owed.
But dyed in rich and happie state,
In-loved of man and woman
And (what is yeate much more than that)
I le was envied of no man.
In justice he did much excell,
In law he never wrangled :
He loved rellygion wondrous well,
But he was not new-fangled.
Let Romney Marsh and Dover saye ;
Ask Norborne camp at leyseur ;
If he were woont to make delaye
To doe his countrie pleasure.
But Ashford's proffer passeth all —
It was both rare and gentle ;
They would have pay'd his funerall
T' have toomb'd him in their temple."
Another of Sir William's great grandsons was Reginald Scot,
whose " Uiscouerie of Witchcraft " is a famous book, for he
236 "THE DISCOVERY OF WITCHCRAFT" chap.
with an insight far in advance of his age sought to stay the
hideous persecution which, especially in rural districts, made
any lonely aged person (and many others) liable to a charge of
witchcraft with but the rarest opportunity of escape from conse-
quent barbarities. The title-page text which Scot employed
was happily chosen, " Beleeue not euerie spirit, but trie the
spirits, whether they are of God ; for manie false prophets are
gone out into the world." The full title, too, is worth citing as
a delightful example of the alluring art which was employed in
the devising of such in the days when the making and reading
of books were more leisurely undertakings than they now are.
The disco ueri
of Witchcraft,
Wherein the lewde dealing of witches
and witch mongers is notablie detected, the
knauerie of coniurors, the impietie of inchan-
tors, the follie of soothsayers, the impudent fals-
hood of cousenors, the infidelitie of atheists,
the pestilent practices of Pythonists, the
curiosity of figurecasters, the va-
nitie of dreamers, the begger-
lie art of Alcu-
mystrie.
The abhomination of idolatrye, the hor-
rible art of poisoning, the vertuc and power of
natural 1 magike, and all the conueiances
of Legierdemaine and iuggling are deciphered :
and many other things opened, which
haue long lien hidden, how bet t
verie necessarye to
be knowne.
Heerevnto is added a treatise vpon the
nature and substance of spirits and diuels,
&c : all latelie written
by Reginald Scot
Esquire.
Many of Scot's contemporaries hailed his reasonable exposure
of unreasonable superstition with joy, for, as one of them put
it, he " dismasketh sundry egregious impostures, and in certaine
principall chapters, and speciall passages hitteth the nayle on
the head with a witnesse." James VI. of Scotland described the
work as " damnable," and on becoming James I. of England
the same bigoted and pedantical monarch ordered all copies of
XI AN INLAND MARSH 237
the " Discouerie " to be burnt. Though Seot, who spent most
of his life in his native district, probably learned much witch
lore from the Kentish folk of the time, he has a further claim on
our consideration here as being the author of the first practical
treatise on hop cultivation in England, the " Perfect Platform
of a Hop-Garden, and necessary instructions for the making and
maintaining thereof, with Notes and Rules for Reformation of
all Abuses." (1573.)
Another and far different writer who hailed, and took his
title, from this district was the late Lord Brabourne, who on the
maternal side was as we have seen a great nephew of Jane
Austen, and who won wide popularity a generation ago with his
stories for children, stories marked by that combination of fancy
with simplicity which is one of the surest appeals to the juvenile
imagination. Many of his stories too, notably those in
" Higgledy Piggledv," should have an especial attraction for
Kentish children, in that they tell of strange adventures, of
fairies, witches, and animals in these southern parts of the
county.
Crossing the East Stour near Smeeth station we can easily
reach Aldington in the hilly district north of Romney Marsh,
dealt with in the previous chapter. The fact that members of
the poet's family were buried at Smeeth justifies us in claiming
Gower as a Kentish worthy.
Following the course of the stream — decked in summer-time
with white and yellow water-lilies — through level dyked
meadows with all the character of marshland, we come to the
little village of Mersham, with its southward extension beyond
the Stour suggestively named Flood Street, and with the foot-
path along a raised bank indicative of the flood-time state of the
roadway in this high valley of the East Stour. The general
level is over a hundred feet above the sea which lies but a few
miles to the south beyond the Hythe to Appledore hills, for
the stream, as has been said earlier, though it rises but a few
miles from Hythe on this southern coast, flows north-westward
to the Great Stour at Ashford, and reaches the sea in the neigh-
bourhood of Sandwich.
To the south of Ashford lie various small hamlets, scattered
about well kept farmlands, passing which we come to the
broad woodlands north of the Romney Marshes, and so to
238 A ZEAL FOR MATRIMONY chai\
Ham Street, Warehorne, and Appledore. Westwards following
the course of the Great Stour we come to the neat and attrac-
tive village of Great Chart, with its many cottage gardens rich in
bright flowers, its typical grey stone towered church at the end
of the rising street. Here Hadrian a Saravia, a famous divine,
friend of the judicious Hooker as we have seen, was Rector
during the closing years of his life, and here he died in 1613.
He was a striking example of the cosmopolitan divine of the
period ; his father was a Spaniard, his mother a Fleming, and
he passed much of his life in the Channel Islands and England.
To him we owe something for his share in the translation of the
Bible, for he was nominated one of the translators in 1607, and
was one of the committee to whom was entrusted the Old Testa-
ment from Genesis to the Second Book of Kings. He is also
known as author of a Latin treatise on the Eucharist which he
dedicated to James I., but which was not published until 1855.
To the north of Great Chart is one of the many beautiful
parklands of the district, Godinton Park and Swinford Old
Manor — the " haunt of ancient peace " in which Mr. Alfred
Austin, the Poet Laureate, has long resided in a pleasant
rambling house screened from the road by a wealth of flower-
ing shrubs and trees. A seventeenth century worthy who
lived at Godinton is said to have married five wives, and,
on the death of the fifth, when he was ninety-three years of
age, set out and walked to London in search of a sixth, but
his zeal for matrimony was cut short by death. Park almost
merges into park, and next we reach the beautiful and
extensive one of Hothfield Place in the neighbourhood of
which, according to one tradition, Alexander Iden slew the
rebel Cade. The beautiful tract of Hothfield Heath is one to
be lingered over and wandered about. Its grand clumps of
pines, its sturdy beeches, with stretches of turf and innumerable
patches of gorse and other shrubs make it very picturesque
while from its higher portions are to be had beautiful views
across the Weald in one direction, and of the wooded range
of hills in the other. In one of the coppices of Hothfield,
between the lake and the Ashford road, "the nodding fox-
glove " grows in splendid profusion — thousands of noble
spikes being grouped in most admired disorder among the
undergrowth where the trees have been cut down. From the
xi FIRES AND FIRES 239
Heath in a couple of miles by the little hamlet of Westwell
Leacon we may reach the comfortable looking village of
Charing backed by the wooded downs with the steep and
winding ascent of Charing Hill on the way to Faversham, the
windmill silhouetted against the sky on top. From that hill
a magnificent view across the upper valley of the Stour and
the Weald is to be had, the flourishing farmlands being greatly
diversified with clumps and stretches of woodland.
" Dirty Charing lies in a hole,
It had but one bell and that was stole.1'
This village, which strikes the present day visitor as anything
but dirty, is one of the many places at which we come upon
old-time residences of the Archbishops of Canterbury. Here
for several centuries stood a splendid archiepiscopal palace,
one of the most ancient possessions attached to Canterbury,
taking us back to the early establishment of Christianity in
England. In 757 it was seized by Offa but not long afterwards
was returned to the Archbishop and remained one of his
successors' most important possessions up to the time of
Henry VIII. when Cranmer found it politic to hand it and
others over to that grasping monarch. " Whilst Thomas
Arundel filled the see, in the reign of Henry IV., the first
capital execution for the crime of heresy occurred. He pro-
nounced W. Sawtre a relapsed heretic, and those fires were
kindled which at length consumed Cranmer, the last archi-
episcopal tenant of the palace at Charing." The remaining
ruins, partly formed into cottages, partly used as farm buildings,
though considerable, suggest little of these old-time tragedies,
or of the old-time splendour when Henry VIII. was enter-
tained here en route for the Field of the Cloth of Gold. The
ruins in which herring-bone masonry, tiles, and weather-worn
carvings are to be seen stand by the gate leading to the
handsome church which is the successor of an ancient one
that was in 1590 " consumed by fire to the very stones of the
building, which happened from a gun discharged at a pigeon,
then upon the roof of it." The church has a sundial over
the entrance.
Owing to the discovery long since of Roman remains,
24o "IT'S MONDAY, BOYS" chap.
Charing disputes with four-mile-distant Lenham the right to
be considered the original Durolenum. Southwards towards
the Weald we may visit Egerton, the great church tower of
which village is seen prominently from the road ; Pluckley,
with its many delightful old houses, and good view across the
Weald ; and Little Chart, all set in pleasant country. Egerton,
with some nice old cottages, and its church with a lofty
buttressed tower is situated on a small hill and is said to mark
one limit of that vague tract known as the Weald. Beyond it
is another landmark in the Egerton windmill and below it by
the infant Stour is the hamlet of Stonebridge Green. Another
tiny hamlet near Egerton, in the opposite direction, and
forming a detached portion of the parish of Little Chart, is
Mundey Boys, worth more than passing mention in that a
local story attaches to its quaint name. This story runs that
a farmer here had several sons who were given to going
out and enjoying themselves on Sundays so that they were
loth to rise next morning, and their father had so regularly
to rouse them with his cry of " Now, then, get up, get up, —
it's Monday, boys," that the words came to be attached to the
place. It needs but a simple story to win applause at the
wayside inns in some of these quiet country spots. Pluckley
station, from which this part of our district may well be
explored, lies more than a mile to the south with near-by
brickworks and smoke-belching chimney scarcely suggestive
of the peaceful and lonely rustic places within easy reach ;
quiet woodlands, rich in the flora of the Weald, occasional
ponds grown with reeds and rushes, and starred with water-
lilies, lanes and footpaths along which we may walk for long
without meeting another wayfarer.
North of Charing, too, among the higher hills leading up to
the Faversham country, we may cross the old Pilgrim's Road
which runs curiously parallel — at from less than half a mile to
a mile and a half — with the high road, and find walks no
less various, no less attractive. Here are wide stretches of
woods in which the hop-grower's friend, the sweet chestnut, is
plentifully seen. At Stalisfield, in a country of coppices, the
church is to be visited for the sake of its carved oak screen.
At Otterden dwelt an early electrical experimentalist, Stephen
Gray (died 1736), whose labours assisted considerably in
XI
WOODED HILLS
241
the advance of our knowledge of electricity. Climbing the
steep Charing Hill and turning to the right beyond we come
to the broad extent of Longbeech Wood and so reach the
neighbourhood of Challock and its adjacencies touched upon
in the earlier description of these places round and about
Ash ford.
Anglers.
R
CHAPTER XII
CRANBROOK AND THE " HURSTS "
Though it was of Sussex that Mr. Rudyard Kipling was sing-
ing when he wrote of
" Belt upon belt, the wooded, dim
Blue goodness of the Weald,"
and though a greater extent of the Weald belongs to Sussex
than belongs to Kent our county may claim its share of the
goodness ; for those who wander about the wooded belts
there is as much to attract the attention in the things seen
and as much to touch the imagination with bygone associa-
tions in the Kentish as in the Sussex Weald. It is still
largely a country of retired villages, of much woodland, of
quiet, winding ways. Though farms and tiny hamlets almost
innumerable are scattered about it, and though branch railways
now cross it from Headcorn by Tenterden to Robertsbridge,
and from Paddock Wood by Cranbrook to near Hawkhurst
the tract of country is one in which the lover of seclusion has
not to travel far for his satisfaction.
Though changed much from the days when the Wealden
Forest stretched from Hampshire and occupied a large part
of the counties of Surrey, Sussex and Kent, though habitations
in single spies and in battalions have invaded its privacy,
yet enough remains to suggest how important a barrier its
miles of hills, dense woods and clayey bogs made between the
coast and the interior in the days when the best of the roads
were probably no better than more or less indefinite tracks
through the dense cover of various shrubs and trees, largely oak.
The Wealden oak was indeed an important factor in the build-
ing up of Britain's supremacy as mistress of the seas. As that
splendid utilitarian William Cobbett put it," Here the oak grows
CH. XII
KENTISH OAK
243
finer than in any part of England. The trees are more spiral
in their form. They grow much faster than upon any other
land. Yet the timber must be better ; for, in some of the Acts
of Queen Elizabeth's reign it is provided that the oak for the
Royal Navy shall come out of the Weald of Surrey, Sussex or
Kent." Samuel Pepys in his " Memoires of the Navy " shocks
our prejudice about English oak by declaring that for the
larger vessels, foreign oaks — Prussian and Bohemian — yielded
better and more durable timber ! The shipbuilders took toll of
the woodlands and so also did the iron founders, yet still on
Avals'
Headcot n Ch urchyt 1 > 1 f.
the whole the country that was in olden time Andredsweald, or
" the wood or forest without habitation," remains one of the
best wooded that we have of like extent. Oaks are still to be
seen in plenty, occasionally in fine specimens and frequently in
coppices of younger growth and varied with other timber. The
denuding of the Weald began early, and Michael Drayton three
hundred years ago made the forests, "daughters of the Weald,"
lament the change already wrought, the disregard of posterity
in the wholesale destruction of the timber trees :
" ' Could we,' say they, 'suppose that any would us cherish,
Which suffer (every day) the holiest things to perish ?
R 2
244
"POOR WOFUL WOODS"
CHAP.
All lo our daily want to minister supply
These iron times breed none that mind posterity.
'Tis but in vain to tell, what we before have been,
Or changes of the world, that we in time have seen ;
When, not devising how to spend our wealth with waste,
We to the savage swine let fall our larding mast,
But now, alas, ourselves we have not to sustain,
Nor can our tops suffice to shield our roots from rain.
Jove's oak, the warlike ash, vein'd elm, the softer beech,
Short hazel, maple plain, light asp, the bending wych,
Tough holly, and smooth birch, must altogether burn ;
• °«*Stti
^
» ki..
Looking West from a point between Hawkhurst and Cranbrook.
What should the builder serve, supplies the forger's turn ;
When under public good, base private gain takes hold,
And we poor woful woods to ruin lastly sold.',"
When Drayton wrote the Weald was already greatly changed
from its earliest character. In prehistoric times it is supposed
to have been the bed of a sea, and later a great river estuary on
the banks of which reptilian monsters " tare each other in the
slime." In the English Chronicle it is the " Mickle wood, that
we call Andred," and was "from west to east a hundred and
twelve miles long or longer, and thirty miles broad," while Bcde
XII
WEALDEN "HURSTS"
245
twelve hundred years ago described it as " thick and inaccessible,
the abode of deer, swine and wolves," though it had long since
been penetrated by several of the great roads which formed so
important a factor in the civilising influence of the Romans.
Centuries have gone since the last boar was hunted, the last
wolf destroyed ; great trees — survivals of the forest primeval-
are comparatively few, but yet it is of the woods and coppices
that we first think when we try to consider this great Wealden
district as a whole. Over and over again we are reminded of
V
. -#Wr M' '
Between Goudhitrst ami Horsmonden.
it in the place-names of towns and villages and estates scat-
tered about it, by the common termination of " hurst." Taking
Cranbrook as our centre we have Staplehurst to the north,
Hawkhurst to the south, Sissinghurst to the east, and Lamber-
hurst to the west, with " hursts " innumerable about the devious
byways in between.
Though now quiet enough, picturesque Cranbrook was
once a place of considerable importance, being the first centre
of the cloth weaving industry in the days of Edward III. For
centuries this manufacture was carried on here and in the sur-
£XjfrL&^o<f-0\^_
Cranbrook.
CH. XII
CRANBROOK CHURCH
247
rounding district, and when Fuller wrote " Kentish cloth at the
present keepeth up the credit thereof as high as ever before,"
but it has now been supplanted by the manufacture of other
districts, and to remind us of the bygone trade we have but the
old gabled houses in which it was carried on, and such stories
as that of Queen Elizabeth walking from Cranbrook to the
neighbouring manor of Coursehorne entirely on a pathway of
broadcloth made in the neighbourhood. The church stand-
Staplehurst.
ing part hidden at an angle of the main street is an inter-
esting building with many noticeable features, including a
'dipping place," constructed by a notable Anabaptist vicar
here, known to those who read old works of controversial
theology as "Johnson of Cranbrook." Born at Frindsbury,
and educated at Canterbury, the non-juring divine belongs very
fully to our county for, successively or as pluralist, the Rev.
John Johnson held the livings of Hardres, Boughton-under-
248 THE POETS OF CRANBROOK chap.
Blean, Heme Hill, Margate, Appledore, and lastly— 1 707-1 725
— Cranbrook, where he was known as a diligent parish priest,
holding daily services in his church, and whence he issued
his various works on divinity. More famous names associated
with Cranbrook are those of Phineas Fletcher, the poet of "the
Purple Island " — " wise, tender, and sweet voiced old fellow "■
was born here when his grandfather was rector in 1582, and of
Sydney Dobell, the singer of " Balder," who was born here
in 1824.
To Willsley Green, a little north of Cranbrook, the infant
Douglas Jerrold was taken within a few weeks of his birth in
Soho ; there he passed his earliest years, and thither I like to
believe his memory returned when he came to present the
idyllic spot described in " The Chronicles of Clovernook" —
"We will show every green lane about it ; every clump of trees — every
bit of woodland, mead and dell. The villagers, too, may be found, upon
acquaintance, not altogether boors. ' There are some strange folk among
them. Men who have wrestled in the world, and have had their victories
and their trippings-up ; and now they have nothing to do but keep their
little bits of garden ground pranked with the earliest flowers ; their only
enemies, weeds, slugs and snails. Odd people, we say it, are amongst
them. Men, whose minds have been strangely carved and fashioned by
the world ; cut like odd fancies in walnut-tree : but though curious and
grotesque, the minds are sound, with not a worm-hole in them. And these
men meet in summer under the broad mulberry-tree before the "gratis,"
and tell their stories— thoughts, humours ; yea, their dreams."
There are in this neighbourhood many fine trees, particularly
grand conifers between Cranbrook and Sissinghurst.
Five miles to the north of Cranbrook is Staplehurst, with a
good view of the valley of the River Beult, one of the most
important tributaries of the Medway, and before reaching that
town we have Frittenden, a mile or so to the right, returning
from which attractive byroads lead to one of the old " stately
homes of England "at Sissinghurst, passing on our way the
Hammer Stream. This little tributary of the Beult as do other
names in the neighbourhood, reminds us of the days when
ironfounding was carried on extensively in the "hursts." But
northward the tide of manufacture has taken its way, and iron-
founding and cloth-making must be looked for far from these
rural scenes.
The ruins of the Tudor Sissinghurst Castle, at some distance
from the village, are well worth visiting. Sir Roger de Cover-
XII
WALPOLE AT SISSINGHURST
249
ley we may be sure would have gone out of his way for the
purpose, for he was a diligent reader of Baker's " Chronicle of
the Kings of England," as Addison has told us, always keeping
the volume in his hall window and quoting it with approval.
Frittenden Church.
Horace Walpole we know did go out of his way in 1752 — and
was not altogether gratified. " Yesterday," he wrote, " after
twenty mishaps we got to Sissinghurst to dinner. There is a
park in ruins, and a house in ten times greater ruins, built by
sir John Baker, chancellor of the exchequer to queen Mary.
250 A CHRONICLER ON HIMSELF chap.
You go through an arch of the stables to the house, the court
of which is perfect and very beautiful. . . . This has a good
apartment, and a fine gallery a hundred and twenty feet by
eighteen, which takes up one side : the wainscot is pretty and
entire ; the ceiling vaulted and painted in a light genteel gro-
tesque. The whole is built for show ; for the back of the
house is nothing but lath and plaster." Nearly half a century
later than Walpole's visit the ' place was utilised for keeping
French prisoners, since which it has been reduced to mere
ruins. It was at this Castle that the unhappy Sir Richard Baker
was born, but the literary works by which he is remembered
were destined to be written from the confinement of the Fleet
Prison. It was Sir Richard's grandfather, Sir John Baker,
ambassador to Denmark for Henry VIII., and Chancellor of
the Exchequer under Queen Mary, who built Sissinghurst. Sir
John is reported to have been a severe opponent of his Ana-
baptist neighbours at Cranbrook, and an unfounded tradition
says that he was killed during a broil with them at a place in
the vicinity still known as Baker's Cross. The historian was the
eldest son of Sir John's disinherited eldest son, and though born
at the Castle does not seem to have been long associated with
it. At the age of sixty-seven he was forced to take refuge in
the Fleet Prison, and there during the last ten years of his life he
wrote various works, including the " Chronicles " by which he
was once better remembered, and of which he himself said " it
is collected with so great care and diligence, that if all other of
our chronicles were lost, this only would be sufficient to inform
posterity of all passages memorable, or worthy to be known."
Contemporaries and successors passed far other judgments on
the work, which has long since become obsolete. It is, how-
ever, with bitter feelings that we think of that son-in-law of his
— " one Smith " — who destroyed the manuscript of Sir Richard's
autobiography ; his devotional exercises and verses were little
likely to do more than please his contemporaries, his
" Chronicle " was doomed to be superseded, but from such of
his works as we can judge we may well believe that the lost one
might have had a lasting attractiveness. The destruction of a
MS. book by any but the author thereof should rank with the
worst of crimes. It is a kind of murder.
Northwards from Cranbrook we found the Wealden country
gradually declining towards the Beult and its tributaries,
XII
A HAWKHURST WORTHY
251
southwards after rising to the small village of Hartley (near
Cranbrook station) we go towards the Kent Ditch which for
some distance forms the boundary between our county and
Sussex. Not far from the boundary — beyond which the parish
extends — is the extensive village of Hawkhurst in the midst
of delightful country, with a number of Elizabethan residences
and parks in the near neighbourhood.
The large church of Hawkhurst — at the southern end of the
Hawkhurst Moor.
village — is remarkable for its decorated east window, and for
having parvis chambers over its northern and southern porches.
In the church is an inscribed marble slab to the memory of
Nathaniel Lardner, a celebrated nonconformist divine who was
born in the Hall House, Hawkhurst, in 1684, spent most of his
life in London and died in the house in which he was born
on his annual visit to his native village in 1768. He is
regarded as "the founder of the critical school of modern
252 "THE SAXTEN'S WAGS" chap.
research in the field of early Christian literature, and he is still
the leading authority on the conservative side."
The churchwardens' accounts for Hawkhurst during the
sixteenth century include some curious items. For instance
in 1548 we find there was twopence paid "to blast for kepyng
the doggs out of the churche," while in 1549 we find the
churchwardens lending money and accounting for the interests
received, thus : —
" Itm, of Thomas Seceley for the ferme (loan) of Xm . . xiijs — iiijd
Itm, of John Hyckmote for the ferine of V' vjs — viijd
Itm, of John Keffynche for ferme of xxxs ijs"
These sums were probably lent from the " Poor Men's Box "
to poor men to purchase cows or other aids to a livelihood.
A few years later we find
" Pd for the pformynge of the saxten's wags at Easter . . 1 Is — vjd
It would be curious to know what performance the " saxten's
wags " indulged in — presumably one of the miracle plays or
moralities in which the time was rich, though the performers
being described as wags suggests that these performances may
have been a drollery.
Sir John F. W. Herschel — the third member of one family to
win wide fame as an astronomer — lived for thirty years at
Collingwood just south of Hawkhurst Church; here he carried
out his incessant work in widening the bounds of our
knowledge of the stars — " every day of Herschel's long and
happy life added its share to his scientific services " — and here
in 1 87 1 he died, but he is not buried here : Westminster Abbey
claimed him — and there he was interred near to the grave of
Sir Isaac Newton.
Hawkhurst was one of the neighbouring places which followed
Cranbrook in the industry of clothmaking, and here also was
another ironfounding centre — the furnaces being at one time
the property of that " hero of peace," William Perm, whose
beautiful and saintly wife, Gulielma Maria Springett, came
from over the Sussex border.
East of Hawkhurst we may go by Benenden or Sandhurst
into the Tenterden district, but immediately to the west is
country no less attractive and still less inhabited where there
stretches the broad extent of the Frith and Bedgebury Woods
xii
SPANISH GOLD IN KENT
253
with good views and many miles of quiet walks for all who
delight in woodland solitude. Frith Woods are sometimes
Fright Woods — the term originally signifying rough, poorly
grown, heathy woodlands, was as we have seen also used of
Aldington Frith. Bedgebury Park is a noble estate lying to
the north with some grand trees and with notable gardens and
lakes. The great lake, a splendid sheet of water, is said to
cover the site of the old moated manor house at which Queen
Elizabeth stayed during one of her Kentish progresses. The
Goudhurst.
present house, since altered, was built in 1688 by Sir James
Hayes — one time Secretary to Prince Rupert — out of his
share of a recovered Spanish treasure ship. At the western
side of the picturesque park is the hamlet of Bedgebury Cross
from which we may reach the village of Kilndown in the
modern and unattractive church of which Field-Marshal Vis-
count Beresford, one of Wellington's ablest lieutenants in the
Peninsular War, is buried. Beresford has been much criticised
for his conduct of the battle of Albuera, but Wellington
declared that if he himself had been incapacitated he should
254 LONDONERS PLEASE NOTE chap.
have recommended Beresford to succeed him, not for his
qualities of generalship, but because he alone could " feed an
army." The conqueror of Waterloo thus enforcing the truth
of the dictum that an army fights on its stomach.
Kilndown village is backed by Kilndown "Woods and imme-
diately beyond is Scotney Castle, the creeper-clad ruins of an
old moated residence by the little river Bewl. Lamberhurst, a
little further to the west, is a large village among the well wooded
hills. Here — as in so many of our " hursts " — iron smelting was
carried on extensively in past times ; it was indeed one of the
most important centres of the industry, providing the iron
railings which once surrounded, and now partially surround St.
Paul's Cathedral, and being also busied over cannon founding.
The St. Paul's railings were cast at the Gloucester furnace — so
named from Queen Anne's son who visited it in 1698 — which
stood on the River Teise about midway between Lamberhurst
and Bayham Abbey. These railings, according to an old writer
— Londoners please note when next passing through St. Paul's
Churchyard — " compose the most magnificent balustrade per-
haps in the universe ! " The total weight of the rails and gates,
according to the same authority who fell from high falutin to
statistics, was over two hundred tons, and the cost upwards of
eleven thousand pounds. Many of the rails which were moved
from the front of St. Paul's found their way to Canada. The
vessel carrying them was wrecked, and some of them were only
recovered after considerable trouble and at much expense.
These now protect a tomb in High Park in Toronto, bearing
an inscription — which is quoted from memory —
" St. Paul's Cathedral for 160 years I did enclose
Stranger, behold with reverence !
Man, unstable man,
Twas thou that caused this severance !"
East and north-east of Lamberhurst are Goudhurst and
Horsmonden, little more than a couple of miles apart with the
Teise flowing northwards between, and with roads " smooth
and handsome as those in Windsor Park." Horsmonden is a
picturesquely situated village. Its old church, which stands a
mile away near the river, with at its gate a grand walnut tree
the spreading branches of which are supported on many
" crutches," has some interesting features, including an excel-
XII
A PUNNING EPITAPH
255
lent fourteenth century brass of one de Grofhurst in ecclesias
tical vestments. The Grovehurst family was long resident at
the manor of the same name near the river here, but became
extinct some centuries ago. For a mural monument to the
Browne family a simile-seeking epitaph-writer produced the
following which is well worthy of standing with other punning
memorials of the dead :
" Reader, stand still ; when the Almighties hand
Had wrote these copies faire, then vnderstand,
He strewed them ore with dust, that they might be
View from near Goudhursi.
Secur'd from blots, discharg'd from injury :
When God shall blow away this dust, they shall
Be known to have been divinely pen'd by all."
On the oak screen on behalf of some unidentifiable Alice
Campion was carved an appeal for the prayers of the devout :
" Orate pro bono aestatu alecie campeon." A family of the
Campions is said to have resided in the neighbourhood in the
sixteenth century.
Near to the rectory, pleasantly situated in a little park on an
eminence, is a tower erected half a century ago by the late Rev.
256 PASSING RICH chap.
Sir William Smith-Marriott to the memory of Sir Walter Scott
and within the tower is preserved a collection of the works of
the Wizard of the North. An unique tribute it would seem to a
man of letters. Besides the fine walnut by the church gate
there is, standing near the remains of an old moat, a grand old
tree known as the Big Oak.
Goudhurst again is a very picturesquely situated village,
having the advantage of its neighbour in the matter of height,
for it is on the summit of one of the loftiest ridges in the Weald
and all about it are to be had grand views — that from the church
to the south across the " Fright " woods and Bedgebury Park is
especially fine. This view from the churchyard is said by one
with a liking for the particularity of figures to be "about
twenty-five miles in diameter." In the church, much rebuilt
and restored, the tower of which forms a striking landmark,
are some curious old monuments while in the large village are
some of the ancient houses in which the clothmaking industry
was carried on in the palmy days of that manufacture in Kent.
" Some little wool staplery business " was continued here on
into the early nineteenth century.
In an old Kent guide we learn, of Goudhurst, that " there are
two schools in the parish, one for teaching grammar and the
Latin language, and the other English. The former is under
the care of a master, who has a salary of thirty-five pounds
per annum, the latter is under the care of a widow woman,
who has a salary of five pounds per annum, and is full of poor
children." The old grammar school has ceased to exist and
three college exhibitions are maintained with its funds. The
poor widow woman who has long since laid aside the ferule,
and herself sleeps peacefully in the churchyard, must have
been such an one as inspired Shenstone's poem.
" In ev'ry village mark'd with little spire,
EmbowYd in trees, and hardly known to fame,
There dwells, in lowly shed, and mean attire,
A matron old. whom we school-mistress name ;
Who boasts unruly brats with birch to tame ;
They grieven sore, in piteous durance pent,
Aw'd by the pow'r of this relentless dame ;
And oft-times, on vagaries idly bent,
For unkempt hair, or task unconn'd, are sorely shent.
Some years after these munificently paid educators of the
people had been thus mentioned William Cobbett visiting
xii COBBETT AT GOUDHURST 257
Goudhurst on one of those " Rural Rides " the account of
which forms one of the most bracing books of the kind we
have, thanks to the combined strong common sense and
dogmatism of the burly egotist, happened upon an opportunity
for enlarging upon another matter of education :
" I got to Goudhurst to breakfast, and as I heard that the Dean of
Rochester was to preach a sermon in behalf of the National Schools, I
stopped to hear him. In waiting for his Reverence I went to the Metho-
dist Meeting-house, where I found the Sunday School boys and girls
assembled, to the almost filling of the place, which was about thirty feet
long and eighteen feet wide. The 'Minister' was not come, and the
Schoolmaster was reading to the children out of a tract-book, and shaking
the brimstone bag at them most furiously. This Schoolmaster was a sleek-
looking young fellow ; his skin perfectly tight ; well-fed, I'll warrant him ;
and he has discovered the way of living, without work, on the labour of
those that do work. There were thirty-six little fellows in smock-frocks,
and al out as many girls listening to him ; and I daresay he eats as much
meat as any ten of them. By this time the Dean, I thought, would be
coming on ; and, therefore, to the church I went ; but to my great disap-
pointment, I found that the parson was operating preparatory to the
appearance of the Dean, who was to come on in the afternoon, when I,
agreeably to my plan, must be off. The sermon was from 2 Chronicles,
Ch. xxi, v. 21, and the words of this text described King Hezekiah as a
most zealous man, doing whatever he did with all his heart. I write from
memory, mind, and, therefore, I do not pretend to quote exact words ;
and I may be a little in error, perhaps, as to chapter or verse. The object
of the preacher was to hold up to his hearers the example of Hezekiah,
and particularly in the case of the school affair. He called upon them to
subscribe with all their hearts ; but alas ! how little of persuasive power
was there in what he said. No effort to make them see the use of the
schools. No inducement proved to exist. No argument, in short, nor any-
thing to move. No appeal either to the reason or to the feeling. All was
general, commonplace, cold observation ; and that, too, in language which
the far greater part of the hearers could not understand. This church is
about a hundred and ten feet long, and seventy feet wide in the clear. It
would hold three thousand people, and it had in it two hundred and four-
. teen, besides fifty-three Sunday School or National School boys ; and these
sat together in a sort of lodge, up in a corner, 16 feet long and IO feet
wide. Now, will any Parson Malthus, or anybody else, have the impu-
dence to tell me that this church was built for the use of a population not
more numerous than the present ? "
This question of the relative disproportion of the churches,
both in number and in size, to the population is one that crops
up again and again as we pass through many of our country
districts, and scarcely seems accounted for even by the growth
of Nonconformity and the "rural exodus." It may well
s
258 LIVING UPON FAITH chap.
be believed that when the churches were erected "to the
Glory of God " their size was conditioned more by the zeal of
the builders and the wealth available than by the number of
parishioners likely to worship in them.
Going from Goudhurst back to Cranbrook, which lies about
four miles to the east, we pass Iden Green and cross-
roads known locally as Four Wents, both of which
names curiously enough are duplicated a short distance south
of Cranbrook. At the first of these Four Wents we are reminded
of a singular person of some importance in his day, one hundred
years ago ; an eccentric preacher known to notoriety as William
Huntingdon, S.S. The natural son of a neighbouring farmer,
this worthy was born in a cottage at the Four Wents and was
baptized in the name of his putative father, William Hunt, at
the age of five in 1750. Like a certain nobleman he was all
things by turn and nothing long, though never statesman,
fiddler or — at least in his own regard — buffoon. According to
the " Dictionary of National Biography," after gaining the barest
rudiments of education at the Cranbrook grammar school,
Hunt " went into service as an errand boy, and was afterwards
successively gentleman's servant, gunmaker's apprentice,
sawyer's pitman, coachman, hearse-driver, tramp, gardener,
coal heaver, and popular preacher." When at length he
"found himself" as a preacher he should certainly have ac-
quired such wide knowledge of men and matters as could
not fail to prove serviceable. Having got into trouble which
made it advisable for him to seek a new field for his
labours, he changed his name from Hunt to Huntington, and
having found a young woman to share his adventures, went off
upon his wanderings from place to place — Mortlake, Sunbury,
Kingston, Ewell, Thames Ditton — and from employment to
employment. He suffered much from poverty, " and still more
from conviction of sin." At length he was converted, saw Christ
in a vision, and was brought " under the covenant-love of God's
elect." Later he resolved to cease any work other than that of
preaching the particular form of Calvinism which he evolved,
depending for his subsistence entirely on faith (i.e. the contri-
butions of his congregations). After spending some time as an
itinerant preacher, he was afraid of the old Kentish scandal
being brought up against him, and so confided the history to his
staunchest supporters, and added the mysterious S.S. to his
Xil A PROl'HET AMONG THEM 259
name. " As I cannot get a D.D. for the want of cash, neither
can I get an M.A. for want of learning, therefore I am com-
pelled to fly for refuge to S.S., by which I mean Sinner Saved "
-which suggests that William Huntington was not entirely
wanting in a sense of humour. Later he removed to London,
carrying on his eccentric preaching for thirty years in Provi-
dence Chapel, Litchfield Street, and on that being burned
down, in New Providence Chapel Gray's Inn Lane — being
enabled to build both of these owing to the confidence which
he inspired in his adherents. On the death of the woman with
whom he had lived for over thirty years, Huntington married
Lady Llizabeth Sanderson, widow of a Lord Mayor of London.
He had become engaged in bitter controversy with various
divines, and two years before his marriage published a collective
edition of his works in twenty volumes. He died in 1813 at
Tunbridge Wells, a few miles from where he was born, and was
buried at Lewes, having penned his own epitaph thus :
"Here lies the coal heaver, who departed this life July 1st, 1823, in
the 69th year of his age, beloved of his God, but abhorred of men. The
omniscient Judge at the Grand Assize shall ratify and confirm this to the
confusion oi many thousands, for England and its metropolis shall know
thai there hath been a prophet among them."
When Lord Clive shortly before his death was spending many
thousands of pounds over the building of Claremont, and the
Surrey peasantry declared that he was building the walls so thick
that he might keep out the devil who would one day carry him
away bodily, according to Macaulay " among the gaping clowns
who drank in this frightful story was a worthless ugly lad,"
our fugitive from Kent, and the historian goes on to declare of
Huntington that "the superstition which was strangely mingled
with the knavery of that remarkable impostor " derived support
from the tales he had heard of Clive.
s 2
CHAPTER XIII
MAIDSTONE
If Maidstone were only one of the largest of our Kentish
towns, and the capital of our county — its population is half as
much again as that of Canterbury — it need not detain us long,
but it is besides an ancient place with much in it and in its
history of great interest, and if less full in these regards than
the ecclesiastical capital, it is the centre of yet more interesting
country — along the course of the Medway to the north and to
the west, for the town is situated about the most easterly bend
of the river — eastwards to Leeds and other places, southwards
into orchards and hop gardens. In all these directions are spots
intimately associated with men and events notable in our
history, while about the chalk hills, the stone quarries and the
Wealden district are innumerable villages and picturesque
views typical of that pleasingly various thing which we term
English rural scenery. Then, too, Maidstone is the chief
centre of the hop and fruit growing in the county about
which hop fields and orchards are observable in nearly all
parts. Here as much as anywhere may be sung the
stirring old song in praise of the hop : —
" The hop that swings so lightly
The hop that shines so brightly
Shall still be cherished rightly
By all good men and true.
Thus spake the jovial man of Kent
As through his golden hops he went
With sturdy limb and brow unbent
When autumn skies were blue."
Reckoned the third chief city of the ancient Britons the
town became a Roman station and later the seat of a Saxon
CI I. XIII
THE COUNTY CAPITAL
261
castle. Its name has gone through various forms, from the
Saxon Medwegston ; in the Domesday Survey it was
Meddestone and in local pronunciation it is still Medstun.
Incorporated by Edward VI. it was punished — we shall
see why — by losing its charter under that king's successor,
was granted a new charter by Elizabeth and several further
ones by succeeding monarchs ; James I. incorporating it by
Maidstone.
the style of "the mayor jurats and commonalty of the King's
town and parish of Maidstone."
A clean, pleasant, prosperous town with broad main streets,
with some quaint old houses among its newer ones, with
important modern buildings, yet with an air of cherishing its
past — such is the present appearance of Maidstone to the
casual visitor ; a town in which considerable manufactures are
carried on, in which troops are stationed, yet without becoming
stamped as either a manufacturing or a garrison town, and
through it runs the beautiful Medway the most important of all
262 A FRIEND OF ERASMUS chap.
our rivers, on which considerable carrying traffic is done hence
to Rochester and the Thames.
Of the places to be seen in the town one of the principal is
the Corporation Museum and that not only because a local
museum is the best centre from which to start the tour of a
locality but because the building itself is one best fitted to be
turned to the purpose of housing precious relics connected with
the past of the town and county. It is the ancient Chillington
Manor House — a beautiful example of Tudor domestic archi-
tecture— acquired for its present purpose just half a century ago.
Since then it has been added to and is now one of the chief
provincial museums in the country. This is not the place in
which to epitomise the contents but it may be said that the
collection, while thoroughly representative of the archaeology
and natural history of Kent, includes also specimens and
relics gathered from far afield.
At Maidstone the Archbishops of Canterbury had of old a palace
— there were sixteen palatial residences at one time attached to
the archiepiscopal see — preserved in a very good state. It
dates from the fourteenth century, with additions and altera-
tions, and is now utilised as the local school of science and art,
having been purchased for public use to commemorate the
Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. Near the palace is the
chief church of Maidstone, a large and handsome structure
with, as might be imagined, many important monuments and
other features, including, it is believed, one to the powerful
Archbishop Courtenay, who erected the church in the fourteenth
century. Courtenay, it may be said, is also buried at Canter-
bury.
Seeing how in recent times the value of the teaching of the
" dead languages " has been discussed, it is interesting to find
buried here William Grocyn, friend of Erasmus, and one of
the principal revivers of the study of Greek at Oxford — he was,
says the " Dictionary of National Biography," " among the
first — if not the first — to publicly teach Greek in the univer-
sity " (to adapt Byron, " the split infinitive's the dictionary's
every line, for God's sake, reader, take it not for mine "). In
1506 Grocyn was appointed master of the collegiate church of
All Hallows, Maidstone. Another notable man of Tudor times
buried here is John Astley, Queen Elizabeth's master of the Jewel
House, a great equestrian and author of a treatise setting forth
xiii WYATT'S REBELLION 263
" The Art of Riding." His wife was chief gentlewoman of
the privy chamber to the Queen, who granted him a lease of
Allington Castle. Astley's son, Sir John, Master of the Revels
to Charles I., is also buried here. The churchyard has added
to the tale of epitaph humour the following : " In memory of
John Nettlefold, who died January 13, 1793, aged 80 years,
left issue a third wife and two daughters."
With the " College" founded here by Archbishop Courtenay
was incorporated the hospital of Newark for the use of
pilgrims on their way to Canterbury and other poor travellers,
which had been established towards the close of the thirteenth
century by his predecessor Boniface. The ruins near the church
on the bank of the river are well worth visiting. 'When we
turn from the things which we can see in the old town, remind-
ing us mostly of its great past as an ecclesiastical centre, to
the events which we can consider, we find Maidstone noted
as the centre of two important episodes in history : one when
it was sought to restrain, in the interests of Protestantism,-
Queen Mary from marrying King Philip of Spain, and one
when it was thought to uphold the forlorn hope of Charles's
cause against the triumphant Parliament. The first of these
movements was instigated by Sir Thomas Wyatt, son of the
Tudor poet, whom we may recall more fittingly at Allington.
Wyatt's rebellion, however, had Maidstone as its centre, though
the leader lived a few miles further down stream. Hatred
of Spain and all it stood for worked with zeal for the
Reformed religion to bring many adherents to the rebellion.
Unfortunately for the Kentish leader the affair got known ;
several of his allies were prevented from joining him, and he
with the Men of Kent had to rise and strike his blow with
unprepared suddenness. Despite several small successes, when
the force, the little army of four thousand receiving many
accessions on its way, reached London, its momentum was
destroyed, thanks to the courage — which the Tudors never
lacked — of Queen Mary herself. Wyatt was captured, and he
and many of his followers suffered that death which they must
have known was the penalty of failure. The very rigour of
the punishment meted out to the rebels had, however, the
opposite effect from that intended, so, though he paid with his
life, Wyatt forwarded the cause for which he suffered. One of
the finest scenes of Tennyson's " Queen Mary " is concerned
264
THE MINE IS FIRED
CHAP.
with the gathering of Wyatt's men in the neighbourhood of
Maidstone. As the messenger who roused Wyatt sonnetting
at Allington put it :
-j y iiovi^ffv^
All Saints' Church, Maidstone.
" They roar for you
On Pennenden Heath, a thousand of them — more —
All arm'd, waiting a leader."
"The mine is fired," says Wyatt, "and I will speak to
them," and he is then made thus to express the anti-Spanish
sentiment :
xin A SPLENDID FOLLY 265
" Men of Kent ; England of England ; you that have kept your old
customs upright, while all the rest of England bovv'd theirs to the Norman,
the cause that hath brought us together is not the cause of a county or a
shire, but of this England in whose crown our Kent is the fairest jewel.
Philip shall not wed Mary ; and ye have called me to be your leader. I
know Spain. I have been there with my father ; I have seen them in
their own land; have marked the haughtiness of their nobles; the cruelty
of iheir priests. If this man marry our Queen, however the Council and
the Commons may fence round his power with restriction, he will be King,
King of England, my masters ; and the Queen, and the laws, and the
people, his slaves. What? Shall we have Spain on the throne and in the
Parliament ; Spain in the pulpit and on the law-bench ; Spain in all the
great offices of State ; Spain in our ships, in our forts, in our houses, in our
beds ?
Crowd. — No ! no ! no Spain !
William. — No Spain in our beds — that were worse than all. I have
been there with old Sir Thomas, and the beds I know. I hate Spain.
A Peasant. — But, Sir Thomas, must we levy war against the Queen's
G race ?
Wyatt. — No, my friend ; war for the Queen's Grace — to save her from
herself and Philip — war against Spain. And think not we shall be alone —
thousands will flock to us. The Council, the Coiwt itself, is on our side.
The Lord Chancellor himself is on our side. The King of France is with
us ; the King of Denmark is with us ; the world is with us — war against
Spain ! And if we move not now, yet it will be known that we have moved ;
and if Philip come to be King, O, my God ! the rope, the rack, the
thumbscrew, the stake, the fire. If we move not now Spain moves, bribes our
nobles with her gold, and creeps, creeps snake-like about our legs till we
cannot move at all ; and ye know, my masters, that wherever Spain hath
ruled she hath withered all beneath her. Look at the new world — para-
dise made hell ; the red man, that good helpless creature, starved, maim'd,
flogg'd, flay'd, burn'd, boil'd, buried alive, worried by dogs ; and here,
nearer home, the Netherlands, Sicily, Naples, Lombardy. I say no more —
only this, their lot is yours. Forward to London with me ! Forward to
London ! If ye love your liberties or your skins, forward to London ! "
The cry "a Wyatt ! a Wyatt ! " was taken up by many as
the little army went by Rochester, Gravesend, Dartford, and
Blackheath to London and death. A folly the rising has been
dubbed, but it was a splendid folly ; inspired by the highest
motives, its foolishness was that which attaches to undertakings
foredoomed to failure. In the Marian Persecutions which
followed hard upon the gallant attempt to make such impos-
sible, seven Protestants were burned for conscience' sake here
at Maidstone.
Of the second rising which took place in Kent, that of 1648,
we saw something at Canterbury, which may be looked upon
as the centre of the movement ; but Maidstone had to bear
266 FIVE KENTISH WORTHIES chap.
the brunt of much of the fighting, and on June ist General
Lord Fairfax, with the Parliament's army cut off, a portion of
the Royalist forces, about eight hundred men, drove them into
Maidstone with much hard fighting, and then proceeded to
storm, and take, the town, which, according to John Evelyn, he-
was enabled to do, thanks to the treachery of a gunner, who
was to fire the ordnance of the bridge — which he did, but
against the town instead of for it ! It was a short and sharp
conflict here, and the other portions of the " honorable though
unfortunate expedition " passed into Essex, where they were
finally overcome at Colchester by the triumphant Parliamen-
tarians.
Despite earlier failures, another generation of representative
Men of Kent, assembled at Maidstone in 1701, addressed a
new Petition inspired by the general dissatisfaction at the slow
proceedings of Parliament ; it was also said " that the King was
not assisted, nor the Protestants abroad considered, and the
country people began to say to one another, in their language,
that ' they had sowed their corn, and the French were a-coming
to reap it.' ' The document was mild enough but was treated
with severity which casts a strong light upon the political
h i story of the time.
The five Kentish worthies — William Colepepper (chairman
of the sessions), Thomas Colepepper, Justinian Champneys,
David Polehill, and William Hamilton— who had the temerity
to present this petition to the House of Commons, had the
pleasure of hearing that it was voted " scandalous, insolent,
and seditious," were placed under arrest and shamefully treated
for about five weeks, being quietly released only on the pro-
rogation of Parliament. On their return into their native
county the gentlemen were hailed with public enthusiasm all
along the way, and were feasted and made much of at Maid-
stone. Their perfectly loyal behaviour and unworthy treatment
inspired Daniel Defoe with a strong political tract against " the
conspirators and Jacobite party in a Parliament that are at
present the nation's burthen, and from whom she groans to
be delivered."
Turning from events to persons, there was born at Maidstone
three-quarters of a century later one of the first of English
essayists. In 1770 there came to the town as Unitarian
minister of the Earle Street meeting-house a young Irishman
xiii "KENTISH FIRE" 267
named William Hazlitt, and on April 10th, 1778, "in a house
no longer recognisable, in a lane once called Mitre and now
Bullock " was born his younger son, the William Hazlitt.
Though we can thus claim him technically as a native of Kent,
Hazlitt has but little association with Maidstone, for he was
only two years of age when, as Mr. Augustine Birrell puts it,
" in consequence of one of those congregational quarrels which
ate the weakness of independency," the family left and returned
to the minister's native Ireland.
Near to Maidstone is Pennenden Heath, the great county-
gathering place for many centuries. Here as we have seen
the people waited for Wyatt to lead them, but here long before,
just ten years after the Conquest, a great cause was tried — one
of the first of our recorded trials — when Lan franc, Archbishop
of Canterbury, sought to recover from Odo, Bishop of Bayeux
and Karl of Kent, certain properties which he had seized.
The trial lasted three days and the Archbishop won. As
" King William sent Agelric, the venerable Bishop of Chichester,
in a chariot, to instruct them in the ancient laws and
customs of the land, our county may boast of affording the
earliest instance of the ancient Itinera and the modern
Circuits." During the "No Popery" agitation which attended
the removal of Catholic disabilities many meetings were held
here, [828 9, and then it is said arose that concerted clapping
of hands and stamping of feet which has since become known
as " Kentish fire."
Leaving talk about the many places to be visited by any one
making Maidstone a centre for the next chapter, it may be well
to say something about two of the most characteristic features
of our county — its hop-gardens and its orchards — both of which
are more noticeable around this town than elsewhere, except
in the Sittingbourne and Faversham district. Cherry and
apple orchards and hop-gardens or fields, as has been said
earlier, are to be found all about the county, but it is in the
Maidstone district that they occupy the greatest extent of
ground, and in which they may be most fully examined. The
May-time orchards, seas of white and pink-tinted blossoms,
form a sight not easily to be forgotten, framed as they so fre-
quently are by the fresh greenery of surrounding woodlands,
or in the case of recently planted orchards before their branches
have reached out from tree to tree, and made that shady whole
268 BEAUTIFUL ORCHARDS chap.
which is conjured up by the very name of orchard, the trees
show dazzlingly against the fresh spring turf. And beneath the
trees may frequently be seen flocks of white-faced sheep with,
about blossoming time, their long-legged little lambs. An
orchard in full bloom under a Muy sun, with sheep and lambs
feeding and resting under the trees, forms a perfect picture of
peace and restfulness, though frequently, alas ! utility has to
step in and mar the picturesqueness when the boles of the
trees, as a protection against insect pests, are painted white with
a protecting wash. When the petals have fallen and the fruit
is " set " the orchards are less attractive to the eye, less com-
pelling of the exclamatory " how beautiful ! " All orchards are
beautiful in the time of bloom, but those of plum and pear less
strikingly so than those of cherry and apple : the pure white
of the former against its delicate young foliage ; the lovely pink
of the apple, whether seen in individual sprays or in a hillside
orchard, are possessed of beauty indescribable. A walk about
our orchard districts is, then, a feast of delightful colour — nay,
some of us think that it would be far better worth while to take
a railway trip through the Maidstone and Sittingbourne dis-
tricts in May than to journey to Bushey Park to see the chest-
nuts in bloom. Two or three months later, when the branches
are set as with a myriad ruddy jewels, the freshness of youth
annually renewed has given place to quite another beauty — that
of maturity ; and, later still, when the foliage flames in autumn,
the cherry orchards especially take on yet another phase of
loveliness before passing into that seeming rest when all the
energies of sap and fibre are preparing for the next year's
sequence.
The wild cherry is occasionally to be met with in Kent, and
so unerringly does the true poet touch us with his description
of things seen and felt that it is impossible, knowing Mr.
George Meredith's "A Faith on Trial," to happen upon the
delicate tree in bloom without recalling his lines. I remember
especially such a tree standing on the hedge bank towards
the top of a little hill near St. Mary Cray.
" Now gazed I where, sole upon gloom
As flower bush in sun-specked crag,
Up the spine of the double combe
With yew-boughs heavily cloaked,
A young apparition shone :
Xlil CHERRIES IN THE RISE 269
Known, yet wonderful, white
Surpassingly : doubtfully known,
For it struck as the birth of light ;
Even Day from the dark unyoked.
It waved like a pilgrim flag
O'er processional penitents flown
When of old they broke rounding yon spine :
O the pure wild-cherry in bloom ! "
Although it was not until the sixteenth century that the
cherry came to be cultivated extensively in Kent, Pliny has
recorded that less than a hundred and twenty years after the
fruit was introduced into Rome (by Lucullus, it is well to
remember) " other lands had cherries, even so far as Britain
beyond the ocean." Indeed they must have been grown for
market more than a century before the time which John
Evelyn gives as that of their first general planting in Kent.
In John Lydgate's "London Lackpenny" — the narrative of an
impecunious man of Kent who journeyed citywards only to
find that Westminster and London were no places for the man
who had no means to spend — we read
" Then unto London I did me hie,
' )t all the land it beareth the prize.
' Hot peascods ! ' one began to cry,
' Strawdjerries ripe ! ' and ' Cherries in the rise ! '
And bade me come near to buy some spice :
Pepper and saffron they gan me bede ;
But for lack of money I might not speed."
The disillusioned man then "conveyed" him into Kent, but
his experiences as recorded by Lydgate show that cherries
were sold in the London streets at the beginning of the
fifteenth century even as they are at the beginning of the
twentieth. " Cherries in the rise " is said to mean cherries on
the branch, but it is more likely to mean cherries tied to a twig
or "rise" as it is termed in many of our rural dialects. It
was in the sixteenth century that Kent started its reputation as
the county of cherry orchards if that great lover of trees John
Evelyn is to be taken as a guide, for he has recorded that " it
was by the plain industry of one Harris (a fruiterer t-o King
Henry VIII.) that the fields and environs of about thirty
towns in Kent only, were planted with fruit, to the universal
benefit and general improvement of that county to this
day."'
270 THE HOPFIELBS chap.
If the cherry orchards are places of delight in the spring
their uplifting beauty is soon followed by the green of the
growing hops. According to Anne Pratt, a native of our
county as we shall be reminded at Strood, " travellers who
have beheld, in other lands, the various scenes of culture — the
olive grounds of Spain or Syria, the vineyards of Italy, the
cotton plantations of India, or the rose fields of the East, —
have generally agreed that not one of them all equals in
beauty our English hop gardens." There may be the element
of exaggeration in this ; there may be scenes of culture more
beautiful, but often it is in a sense not meant by the poet that
distance lends enchantment to the view, and a sight is pleasing
because we have travelled far to see it, or have been
taught to think it beautiful by the tales of other travellers
our preceders. I confess that the first sight of vineyards in
Northern Italy was a disappointing one compared with our
Kentish hop-fields ; of olive grounds, cotton plantations and
the rose gardens of Persia I am unfortunately not qualified to
speak, but I can readily believe that the mere addition of
colour may render some of these scenes more beautiful than
the slightly sombre green of our massed hops. The hop-fields
to be enjoyed properly should be visited at three stages of
their growth : when the bines are partly up their poles and
strings, at the end of May ; when the growth is completed and
the topmost aspiring shoots have reached beyond their highest
support in July, and again in the autumn when "hopping" has
begun and the fields are busy with many workers — men,
women and children — removing the hops from the bines.
Then the scene does not lack colour, but it does not call for
description, for every year as the hopping season comes round
the scene is newly described in our newspapers, until it must
be more or less familiar to all readers.
Seeing the extent of our hop-fields now it is curious to remem-
ber that the cultivation of the plant met with considerable
opposition at various times. Though supposed to be indigenous
it was not until five or six centuries ago that the plant was
cultivated, for it is variously said to have been brought from
Flanders in the reigns of Henry IV. and of Henry VIII.,
some authorities fixing an actual date at 1524. Though the
common distich tells us of the arrival of the hop as a notable
acquisition, yet Henry VIII. issued an edict against the mixing
XIII TWO ANUSANCIES 271
of hops or sulphur in beer, but not, it would seem, with much
result, for in 1552 hop plantations were being formed, and in
the time of Queen Elizabeth the plant had come into general
use. In 1562 good old Thomas Tusser had much to say of its
cultivation in his "Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandrie "
and a dozen years later Reginald Scot published a treatise on
the subject in his " Perfite Platforme of a Hoppe Garden," so
that hop-growing must by then have become fairly general.
In another half century the City of London petitioned
Parliament against the hop on the grounds that "this wicked
weed would spoil the drink and endanger the lives of the people."
As a Commonwealth writer on agriculture said, " it was not
many years since the famous City of London petitioned the
Parliament of England against two anusancies or offensive
commodities, which were likely to come into great use and
esteem; and that was Newcastle coals, in regard of their
stench, etc., and hops, in regard they would spoil the taste
of drink and endanger the people." Opposition not-
withstanding, the use of coals and hops went on flourishing
and to-day we may well wonder what we should do without
them.
John Evelyn joined the anti-hop crusade and wrote with
some vehemence and indignation against the squandering of
young trees, which might have grown into timber, by cutting
them down as supports for a deleterious plant.
" It is now little more than an age since, that hopps (rather a medical
than an alimental vegetable) transmuted our wholesome ale into beer,
which doubtless much alters our constitutions. That one ingredient, by
some not unworthily suspected, preserving drink indeed, and so by custom
made agreeable, yet repaying the pleasure with tormenting diseases and a
shorter life, may deservedly abate our fondness to it, especially if with this
be considered likewise the casualties in planting it, as seldom succeeding
more than once in three years, yet requiring constant charge and culture ;
besides that it is none of the least devourers of young timber. And what,
if a little care, or indeed one quarter of it, were for the future to be con-
verted to the propagation of fruit trees in all parts of this nation, as it is
already in some for the benefit of cider?"
The sylvan writer goes on to implore his Majesty Charles II.
and his loyal landowners to plant cider fruit " till the
preference of more wholesome and more natural drinks do
quite vanquish hopps, and banish all other drogues of that
nature." Cobbett, too, a century and a half later had much
272 POLES AND STRINGS chap.
to say of the cultivation of hops as being a "gambling
concern " ; but despite these sturdy critics the hop has gone on
flourishing and of the fifty and odd thousand acres now grown
in England Kent can boast of (or be reproached with !) having
thirty and odd thousands.
The reproach of Evelyn that forests in the making were cut
down for hop-poles has of course less point when it is
remembered that the plantations of ash, sweet chestnut and
other trees are grown for the very purpose, though less in
demand now than they used to be since strings have largely
taken the place of poles in most districts though now and
again we may come upon hop-fields arranged with three poles
to the hill even as they were described by Tusser — I recall
one such field especially on the Pegwell Bay side of
Minster. The introduction of strings has made it less
necessary for any one to seek with Cobbett inclusion in
the kalendar of Saints by discovering an everlasting hop-
pole ; " if I could discover an everlasting hop-pole, and one
that would grow faster even than the ash, would not these
Kentish hop-planters put me in the Kalendar along with their
Saint Thomas of Canterbury. We shall see this one of these
days." Whether " this " is to be the everlasting hop-pole or
the canonisation of William Cobbett the reader is left to
determine.
A field of well grown hops is a beautiful place on a hot
summer day, the " hills " placed with such regularity that
stand where we may we see the radiating lines festooned with
the handsome plants, for though strings have been largely
substituted for poles the regularity is maintained and the lines
are so even that they remind a reader of Crabbe of his wonder
over the ploughman trying to write— -
" How strange the hand that guides the plough
Should fail to guide the pen —
For half a mile the furrows even lie,
In half an inch the letters stand awry."
Of the various arrangements utilised in different districts it
is unnecessary to speak here— of the three-pole hills and the
two-pole hills, of the " umbrella " method of training the
bines, the fastening of string from pegs in the ground, to
wires criss-crossing from the tops of poles placed at some
xin A SIMPLE-LIFE CURE 273
distance apart, or from lower wires placed from pole to pole at
a short distance from the ground. These matters, and the
special tools employed in the culture — hop-dogs, and hop-
spuds, — the incessant work, from the ploughing or digging of the
land (hop ground is best hand-dug), to the placing of the poles
and strings, the continuous attention in the way of tying the
growing crop, belong rather to a technical than a descriptive
work : the hop-fields, especially where string is largely em-
ployed for the plants to climb, are protected by "lews" or
shelters from the prevailing wind ; sometimes these are high,
thin hedges of hawthorn or other shrubs, sometimes rows of
trees cut down to about twelve or fifteen feet, and allowed to
grow laterally, sometimes rows of " wild hops" on close-set poles
and frequently they are formed of coarse canvas stretched, from
pole to pole along the whole side of the field.
In September, in a season now shortened to something
under three weeks, is the great season of hopping, when
thousands of poor Londoners invade the quiet country and get
a healthful and profitable holiday helping to gather the clusters
of delicate catkin-like cones. Men, women and children, of
all ages and sizes, are to be seen at work, and the hop-fields
for the time form scenes of striking picturesqueness. The
aroma is said to be as healthful as it is pleasant, and a
hopping holiday has been recommended as a pleasant simple-life
"cure," indeed not long since a novel was published in which
the hero (a young nobleman, if I remember rightly) went
hopping incognito and met his " fate " — such are the ways of
providence, or the novelist — engaged in the same romantic
occupation. To those who have joined a hopper's camp for
the " experience " or for the getting of " copy " there is
romance, comedy and tragedy in these gatherings, and a
large field for the study of character. The crowds of hoppers
scattered about the " gardens " and surrounded by the
ripened crop, take on a picturesqueness which could scarcely
be imagined by those who have only seen them massed at
the railway termini in London, as they go to catch the early
morning hopping trains. There the picture is one of un-
relieved greyness and sordidness.
A stranger passing through a hop-garden — and also sometimes
through the cherry orchards — may find himself being honoured
by having his shoes wiped with a bundle of hops, on which he
T
Hop-pickers at Work.
CH. xni THE PLANTING OF HOPS 275
t
is expected to give " shoe-money ;" in other words, to pay his
footing. The shoe-money so collected is supposed to be used
by the workers for a small feast of bread and cheese and
ale, to be consumed on the ground when the hopping is
over.
After being gathered by the hoppers into large bins or
baskets the aromatic harvest is carried off to the cowled oast-
houses to have about ten hours of drying over furnaces — in
which the weight is reduced by nearly eighty per cent. — before
being put up in " pockets " of a hundredweight and a half
each, ready for the market.
If the details of hop culture as practised over thousands of
acres of Kent belong rather to a practical treatise than to a
gossipy book such as this, it is interesting to recall that
culture as summarised in the monthly "abstracts" and
"husbandries" of old Thomas Tusser, for his work is,
unfortunately, not easily obtainable. In January, says Tusser,
when wood cutting is being done : " save hop, for his dole, the
strong, long pole," and again
" Remember thy hop-yard, if season be dry,
Now dig it and weed it and so let it lie.
More fenny the layer, the better his lust,
More apt to bear hops when it crumbles like dust.'
In February : " Now every day set hops ye may," and
then —
" In March at the farthest, dry season or wet.
Hop-roots so well chosen, let skilful 1 go set.
The goeler and younger, the better I love ;
Well gutted and pared, the better they prove.
Some layeth them, cross- wise, along in the ground,
As high as the knee, they do cover up round.
Some prick up a stick in the midst of the same,
That little round hillock, the better to frame.
Some maketh a hollowness half a foot deep,
* With fouer sets in it, set slant-wise asteep ;
One foot from another, in order to lie,
And thereon a hillock, as round as a pie.
Five foot from another, each hillock would stand,
As straight as a levelled line with the hand ;
Let every hillock be fouer feet wide,
The better to come to, on every side.
T 2
276 A GOOD HOPYARD chap.
By willows that groweth, thy hop-yard without,
And also by hedges, thy meadows about,
Good hop hath a pleasure to climb and to spread,
If sun may have passage, to comfort her head.
Get crow made of iron, deep hole for to make,
With cross overthwart it as sharp as a stake,
A hone and a parer, like sole of a boot,
To pare away grass, and to raise up the root."
Month by month in his " abstract " Tusser puts into his
terse advice hints to the hop grower showing that hops had
become an important crop by 1572, and month by month he
amplifies these hints in his " husbandry," and he even gives a
special " Lesson where and when to plant a good hop yard" —
" Whom fancy perswadeth among other crops,
To have for his spending sufficient of hops ;
Must willingly follow, of choices to chuse,
Such lessons approved as skilfull do use.
Ground gravelly, sandy and mixed with clay,
Is naughty for hops, any manner of way ;
Or if it be mingled with rubbish and stone,
For dryness and barrenness let it alone.
Chuse soil for the hop, of the rottenest mould,
Well dunged and wrought, as a garden plot should :
Not far from the water (but not overflown)
This lesson, well noted, is meet to be known.
The sun in the south, or else southly and west,
Is joy to the hop as a welcomed guest ;
But wind in the north, or else northerly east.
To hop is as ill, as a fray in a feast.
Meet plot for a hop yard, once found as is told,
Make thereof account, as of Jewell of gold :
Now dig it, and leave it the sun for to burn,
And afterwards fence it, to serve for that turn.
The hop for his profit, I thus do exalt,
It strengtheneth drink, and it favoureth malt ;
And being well-brewed, long kept it will last,
And drawing abide, if ye draw not too fast."
In olden times, it may be recalled, the early shoots of the
hop were cooked and eaten as asparagus and Anne Pratt
recorded nearly seventy years ago " Kentish children can tell
of pleasant hours spent among the hedges, in searching for
XIII
HOP ASPARAGUS
277
the wild hop top, and of wholesome suppers made upon the
well earned treasure, ere they have learned to think their food
the better for being rare and costly. Those who lead the
" simple life " in cottage or in the increasingly popular caravan,
please note ; and note also that the taking of cultivated hops
is a felony !
57. Leonard's Street, West Mailing.
CHAPTER XIV
ROUND ABOUT MAIDSTONE
Southwards towards the Weald from Maidstone we have
rich, cultivated lands well watered by some of the tributaries of
the Medway : hop gardens, cherry orchards, corn-fields and
broad stretches of varied farm crops dotted with farmsteads,
tiny hamlets and small peaceful and prosperous villages ;
south-westward and north-westward along the Medway itself are
spots of sylvan beauty, — in the latter direction soon marred by
brick works and cement factories, — and more varied villages,
though here we are also close to the railway which for some
miles follows the course of the river ; to the west are broad
woodlands ; to the east stretch the higher downs, along which
the Pilgrims' Road may be followed by those who like, between
the heights and valleys, a lonely way which shall but rarely
touch at a village. In each of these directions are places of
interest and of beauty to be visited.
Immediately to the south of Maidstone Tovil, with its paper
mills, need not detain us, but beyond, on the right bank of the
Medway we come to East Farleigh, — a notable hopping centre —
Ml. XIV
CROMWELL'S BIOGRAPHER
279
with its spired church on a little hill by the river and with one
of the many fine old stone bridges which span the chief of the
Kentish streams. It was over this bridge that Fairfax brought
his army when he hurriedly descended on the Royalists and
captured Maidstone. West Farleigh, beyond, has little to hold
our attention, though a pleasant view is to be had from its
church across to East Barming, a village where the Rev. Mark
Noble, biographer of Cromwell, was Rector for forty-two years—
East Farleigh.
in possession of a rich living in place of the two Warwickshire
" starvations " as he termed them rather than " livings " which
he had held before. Here Noble died in 1827, and in the church
he is buried ; his monument may draw the attention of devout
Cromwellians who remember that he was one of the first to
treat the Protector to a full biography. Admirers of Carlyle
visiting the place will, however, scarcely regard the "imperfectly
educated, vulgar-minded man " in the light of the biographer
as hero. Carlyle summed up Noble's life of Cromwell as " bad
280 THE FINEST SEVEN MILES chap.
dictionary gone to pie " and said " for Noble himself is a man of
extreme imbecility, his judgment, for most part, seeming to lie
dead asleep ; and, indeed, it is worth little when broadest awake.
He falls into manifold mistakes, commits and omits in all ways ;
plods along contented, in an element of perennial dimness, pur-
blindness ; has occasionally a helpless, broad innocence of
platitude which is almost interesting. A man, indeed, of
extreme imbecility, to whom nevertheless let due gratitude be
borne."
Southwards from West Farleigh we may go through rich hop
country to Yalding and Hunton — what is described as the
largest hop garden in the county is in this district — both by
the Beult as it nears its confluence with the Medway. Forming
a triangle with these villages, though belonging to the latter
parish, is Burston, a farm once the seat of the Fane family,
which had branches in various parts of Kent. The old place
is beautifully situated on the hillside, with a good outlook over
the Weald. Through many orchards the road goes south from
Yalding to Goudhurst and Cranbrook, crossing the valley of
the Teise, where one of the richest hop districts stretches to the
right about Bockingfold and Peasons Green. Bockingfold is
said to be a corruption of Buchins wald or beech wood,
indicating a stretch of beeches among the more familiar oaks
of the Weald. From Castle Hill, which rises rapidly to the
south of Peasons Green, we have good views over the country
through which we have been passing.
Returning to the Medway at one of its most beautiful
stretches near Wateringbury we get back to the road — from
Maidstone to Mereworth — which won a notable tribute from
Cobbett as being the finest seven miles he had ever seen in
England or anywhere else. In Wateringbury churchyard is
buried Sir Oliver Style, sole survivor of a large dinner party at
Smyrna which was effectually broken up by an earthquake that
killed all his companions. Here, too, lies Thomas Clampard,
a further illustration of Theodore Hook's
" It seems as if Nature had curiously plann'd
That men's names with their trade should agree,"
for he was a blacksmith, and, dying in 1748, was honoured with
one of those punning epitaphs in which the eighteenth
century seems especially to have delighted —
XIV
THE DUMB BORSIIOLDER
281
""My sledge and anvil I've declined,
My bellows, too, have lost their wind ;
My fire's extinct, my forge decayed,
And in the dust my vice is lay'd ;
My coals are spent, my irons gone ;
My nails are drove, my work is done."
Mr. Thomas Clanipard, who died in 1748, is an interesting
personage as having been the last deputy for the Dumb
Borsholder of Chart. The " Borsholder " was the headborough,
or chief of each tithing in a hundred, and at the manor of
<m
-
A wayside fond near West Farleigh.
Chart, in Wateringbury, it was the custom to elect in place of a
man the "dumb borsholder," a man acting for it and answering
for it at the Court. "The Dumb Borsholder of Chart (wrote
a former vicar of Wateringbury) is a staff of wood that by age
has become perfectly black ; it is three feet and half an inch
long, and has an iron ring on the bottom. It once had four
more by the sides near the top ; three of these, however, are now
wanting, though the marks remain where they were inserted.
The circumference is greater at some places than at others, and
282 A PRINCESS'S HEAD-DRESS chap.
it has a square iron spike fixed in the top, four-and-a-half
inches long, which perhaps was used to break a door open
upon occasion, which was done without a warrant from a
justice of the peace, when it was suspected that persons or things
were unlawfully concealed " in any of the twelve houses over
which the Dumb Borsholder had jurisdiction. A most efficient
substitute for Dogberry ! The twelve householders of Chart
took turns in acting as Deputy for a year, receiving from each
of the eleven others the sum of one penny.
From Wateringbury a young unmarried lady of theTwysden
family wrote in the early part of the eighteenth century
many engagingly unaffected letters of gossip to a married
friend near Wingham. Her correspondence— a dozen long
letters were given in an early volume of the Archaeologia
Cantiana—\% full of talk about friends and their doings, of
births, marriages, rumours of marriages and deaths, of visits to
Tunbridge Wells and other places. Miss Isabella Twysden
was beautifully disregardful of the grace of spelling, but her
letters help us to realise the time in which she lived far more
intimately than more laboured histories. Here is a bit dealing
with one of the changes of fashion that came in with the first
of the four Georges in 17 14.
" I sopose they are in full content with their new King, who I think has
incouriaged their intriest with most surprising zeal, whether 'tis to his own
he may hereafter be a better judge ; but this is a topick far beyond my
sphere, the alteration of fashions (wch is the reigning descourse amongst us
at present) is much more suteable to my capacity ; and, to tell you the truth,
makes a much greater impression upon my spirits. Pray how can you
reconcile yr self to the odious Hanover cutt? I sopose you saw the
Princes at Canterbury. We hear she took perticular notice of the dress of
Mrs. Marsham's head and the beauty of Mrs. (but I can't think of her
name) 's face. I flattered myself a great while yt the Princess wou'd find out
that we dress'd after a much genteeler way than her highness, but I hear
all the Town have paid her the compliment of dressing their heads half as
ugly as her own, and without doubt we must all follow the example within
this half year or submitt to be hollo w'd at. Mrs. Rider and her daughter
are the only people have had the courag to put one on hear abouts, except
some of the country Town Ladys. I did not see her in it, but the
discription is most tirible, and indeed it sutes so ill with my pockett to buy
two yds where I used to buy one, and that only to make me ugler than
Nature has done allready, that yt I think to walk off into another Land,
or ells content my self with a good warm sute of nightcloths in my
chamber, and intirely have done with all the vainities of dress. But Lord,
Madam, if you shou'd be gott into one of these heads after I have been
xiv A PALLADIAN VILLA 283
railing at it without that consideration, may I hope you will forgive me?
Upon my word, I believe if I were to see you in one I shou'd not think it
one quarter so disagreeable as I have represented it to myself.
Teston, a village on the east side of Wateringbury, is a
particularly attractive place ; near it is Barham Court, where
Hannah More and William. Wilberforce used to visit, and where
the latter probably first turned his attention to the abolition of
slavery, for it was here in 1783 that he met the rector of Teston,
an old time naval chaplain in the West Indies. The Rev.
James Ramsay had already enlisted the active assistance of
Lady Middleton of Barham Court in the cause, and the publica-
tion in 1784 of his "Essay on the Treatment and Conversion
of African Slaves in British Sugar Colonies " had been described
as the most important event in the early history of the Anti-
Slavery movement. Ramsay who was consulted by
Wilberforce, Clarkson, Pitt and other leaders in the movement,
is buried at Teston. Pitt, Wilberforce and " Abolition " we
shall meet again in another part of our county.
Leaving the Medway, which here flows from the south by
Valding, we may follow the road which won the enthusiastic-
praise of Cobbett, who delighted in well cultivated land, varied
by woods, and so come to Mereworth, passing on our way the
eighteenth century Italianate Mereworth Castle — curiously
contrasting with other of our stately homes. Set in a very
picturesque country of hilly parkland and woods Mereworth is
regarded as one of the show places to be visited either from
Maidstone or Tonbridge, and unlike some show places and
beauty spots, it is little likely to disappoint the visitor, though
the Castle itself will appeal chiefly to those with a taste for
the exotic. Horace Walpole, visiting it in 1752 — four years
after the Castle was built, waxed enthusiastic.
"Since dinner, we have been to Lord Westmoreland's at Mereworth,
which is so perfect in a Palladian taste, that I must own it has recovered
me a little from Gothic. It is better situated than I had expected from the
bad reputation it bears, and has some prospect, though it is in a moat, and
mightily besprinkled with small ponds. The design, you know, is taken
from the Villa del Capra by Vicenza, but on a larger scale ; yet, though it
has cost an hundred thousand pounds, it is still only a fine villa : the
finishing of in and outside has been exceedingly expensive. A wood that
runs up a hill behind the house is broke like an Albano landscape with an
octagon temple and a triumphal arch ; but then there are some dismal
clipped hedges, and a pyramid, which by a most unnatural copulation is at
284
MEREWORTH WOODS
CHAP.
once a grotto and a greenhouse. Does it not put you in mind of the
proposal for your drawing a garden-seat, Chinese on one side and Gothic
on the other? The chimneys, which are collected to a centre, spoil the
dome of the house."
Noith of Mereworth stretch grand woods through which we
\ ^-1 c^rfA-oi/^-iJVA
Mailing- Abbey.
can readily reach Ightham or Offham and other of the attractive
villages scattered about the southern slope of the northern
range of hills. Leaving these places for the present we may go
by the hamlet of Kent Street through a part of the pleasant
Mereworth Woods to West Mailing, sometimes named Town
XIV THE INFANTA OF KENT 285
Mailing, with its attractive ruins of a Benedictine abbey founded
here by Bishop Gundulf, the architect-ecclesiast who did so
much for Rochester Cathedral, — he who built the Great Keep
of the Tower of London. The remains of the Abbey include
some fine Norman fragments and good examples of herring-
bone work, and have features very similar to the good Bishop's
work at Rochester.
To the east of Town Mailing is a group of villages, East
Mailing, Leybourne, and Ditton, each with attractions for those
who seek the story of a neighbourhood in its church. In
Leybourne church is a curious heart niche for the reception of
the hearts of people whose bodies were buried elsewhere. Only
one of the two shrines was ever used, and it contains, it is be-
lieved, the heart of Sir Roger de Leyburn, who died in 1271,
probably when engaged in one of the Crusades with Prince
Edward. Leybourne was the centre of the domains of a rich
and powerful Kentish family — whose castle was situated near
by the church — that died out in the reign of Edward III in the
person of Juliana de Leybourne, known as '' the Infanta of Kent "
Juliana, as heiress of the Leybournes and wife successively of
three powerful barons, became the owner of almost illimitable
lands and riches — all of which she made over to various religious
houses or to the King at her death — at which time she had no
fewer than twelve manors in Kent alone.
The country here, coming gradually down to the Medway, is
richly varied with corn, hops, woodland and pasture, and
turning out of the main road beyond Ditton we may reach
the river near one of the most notable of historic places on its
banks. This is Aylesford, its red and many gabled roofs and
the tower of its church appearing finely grouped among elm
trees with the rising chalk downs beyond. Here before re-
calling some of the lore attaching to the place we may pause
at the very picturesque old bridge which spans the Medway,
for the march of improvement threatens it wnth early destruction.
The narrow way across the bridge forms a pleasant approach
to the old town, while the bridge itself, with its pointed arches
and triangular buttresses; is one of the many beautiful ones which
are to be found crossing the Medway — contrasting with that
at Maidstone and with that acme of hideousness, the railway
bridge at Rochester. The old bridge has already been
" improved " owing to the demands of the navigation by the
z86
A FAMOUS FORD
CHAP.
forming of the wide central span, but now it seems probable
that it will have to be replaced by one better suited to modern
traffic.
j^mmm^ ,,
Ayksford.
Aylesford is an ancient place that grew up about an im-
portant ford, the lowest across the Med way, on an ancient track-
way. Here the Jutes under Hengist and Horsa came to find a
xiv A CHRISTIAN DIOGENES 287
way over the river to pursue their British enemies, and here
was fought a stubborn battle, the invaders winning a notable
victory, though in the moment of success Horsa fell and is
said to have been buried at a place called Horsted, more than
halfway on the road to Chatham. The ancient chronicler
gives us no details of the decisive battle, as Green puts it : " we
hear only that Horsa fell in the moment of victory ; and the
flint heap of Horsted, which has long preserved his name, and
was held in aftertime to mark his grave, is thus the earliest of
those monuments of English valour of which Westminster is
the last and noblest shrine." Below Aylesford, also on the
right bank of the river, was an ancient Friary — the remains of
which have largely been overlaid and incorporated in the
present residence — belonging to the first Carmelite Monks
who came to England. A Kentish worthy known in the
Calendar of Saints as St. Simeon Stock, had lived in a tree
stump or stock — hence his name — for twenty years from the
age of twelve, and at the coming of the Carmelites into
England he " quitted his oak, and advanced forward to meet
them, as of whom, though he had no sight, he had a vision
before, which is probably as true as that he was fed seven
years with manna on Mount Carmel. He was chosen the
general governor of their order all over Europe ; and died in
the hundredth year of his age, anno domini 1265, and was
buried at Bordeaux in France." The Christian Diogenes who
had for his tub the stock of a hollow tree is said to have
foretold the coming of the Carmelites out of Syria even as
another Simeon had a revelation that he should see Christ,
whereon Fuller comments, "reader, behold here how the
roaring lion hath translated himself into a mimical ape,
endeavouring a mock parallel betwixt this Simon and Simeon
in the Gospel."
North of Aylesford about a mile and a half, on the lower
chalk hills from which may be had a fine view of the valley of
the Medway, stands the famous Cromlech known as Kits Coty
House, " that old grey cairn which seems like a monument
erected by Time, to perpetuate the memory of his flight into far
eternity " ! This relic of an unknown past set on a close cut
green in the midst of a cornfield consists of four great irregular
slabs of stone, three upright and the fourth and largest
balanced above them, the "total weight of the four being
288 KITS COTY HOUSE
CHAP.
estimated at about thirty tons. How they were erected by
primitive man must puzzle everyone who sees them. The
stones were probably taken from the neighbouring hills to
mark the grave of some noted chieftain, but how, when, and
why they were erected can only be conjectured ; the tradition
that they mark the grave of Katigern, a British leader slain in
fight with the Saxons, being easily dismissed in that sepulchral
monuments of this character probably belong to a period far
anterior to the coming of the Saxons. Going down to the
Aylesford road from this finest relic of the kind which we
have to show we can see in a field on the left the " Countless
Stones," presumably the remains of a more complicated
cromlech, while numerous less noted relics of the same
nature abound in the immediate neighbourhood. The Count-
less Stones owe their name to a not uncommon tradition in
regard to such remains that the accurate counting of them is
not possible. Extending further half a dozen miles to the
west — as we shall see — are other relics of the stone ages, and
in the hills about here are many deep shafts or pits descending
to hollowed chambers utilised either by cave-dwellers or as
places of refuge by pre-historic man.
One of the best known of cromlechs or dolmens, Kits Coty
House, is protected from impious visitors by a stout iron
railing, for not all people who go to see such relics of the past
have so worthy a feeling as that of an old time owner of this
one, " who would not for one hundred guineas part with as
much of the stone as would serve to set in a ring." In 1723
the monuments were described as having a very different
appearance from that of the present, the Upper Coty being
partly in a barrow and the Lower Coty — the Countless Stones
— as having been pulled down within the memory of people
then living. Then, too, there was about eighty yards north of
Kits Coty House a fallen megalith traditionally known as the
General's Tombstone. The relation of these stones to ancient
dwellers in Kent and the various theories as to their purpose
are recorded in many works. The consideration of these
points would take us too far into the byways of archaeology,
but visitors to the district will find much information in Mr.
F. J. Bennett's " Ightham, the Story of a Kentish Village and
its Surroundings." It may, however, be said that according
to an old story "rife among the simple and untaught country-
xiv THE MAKING OF DOLMENS 2S9
men " of the neighbourhood the stones forming the Dolmen
were brought from lands beyond the sea and placed as they
now stand by a famous witch. Seventy years ago a no less
astounding and much more original accounting for them was
hazarded : —
"A friend of ours, riding from Chatham to Maidstone in the van,
entered into conversation with a lady, whose appearance and manners
bespoke a situation certainly somewhat above that of the middle classes,
and not a little surprised was he to receive from her fair lips the following
solution of a great mystery. Those immense blocks of stone which now
excite our wonder as to the means by which they were raised and placed
in their present position, were, at the time of their erection, comparatively
speaking, mere trifles; hut being of a very porous nature, they absorb a
vast quantity of rain and other humid matter, to this adheres the dust
blown from the road, and all sorts of atmospheric impurities, which being
baked by successive suns becomes hard as the stone itself, of which in fact
it forms a portion ; and thus ' Kits Coty House' has attained its present
gigantic si/e. Hear this, oh, ye fishers in muddy waters— ye diggers in the
mines of antiquity — ye men of historical research. Listen to this simple —
this satisfactory explanation, and confess how vain are all your theories,
about Cromlechs and Druidical altars, and resting places for the bones of
Saxon Kings ! "
Returning to the Medway at Allington Castle — midway
between Aylesford and Maidstone — we may pass on our way
the Elizabethan Cobtree Hall, overlooking the river, a place
which is of interest to devout Dickensians through having been
unhesitatingly identified by the late Mr. F. G. Kitton as' the
original of the Manor House at Dingley Dell — though the
sceptical will point out that Dickens places the "Dell" at
fifteen miles from Rochester, while Cobtree is but little more
than half that distance.
Allington Castle, beautifully situated among the water
meadows on the left bank of the Medway, half circled by a
bend of the river, is notable as having been one of the seven
chief castles of Kent. Part of the wide possessions of the
Conqueror's half-brother, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, it passed
through various hands and was altered from time to time, until
towards the close of the thirteenth century it was embattled
by royal license — and some of the original brickwork of that
period is to be seen in the extensive remains. The chief
traditions of Allington are associated with the Wyatt family,
successive members of which gave a legend to the Tower of
u
290 THE ENGLISH SONNET chap.
London, a remarkable poet to English letters, and a martyr to
Protestantism. Sir Henry Wyatt, who had bought the Castle
in 1492, opposed the pretensions of Richard III. and suffered
imprisonment in the Tower, where he was succoured by a cat,
which daily brought to his window a pigeon from a neighbouring
cote and so saved him from starvation ; after his release it is
recorded that he " would ever make much of cats, as other
men will of their spaniels or hounds." On the accession of
Henry VII. Sir Henry became persona grata with that
monarch, and continued in favour with his successor until
his death in 1537.
Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder, son of the lover of cats, who
won his place to an honourable position in English poetry, had
a romantic career. Sir John Russell, having been appointed
Ambassador to the Pope, was journeying down the Thames
when he met Thomas Wyatt : "after salutations, was demanded
of him whither he went, and. had answer, 'to Italy, sent by
the King.' 'And I,' said Wyatt, 'will, if you please, ask
leave, get money and go with you.' 'No man more welcome,'
answered the Ambassador. So, this accordingly done, they
passed in post together." With Wyatt's subsequent services
as Ambassador we are not here concerned, but it was
probably from his hastily-decided upon journey to Italy that
he brought back into England the art of sonnet-writing, an
art which was to have some remarkable English exponents
before the century closed. Though Wyatt is now recognised
as occupying an important place in English poetry, nothing
from his pen was published during his lifetime, and for a
while he seemed more or less eclipsed by his " disciple " the
Earl of Surrey ; some authorities, indeed, credit them jointly
with the introduction of the sonnet, but the balance of
evidence seems to show the elder as the true pioneer. Wyatt,
however, has his definite place as the first of those who, as
Warton puts it, " corrected the roughness of our poetic style."
Here where he was born we may recall a couple of his poems,
remembering that " He has too much art as a lover, and too
little as a poet. His gallantries are laboured, and his
versification negligent." The first brief piece describes "the
one he would love," the second is entitled " Disdain me not:
the Lover prayeth not to be disdained, refused, mistrusted,
nor forsaken."
xiv LOVER OF ANNE BOLEVN 291
" A face that should content me wondrous well
Should not be fair, but lovely to behold ;
Of lively look, all grief for to repel
With right good grace, so would I that it should
Speak without words, such words as none can tell ;
Her tress, also, should be of crisped gold ;
With wit, and these, perchance, I might he tried,
And knit again with knot that should not slide."
" Disdain me not without desert,
Nor leave me not so suddenly,
Since well ye wot that in my heart
I mean ye not but honestly.
Refuse me not without cause why,
Forethink me not to be unjust,
Since that by lot of fantasy
This careful knot needs knit I must.
Mistrust me not, though some there be
That fain would spot my steadfastness ;
Believe them not, since that ve see
The prooi is not as they express.
Forsake me not till I deserve,
Nor hate me not till I offend ;
Destroy me not till that I swerve ;
But since ye know what I intend
Disdain me not that am your own,
Refuse me not that am so true,
Mistrust me not till all be known,
Forsake me not, me for no new."
Whether the lady addressed in these poems was the fair
Anne Boleyn of Hever Castle, some miles to the west, cannot
now be determined, but certain it is that he to whom we owe
the first step in the smoothening of our versification was a lover
of Sir Thomas Boleyn's daughter before the bluff eighth Henry
had become her wooer and she could be described as saying
" Noli me tangere : I Cesar's am." Sir Thomas Wyatt, owing
to his relations with Anne, was for a time prisoner in the Tower,
but was later restored to the King's highest favour. In a
poetic epistle to a friend Wyatt described his life here at
Allington —
' This niaketh me at home to hunt and hawk,
And in foul weather at my book to sit ;
In frost and snow then with my bow to stalk ;
U 2
292 "WIAT, A WIT" chap.
No man doth mark whereso I ride or go,
In lust)' leas at liberty I walk ;
And of these news I feel nor weal nor woe. . . .
I am here in Kent and Christendome
Among the Muses where I read and rhyme ;
Where if thou list, mine own John Poins, to come,
Thou shalt be judge how I do spend my time."
Sir Thomas Wyatt, the poet, was bewailed in verse by his
disciple, the Earl of Surrey, thus —
" A visage stern and mild where both did grow
Vice to contemn, in virtue to rejoice;
Amid great storms, whom grace assured so,
To live upright, and smile at Fortune's choice.
A hand that taught what might be said in rhyme,
That reft Chaucer the glory of his wit ;
A mark the which (unparfited of time)
Some may approach, but never none may hit."
> •
According to most critics Surrey himself was the first to "hit
the perfectness of Wyatt. It was Wyatt (Wiat, as it was some-
times written) who devised the anagram " Wiat, a Wit."
Sir Thomas Wyatt, the younger son of the poet, was the
leader of the Kentish rebellion against Queen Mary's marriage
with Philip of Spain, mentioned in the preceding chapter, and
it was from Allington that he set out —
" Ah, grey old castle of Allington, green field
Beside the brimming Medway, it may chance
That I shall never look upon you more — "
when he led the Men of Kent to tragic defeat. After this
last of the Wyatts the estate was granted to John Astley,
Master of the Jewel House to Queen Elizabeth.
East of Allington is another possession of the Wyatts at
Boxley, where in Boxley Abbey, lying midway between the
two villages, was a notable seat of the Cistercian monks,
founded in 1146 by William de Ypres by way of penance for
earlier sacrilegious attempts on a monastery. William de Ypres
was a very powerful person in Kent, and something of a
terror to his adopted country until he went blind and became
devout. To him, presumably, Rye owes its old Ypres
(•'Wipers") Tower. At some time or another Boxley Abbey
acquired precious relics in the form of a miracle-working Holy
xiv A CUNNING CARPENTER 293
Rood and a stone figure of St. Rumwald, which could only he
lifted by those of clean lives, or — as Lambarde and Fuller
suggest — by those who had made sufficiently liberal offerings
to the monks ; as the former put it : " such who paid the priest
well might easily remeve it, whilst others might try at it to no
purpose .... chaste virgins and wives went away with
blushing faces, whilst others came off with more credit because
with more coin — though with less chastity."
The Rood shall be described in the words of old Lambarde,
who was a child at the time of its dramatic destruction —
" It chanced (as the tale is) that upon a time a cunning carpenter of our
countrie was taken prisoner in tin- wanes between us and France, who
(wanting otherwise to satisfie for his ransome, and having good leisure to
devise for his deliverance) thought it best to attempt some curious enter-
prise, within the compas of his own art and skill to make himself some
money withall ; and therefore getting together lit matter for his purpose,
he compacted of wood, wyre, paste and paper, a Rood of such exquisite
art and excellencie, that it not only matched in comlynesse and due
proportion of the parts, the best of the common sort ; but in strange
motion, varietie of gesture, and nimbleness of joints passed all oilier that
before had been seen : the same being able to bow down and lift up itself,
to shake and stirre the- hands and feet, to nod the head, to rolle the eyes,
to wag the chaps, to bend the brows, and finally to represent to the eye
both the proper motion of each member of the body, and also ;i lively,
express, and significant show of a well contented or displeased mimic ;
byting the lipp, and gathering a frowning, froward, and disdainfull fai 1 ,
when it would pretend offence; and shewing a most milde, amiable, and
smiling cheere and countenance when it would seem to be well pleased."
The cunning carpenter brought his wonderful piece of work
to England and putting it "upon the back of a Jade that he
drave before him," set out for Rochester; while he was re-
freshing himself at an alehouse the horse made off to Boxley
Abbey, where " he so beat and bounced with his heels " that
the monks had to open the door, when the beast " rushed in
and ran in great haste to a pillar (which was the very place
where this Image was afterwards advanced) and there stopped
himself and stood still." The carpenter arrived, but nor force
nor persuasion would make the horse budge a bit ; and so the
man was fain sell his handiwork to the Abbey, and then the
Image allowed itself to be taken off the horse's back and the horse
consented to be led away. The Rood remained a great wonder
and miracle-worker until on the break-up of the monasteries
it was, in 1538, removed, and after being exhibited in Maidstone
294 TENNYSON AT BOXLEY chap.
on a market day that all might see its working was taken to
London, where it was destroyed by an irate congregation who
had listened at St. Paul's Cross to a sermon by the Bishop of
Rochester of which it formed the " text." It is recorded in a
document in the Cottonian MSS. — "on. . . Sonday did the
bisshop of Rochester preche at Polles Cross, and hed standyng
afore hym alle his sermon tyme the picturof the roode of grace
in Kent, that had byn many yeres in the Abbey of Boxley in
Kent, and was gretely sought with pilgrymes, and when he had
made an ende of his sermon, the pictor was toorn alle to
peces."
Near Boxley Abbey a spring which leaves a calcareous
deposit upon objects lying in it has long been an object of
curiosity : these are not petrified as by certain dripping wells, but
are coated with what is known as calcareous tufa. In the third
dialogue of Sir Humphry Davy's " Consolations in Travel " may
be found a discussion of the tufa-depositing lake near Paestum,
and an account of the chemical process which takes place in
such waters. Similar tufa deposit is found in the Ightham district.
At Boxley village, situated on the lower slope of the chalk
near the ancient Pilgrims' Road, Alfred Tennyson stayed in 1842,
taking long walks along the old way of the Canterbury Pilgrims.
To Edmund Lushington, of the Park House, nearer the Medway,
the poet's sister Cecilia was married, and the present Lord
Tennyson in his biography of his father tells us that " the park
round the house is described in the prologue to ' the Princess.' "
The occasion described was presumably a fete of the Maidstone
Mechanics' Institute.
"We went. . . .
Down thro' the park ; strange was the sight to me ;
For all the sloping pasture imirmur'd, sown,
With happy faces anil with holiday.
There moved the multitude, a thousand heads :
The patient leaders of their Institute,
Taught them with facts. ... so that sport
Went hand in hand with Science ; otherwhere
Pure sport : a herd of boys with clamour bowl'd
And stump'd the wicket : babies roll'd about
Like tumbled fruit in grass ; and men and maids
Arranged a country dance, and Hew thro' light
And shadow, while the twangling violin
Struck up with Soldier-laddie, ami overhead
The broad ambrosial aisles of lofty lime
Made noise with bees and breeze from end to end."
xiv A TYPICAL SQUIRE 295
Though written nearly seventy years ago the picture might
stand for a country festival of to-day, when " the park " is thrown
open and the neighbouring folk enjoy themselves. Men of
the early 'forties were perhaps more given to " improving the
occasion " and " teaching the people with facts " ; now games,
sports and feeding form the features of such a day's entertain-
ment. One of the closing passages of the same poem, in
describing Sir Walter Vivian, gives us a portrait that might
well stand as type of the Kentish squire :
" In such discourse we gain'd the garden rails,
And there we saw Sir Walter where he stood,
Before a tower of crimson holly-oaks,
Among six boys, head under head, and look'd
No little lily-handed Baronet he,
A great broad-shoulder'd genial Englishman,
A lord of fat prize-oxen and of sheep,
A raiser of huge melons and of pine,
A patron of some thirty charities,
A pamphleteer on guano and on grain,
A quarter-sessions chairman, abler none;
Fair-hair'd and redder than a windy morn ;
Now shaking hands with him, now him, of those
That stood the nearest — now address'd to speech —
Who spoke few words and pithy, such as closed
Welcome, farewell, and welcome for the year
To follow : a shout rose again, and made
The long line of the approaching rookery swerve
From the elms, and shook the branches of the deer
From slope to slope thro' distant ferns, and rang
Beyond the bourn of sunset : O, a shout
More joyful than the city-roar that hails
Premier or king ! Why should not these great Sirs
Give up their parks some dozen times a year
To let the people breathe? So thrice they cried,
I likewise, and in groups they stream'd away."
Detling, Thornham (or Thurnham), Broad Street and
Hollingbourne, are pleasant villages on the side of the chalk
hills, all of them on that old Pilgrims' Road, along which such
places are generally infrequent. After Hollingbourne we may
follow the ancient way for many miles before touching at any-
thing more than an occasional cottage, the villages, Harrietsham,
Lenham, Charing, lying the usual half a mile or so away on the
highroad, with which it keeps roughly parallel. At Thornham
are the remains of an old " minor " castle perched on the hill
296
A GREAT CRICKETER
CHAP.
with a grand outlook over Maidstone and the Medway valley.
It is sometimes named Godard's Castle, and according to one
account was built by a Saxon named Godardus on the site of
a Roman watchtower. The tradition is no doubt based on the
fact that the Roman remains have been found in the neigh-
bourhood, but no authentic history of the castle has come
down to us. In the churchyard of Thornham is buried one of
,#|||
#1:^
Til
V^l
HoUinsrboume Church, near Maidstone
Kent's many famous cricketers, Alfred Mynn (born at
Goudhurst), a batsman whose chief feat (in 1836) was the
scoring 283 runs — twice not out — in four consecutive innings,
remembered as the first eminent bowler to use the fast round-
arm delivery and as one who has had few if any superiors
among his successors. Mynn, who lived for many years at
Thornham, came of a Kentish family renowned for their great
stature and physical strength, and on the cricket field he could
" maintain a terrific pace for hours without fatigue."
xiv CANINUS APETITUS 297
South of Thorriham a mile or so, and appearing as though
bowered in trees, is Bearsted, with a church tower at three
angles of which are figures said to represent the lion of St.
Mark, the o\ of St. Luke, and the eagle of St. John ; at the
fourth angle is an octagonal tower turret.
Hollingbourne is a pretty village with a church in which are
many monuments of the Colepeper or Culpeper family -
celebrated in Kentish annals. William Colepeper of the
Hollingbourne branch of the family who gained some fame as
poet and politician was one of the five gentlemen whose
Petition in 1701 was so unhandsomely treated. The beautiful
marble monument of Lady Elizabeth Culpeper (1638) is
especially worthy of notice. Here there was born, " a landed
man and a true labourer," one Nicholas Wood who suffered
from a disease, happily rare, known in Greek or Latin, as
Boulimia or Caninus Apetitus, " insomuch that he would devour
at one meal what was provided for twenty men, eat a whole
hog at a sitting, and at another time thirty dozen of pigeons.
. . . Let us raise our gratitude to the goodness of God,
especially when he giveth us appetite enough for our meat,
and yet meat too much for our appetite ; whereas this painful
man spent all his estate to provide provant for his belly, and
died very poor about the year 1630." Fuller's words might
very well have inspired the good Scot's grace
" There's some hae meat and carina eat,
An' some hae none who want it ;
But we hae meat, an' we can eat,
An' so the Lord be thankit."
John Taylor, the Water Poet, was a great eater and was, it is
recorded, once very near engaging the voracious Nicholas Wood
in a contest " to eat at one time as much black pudding as
would reach across the Thames at any place to be fixed upon
by Taylor himself between London and Richmond." Maybe
it was Wood's inordinate appetite that gave rise to the saying
" a Kentish stomach." Apropos of which saying it is recorded
that a gentleman of this county who took his Bachelor of Arts
degree at Cambridge when he was asked the question " quid
est abyssus?" promptly answered "Stomachus^ Cantianus."
Readers of Sir Thomas Browne's works may recall that he has
an interesting scrap on a poor Yarmouth woman aged 102 who
suffered from Boulimia.
298 A WORTHY MATRON chap.
At Hollingbourne we are within easy reach of Leeds Castle
but leaving that historical centre for awhile we may glance at
the chalk -hill country, which may be reached by many lanes
and roads going upward from the Pilgrims' Way. Climbing
Hollingbourne Hill we have a magnificent view from the
summit, shortly after enjoying which we may turn left to
Hucking and Bicknor or right to Wormshill and Frinsted, by
picturesque ways. The largest of these villages has probably
fewer than two hundred inhabitants, but each has its old church
with — despite restorations — various interesting features. From
here the hills trend downwards towards the Faversham and
Sittingbourne districts, and those who explore this part of our
country on bicycles may be recommended to follow the plan
of pushing up the hills from the abrupter Pilgrims' Way side
that they may have the more gradual slopes for descent.
Coming down to the Ashford and Maidstone Road we have
along it Lenham and Harrietsham (locally " Harrisham ") —
quiet villages each with some attractive old timbered houses,
but each more attractive as a point for reaching the beauties of
the chalk hills north and of the greensand Quarry Hills south
than for anything in itself. Lenham Church has, however,
many monuments, old oaken stalls and other things worthy of
inspection, and in the churchyard the tomb of one of the
hundred and fourteen grandchildren of " the truly religious
matron, Mary Hone'ywood," who at the time of her decease
had living " lawfully descended from her three hundred and sixty-
seven children." This prolific lady -who died in 1670 "in
the ninety-third year of her age and the forty-fourth year of her
widowhood" — was born at Lenham, married an esquire of
Charing, but died and was buried in Essex, where her epitaph
duly set forth the tale of her descendants. Fuller in mention-
ing her as one of the worthies of Kent said that she had already
in his time " been much outstripped in point of fruitfulness."
"This worthy matron (in my mind) is more memorable on
another account, viz. for patient weathering out the tempest of
a troubled conscience, whereon a remarkable story dependeth.
Being much afflicted in mind, many ministers repaired to her,
and amongst the rest the Rev. Mr. John Fox, than whom no
more happy instrument to set the joints of a broken spirit All
his counsels proved ineffectual, insomuch that in the agony of
her soul, having a Venice-glass in her hand, she broke forth
XIV
"POOR LF.NHAM"
299
into tin's expression, ' 1 am as surely damned as this glass is
broken ; ' which she immediately threw with violence on the
ground. Here happened a wonder ; the glass rebounded again,
and was taken up whole and entire. I confess it is possible
(though difficult) so casually to throw as brittle a substance,
that, lighting on the edges, it maybe preserved ; but happening
immediately in that juncture of time, it seemed little less than
miraculous." Later Mistress Honeywood happened upon faith
and, "led the remainder of her life in spiritual gladness.''
j^jt
<v
UW-U*^-V1
Leeds Church.
"Ah, sir, poor Lenham," was, according to Hasted, the old
time reply of the inhabitants to the traveller asking the name
of the place. This, says one tautological writer, was because
of its "damp and moist situation owing to the springs which
rise near it.1' Jane Austen staying at Godmersham Park wrote
that the clergyman of Lenham had called in to breakfast — "on
his way from Ramsgate, where is his wife, to Lenham, where
is his church, and to-morrow he dines and sleeps here on his
return. They have been all the summer at Ramsgate for her
3°o SIR HENRY WOTTON
CHAP.
health ; she is a poor honey — the sort of woman who gives me
the idea of being determined never to be well, and who likes
her spasms and nervousness, and the consequence they give
her, better than anything else."
Hence flows the infant Stour to the east and the Len
to the west to join the Medway. South of Lenham beyond
Chilstone Park— "a sweetly watered place" as Evelyn de-
scribes it— is Boughton Malherbe (locally pronounced Bawton
and anciently spelt Bocton) consisting chiefly of the church and
the old Place now a farm house ; for the parish is a scattered
one. Here was the seat of the Wottons— a family several
members of which won fame in the past — one as Dean of
Canterbury, and another (the one of whom we think most here
at Ins birthplace) Sir Henry Wotton, the witty ambassador who
defined ambassadors generally as honest men sent to lie abroad
for the good of their country. Incidentally, it may be said, Sir
Henry got into some disgrace with his Royal Master James the
First for uttering this coin of wit, which has had three centuries'
currency, and is as bright and welcome as when first minted.
Sir Henry Wotton was poet as well as diplomatist, and he
deserves to be known as one of the first of our literary letter-
writers. The house standing somewhat behind the church is a
picturesque and interesting old place, and from it is to be had
a magnificent view across the Weald—as Izaak Walton was
aware when he wrote the life of his angling friend. From the
road just below the farm, in front of which is a great grey stone
barn, the view is yet more extensive, looking down on the ham-
let of Grafty Green set amid orchards. A similar view, too, is
to be had from the yew-grown yard around the lichened grey
stone church.
Boughton Malherbe, mansion and church, said Izaak Walton,
are neither remarkable for anything so much " as for that the
memorable Family of the Wottons have so long inhabited the
one, and now lie buried in the other." The most famous of
them was that Sir Henry Wotton whose life his friend Walton
was writing. The master of the art of concise biography, as of
that which is the contemplative man's recreation, Walton referred
to Wotton's connection thus
" Sir Henry Wotton . . . was born in the Year of our Redemption
156S in Bocton hall (commonly called Bocton, or Bougton-pla.ce, or Palace)
in the Parish of Bocton Malherb, in the fruitful Country of Kent: Bocton-
XIV "ECCLESIARUM SCABIES" 301
hall being an ancient and goodly Structure, beautifying, and being beau-
tified by the Parish Church of Bocton Malherb adjoyning unto it ; and
both seated within a fair Park of the IVottons, on the brow of such a Hill,
as gives the advantage of a large Prospect, and of equal pleasure to all
Beholders."
When Essex got into trouble Sir Henry Wotton had been
taken into his " serviceable friendship," and on the Earl's
being committed to the Tower, Wotton, " knowing Treason to
be so comprehensive as to take in even circumstances and
out of them to make such positive conclusions as Subtle
Statesmen shall project, either for their revenge or safety;
considering this, he thought prevention by absence out of
England a better security than to stay in it and there plead
his innocency in a Prison. Therefore did he, so soon as the
Earl was apprehended, very quickly and as privately glide
through Kent to Dover, without so much as looking towards
his native and beloved Boclon, and was by the help of
favorable winds and liberal payment of the Mariners, within
sixteen hours after his departure from London set upon the
French shore."
Born in what is now a farm house amid farm fields, but in
what was then a noble residence in a park, Sir Henry Wotton
ended his life as Provost of Eton College, and is buried in the
College Chapel. When not abroad he paid annual visits to
Boughton Place, and his will directed " If I shall end my
transitory days at, or near Eaton, to be buried in the Chappel
of the said College, as the Fellows shall dispose thereof, with
whom I have liv'd (my God knows) in all loving affection ; or
If I shall dye near Bocton Malherb in the County of Kent,
then I wish to be laid in that Parish Church, as near as may
be to the Sepulchre of my good Father, expecting a joyful
Resurrection with him in the day of Christ." He further
directed, as Walton tells us, that his monument should
be inscribed: "Hie jacet hujus Sententiae primus author
Disputandi pruritus, Ecclesiarum scabies, Nomen alias quaere.
Which may be Englished thus, Here lies the first Author of
this Sentence. The itch of Disputation will prove the Scab of
the Church. Inquire his name elsewhere."
Before turning from Boughton Malherbe we may recall one
of the happiest of Wotton's poems, that " Character of a
Happy Life " which, though it has found its place in many
302 LORD OF HIMSELF CHAP.
collections, may form fitting reading where his happy life
began.
" How happy is he born and taught,
That serveth not another's will ?
Whose Armour is his honest thought,
And simple truth his utmost Skill?
Whose Passions not his Masters are,
Whose Soul is still prepar'd for Death ;
Unti'd unto the World by care
Of publick Fame, or private Breath.
Who envies none that chance doth raise,
Nor Vice hath ever understood ;
How deepest Wounds are given by praise,
Nor Rules of State, but Rules of good.
Who hath his Life from Rumours freed,
Whose Conscience is his strong retreat ;
Whose State can neither Flatterers feed,
Nor Ruine make Oppressors great.
Who God doth late and early pray,
More of his Grace than Gifts to lend :
And entertains the harmless day
With a Religious Book or Friend.
This man is freed from servile hands,
Of hope to rise, or fear to fall :
Lord of himself, though not of Lands,
And having nothing, yet hath all."
A little way out of Boughton Malherbe on the road towards
Lenham is something which must puzzle most of the casual
passers by— of whom it is easy to believe there are but few on
the quiet byway ; this is a large old yew tree growing on a
mound of earth enclosed — as though in a gigantic, square
" flowerpot " — in stone walls. Local enquiry elicits the tradition,
first, that "it had something to do with Queen Elizabeth — or one
of the queens," and, secondly, that underneath the " flowerpot "
is a chamber communicating by means of an underground
passage with Boughton Place. Perched on the top of the hill
the yew is visible from some distance.
Another noted member of the Wotton family was Dean
Nicholas Wotton, who served as ambassador for Henry VIII.
and Queen Mary, and is buried in Canterbury Cathedral. When,
in the reign of Mary, Thomas Wotton had newly come into
XIV AN IMPUDENT REPLY 303
his estate at Boughton Malherbe, he would have joined in
Sir Thomas Wyatt's Rebellion, but his uncle the Dean, then
ambassador in France, dreamed that his nephew was in danger
of being party to such project, and so wrote to the Queen
asking that Thomas should be committed to some favourable
gaol on some plausible charge. This was done, and Wotton
only released when the rebellion was over — some years later
to become father of the Sir Henry Wotton in 1568, the
very year after the death of that diplomatic dreamer Dean
Nicholas.
South of Boughton Malherbe through the country which
we overlook from near the church we can go to Headcorn and
Smarden, both on the River Beult, and so into the Weald.
West by shady lanes and tortuous byroads we may go to the
small and very picturesque old world places of Ulcombe and
the Suttons — East Sutton, Sutton Valence (or Town Sutton)
and Chart Sutton — and see pretty old cottages and Elizabethan
houses. At East Sutton Place lived Sir Robert Filmer, the
political writer, author of "Patriarcha; or, the Natural Power
of the Kings of England asserted," who would have put back
the clock and have restored a patriarchal system of govern-
ment. He had to pay for his views, for it is said that his
house at East Sutton was plundered ten times on account of
his Royalist sympathies. His views on monarchy were
strongly answered from west Kent by Algernon Sidney.
It was at East Sutton Park, still occupied by the Filmer
family, that, according to a recent book of reminiscences, some
years ago a certain passage at arms took place which resulted
in a sketch being sent to Punch : After dinner one evening
the noise from the housekeeper's room became so pronounced
that Lady Filmer sent for the housekeeper, and complained.
" ' Really Mrs. — , I must beg you to keep a little more order
downstairs; the noise is quite annoying.'
'I can assure your ladyship that the noise which comes
from the drawing room is quite as annoying to us as ours can
possibly be to your ladyship,' was the impudent reply. A
daughter of the house made a sketch of the scene and sent it
to Punchy where it appeared under the heading of ' Flunkey-
ana.' "
At Sutton Valence, near the modern church of which are
trifling remains of an old castle, probably built in the twelfth
3<H KENTISH RAGSTONE chap.
century, was born William Lambe, a sixteenth century London
Merchant who founded the famous grammar school and
certain almshouses in his native village; he was buried in old
St. Paul's Cathedral, his tomb being destroyed in the Great
Fire. The following punning lines, fixed up it is recorded by
himself in his lifetime, formed part of his epitaph :
" Oh Lamb of God, which sin didst take away,
And (as a Lamb) wast offered up for sin ;
Where I (poor Land)) went from thy flock astray,
Vet thou, good Lord, Vouchsafe thy Lamb to win
I lome to thy fold, and hold thy Lamb therein,
That at the day when Goats and Lambs shall sever,
Of thy choice lambs, Lamb may be one for ever."
Chart Sutton, or Chart next-Sutton- Valence to give it the
dignity of its full name, shares the picturesqueness of its
neighbour, but has no special story to detain us. It may be
said, however, that the word chart — which as a place name
occurs in many parts of Kent — signifies a rough common
grown with gorse and bracken. Systematic enclosing of waste
lands has, however, in most instances made of the name
a misnomer, for in past years many people found it convenient
to ignore the more serious charge in the old saying. —
" It is a fault in man or woman
To steal a goose from off a common —
Hut it admits of less excuse
To steal a common from a goose."
The whole extent of country here is well varied with great
breadths of hop lands and orchards, woods and fields, stretch-
ing west by Boughton, Monchelsea and Linton to Cox Heath
and the Medway valley. As we are here on the Quarry Hills,
it may be pointed out that it is from this district that so much
of the Kentish ragstone used in churches and other buildings
was taken. Much of this stone, indeed, was employed in the
building of Westminster Abbey, and it was commanded at the
time that until the Abbey was completed no stone from the
Kentish quarries should be taken to London for any other
purpose. Its use in London goes back to the time when
a Roman temple was built of it on the site where St. Paul's
Cathedral now stands. At one time this hard stone was
XIV THE COUNTY AS GARDEN 305
extensively utilised for the making of cannon balls and other
missiles.
Linton is an interesting place which readers of Walpole's
letters will remember as the residence of the Manns, and as
the place where his correspondent, Sir Horace Mann (who died
in Florence in 1786) is buried. In the church are several
monuments to the Mann and Cornwallis family — including a
tawdry one designed, and thought much of, by Horace Walpole
himself. Linton Place — which passed from the possession of
the Manns to the Cornwallis family — is a beautiful seat, the
park comprising one of the grandest collections of conifers
in the country. It won the cordial commendation of Walpole,
who said " the house is fine and stands like the citadel of
Kent. The whole county is its garden." Often as we may
feel disposed to object to the "Wardour Street" taste of the
lord of Strawberry Hill, that his enthusiasm is here justified
few visitors will be inclined to dispute.
From Linton we may return to Maidstone through the village
of Loose, pleasantly situated on a hill of the same name, or by
the hamlet of Boughton Green and the ragstone quarries, through
land still rich in hops and fruit trees, to Otham and Langley —
the church of the former place with some curious monuments —
and so on to Leeds, a picturesquely irregular village the seat of
an old abbey of which scanty traces remain. This abbey
was founded in n 19 by Robert de Crevecceur, member of a
family to which Leeds Castle belonged for several generations.
It was from Leeds Abbey that John Mulso, in 1744, began an
interesting correspondence with his friend Gilbert White, later
the famous naturalist of Selborne. " I am at Mrs. Meredith's
at Leeds Abbey in Kent : The house extremely large, but
it has few traces of an abbey. . . a large garden well stock'd
with fruit and adorn'd with fountains, cascades and canals; a
most romantic wood behind it with large fish ponds ; large
stables with a complete set of foaming horses for a coach that
has a prodigious easy corner, and riding nags that I am in love
with. But Oh ! Gil, here is a loss ye most severe that can be :
this house had a fine library, which not falling by will to the
lady of it, had been sold off, and nothing remains but ye skele-
ton cases. I really believe that my brain will be moss'd over
like our old walls, for here is very little company, and those
come so seldom that it is all form and starchedness."
x
306
LEEDS CASTLE
CHAI1,
A pleasant footpath skirting the southern side of the finely
wooded park goes to Broomfield, immediately north of which
stands the ancient Leeds Castle in its great moat ; a splendid
pile even as seen in passing along the main road which borders
the park for more than a mile. The extensive moat, formed by
the River Len, which flows through the park, must havt made
e«a
Leeds Castle from Hie Road.
the castle well-nigh impregnable in the mediaeval days, when it
was one of the chief strongholds of Kent. The noble pile was
for many reigns the property of the Queens of England, and re-
mained a royal castle until the time of Edward VI., when it was
granted to Sir Anthony St. Leger, who, as Lord Deputy of
Ireland, had inaugurated a new epoch in that country, and who
summed up the Irish Question of his day by saying that the
island was easier to be won than to be kept, " for onelesse it be
W
Xiv WAR PRISONERS 307
peopled with others than be there already, and also certen
fortresses there buylded and warded, if it be gotten the one daye
it is lost the next." He died at Ulcombe— three miles to the
south-east of Leeds Castle — and is buried in the parish church
there. His grandson sold Leeds Castle in 1608 and joined Sir
Walter Raleigh in his expedition to Guiana Some years later
the property passed to the Culpepers, and afterwards to the
famous Yorkshire family of Fairfax. The castle was frequently
used as a prison for persons of consequence. Here Eleanor
Duchess of Gloucester was imprisoned in 1 441, charged with
' necromancy, witchcraft, heresy and treason " ; here the unhappy
!
'
Leeds Castle from the Park.
Richard II., was brought secretly, disguised as a forester;
later Henry IV. 's Queen Joan was confined here ; and here the
Irish leader Desmond was held prisoner in Elizabeth's time by
Sir Warham Leger. For over two years — 1665-7 — John Evelyn
records in his "Diary" he with the other commissioners
had charge of 500 French and Dutch prisoners in Leeds Castle ;
he hired the castle of Lord Culpeper for the purpose, having
been earnestly desired " to spare Maidstone from quartering
any of my sick flock."
The castle, despite many modern additions, is a fine and
impressive building— though Walpole, in his mania for the
Gothic, sneered at it, declaring that the only thing worth seeing
were a portrait of the Duchess of Buckingham and the moat
x 2
3o8
THE MOTE
CH. XIV
The Len, which forms the moat, flows on to beautiful Milgate
Park, and soon does its share of work for some of the paper
mills of the Maidstone district, and so on to the grand park of
the Mote where it forms a large lake. This park, which is noted
for its many magnificent beeches and oaks, has been succes-
sively the property of such important families as the Woodvilles
(Lord Rivers), the Wyatts, and the Marshams (Lord Romney).
•
I ' i
Leybourne.
CHAPTER XV
"the wells" and tonrridge
"Tunbridge [Wells] is the same distance from London that Fontaine-
bleau is from Paris, and is, at the seas. in, the general rendezvous of all the
gay and handsome of both sexes. The company though always numerous,
is always select ; since those who repair thither fur diversion ever exceed
the number of those who go thither for health, everything there breathes
mirth and pleasure; constraint is banished, familiarity is established upon
the first acquaintance, and joy and pleasure are the sole sovereigns of the
place. The company are accommodated with lodgings in little, clean, and
convenient habitations that lie straggling and separated from each other, a
mile and a half all around the Wells, where the company meet in the
morning; this place consists of a long walk, shaded by spreading trees,
under which they walk while they are drinking the waters : on one side of
this walk is a long row of shops, plentifully stocked with all manner of
toys, lace, gloves, stockings, and where there is raffling, as at Paris, in the
Foire de Saint Germain ; on the other side of the walk is the market, and,
as it is the custom here for every person to buy their own provisions, care
is taken that nothing offensive appears on the stalls. Here young, fair,
fresh-coloured country girls, with clean linen, small straw hats, and neat
shoes and stockings, sell game, vegetables, flowers, and fruit ; here one
may live as well as one pleases; here is, likewise, deep play, and no want
of amorous intrigues. As soon as the evening comes every one quits his
little palace to assemble on the bowling green, where, in the open air,
those who choose dance upon a turf more soft and smooth than the finest
carpet in the world."'
Thus wrote Anthony Hamilton a couple of centuries ago,
and already the Wells had enjoyed nearly a century of reputation
as a place at which Society could combine its search after
enjoyment with its search after health, for it was in 1606 that
a nobleman first found the value of the chalybeate springs and
so in course of time started the hilly village upon its transforma-
tion into a centre of fashionable life. Dudley, Lord North, the
nobleman to whom Tunbridge Wells is indebted in the first
310 DRINKING THE WATERS chap.
place for its fame, was reported to be entirely cured of " the
lingering consumptive order he laboured under" by the use of
the waters, and they long continued famous for their efficacy
"in cold chronical distempers, weak nerves and bad digestion."
The Earl of Abergavenny had the springs enclosed and sought
to popularise the resort, the success of which was such that it
was many years before the accommodation for visitors could
be made to equal the demands. In 1630 Queen Henrietta
Maria attended by a large suite journeyed to the Wells for
her health's sake but was obliged to camp on the Downs,
while a generation later many visitors who wished to take the
waters had to seek accommodation in neighbouring villages
two or three miles away. Charles the Second's Queen took
up her residence here — Pepys again and again tells us the
Queen has gone to Tunbridge A Veils— and henceforward the
fashionable popularity of the place was assured. In the
eighteenth century it rivalled Bath as a social resort and
everybody who was anybody made a point of being seen
at the Wells. Already when Defoe wrote the first volume
of his " Tour Thro' the whole Island of Great Britain " (pub-
lished 1724) he could say "the coming to the Wells to drink
the water is a mere matter of custom ; some drink, more do
not, and few drink physically ; but company and diversion
is in short the main business of the place ; and those people
who have nothing to do anywhere else, seem to be the only
people who have anything to do at Tunbridge." On the walks
(the Pantiles) he tells us any gentleman of decency and good
manners could talk with any lady, and he gives a lively account
of the place as the resort of fashion and of beauty.
It was here that Mr. Henry Esmond Warrington from
Virginia improved his acquaintance with his aunt, the wonderful
Madame de Bernstein (nee Beatrice Esmond), having ridden over
the wooded and hilly ways from Westerham with Mr. Wolfe.
It was here, too, to turn to the work of another master of
fiction, that Beau Beamish reigned and the- fair Chloe came to
her tragic end, and we seem to get a flavour of the mixture of
rusticity and fashion in the ballad of "The Duke and the
Hairymaid," "ascribed with questionable authority to the pen
of Mr. Beamish himself in a freak of his gaiety " : —
" Sweet Susie she tripped on a shiny May morn,
As blithe as the lark from the green-springing corn,
xv LA MALADIE IMAGINAIRE 311
When, hard by a stile 'twas her luck to behold
A wonderful gentleman covered with gold !
There was gold on his breeches and gold on his coat,
His shirt-frill was grand as a fifty-pound note ;
The diamonds glitteied all up him so bright,
She thought him the Milky Way clothing a Sprite !
' Fear not, pretty maiden,' he said with a smile ;
'And pray let me help you in crossing the stile.'
She bobbed him a curtsey so lovely and smart,
It shot like an arrow and fixed in his heart.
As light as a robin she hopped to the stone,
But fast was her hand in the gentleman's own ;
And guess how she stared, nor her senses could trust,
When this creamy gentleman knelt in the dust !"
The Tunbridge Wells of the past lives again in the pages of
Thackeray and Meredith but it may also be found in hints and
scraps in many of the memoirs and correspondence of the
eighteenth century literary and fashionable folk. References
from such works would suffice to make a large book about
Tunbridge Wells alone; here we may get a glimpse of the place
as it appeared of old, may seek to repeople the walks with
beaux and belles of a past. Lord Boyle, who visited the town
in the summer of 1728, wrote a lively description in which
he showed how closely everyone followed the lead of the reign-
ing notable at the Wells :
"We are honoured here with the Presence of Princess Emilia, to whome
the Tunbridgians leave no method untried to pay their Court. If she
laughs land sometimes princesses laugh at nothing) we all grinn, remember-
ing the good old Saying, ' the frightfull'st Grinner, be the Winner.' If she-
looks grave, we put on countenances more sorrowfull than the -Mutes at a
Funeral. When She walks, the Lame and the Blind hobble after Her.
If she complains of the Toothache, the ugly Faces of the Women of
Quality are wrop'd up in Flannel. In all reasonable Pleasures, nay in
Pains as far as the Toothache and the Vapours, we humbly imitate Her.
. . . Under the Rose, I believe these renowned Wells are not of any
great use. We are ordered down here commonly pour la Maladie
Imaginaire, for the Spirits and the melancholy to which our whole Nation
are too subject. The Diversions and Amusements of the Place send us
home again chcarfull, and the foggy Air of London with the common
1 )i>appointments of Life urge our Return the following Year. The Water
has a brackish taste never palatable."
His lordship then went on to give the following entertaining
account of an eccentric person whose doings must have varied,
if not always agreeably, the ordinary daily round.
312
A STRANGE REGIMENT
CHAP.
"Among the infinite variety of People now here there is a Madman,
surnamed Drapier, who strikes us all with pannick Fear, and affords us
Diversion at the same time. He has raised a Regiment and enlists his
Soldiers in a manner not a little extraordinary. He fixes on any Gentle-
g&f
%1-^f mm mm
j%
I I
/
■KMAovv^-SVV ay
The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells.
man whom his wild Imagination represents as fit for martial Exploits, and
holding a Pistoll to the pore Captive's Breast obliges him to open a Vein
and write his Name in Blood upon the Regimental Flag. Some have
leap't out of Window to escape the Ceremony of bleeding, but many others
have tamely submitted, and they march every morning in Military Order at
xv ROUTINE OF "THE WELLS" 313
his Heels. lie has in his Suite an Irish Viscount, an English Baronet,
three Jews, five Merchants and a supercargo. These are the Cheife, but
the whole Regiment consists of Twenty-Seven. All agree lie sin mid go i<>
Bedlam, but none dare send Him there. The unbelieving Jews tremble al
the Sight of Him, and the sober Citizens of London (inn pale when he
enters the Room. To his natural heat he adds the strength of Liquor, and
is a most terrible I lectin-. I wish he was chained up, for the Women are
all frightened out of their Wits about Him ; thank Heaven I have not the
Honour of his Acquaintance."
Half a century later and Mrs. " Blue Stocking " Montagu
met here the author of " The Complaint : or Night Thoughts
on Life, Death and Immortality " —to give the poem its
neglected full title ; the lady described how they rode, walked,
and took sweet converse together, he carrying her to places
" suited to the genius of his muse, sublime, grand, and with
pleasing gloom diffused over them." In our more self-
conscious age Genius and its admirers are both more fearful of
seeming ridiculous. Mrs. Montagu was " in the vapours " at
Dr. Young's departure, though the presence of other literary
lights soon consoled her for his absence and with Mrs.
" Epictetus " Carter, Lord Lyttelton and others " wit flowed
more copiously than the springs," and the "wits" became
annoyed when a mere newspaper " intelligencer " — we should
call him a reporter nowadays— said that the noblemen were
attracted more to ladies of fashion than to the "blues," Mrs.
( arter and Mrs. Montagu ! The former lady wrote — ■
" It is true that my Lord Bath does sometimes draw his chair, in a sorl
of a kind of an edgeway fashion, near my Lady A. But pray consider the
difference. It is by mere dint of scratching and clawing that Lady A. can
draw Lord Bath — poor man — a few plain steps across the Pantiles, while
we, by the natural power of sober attraction, draw him quite up ' Tug Hill '
to the top of Mount Ephraim, and keep him there till we are quite afraid
he will endanger his life in returning. Well; but my Lord Lyttelton?
Let any impartial person ask Lord Lyttelton's postillion, and his horses,
and his dog ' Pert ' whether many a long evening's attendance upon Mount
Ephraim has not given them good reason to wish there was no body that
detained his Lordship longer than Lady A."
Mrs. Montagu also wrote of the round of life at the Wells :
"so many glasses of water to be drunk, so many buttered rolls
to be eaten, so many turns on the walk to be taken, so many
miles to be gone in a post chaise or on horseback, so much
pains to be well, so much attention to be civil." Early in the
season there were people of quality of " extremely bourgeoise "
3«4
AN OLD ENGRAVING
CHAP.
behaviour, and they were followed by proud and impertinent
citizens aping the persons of quality. Still the good lady
thought as Providence made the system for the multitude the
life led by the generality must be the happiest, then added,
with smug self-satisfaction and the pride that apes humility,
speaking for the intellectual minority, " though as fortune's
elder children we are best portioned, I know not if we are
best beloved; I hope not."
A celebrated old engraving fully d ascribed in Mr. Austin
> v.
Tunbridgc Wells from Southborough Common.
Dobson's " Samuel Richardson " shows many celebrities of
1748 grouped along the public walk here and that picture
might well have suggested the scene in Thackeray's
" Virginians " where Harry and his companions, after their
athletic competition, look out upon the assembled company. —
"There was, indeed, a great variety of characters who passed. M.
Poellnitz, no finer dressed than he had been at dinner, grinned, and
saluted with his crreat laced hat and tarnished feathers. Then came
xv GREAT MEN AT THE WELLS 315
by my Lord Chesterfield, in a pearl-coloured suit, with his blue ribbon and
star, ;iiid saluted the young men in his turn.
' I will hack the old boy fur taking his hat off against the whole kingdom,
and France, either,' says my Lord March. 'lie has never changed the
shape of thai hat of his for twenty years. Look at it. There it goes
again. Do you see that great, big, awkward, pock-marked, snuff-coloured
man, who hardly touches his clumsy beaver in reply. D- — ■ his confounded
impudence — do you know who that is?'
' No, curse him ! Who is it, March?' asks Jack, with an oath.
' It's one Johnson, a dictionary-maker, about whom my Lord Chesterfield
wrote some most capital papers, when his dictionary was coining out, to
patronise the fellow. I know they were capital. Eve heard Horry Walpole
say so, and he knows all about that kind of thing. Confound the impudent
schi 11 ilmaster.'
' Hang him, he ought to stand in the pillory,' roars Jack.
'That fat man he's walking with is another of your writing fellows, — a
printer, — his name is Richardson ; he wrote Clarissa, you know.'
'(deal Heavens, my Lord, is that the great Richardson? Is that
the man who wrote Clarissa ?' called out Colonel Wolfe and Mr. War-
rington in a breath.
Harry ran forward to look at the old gentleman toddling along the walk
with a train of admiring ladies surrounding him.
'Indeed, my very dear sir,' one was saying, 'you are too great and
good to live in such a world ; but sure you were sent to teach it virtue.'
' Ah, my Miss Mulso, who shall teach the teacher,' said the good fat old
man, raising a round, kind face skywards. ' Even he has his faults and
errors. Even his age and experience does not prevent him from sturr.bl- ,
heaven Mess my soul, Mr. Johnson, I ask your pardon if I have trodden on
your corn.'
'You have done both, sir. You have trodden on the corn and received
the pardon,' said Mr. Johnson, and went on mumbling some verses,
swaying to and fro, his eyes turned towards the ground, his hands behind
him, and occasionally endangering with his great stick the honest, meek
eyes of his companion author."
Since the days of which Thackeray wrote, Tunbridge Wells
has lost something of its eminence as a fashionable place,
though it remains a delightful health-resort surrounded by
inexhaustibly attractive country. Indeed Thackeray found it
(hanged much between his schooldays and his age as he shows
in that delightful autobiographical essay in the " Roundabout
Papers" dealing with "Tunbridge Toys." Set upon lulls with
magnificent views over the Sussex forests, it is so near the
border that Mr. E. Y. Lucas quietly annexed it to his county
when writing of " Highways and Byways in Sussex." Those
who once fall under the fascination of the place return to it again
and again, not as of old, for the waters or for the company, but
for the health-giving air of the Kentish hills, the beautiful walks
316 A BEAUTIFUL TOWN chap.
and drives through lanes and byways to quaint old villages and
stately parks. The chief park is that of Eridge to the south, in
the neighbour county — but visitors need be less troubled than
topographers by such arbitrary delimitations. The town itself,
despite its hilly ways, suggests ease and comfort, its famous
Pantiles — avenued with limes— still attract many visitors, and
the local Tunbridge-ware (beech or sycamore inlaid with other
woods) still provides pleasant souvenirs, as it has done for
several generations. Though the beautifully situated town finds
favour with many visitors and residents — its population is greater
than that of Canterbury, and nearly equal to that of Maidstone —
it has not for various reasons appealed to everyone. Cobbett,
with all his love of country divided between woodland and
cultivation, disliked it, apparently for little reason beyond that
of its being frequented by Londoners — "by making a great
stir in rousing waiters and 'boots' and maids, and by leaving
behind me the name of 'a d — d noisy troublesome fellow,' I
got clear of ' the Wells' and out of the contagion of its wen-
engendered inhabitants."
An earlier writer had far other views, for it was at a house on
Mount Sion, that Richard Cumberland, poet and prolific play-
wright, passed the last twenty-seven years of his life, and there
he died, in iSn, having written of his Kentish home that it
was not altogether a public place, yet at no period of the year
a solitude, and that during his long residence there, he had
never experienced a single hour's indisposition that confined
him to his bed. The dramatist was honoured with burial in
West minster Abbey, but his poems have ceased to be read, his
plays to be acted. His " Memoirs " should be worth reprinting,
for the entertainment of those who like to read intimate
gossipy records of the past.
A couple of years ago an interesting custom was revived by
the Mayor of/funbridge Wells. Having discovered an old
statute requiring the mayor of the town to send corn to the
parish church at the conclusion of each year's harvest, he
purchased a large quantity, and sent it to St. John's Church
to be used in connection with the harvest festival there.
The fine extent of hilly common, well-nigh surrounded by
the growing town, is one of the notable features of Tunbridge
Wells, to be visited after we have walked the Pantiles, and
dutifully taken a draught of the waters— less curative, perhaps,
xv THE BORDERLAND 317
now that springs further afield have become so easily acces
sible. On Rusthall Common, beyond, the Toad Rock is to be
seen and puzzled over while- the High Rocks, now sophisticated
into a show place, and therefore largely spoiled, lie a mile or so to
the south-west ; these rocks, the " surprising cliffs and chasms "
and " narrow gloomy passages " of which awed our grand-
parents of the eighteenth century, just over the boundary in
Sussex, should be visited if for no other reason than that rocks
are uncommon features of our southern scenery of wooded
hills and rounded downs.
Along the Sussex border from Tunbridge Wells to the west
until our county merges into Surrey, about nine miles away, are
Groombridge and Ashurst, Fordcombe and Cowden— the first
mainly in Sussex, and the second the most westerly place on the
Medway, which for a short distance, where it flows to the north,
forms the boundary between the two counties, until it is joined
by the Kent Water near to Fordcombe paper mills. In the
churchyard of the modern church of Fordcombe, which he had
been mainly instrumental in building, is buried Field-Marshal
Lord Hardinge, one of the most notable of Wellington's
lieutenants in the Peninsular War, who later gained fame as
Governor-General of India ; one of the governors to leave the
finest record. Hardinge resided at South Park, between here
and Penshurst. Cowden, on the Kent Water, with a large
" furnace pond " in the neighbourhood, is another of the quiet
little villages within easy reach of any of these West Kent
centres. The country all about is woodland and parkland,
diversified by hops and corn, with a certain rich sameness
about the scenery, but offering again and again glimpses of
pleasant houses and quaint cottages to those who pass through
the shady lanes. Here, as in other rural parts, one is struck
again and again by the few people who are met, the few even at
work in the fields, except during the hopping season, or when the
hay is a-making. The meeting with a group of flower-gathering
or playing youngsters is quite an event in a long walk, except
when passing through villages. North of Cowden is the high
hamlet of Markbeech, with splendid views across this corner
of our county — both into the valley from which we have
come, and on the further side of the ridge to that of the
river Eden. Turning easterly again, leaving for the present
the tempting signposts which tell us that Hever and Penshurst
3iS
TONBRIDGE
CHAP.
are within easy reach, and taking retired byways we go by
woodlands of oak and pine, by one of the many Coldharbours
our county knows— surely the very commonest of place-names —
to the Medway, about a couple of miles below the point at
which its waters have been joined by those of the Eden. Just
beyond are Speldhurst, Bidborough, and Southborough,
bringing us near to " the Wells " again. The two first are
Tonbridge Castle.
beautifully situated old villages, while the other is quite a
town which has risen with its neighbour, and also boasts
of chalybeate springs, though it never attained fashionable
vogue.
Tonbridge, or Tunbridge, lies about five miles north of
the Wells to which it gave its name. It is a place that was of
importance in mediaeval times, owing to its strong castle,
and, thanks to its situation at the head of the navigable waters
XV
AN OLD INN
319
of the Medway and to the fact that it is an important railway
junction, it has acquired a new modern importance as a
market and manufacturing centre, with its corn mills, powder
mills, and breweries. It is, too, a capital centre from which
to explore West Kent, owing to its being a kind of railway
0\$CEbLjUASHns*
Old Chequers Inn, Tonbridge.
four cross roads along each of which are to be found charac-
teristic scenery and many places of special beauty and
interest. A pleasant, prosperous town with some quaint
timbered buildings — notably the well preserved three hundred
years old Chequers Inn, which is strikingly picturesque from
the street, and the internal arrangement of which shows the
spacious arched rooms — now divided up by partitions — in
326 A JACOBEAN MANSION chai\
which our forefathers took their rest within their inn in days
presumably before the refinement of separate rooms for guests
had been reached. There are other ancient houses to be seen
in the old market town but new offices and factories and the
railway have combined to modernise the place while giving it
an air of substantial prosperity.
The ruined Castle in its beautiful grounds — now a well-
planted place for public recreation — was at one time an
important Kentish stronghold. It is situated in the middle of
the town, its shrub-grown grounds reaching to the bank of the
river. The remains are full of interest. Dating back to
Norman times the Castle was besieged on many occasions and
passed through the possession of various owners during the
troubled centuries that followed. After having been put in a
state of defence on behalf of the Parliamentarians in the
Civil War it was dismantled and gradually fell into the ruined
state in which it has now been arrested. The mound on
which the ancient keep stood is regarded as a prehistoric
earthwork. From the remaining creeper-clad towers an
admirable view is to be had over the town and along the
valley which the Castle guarded. An old visitor objected to
the removal of ivy from the ruins — a present-day one may well
complain of the coloured lights with which they are hung.
At Somerhill, or Summerhill, a beautiful park to the south-
east of Tonbridge and for a mile alongside which runs the road
to the Wells, we have a place to which the public are
allowed access. The fine Jacobean house occupies the
position of one once belonging to Sir Philip Sidney — brought
as part of her dower by his wife the daughter of Sir Francis
Walsingham. The present house, which was built in 1614 by
one of the earls of Clanricarde (who sit in the House of Lords,
by the way, as Baron Somerhill), was among the properties
given to John Bradshaw, the President of the Court which
condemned Charles I., but before the close of the same
century it had returned to the Lord Clanricarde of that time and
then passed by his daughter's marriage to Lord Muskerry. The
four courts in which the house was enclosed afforded magnifi-
cent views, from that on the east the distant Barhani Downs
between Canterbury and Dover being dimly shown. The
hill to the south of the house perhaps offers the best view ;
from this point, as an old writer puts it, "a stranger may
xv KENTISH DRAMA 321
behold at leisure a valley equal to Tempe, Andalusia, or
Tinian." Here " la Belle Hamilton " stayed when the Court
was at the Wells. Presumably the neighbourhood of the
fashionable place proved costly to the local nobility, for we
learn that " Lady Muskerry having, by her expensive way of
life, wasted her estate, she, by piecemeal, sold off a great part
of the demesnes lying mostly on the southern side of South
Frith, to different persons ; and, dying in great distress, was
buried accordingly, about the year 1698." Behind the gaiety
and colour of life at the Wells this gives us a hint of the note
of tragedy. When Horace Walpole visited the place in 1752
it was of the romantic visitor, " Grammont's princess of
Babylon," that he thought rather than of the ruinous hospitality,
and he said there was scarce a road to it and the house was
little better than a farm. The house has long been restored
and enlarged, the roads made good, while the fine old trees
and the views over a vast landscape remain.
North of Tonbridge on the road to Sevenoaks is the quiet
village of Hildenborough, famous on many cricketing fields as
a place where some of the best bats and balls are made. In
the last few years, however, Hildenborough has won something
of a new celebrity, for here for several winters village players
have performed specially written dramatic pieces. The project
was first devised about five years ago to afford winter evenings'
amusement for the men of the village and many of them
proved apt actors in the little plays of old Kentish life written
for them by Mr. Dagney Major. An interesting fact about the
Hildenborough performance is that — apart from the costumes
—everything is " home made " by local talent. Not having had
an opportunity of seeing that performance I cannot describe
it, but I have heard it referred to as an extremely interesting
experiment in training the minds of the men and boys who are
members of the village institute and giving them employment
in winter evenings. " It has done all this and much more.
It has shown that men can be easily drawn from the inanities
of the taproom, and that even in a little community like this
there exists a strong natural talent for reproducing the drama
of life. The village green has been the cradle of county
cricket ; is it possible also that the real school of acting may
be discovered in the village institute ? " A representative " cast,"
included two gardeners, three cricket-ball makers, two black-
Y
322 SIR HENRY VANE chap.
smiths, two carmen, a saddler, a dairyman and a worker at the
gunpowder mills. Hildenborough's success may well give rise
to similar experiments and the players become as common in
village, as pageants are becoming in City, history.
At Hildenborough we have north of us the high range of
hills on which Sevenoaks is situated — westwards Ide Hill and
Toys Hill show prominently — but keeping to the south of
them we may turn more eastwards to visit Shipborne,
Hadlow and the Peckhams, going through the wooded higher
lands of the Medway valley. Shipborne is interesting as
being the birthplace of Christopher Smart, the eighteenth
century poet whose " Song to David " has much in it of real
poetic beauty and not a little of baldness —and as the burial
place of Sir Henry Vane the younger. This ardent Republican,
" Vane, young in years, but in sage counsel old," as his friend
Milton put it, is perhaps most often remembered by Cromwell's
outcry on the expulsion of the Long Parliament, "O Sir
Henry Vane, Sir Henry Vane ; the Lord deliver me from Sir
Henry Vane." He was an able and incorruptible leader of the
Parliament and had to suffer for it on the Restoration when he
was one of the few excluded from the Act of Indemnity, and
was executed on Tower Hill, bearing himself so bravely that
Pepys, who was present, recorded it as miraculous. His body
was given to his relatives and he was buried here at Ship-
bourne not far from Hadlow, his fathers native place. Ac-
cording to a local tradition he was wont to haunt o' nights
the neighbourhood of the Fairlawn yews, between here and
Plaxtol, strolling about with his head under his arm.
From the neighbouring country a conspicuous object is the
tall tower of the modern Hadlow Castle in a park containing
some noble cedars, and going north-easterly from here, with the
grand extent of the Hurst and Mereworth Woods — in which wild
swine still flourished in Elizabeth's reign — occupying the high
ground in front of us, we get to West and East Peckham ; the
villages are pleasant places neighbouring Mereworth and in
the same lovely wooded district. At East Peckham is buried
Sir Roger Twysden in whose journal — printed in the earlier
volumes of the Archceologia Cantiana — we get much in-
formation about social life and public affairs in the days of
the triumphant Parliament. He lived at Roydon Hall here
and suffered as some other men of like opinions in Kent did
xv A LONG-SUFFERING ROYALIST 323
during the whole of the Civil War and Commonwealth periods;
for some years indeed he was imprisoned, with but occasional
intervals of freedom on bail ; the whole story of his relations
with the Parliament, and of the spoliation of his estate is set
forth in his "Journal." Sir Roger Twysden and Sir Edward
Dering were summoned to the bar of the House of Commons
as early as 1642 for being concerned in a petition against
the conduct of Parliament, and a minor poet of the time
wrote :
" Ask me not why The House delights
Not in our two wise Kentish Knights ;
Their counsel never was thought good
Because they were not understood."
Poor Sir Roger had continuous trouble with the " House "
and its agents, had his woods felled, his goods taken, and
large sums to pay before he got clear. Here is his list of
"things caryed out of my house in East Peckham by ye
Troopers " on one occasion.
" A saddle.
2 or 3 byts, gyrts, snaffles, styrrops, and all of yt kind they met with.
Nurse her lascd handkerchiefe.
Win. Sparks' shirts, 3 bands, 4s Sd in money, a boxe in sylver out of my
wive's closet.
Captayn Vaughan's two-handed sword.
A glove of male.
A booke and a payr of compasses.
A payr of Pystol cases, a combe, and a book or two of Ward's.
A little dagger, two belts, and gyrdles.
2 little bookes of waxe candles."
Going down to the Medway again we may, after passing
through Hale Street, turn to the right by way of a number
of scattered hamlets near the left bank, and crossing the
little Shode which flows from the neighbourhood of Ightham
through the pretty break in the downs known as the Shode
valley, pass Hadlow and Golden Green, and so come again
to the Tonbridge Road. This shows us part of a very
attractive stretch of the Medway valley rich in orchards and
hop gardens, giving evidence of the fertility of the land, that it
is sometimes known as " The Garden of Eden," to suggest
perhaps that it is the finest portion of that Garden of England,
which is Kent. Crossing the Medway to the south of Hale
Y 2
324
WHERE CARKER DIED
CHAT,
Street we may make for Paddock Wood, a more or less new-
town grown up about the railway junction. It was here,
according to Canon Benham, that Carker met with his terrible
death as told in " Dombey and Son," the station being then a
lonely place, " the small town that was nearest being some
miles away." That " small town " would have been Brenchley,
a delightful village with picturesque timbered cottages, a place
presumably of some importance in the long past as the site of
an old castle of which nothing now remains beyond the mound
Brenchley.
on which it stood, not far from the landmark clump of tall
trees locally known as Brenchley Toll. Brenchley was parti-
cularly unfortunate in the destructive storm of 1703 for as one
Mr. Thomas Figg wrote at the time : —
"A stately steeple, whose altitude exceeded almost, if not all in Kent,
the height whereof, according to various computations, it never in my
knowledge being exactly measured, did amount at least to 10 rods, some
say 12, and others more; yet this strong and noble structure, by the rage
of the winds, was levelled with the ground, and made the sport and pastime
of boys and girls, who to future ages, though perhaps incredibly, yet can
xv RICH SCENERY 325
boast they leaped over such a steeple ; the fall thereof beat down great part
of the church and porch, the damage of which to repair, as before, will not
amount to less than ^800 or,£i,ooo. This is the public loss ; neither does
private and particular much less bemoan their condition, for some houses
and some barns, with other buildings, are quite demolished ; though blessed
be God, not many lives or limbs lost in the fall, and not one house but
suffered greatly by the tempest."
On the wooded byways between here and the Wells — with
views to the north over our lovely Medway valley and south-
ward to the woods of Sussex about Bayham Abbey — are the
hamlets of Matfield Green (where Harrison Weir lived) and
Kippings Cross and the old village of Pembury. Turning back
towards the Medway the main road will take us along the
grand extent of the Pembury Woods to Somerhill and
Tonbridge ; but for the pedestrian, or for those cyclists who
prefer the generally greater beauty of the byways before the
smoothness of the highways there is metal more attractive
through well farmed country and diversified woodlands to
Capel, Five Oak Green and Crockhurst Street and Tudeley. In
both Capel and Tudeley churches are altar tombs to the Kentish
Fanes — a branch of the same family we saw as Vanes in the
north of this district at Hadlow and Shipbourne.
With noblemen's and gentlemen's seats where rank and
fashion, wit and beauty gathered during the hey-day of the
Wells, the whole of this district is dotted, and its hillsides
are covered with grand woodlands, while " marvelus fair ground
champain and fruteful ground of corn " mark the course of the
Medway through this western part of Kent. People brought
up among loftier hills and wide moorlands tell me that they
tire of this rich scenery as of vast parklands and gardens, but
to those who have come under its spell it has a perennial
charm in its round, timber-grown hills, its well farmed valleys,
its shady lanes and unfrequented footpaths.
CHAPTER XVI
PENSHURST AND THE EDEN VALLEY
The very name of Penshurst, even to those who do not know
the pleasant village and the stately pile of Tudor buildings, is
redolent of memories : it brings up thoughts of various members
of that great and gracious family which has given many interest-
ing and picturesque figures to our history — of poets, statesmen
and soldiers, fair women and brave men ; above all, it reminds
us of that romantic Crichton, the author of the "Arcadia," the
hero of Zutphen — Sir Philip Sidney — of the martyred Algernon
Sidney, of Waller's " Sacharissa," and of the lady elegised by
William Browne or Ben Jonson
" Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all verse,
Sidney's sister, Pembroke's mother,
Death ! ere thou hast slain another
Learned, fair and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee."
Easily to be reached from Tonbridge or The Wells, Penshurst
has a station of its own about two miles north of the village,
but whether approached from that direction or from the
Tonbridge road we get a good view of the grand old castellated
house. From the former direction we see the north front and
western side over the sunk fences which divide the park from
the road and the lawns surrounding the house from the park.
The best way of approach for those who are influenced by the
" spirit of place " is by the road coming down the hill from the
further side of Med way, past the remnant of the Ashover Wood
ch. xvi PENSHURST CHURCHYARD 327
of which Ben Jonson sang as providing for the Sidneys5 " open
table,"
" The purpled pheasant with the speckled side."
Coming up from the Medway bridge into attractive Pens-
hurst — a place which seems to rest comfortably in an atmo-
sphere of antique distinction — we reach at once the
beginning of the village, the entrance to the churchyard and
the footpath way to the mansion, for village, church, and
mansion lie in close and friendly proximity. A couple of old-
style stone and timber cottages (one of them the village post
office) stand at the top of some steps on the right bank ; between
them is the gnarled remnant of a mighty elm and the path
to the churchyard under part of a really beautiful old timbered
cottage. The glimpse of the churchyard through this opening
is peculiarly pleasant when the sun is shining on the turf and
tombs and formal yews, while the way through which we look
is cut off by deep shadow. Entering this small but im-
pressive " acre " we see that it is divided from the gardens of
Penshurst Place by a wall immediately on our right, with a
gateway through which generations of Sidneys have passed to
worship in the church of which their tombs form one of the
most notable features. To the left of the church goes a foot-
path giving access to the park, passing near to the western
side and leading to a fine view of the great crenellated grey
stone front close-covered with ivy, above which show many
irregular Tudor chimneys. Approaching by the park entrance
we reach the old gateway over which is a stone inscribed with
the story of the acquisition of " Pencester," as it was anciently
named. — •
" The most Religious and Renowned Prince Edward the sixt, Kinge
Of England, France and Ireland, gave this House of Pencester with
The Rlannors, Landes, and Appurtenances thereunto belonginge
Unto his trustye and welbeloved servaunt Syr William Sydney, Knight
Banneret, serving him from the tyme of his Birth unto his
Coronation in the Offices of Chamberlayn and Steward of his
Household ; in commemoration of which most worthie and famous Kinge
Sir Hcnrye Sydney, Knight of the most Noble Order of the Garter.
Lord President of the Councill, established in the Marches of
Wales, Sonne and Heyre to the aforenamed Syr William
Caused this Tower to be buylded, and that most excellent
Princes Armes to be erected — Anno Domini, 1585.''
328 THE FEUDAL HALL chap.
Before being acquired by the Sidneys the place was about
two hundred years old, having been built by that famous citizen
of London, Sir John de Pulteney, four times Lord Mayor, and
having changed owners earlier, while earlier still the estate
had belonged to the Penchester or Pencestre family. To-
day, however, it is with Sir John de Pulteney that the interest in
the place begins for us, as amid all .the changes and additions
which the mansion has undergone his great hall remains un-
changed, one of our most perfectly preserved examples of its kind
in the country. In it we see the " Hall " of feudal times ; here is
still the raised dais with the table for the family, in front of it the
open hearth with its great andirons on which huge logs blazed,
the smoke passing away through an opening surmounted by a
turret — now done away with — in the high timbered roof; down
either side long oaken tables for the retainers, and at the
eastern end the minstrels' gallery and entrances to the buttery
and kitchens. With nothing but these plain ancient furnish-
ings and a few horns on the wall above the dais it is easy to
picture it as the centre of mediaeval feudal life, — to see the
floor rush-strewn, the gaily garbed people, the cook and his
henchmen entering with the boar's head and other steaming
dishes and passing to where the lord sat at the raised table
with his family and honoured friends. Here, runs the
tradition, the Black Prince and his wife, the Fair Maid of Kent,
once held their Christmas feast.
The hall, as has been said, is the original centre of the place,
but around it successive generations of owners have grouped
building after building — much of the long north front was
added little more than half a century ago — but the work has
always been carried out with careful regard to tradition, and
the result is a magnificent and pleasing whole. It is easy to
believe that the most romantic of the Sidneys had this his birth-
place in view when he described the home of Kalander :
"The house itself was built of fair and strong stone, not affecting so
much any extraordinary kind of fineness as an honorable representing of a
firm stateliness ; the lights, doors and stairs rather directed to the use of
the guest than to the eye of the artificer, and yet as the one chiefly heeded,
so the other not neglected ; each place handsome without curiosity, and
homely without loathsomeness ; not so dainty as not to be trod on, nor yet
slubbered up with good fellowship ; all more lasting than beautiful, but
that the consideration of the exceeding lastingness made the eye believe it
was exceeding beautiful."
XVI
PENSHURST
329
Other descriptive passages in "The Arcadia" may well have
been inspired by Penshurst and its surroundings.
The galleries of Penshurst Place with their many portraits of
famous people by Vandyck, Zucchero, Douw and other great
§ H ■■■■ v '11 *
ML 5°
&:
/
%
$ ' it
1 ^j 7-7
Penshurst.
artists, their old furniture, carved panellings, and tapestries are
almost too crowded with matters of interest for the visitor to
get more than a confused idea of their richness ; curious
cabinets and wonderful china — one small room has the walls
entirely covered with priceless porcelain — are pointed out, all
330 SIR PHILIP SIDNEY'S OAK chap.
things having an association with the historic past of the mansion.
For details of such the visitor must consult a special guide-book.
From the end of the gallery in which hang portraits of Sir
Philip Sidney and of Queen Elizabeth is to be had a beautiful
view of the formal flower gardens.
In itself and in its associations Penshurst has been the inspira-
tion of more poetry than perhaps any similar place — Ben Jonson,
Waller, Southey, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Mr. Swinburne,
these are but some of those who have sung of the Sidneys and
their beautiful Kentish home. If the famous epitaph, already
cited, was not written by " Rare Ben Johnson " 1 there is
no doubt about the authorship of his tribute to the place
where the lady elegised belonged. He sang of the lavish
hospitality of Penshurst as one who had enjoyed it.
" Thou art not, Penshurst, built to envious show
Of touch or marble ; nor canst boast a row
Of polished pillars or a roof of gold :
Thou hast no lantern, whereof tales are told ;
Or stair, or courts ; but stand'st an ancient pile,
And these grudged at, are reverenced the while.
Thou joy'st in better marks, of soil, of air,
Of wood, of water ; therein thou art fair.
Thou hast thy walks for health, as well as sport :
Thy mount, to which thy Dryads do resort,
Where Pan and Bacchus their high feasts have made,
Beneath the broad beech and the chestnut shade ;
That taller tree, which of a nut was set,
At his great birth, where all the muses met.
There, in the writhed bark, are cut the names
Of many a sylvan taken with his flames ;
And thence the ruddy satyrs oft provoke
The lighter fauns to reach thy lady's oak. . . .
Now, Penshurst, they that will proportion thee
With other edifices, when they see
Those proud ambitious heaps, and nothing else,
May say, their lords have built, but thy lord dwells."
Of the trees which Jonson mentions, that which was said to
mark the birth, " at a quarter before five of the clock," of Sir
Philip Sidney on the morning of November 30th, 1554, has
probably long since gone. It was presumably a chestnut which
stood near what is now known as " Sir Philip Sidney's oak," a tree
the starting of which dates further back than Sidney's birth,
1 I quote from the wall of Westminster Abbey, and not from misquoters
innumerable.
xvi THE LIME WALK 331
and properly known as the Bear Oak, as the Hon. Mary Sidney
tells us — " the retainers wore sprigs of this tree in their hats
when they went to meet the Earl of Leicester at the entrance
of the Park at Leigh on their return from London." 1
Edmund Waller's poetic adoration of the Lady Dorothy
Sidney, his " Sacharissa," in the generation following that of Jon-
son, gives us further tributes to Penshurst — two different poems
are entitled " At Pens-Hurst," though quotations from them are
frequently run together as though they came from one. In the
first piece Waller declared that when the Lady went into a wood
it became a garden at once " embroider'd so with flowers,"
while
" If she sit down, with tops all tow'rds her bow'd
They round about her into arbors crowd :
Or if she walks, in even ranks they stand
Like some well-marshal'd and obsequious band. . . .
Ye lofty beeches, tell this matchless dame,
That if together ye fed all one flame,
It could not equalise the hundredth part,
Of what her eyes have kindled in my heart.
Go, boy, and carve this passion on the bark
Of yonder tree, which stands the sacred mark
Of noble Sidney's birth."
The lofty beeches which long retained the name of " Sacharissa's
Walk " have gone, but another notable avenue still existing is
that of the Lime Walk from the eastern end of the lawns down
to the stables — magnificent trees supposed to have been planted
by Robert, Lord Leicester, nephew of Sir Philip Sidney. This
avenue, the inner branches meeting overhead, the outer sweep-
ing nearly to the turfy sides, humming with myriad bees, and
offering deep shade when the park is brilliant in sunshine and
the air is to be seen quivering with heat above the gravel drive,
is a lovely monument to the father of " Sacharissa." The
artificiality of the poet is seen in sending his boy to carve the
letters on the tree — Sidney would not thus have delegated the
honouring of his lady.
After Waller's time Sir Philip was restored to his place as
the central figure in the associations of Penshurst. As Southey
asks —
1 Historical Guide to Penshurst Place, 1903. The Warwick device of
the Bear and Ragged Staff will be noticed as occurring frequently in
Penshurst decorations ; it was adopted by Sir Henry Sidney on his
marriage in 1552 with Lady Mary Dudley.
332 ASTROPHEL chap.
" Are days of old familiar to thy mind,
O reader? Hast thou let the midnight hour
Pass unperceived, whilst thou in fancy lived
With high-born beauties, and enamoured chiefs,
Sharing their hopes, and with a breathless joy,
Whose expectation touched the verge of pain,
Following their dangerous fortunes ? If such love
Hath ever thrilled thy bosom, thou wilt tread,
As with a pilgrim's reverential thoughts,
The groves of Penshurst. Sidney here was born,
Sidney than whom no greater, braver man
His own delightful genius ever feigned
Illustrating the groves of Arcady
With courteous courage and with loyal love."
To Elizabeth Barrett Browning it was Sir Philip and Sacharissa
who appealed when she visited here and wrote " The Picture
Gallery at Penshurst/' —
" There, I beheld the Sidneys :— he, who bled
Freely for freedom's sake, bore gallantly
His soul upon his brow ;— he, whose lute said
Sweet music to the land, meseem'd to be
Dreaming with that pale face, of love and Arcadie."
Mr. Swinburne too, in that wonderful word-music of his, has
sung of " Astrophel " — ■
" O light of the land that adored thee
And kindled thy soul with her breath,
Whose life such as fate would afford thee,
Was lovelier than aught but thy death,
By what name, could thy lovers but know it,
Might love of thee hail thee afar,
Philisides, Astrophel, poet
Whose love was thy star?"
A rich anthology might be made of the poems inspired by
Penshurst and its people.
It is impossible to tell of all the Sidneys associated with the
place but Sir Philip belongs peculiarly to it not only as the
most famous owner, as the one whose name, as typical of all
that is noble and chivalrous, has become familiar in our mouths
as household words, but in that it was here that he was born
and here he probably passed his earliest days. Of those early
days there is unfortunately no record, but amongst the Penshurst
MSS. is an account kept by one Thomas Marshall showing that
at Shrewsbury school during nine months 1565-6 the twelve-
xvi SIDNEY THE UBIQUITARY 333
year-old boy's expenses amounted to ^40 os. 3d. The account
is kept with minute carefulness and includes such items as the
following :
"For a yard of cloth to make Mr. Philip a pair of boot-hose, having
none but a pair of linen which were too thin to ride in after his disease,
3^- Ad.
For making these boot-hose and for stitching silk, is. 6d.
For a pen and inkhorn and sealing-wax, 6d.
For two quires of paper for example books, 2d.
For an ounce of oil of roses and another of calomel to supple his knee,
which he could not ply or bend, 6d.
For wax to burn in the school a-morning before day, \d.
For perfumes to air his chamber with after the young gentlemen were
recovered, \zd."
The story of Sir Philip's after life — he was an "ubiquitary"
said Fuller — his position at the Court of Elizabeth, his interest
in the New World expeditions, his death on the field of
Zutphen before completing his thirty-second year, does not
belong here, nor does an appreciation of his writings, his long
and fascinating romance of " Arcadia," his sonnet sequence
" Astrophel and Stella," or his other poems. Men in those
spacious days seem to have had " crowded hours of glorious
life"; Sir Philip having but reached early manhood had won
lasting fame in many fields, and then even by his death added
yet other claims on our remembrance — by his foolhardy throw-
ing off of his armour that he might not be better protected than
his friend in the fight ; by his passing on of a cup of water
to a wounded soldier, " Friend, thy need is greater than mine " ;
by his dying words, " I would not change my joy for the empire
of the world." Here at the home of the Sidneys we cannot
but regret that this man in whom were focussed the family gifts
was not buried in Penshurst Church ; but St. Paul's Cathedral
claimed him and his tomb was destroyed in the Great Fire of
London. " Rest, then, in Peace, Oh, Sidney, we will not
celebrate your memory with tears but admiration ; whatever we
loved in you, whatever we admired in you, still continues, and
will continue in the memories of men, the revolutions of ages
and the annals of time." The Vale of Camden expressed the
sentiment which the name of Sir Philip is likely long to
evoke.
Another noted Sidney was the patriot Algernon, who was
not born at Penshurst like his great uncle but unlike him
334 THE UNCONQUERED PATRIOT chap.
is buried there. Algernon Sidney as a convinced Republican
sided with the Parliament in the great struggle of his time
and bore an active part in it. When the trial of Charles I.
took place Algernon Sidney was appointed one of the com-
missioners to try him, but bore himself so independently
that it is a wonder that he continued to stand as well as
he did during the Protectorate. His own account of the
matter was given in a letter to his father written nearly a dozen
years later —
" I was at Penshurst when the act for the trial passed, and, coming up
to town, I heard my name was put in, and that those who were nominated
for judges were then in the Painted Chamber. I presently went thither,
heard the act read, and found my own name with others. A debate was
raised how they should proceed upon it, and, after having been sometimes
silent to hear what those would say who had the directing of that business,
I did positively oppose Cromwell, Bradshaw and others, who would have
the trial to go on, and drew my reasons from these two points : First, the
King could be tried by no court ; secondly, that no man could be tried by
that court. This being alleged in vain, and Cromwell using these formal
words, 'I tell you we will cut off his head with the crown upon it,' I
replied, ' You may take your own course, I cannot stop you, but I will
keep myself clear from having my hand in this business. And immediately
went out of the room and never returned."
A man of extraordinary courage and consistent sincerity
Algernon Sidney was suspected during the Commonwealth,
and after the Restoration his known anti-monarchical opinions
led to his being arrested on the flimsiest excuse after he had
come from abroad and to his execution on Tower Hill in 1682
for alleged complicity in the Rye House Plot. A less sincere
man would probably have returned to the Royalist ranks after
his quarrel with the regicides, or would have sought to make
his peace on the Restoration. When it was complained that
his scruples were extravagant and overstrained he replied " I
cannot help it if I judge amiss. I walk in the light God hath
given me ; if it be dim or uncertain I must bear the penalty
of my errors." The "unconquered patriot " met his fate with
extraordinary heroism and after his execution the body was
given to his' family and was duly interred in the Sidney vault
in Penshurst Church.
Algernon Sidney's brother, Henry, Earl of Romney, became
Master of the Ordnance to William III., and it is said that his
family heraldic charge, the pheon, is the origin of the
xvi PENSHURST CHURCH 335
now familiar " broad arrow." The story runs that in his
official position he found so many public stores, &c, going
astray for want of a uniform stamp that he used his heraldic
pheon for the purpose, and since, conventionalised, this has
become the common Government mark. The wanderer about
country places will come across broad-arrow inscribed stones in
all manner of places, the mark having been placed by officials
engaged in the Ordnance Survey. Another account, however,
says that the mark arose from a broad barbed arrow or javelin
being carried before royalty, while yet another says that the
mark as employed by the Survey is a kind of hieroglyphic to de-
note the points from which trigonometrical measurements have
been made. At Penshurst we may well believe the first version.
The church which, as has been said, stands close to the Place
in a small but beautiful churchyard has been much restored
(by Sir Gilbert Scott), but a small portion of it, being more
than a century older than Sir John de Pulteney's great hall, is
probably part of the church built by one of the Penchesters
about 1200. Within are a number of interesting monuments
and brasses, the Sidney tombs claiming, as might be expected,
a goodly share of attention. Here, as in a few other old places
in our county, there is a surviving link with the past in the
custom of ringing the Curfew bell each evening from Michael-
mas to Lady Day.
Before leaving the staid and comfortable village the tasteful
new stone Village Hall and Club should be visited, as this
seems a model of what such places should be — simple yet
dignified and pleasing in architectural appearance.
Just to the north of Penshurst Park, on the further side of
the railway, is Leigh — pronounced locally " Lie " — a village with
a pleasant green and many neat cottages built in the olden
manner. At the mansion of Hall Place here lived for some
years, and died in 1886, Samuel Morley, a politician and
philanthropist, summed up as one who " had all the busi-
ness talents of a man of this world and all the warmth of
heart and piety of a man of the next." In the church is an
undated brass of a character sufficiently unusual to call for
mention here ; it represents the half figure of a female rising
from an altar tomb in which the body is shown clad in a shroud.
She is saying, " Behold, o lord, I com willingly," while the
tomb is inscribed, " Farre well all ye Tell you come to me."
336 THE CHIDING STONE chap.
Immediately to the west of Penshurst Park is the estate of
Redleaf, long celebrated for its beautiful gardens, with the Eden
— here considerably widened — flowing along its western side.
The confluence of the Eden and the Medway is a little below
the Penshurst bridge. Further west again is the beautiful little
village of Chiddingstone, one of the most unmodernised of old
places we have to show. Its line of timbered houses near the
church is unspoiled by the close contiguity of any new ones,
and its butchers' shop, with an opening in the side wall up an
alley way, by way of a "shop front," is an interesting survival.
In the Park at the back of this attractive village "street" is a
great boulder of sandstone known as the Chiding Stone,
traditionally the source of the name of the parish, and said to
have been a Druidical judgment-seat. Those matter-of-fact
folk who would destroy all our cherished illusions point out
that the rock is probably in its natural position though admit-
ing that it may have been utilised as a gathering-place for the
neighbourhood at important crises.
Beyond Chiddingstone the branching road may be followed
north across the Eden, and by the hamlet of Bough Beech
above the long, deep railway cutting, towards the wooded
Sevenoaks range, from which the clump of trees on eight-
hundred-feet-high Toy's (" Ties ") Hill shows out as a bold
landmark, or south-westerly to Markbeech. In either case
the next point of special attraction to most people will be
Hever Castle of romantic memories.
Long left more or less neglected, and partly used as a
farmhouse, Hever, a few years ago, was purchased by Mr.
William Waldorf Astor, and has been so restored and added to,
that it starts upon a renewed lease of life as one of the noblest old
residences that Kent has to show. I do not propose to discuss
the general question of the restoration of ancient buildings,
though the thick-and-thin opponents of all such architectural
restoration would apparently let a thing crumble to nothing
rather than allow the renewal of decayed portions and the whole
thus to last for future generations. It is a struggle between
sentiment and common-sense, and certainly common-sense
seems to have the better argument. Hever Castle was a more or
less neglected ruin ; it is a restored mansion full of interest,
the restoration being carried out with careful attention to the
history of the structure. So careful, indeed, has the attention
xvi A ROYAL WOOING 337
to detail been, that the modern transverse oak flooring of
a corridor was not allowed to remain, because in the olden
days such timbers were never put any way but longitudinally.
Now the Castle has been restored, and the new owner has built
a veritable village of "guest houses" in its immediate
neighbourhood. These are all designed in the Tudor style,
and are connected by a bridge and subway with the old stone
main edifice. The River Eden has here been widened into a
lake, and an extensive tract of land enclosed as a deer park.
Hever Castle was built in the days when the nobleman's
strongly fortified residence was gradually giving way to the fine
mansion — Penshurst marked a further stage in this evolution —
and thus its main defence was in its broad moat and its
embattled entrance and portcullis. But little remains of the
castellated house built by Sir William de Hevre in the reign of
the third Edward, and our interest in the place begins with the
purchase of the estate and commencement of the present castle, in
the thirty-seventh year of the reign of Henry VI., by Sir Geoffrey
Boleyn, who had been Lord Mayor of London. From him it
descended to his grandson, Sir Thomas Boleyn, whose daughter
Anne was born just four hundred years ago. What was that
fateful woman's birthplace has not been ascertained, but Hever
is one of the places claiming that distinction. There seems
no doubt, however, that here she passed her childhood, and
here she may have been wooed by Sir Thomas Wyatt, before
the poet had to give way to the Prince, and here, certainly,
Henry VIIL visited her during the years of their strange
courtship ; indeed one tradition says that it was in the Castle
gardens that Henry and Anne first met. Certainly here he
addressed to her some of those love-letters breathing a
fervid strain to which the tragic close of Anne's life seems an
impossible sequel. Here are two of those letters, the one
accompanying a present, the second acknowledging one —
" My mistress and friend, my heart and I surrender ourselves into your
hands, beseeching you to hold us commended to your favour, and that by
absence your affection to us may not be lessened : for it were a great pity
to increase our pain, of which absence produces enough and more than I
could ever have thought could be felt, reminding us of a point in astronomy
which is this : the longer the days are, the more distant is the sun, and
nevertheless the hotter ; so is it with our love, for by absence we are kept
a distance from one another, and yet it retains its fervour, at least on my
side ; I hope the like on yours, assuring you that on my part the pain of
Z
338 ANNE BOLEYN chap.
absence is already too great for me ; and when I think of the increase of
that which I am forced to suffer, it would be almost intolerable, but for the
nrm hope I have of your unchangeable affection for me : and to remind
you of this sometimes, and seeing that I cannot be personally present with
you, I now send you the nearest thing I can to that, namely, my picture
set in a bracelet, with the whole of the device, which you already know,
wishing myself in their place, if it should please you. This is from the
hand of your loyal servant and friend.
H. R."
" For a present so beautiful that nothing could be more so (considering
the whole of it), I thank you most cordially, not only on account of the
fine diamond and the ship in which the solitary damsel is tossed about, but
chiefly for the fine interpretation and the too humble submission which
your goodness hath used towards me in this case ; for I think it would be
very difficult for me to find an occasion to deserve it, if I were not assisted
by your great humanity and favour, which I have always sought to seek,
and will seek to preserve by all the kindness in my power, in which my
hope has placed its unchangeable intention, which says, Aut illic, aut
nitllibi.
The demonstrations of your affection are such, the beautiful mottoes of
the letter so cordially expressed, that they oblige me for ever to honour,
love, and serve you sincerely, beseeching you to continue in the same firm
and constant purpose, assuring you that, on my part, I will surpass it
rather than make it reciprocal, if loyalty of heart and a desire to please
you can accomplish this.
I beg, also, if at any time before this I have in any way offended you,
that you would give me the same absolution that you ask, assuring you
that henceforward my heart shall be dedicated to you alone. I wish my
person was so too. God can do it, if He pleases, to whom I pray every
day for that end, hoping that at length my prayers will be heard. I wish
the time may be short, but I shall think it long till we see one another.
Written by the hand of that secretary, who in heart, body, and will is,
Your loyal and most assured servant,
( A. B. )
H. aullre \ A. si. J tie cuerse R. "
V
Of Anne herself the most varied accounts are given. To
some writers she owed her fate to the ambition of her father,
which led him to sacrifice his daughter to the passion of a
rapacious tyrant ; to others she was just an ambitious woman
herself, sacrificing everything to becoming Queen ; then, again,
she is sometimes referred to as a most beautiful woman, while
the Venetian Ambassador wrote of her— with the license, let us
hope, of one sent to lie abroad for the good of his country —
XVI GHOSTS AT PENSHURST 339
that " Madame Anne is not one of the handsomest women in
the world. She is of middling stature, swarthy complexion,
long neck, wide mouth, bosom not much raised, and has in
fact nothing but the King's great appetite and her eyes, which
are black and beautiful." Against this may be set the de-
scription of " the rare and admirable beauty of the fresh and
young lady " by her avowed admirer Wyatt, from which we
may gather that it was not so much regularity of features and
delicacy of colouring as the je-ne-sais-quoi of beauty which
captivated her various admirers. " In this noble imp," says he,
" the graces of nature graced by a gracious education seemed
even at first to have promised bliss unto hereafter times. She was
taken at that time to have a beauty not so whitly clear and
fresh, above all we may esteem, which appeared much more
excellent by her favour passing sweet and cheerful, and these
both also increased by her noble presence of shape and
fashion, representing both mildness and majesty more than can
be expressed."
Seeing the destiny of the young beauty of Hever — long
wooed by a king already married, then raised to the dizzy
height of Queen, only after a brief reign to lose her head on
Tower Hill — it is not to be wondered at that a local supersti-
tion declared that her ghost haunted the place of her happy
girlhood. The ghost was said to cross the bridge over the
Eden each Christmastide. I have not heard of any recent
appearance. Hever Castle too is said to have had another
ghost — the shrouded spirit of a farmer named Humphrey who
had been robbed and killed in the neighbourhood ; this
uncanny manifestation — so runs the story — was effectually laid
by the Rector with the aid of a bowl of Red Sea water !
Hever was, on the death of Anne's father, taken over by the
King, who bestowed it on his ill-favoured and repudiated
Queen Anne of Cleves, who is said by unsupported tradition
to have died here. The most conclusive proof that she did so
was that her death chamber was long pointed out.
Hever Church stands, as a number of our Kentish churches
do, at an angle of the road in the village and near it is the
ugly red-brick entrance to the drive leading down to the
renovated Castle. The church is on a small eminence so that
its spire forms a landmark for some distance round. In the
Boleyn Chapel is the ornate brass to the memory to Anne
z 2
340 A HILLY DISTRICT ch. xvi
Boleyn's father, the unhappy man whose ambition was so
realised that he saw his daughter crowned only to see her
shortly afterwards, and his son also, executed. He survived
them less than two years, the inscription on his tomb running,
" Here lieth Sir Thomas Bullen Knight of the Order of the
Garter Erie of Wilscher and Erie of Ormunde wiche
decessed the twelve dai of Marche in the iere of our Lorde
1538." It must have been a melancholy ending for the man
who had shone so long at courts, though his faithful steward
wrote that " he made the end of a good Christian man, ever
remembering the goodness of Christ."
A couple of miles or so west of Hever is Edenbridge, near
to the Surrey border, where another Kent Brook, before its
junction with the Eden, forms the county boundary.
Edenbridge is a small, unattractive town mostly scattered
along the high road ; south and north of it the country rises
through varied and well wooded scenery, in the one direction
to Markbeech, Cowden and the Sussex border, in the other
to Crockham and its wooded hill, at the further side of which
lies Westerham. From the summit of Crockham Hill we
have an extensive view not only of the valley from which we
have risen but across it into Sussex and westerly into Surrey.
CHAPTER XVII
WESTERHAM AND SEVENOAKS
At Westerham we are at the head of the valley of the
Darent, coming over into which from that of the Eden we
can cross the range of sandstone hills at its highest part — the
whole of it from the county boundary at Kent Hatch to
beyond Sevenoaks being rarely less than five hundred feet
above the sea, and the highest point, a couple of miles to the
south-west of Westerham, being just over eight hundred feet
and the highest bit of our county. This is Toy's Hill, from
which a rapidly descending road to Brasted may be followed
over The Chart — properly so named, for though we have many
"Charts"1 in the county, this is the most extensive — or a
delightful footpath way may take us by the strangely named
hamlet of French Street and Chartsedge to Westerham. At
Chartsedge lived for many years, and died in 1848, a zealous
delver into Kentish history, the Rev. Thomas Streatfield, who
had projected a large "History of Kent," to be published in
ten folio parts at two guineas each, had amassed much material
for this work, but did not live to write it. Those materials —
forming fifty-two volumes — are now in the British Museum.
From the less lofty Crockham Hill we cross pine-grown
commons to Westerham. Before going down into the valley a
visit should be paid to the ragstone quarries here.
Westerham is a clean-looking pleasant town writh narrow
approaches giving on to a broad main street above which
1 Chart — "a rough common, overrun with gorse, broom, bracken."
Parish and Shaw's Dictionary of Kentish Dialect.
342
THE CONQUEROR OF QUEBEC
CHAP.
stands the church, a centre of interest for several reasons.
Here, from the eastern end of the edifice, is to be had a
beautiful view along the narrow valley which is bounded
on the north by the hilly country of the chalk and on the south
by that of the sand with their markedly different characters.
Within, the church has brasses and other monuments to show
the curious in such matters, and a local memorial to Westerham's
acknowledged most famous son, General James Wolfe, the
vSjLjU-fjVt^.i
/
Jm
. N
-^
IVesterham Church.
conqueror of Quebec. The Westerharn folk in the inscription
recognise Wolfe's pre-eminence in their town annals—
"With humble grief inscribe one artless stone,
And from thy matchless honours date our own."
Wolfe was born at the vicarage house here, on January 2nd,
1727, and a cenotaph in the grounds of Squerryes Court marks
the spot on which he received his first commission. It was
hither that Mr. Henry Esmond Warrington rode from
xvii WESTERHAM IN FICTION 343
Oakhurst with Colonel Lambert ; here he stayed the night
with Colonel Wolfe's people and hence he rode on the fol-
lowing morning to Tunbridge Wells with that brilliant young
officer — "that tallow-faced Put with the carroty hair," as
vinous Jack Morris described him — as is pleasantly set out in
the twenty-fourth chapter of the romance of " The Virginians,"
already referred to in the previous chapter.
Other famous folk born at Westerham were John Frith, the
friend of Tyndale, burned at Smithfield on July 4th, 1533, and
the worthy and wordy Bishop Benjamin Hoadley (1676). In
fiction too the town has a place besides that in Thackeray's
romance, for near here, as Jane Austen's admirers may like to
be reminded, was the parsonage of Mr. Collins — a kind of
clerical Uriah Heep — whose courting is recounted in some of
the amusing early chapters of " Pride and Prejudice " and at
whose humble residence Elizabeth Bennett visited him and
the friend who, on her refusal, had caught his heart at the
rebound.
The little Darent, Spenser's
"still Darent, in whose waters clean
Ten thousand fishes p'-ay, and deck his pleasant stream,"
rises in the grounds of Squerryes Court, and flows easterly by
Brasted, Sundridge and Chipstead until it turns north and
passes through a break in the chalk hills by Otford.
North of Westerham, across the valley, is the steep Westerham
Hill crossed near its foot by the Pilgrims' Way — with hedges
festooned by the Travellers' Joy. A chalk pit in the hill-
side forms a staking landmark all along the valley. To
the north of this hill, on ground but a few feet lower, is the
high-perched Cudham Church, centre of a widely scattered
parish which has at its southern extremity a lonely place of
gruesome memories from its association with a notorious
tragedy of a generation ago. The westerly part of the parish,
a few years since as quiet and retired a place as could be
found within eighteen miles of London, has been invaded
by suburban villadom. Cudham church dominates a wooded
district, its spire a landmark for some distance, and a very
extensive view is afforded from its churchyard in which
are some magnificent old yews. On one occasion the vicar
cf Cudham was called upon to baptise four children " of the
344 KNOCKHOLT BEECHES chap.
same birth " — twinned twins — and the story runs that a boy
being sent to the clergyman to come and baptise "a parcel
of children," the Vicar inquired how many there were, and
the boy answered, " three when I came, but God knows how
many there may be before you get there ! " The four were all
buried four days later.
Not far from Cudham on the higher part of the chalk over-
looking the valley from which we have come is Knockholt, a
pleasant little village chiefly notable for its clump of tall
beeches (770 feet above sea level) occupying a small hollow
on the hill-top. In clear weather it is said that the dome of
St. Paul's Cathedral may be seen from this spot — but my
visits have never been in weather sufficiently clear for that. It
is also claimed that the dome-like clump itself has been
recognised — in like favourable climatic conditions — by westerly
observers from Leith Hill, in Surrey, and by northerly
observers from Harrow-on-the-Hill. The derivation of the
name of Knockholt, as of other places, has exercised the wits of
various people. Hasted suggested that it means, Noke or corner,
and holt or wood, while another ingenious person describes
the word as deriving from Ock-holt or Oak-wood, thus North
Ockholt = N. Ockholt = [Kjnockholt !
Coming down into the valley again from Knockholt we
reach the fine expanse of Chevening Park once crossed by
the Pilgrims' Road, but at the lodge gate of which the modern
pilgrim is told that he may not pass but must go by the road
skirting the park — in other words, he must take three sides of a
square, and walk over two miles instead of little more than
half a mile to the small village of Chevening, the first village
on the ancient road, now a little used byway between wide
farmlands, since leaving the Surrey boundary near Titsey Hill.
The old way was closed by an Act of Parliament obtained by
the owner, Lord Stanhope, in 1780. At the time that that Act
was passed there was at Chevening the owner's little daughter
(who had been born there four years earlier) destined to make
a notable appearance in the world and to be remembered by
posterity as a clever eccentric. This was Lady Hester
Stanhope, whose childhood was passed here at Chevening.
When she was seven-and-twenty her uncle, the great William
Pitt, asked her to keep house for him and made her his
trusted confidant, though her eccentric ways and ready speech
xvn A ZEALOUS ANGLER 345
caused comment on the part of some of Pitt's friends. His
reply to such comment was, " I let her do as she pleases ; for
if she were resolved to cheat the devil she could do it."
Pitt's death in 1806 destroyed all Lady Hester's ambitions.
In 1810 she, -'Chatham's fiery granddaughter," went abroad,
and four years later settled in a strange home on the slopes of
Mount Lebanon, where she died "in proud isolation" in 1839,
and where she was visited by A. W. Kinglake, as recorded in
one of the most attractive chapters of that fascinating travel
book, "Eothen."
Chevening Place, where this eccentric lady was born, was
originally designed by Inigo Jones but has been greatly altered.
The church, near the eastern entrance to the park, one of
the few churches built actually on the course of the Pilgrims'
Road, has many features of interest. Dunton Green, a little
further east, is mostly a new place near the junction whence
starts the branch railway to Westerham.
Returning to the south side of the Darent at the foot of the
hills along which the stream flows we come a couple of miles
from Westerham to Brasted, the place at which Napoleon III.
stayed, and whence he set out in 1840 to make his descent
upon France, a descent doomed to failure from the first and
rendered ridiculous by the carrying with the expedition of a
tame eagle. The difference between the symbolic eagle of
Napoleon the Great and the tame eagle of his successor was
the difference between the two men as seen in the light of
history.
Sundridge, next along the road which here runs closely
parallel with the Darent — thus early in its course utilised for
serving a mill — is a pleasing little village. From Brasted to
Sundridge the Darent flows through the lovely park of Combe
Bank conspicuous for its noble trees. There used also to be an
estate south of the village belonging to the Isley family— to
several members of which there are old monuments in the
church — but this was forfeited when the Isleys joined in
Wyatt's Rebellion. Here lived an enthusiastic angler who
made fish-ponds at this and other seats he owned, and he
even went so far as to have fish-ponds made at the top of his
house at Sundridge, as was set forth in a poem on " The
Genteel Recreation," by John Whitney in 1700. When
Walton wrote his book half a century earlier angling was
346 A FULSOME FLATTERER chap.
the " Contemplative man's recreation " — the change from
contemplation to gentility seems to mark the change between
the mid-seventeenth century and the early eighteenth. The
church with some fine trees about it stands near Sundridge
Place above the village.
Combe Bank was long a seat of the Campbell family, and
the Duke of Argyll sat in the House of Lords as Baron
Sundridge until in 1892 Queen Victoria made him a Duke of
the United Kingdom. Bishop Tenison of Ossory — not to be
confused with his cousin the Archbishop — was rector here for
a time and presented the brass chandelier to the church.
Another cleric associated with the place was Beilby Porteus,
Bishop of London, who was wont to retire here for the
summer, and on his death in 1S06 was, by his own request,
buried here. At the age of twenty-eight Porteus won the
Seatonian Prize for a poem on " Death " in which he lauded
George II. in so fulsome a fashion that a century later he
came in for severe castigation from Thackeray when the
novelist was reviewing the unlovely days of "The Four
Georges." This is how the future bishop wrote of " one who
had neither dignity, learning, morals, nor wit — who tainted a
great society by a bad example, who, in youth, manhood, old
age, was gross, low, and sensual ": —
" While at his feet expiring Faction lay,
No contest left but — who should best obey ;
Saw in his offspring all himself renewed ;
The same fair path of glory still pursued ;
Saw to young George Augusta's care impart
Whate'er could raise and humanise the heart ;
Blend all his grandsire's virtues with his own,
And form their mingled radiance for the throne —
No further blessing could on earth be given —
The next degree of happiness was — heaven."
The most ardent upholder of the divine right of kings
would admit that young Mr. Porteus did indulge in flattery,
but at his grave we may remember rather his earnest work in
the anti-slavery cause, his zeal for religious observance, his
attempts to ameliorate the condition of the poorer clergy.
Perhaps a more, attractive figure recalled by a visit to
Sundridge Church is that of the Hon. Mrs. Anne Seymour
Darner, the daughter of Horace Walpole's great friend, Field-
xvn "DAMER'S CHISEL" 347
Marshal Conway, and herself a great " pet," and finally
residuary legatee, of the famous dilettante and letter-writer.
A granddaughter of the fourth Duke of Argyll, Mrs. Damer
is not only buried here but she is represented by several
evidences of her talent as sculptor, including the monument
to her mother. As an " amateur fine lady " Mrs. Darner was
overpraised by her contemporaries for her sculpture ; her best
known work — the heads of Thames and Isis on the bridge at
Henley-on-Thames — was especially lauded, and two of her
busts were eulogised by Erasmus Darwin in — of all things — his
" Economy of Vegetation " —
" Long with soft touch shall Darner's chisel charm,
With grace delight us and with beauty warm ;
Foster's fine form shall hearts unborn engage.
And Melbourne's smile enchant another age."
When Anne Seymour Conway was a child she was reproved
by David Hume for laughing at the work of an Italian street
sculptor, the philosopher adding that she should not laugh at
that which she could not do. The girl was piqued and
immediately modelled a head in wax and then proceeded
to carve it in stone. One critic declared that her whole life
as sculptor was spent in persistently trying to refute Hume's
doubts of her ability !
Before the lady sculptor's time Mary Bellenden, the beautiful
and lively Maid of Honour, who was offered and scorned the
love of a Prince of Wales, and married one of the Grooms of
his Bedchamber, Colonel Campbell, resided here and wrote
hence some of those frank and spirited letters which admirably
represent their time though they offended the sensitive John
Wilson Croker. One of her letters may be given as showing
the interest which the Court beauty took in home affairs.
"Combe-Bank, April \oth (1723).
"How do you do, Mrs. Howard? that is all I have to say — if my
brain could have produced anything sooner, you should have heard from
me. This afternoon I am taken with a fit of writing ; but as to matter, I
have nothing better to entertain you with but to tell you the news of my
farm. I therefore give you the following list of the stock of eatables that
I am fatting for my private tooth. It is well known to the whole County
of Kent, that I have four fat calves, two fat hogs fit for killing, twelve
promising black pigs, four white sows big with child, for whom I have
great compassion, ten young chickens, three fine geese, sitting with thirteen
348 A SERIES OF HILLS chap.
eggs under each (several being duck eggs, else the others do not come to
maturity)— all this, with rabbits and pigeons, and carp, in plenty, beef and
mutton at very reasonable rates — (this is writ very even). Now, Mrs.
Howard, if you have a mind to stick your knife in anything I have named,
say so. Nothing has happened here since I came worth mentioning in
history, but a bloody retaliation committed on the body of an Owl that
had destroyed our pigeons."
The beautiful Mary Bellenden, afterwards Campbell, died
before she was forty, and her husband, quarter of a century
after her death, succeeded to the Dukedom of Argyll. Her
correspondent, " Mrs. Howard," was afterwards George the
Second's Countess of Suffolk.
Chipstead is a pretty village on the Darent, just south of
Chevening. Beyond, on the main London to Sevenoaks road,
is Riverhead, where turning to the right past the parkland of
Montreal, we may follow the road to Sevenoaks, the principal
town of our district situated on high ground, though some
distance below the summit of the range of hills. Montreal
received its name from Sir Jeffrey Amherst, the conqueror of
Canada, and capturer of Montreal in 1760.
Sevenoaks in itself has no special attractiveness apart from
its position, but as a centre for beautiful walks it may vie with
any others in the county. South and west are the wooded
hills along the northern foot of which we have been coming —
Sevenoaks Hill, Hubbard's Hill, Bayley's Hill, Ide Hill, Toy's
Hill, Crockham Hill. This series of heights offers endless
variety of quiet walks and magnificent views over the Weald,
with only occasional retired hamlets, such as Goathurst and
Ide Hill. Of the last named place, I have heard a Kentish
servant girl speak when referring to a cake in which, as she
thought, the currants were scanty, " I should think the baker
stood on the top of Ide Hill and threw the currants in the
dough." Eastwards the hills run at gradually lower elevations,
broken by the valley through which the Ightham-born Shode
runs southwards to join the Medway.
" Story ! God bless you, I have none to tell, sir," has been
the reply of Sevenoaks to topographical inquirers, and a
century ago the town was described as " chiefly remarkable for
the many good houses throughout it, and the respectability of
the inhabitants," a character which may be endorsed by the
latest visitors.
xvii A NOTABLE WAIF
349
Despite its importance, Sevenoaks has no greater event
recorded in its history than a fight between Jack Cade and
his men in 1450, against a detachment of the King's army,
fifteen hundred strong, when the rebels triumphed, and for
a time sent dismay into the hearts of their opponents.
Shakespeare makes the scene ot the defeat of Sir Humphrey
Stafford and his brother a part of Blackheath, but the success
of Cade was really scored in the neighbourhood of this town,
and that " headstrong Kentish man " enjoyed his brief hour of
triumph here :
" Cade. Where's Dick, the butcher of Ashford ?
Dick. Here, sir.
Cade. They fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou behavedst
thyself as if thou hadst been in thine own slaughter-house : therefore thus
will I reward thee, the Lent shall be as long again as it is ; and thou shalt
have a licence to kill for a hundred lacking one.
Dick. I desire no more.
_ Cade. And, to speak truth, thou deservest no less, this monument of the
victory will I bear (putting on Sir Humphrey's hrigandine) ; and the
bodies shall be dragged at my horse's heels till I do come to London,
where we will have the mayor's sword borne before us.
Dick. If we mean to thrive and do good, break open the gaols and let
out the prisoners.
Cade. Fear not that, I warrant thee. Come, let's march towards
London."
William Lambarde tells us that " about the latter end of-
the reign of King Edward the Third there was found (lying
in the streets at Sennocke) a poor childe whose parents were
unknown, and he (for the same cause) named, after the place
that he was taken up, William Sennocke." This " wafe "
came to be Sir William Sevenoke, Lord Mayor of London
(141 8), and a very wealthy man, who gratefully remembered
the place of his origin by founding the Grammar School and
almshouses there (rebuilt in the eighteenth century).
In a black-letter pamphlet of 1592, by Richard Johnson,
which tells the stories of " The Nine Worthies of London," the
third worthy is " Sir William Sevenoake, grocer, in the time of
Henrie the Fift," and he is made to tell of his strange
beginning, of his work as a grocer, of his joining Henry V. in
his French wars and fighting with the Dauphin, of his return
to grocerdom, and of his death. Three out of the sixteen
stanzas may allow him to speak for himself in his native
town —
35o A WORTHY GROCER chap.
Some monster that did envie nature's worke
(When I was borne in Kent) did cast me foorth
In desert wildes, where though no beast, did lurke
To spoyle that life, the heavens made for woorth ;
Under seaven oakes yet mischief flung me downe,
Where I was found and brought unto a towne.
Behold an ebbe that never thought to flowe,
Behold a fall unlikelie to recover ;
Behold a shrub, a weed, that grew full lowe,
Behold a wren that never thought to hover :
Behold how yet the Highest can commaund,
And make a sand foundation firmelie stand. . .
By testament, in Kent I built a towne,
And briefly calde it Seavenoake, from my name ;
A free schoole to sweete learning, to renowne,
I placde for those that playde at honour's game ;
Both land and living to that towne I gave,
Before I took possession of my grave."
Mr. Johnson credits his " worthy " with building Sevenoaks,
which is an exaggeration, for Sir William, by his testament,
built but the free school and almshouses in the town.
The author of the " Perambulation of Kent," though he was
born in London, died and was first buried at Greenwich, lies
in Sevenoaks Church, whither his body was transferred by his
son. Lambarde's will is a lengthy and interesting document,
one notable feature of which brings home to us how slowly
social observances change. Many people nowadays protest
against funeral black, and here is Lambarde in 1597 saying : —
" my bodie I yeild to the earthe whereof yt is, to be buryed by the
discretion of such as shall take the care thereof, but with this desire that
my funerall be performed without blacke or feastinge."
The church in which the first of county historians lies is
near the southern end and highest part of the town, forming a
conspicuous landmark. The Lambarde chancel contains
memorials to many other members of the family associated with
Sevenoaks for three and a half centuries. An old seeker
after the humour of tombstone inscriptions has recorded this
one of Sevenoaks :
" Grim death took me without any warning,
I was well at night, and dead at nine in the morning."
xvn KNOLE PARK 351
Never was the uncertainty of human life put with more matter-
of-fact simplicity. Another Kentish gravestone, which I have
not been able to localise, was said a century ago to bear this
inscription, made by a husband on the death of his second wife
who happened to be buried next to his first one :
' Here lies the body of Sarah Sexton,
Who was a good wife, and never vext'd one :
I can't say that for her at the next stone."
Nearly opposite Sevenoaks church is the principal entrance to
Knole — the magnificent park is about six miles in circumference,
and has in its splendid mansion in the centre one of the noblest
Tudor residences and one of the richest private treasure-houses
in the Kingdom. Since Queen Elizabeth in 1566 granted the
reversion of Knole to Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst, after-
wards first Earl of Dorset, the place has been famous, for it was on
that nobleman's coming into the property in 1603 that the house
was largely rebuilt, a couple of hundred men being engaged for
two years over the work. Before coming to the Sackvilles,
Knole had been one of the many palaces possessed by the
Archbishops of Canterbury, having been purchased by Arch-
bishop Bourchier in 1456 and attached by him to the see.
Here successive primates entertained Henry VII. and Henry
VIII. until Cranmer found it advisable to make it an item in
the series of palatial presents which he made to his King.
Though considerably added to by the first of the Sackville
owners much of the ancient edifice remains— including Bour-
chier's Chapel — in the picturesque pile of buildings with its many
gables. It is a fitting centre to the grand park, some of the
fine trees of which nearly neighbour the mansion. On certain
days the chief treasure rooms of Knole are opened to the public
and then the visitor may see it much as Horace Walpole saw it
in 1752 :
" The outward court has a beautiful, decent simplicity that charms one.
The apartments are many, but not large. The furniture throughout,
ancient magnificence ; loads of portraits, not good nor curious ; ebony
cabinets, embossed silver in vases, dishes, etc., embroidered beds, stiff
chairs, and sweet bags lying on velvet tables, richly worked in silk and
gold. There are two galleries, one very small ; an old hall, and a spacious
great drawing-room. There is never a good staircase. The first little
room you enter has sundry portraits of the times, but they seem to have
been bespoke by the yard, and drawn all by the same painter ; one should
352 PRIMROSE SALAD chap.
be happy if they were authentic ; for among them there is Dudley Duke of
Northumberland, Gardiner of Winchester, the earl of Surrey the poet,
when a boy, and a Thomas duke of Norfolk ; but I don't know which.
The only fine picture is of Lord Goring and Endymion Porter by Vandyke.
There is a good head of the queen of Bohemia, a whole length of due
d'Espernon, and another good head of the Clifford countess of Dorset. . . .
In the chapel is a piece of ancient tapestry : saint Luke in his first profes-
sion. . . . Below stairs is a chamber of poets and players, which is proper
enough in that house ; for the first earl wrote a play, and the last earl was
a poet, and I think married a player."
Knole, it may be worth recalling, has been identified as the
" original " which Lord Beaconsfield had in mind when
describing Vauxe, the seat of Lord St. Jerome, in " Lothair."
It was in the gardens of Vauxe that, on Clare Arundel presenting
him with some violets and saying she could have brought him
primroses but did not like to mix the flowers, St. Jerome sapi-
ently remarked, " They say primroses make a capital salad."
In that line some historians see the germ that has converted
the anniversary of the death of the author of "Lothair" into
Primrose Day ! A striking piece of prophecy in this novel,
which has not so far as I am aware been noted, is that where
Clare Arundel, speaking as a Roman Catholic, says, " Had I that
command of wealth of which we hear so much in the present
day, and with which the possessors seem to know so little what
to do, I would purchase some of those squalid streets in West-
minster, which are the shame of the metropolis, and clean a
great space and build a real cathedral." Little more than thirty
years after " Lothair " was written the beautiful Westminster
Cathedral was in existence.
It is not necessary here to give a guide to the " ancient mag-
nificence " of Knole, but it is interesting to recall the two earls
mentioned in the closing words of the passage from Walpole's
description. The first, to whom Knole as it now is owes so
much, was famous as a .statesmen and diplomatist, a man who
died at the age of eighty in 1608, leaving, as Robert Southey
tells us, "an unblemished memory in murderous times." It was
as statesman, as Lord High Steward and Lord Treasurer, that
Sackville was known by his contemporaries, but by posterity
he is recognised as the author of poems which, though few, are
singularly important. His " Induction to a Mirroure for Magi-
strates " has been described by Mr. Sidney Lee as having no
rival among the poems issued between Chaucer's " Canterbury
xvn AN EARLY POET 353
Tales " and Spenser's " Faerie Quene." Spenser, indeed, recog-
nised Sackville's position and his own indebtedness to him,
addressing one of the seventeen dedicatory sonnets prefixed to
" The Faerie Queene " " to the Right Honourable the Lord of
Buckhurst, one of her Majestie's Privie Counsell " —
" In vain I ihinke, right honorable Lord,
By this rude rime to memorize thy name,
Whose learned Muse hath writ her own record
In golden verse, worthy immortal fame :
Thou much more fit (were leasure to the same)
Thy gracious soverains praises to compile
And her imperiall Majestie to frame
In loftie numbers and heroicke stile.
But, sith thou maist not so, give leave a while
To baser wit his power therein to spend,
Whose grosse defaults thy daintie pen may file,
And unadvised oversights amend.
But evermore vouchsafe it to maintaine
Against vile Zoilus backbitings vaine. "
Sackville's " Induction " was written long before he was
inducted into Knole but three stanzas may be given as taste
of the quality of the first of the two poets associated with the
place. The stanzas personify — as Spenser, Phineas Fletcher
and other poets were later given to personifying — Misery,
Sleep and Old Age.
" II is foode/or most, was wylde fruytes of the tree,
Unles sumtimes sum crummes fell to his share.
Which in his wallet long, God wote, kept he,
As on the which full dayntlye would he fare.
His drinke the running streame : his cup the bare
Of his palme closed : his bed the hard colde grounde.
To this poore life was Miserie ybound. . . .
By him lay heavy Slepe the cosin of death
Flat on the ground, and still as any stone,
A very corps, save yelding forth a breath.
Small kepe took he whom Fortune frowned on,
Or whom she lifted up into the trone
Of high renowne, but as a living death,
So dead alyve, of lyef he drewe the breath. . .
And next in order sad Old Age we found
His beard all hoare, his iyes hollow and blynde,
With drouping chere still poring on the ground,
As on the place where nature him assinde
A A
354 A DESPERATE DUEL chap.
To rest, when that the sisters had untwynde
His vitall threde, and ended with theyr knyfe
The fleeting course of fast declining life."
The poet is also remembered as being part author, with one
Thomas Norton, of the earliest English tragedy known to us,
" Ferrex and Porrex " or " Gorboduc" (1562), a play the lead-
ing motive of which has been summed up as being a protest
against discord as the chief curse of the lives of both rulers and
ruled, a subject which not unnaturally interested the statesman
who succeeded in holding an even course in troublous times.
The closing words of his " Complaynt of Henry Duke of
Buckingham " convey something of the same significance — ■
" Byd Kynges, byd Kesars, byd all states beware,
And tell them this from me that tryed it true :
Who reckless rules, right soone may hap to rue."
Charles Sackville, sixth Earl of Dorset (great-great-grandson
of the first earl and second poet-owner of Knole) is remembered
as a notable wit, courtier and poet in days when poets, courtiers
and wits were many about the saturnine looking Merry
Monarch.
" Dorset, the Grace of Courts the Muse's pride
Patron of arts,"
as Pope described him, is now chiefly remembered by his lyrical
masterpiece —
" To all you ladies now on land.
We men at sea indite ;
But first would have you understand
How hard it is to write.
The muses now, and Neptune, too,
We must implore to write to you.
With a fa la. la. la. la."
Something of a romance attaches to the fourth Earl, who in
16 1 3 — eleven years before coming into his inheritance — fought
a desperate duel with Edward Bruce, Lord Kinloss, near Bergen-
on-Zoom, and, himself thrice wounded, killed his opponent.
The story is set forth by Steele in two numbers of the
"Guardian" with the preliminary correspondence and Sack-
ville's full relation of the contest.
The noble park, to which the public are allowed access, is
"sweet " as it was in Walpole's day and has many magnificent
trees in it, including some splendid beeches, which some of us
vastly prefer to the sycamores which won his " love." South-
xvii CAXTON, A KENTISH MAN 355
wards the park extends along the Tonbridge road for over a
mile ; to the east it extends to Fawke Common, and northwards
to near the lower extension of Sevenoaks known as St. John's.
From the north-east side we may go through woodland —
the parks almost join — by the attractive hamlet of Godden
Green to the park of Wilderness by Seal and so to the fascinat-
ing Ightham district.
South of Sevenoaks, near the end of the tunnel — close upon
two miles long — by which the railway here pierces the hills, is
the village known as the Weald, or Sevenoaks Weald, from
which some pleasant miles of zig-zagging byways may be taken
down to the Medway in the neighbourhood of Penshurst, or
turning eastward we may go by the hamlet of Under River
through quiet farmlands to Shipborne and so into that part of
the district described in the Tonbridge chapter, or taking
the wooded roads up through the hills again may make for
Ightham and the district reserved for the next chapter. Here
it is that we are in that extensive tract which according to the
old quatrain is at once the healthiest and wealthiest our county
possesses —
" Rye, Romney and Hythe for wealth without health,
The Downs for health with poverty,
But you shall find both health and wealth
From Foreland Head to Knole and Lee."
Whether the "Lee" is that near Blackheath or Leigh to
the west of Tonbridge it is not easy to determine — in either
case we may believe the saying equally accurate.
Here, overlooking the Weald, before we turn back again to
the chalk and sand country, it may be well to recall one of its
most famous sons, the great printer William Caxton, who has re-
corded, " I was born, and learned myne English, in Kente, in
the Weeld, where English is spoken broad and rude." The
place of his birth is not, unfortunately, more exactly known.
Before Caxton's time the men of Kent were noted for their
provincial speech — " It seemed by his langage that he was
borne in Kent"— now, however, the general speech is less pro-
vincial than that of other southern counties though many
dialect words remain in use. Another old writer referred to
the " broad and rude" speech of his county —
" And though mine English be sympill to mine entent
Have me excused, for I was borne in Kent."
A A 2
CHAPTER XVIII
OTFORD AND "THE HAMS "
Oxford, situated on the Darent where that stream has turned
in a northerly direction through a break in the chalk downs, is
a place with a past that is of interest to the student of history,
not only for its remains of one of the splendid palaces belong-
ing to the Archbishops of Canterbury, but because it was the
scene of one of the early decisive battles recorded in our history,
when Offa, King of Mercia, won a great victory in 775 by
which, presumably, he got control of Kent, London, and Essex.
Another fight took place when Edmund Ironside had his fifth
battle with Cnut and gained "a most honorable victorie, and
pursued him (flying towards Shepey) untill he came to Ailes-
forde : committing upon the Danes such slaughter and bloody
havock, that if Edric the traitor had not by fraudulent Counsell
witholden him, he had that day made an end of their whole
army." The sixth battle was fought out in Essex when the
flower of the English race was destroyed and the stubborn
Edmund was compelled by his fellows to arrange a division of
the land with the no less stubborn Danes. The place "at the
ford " —for so the old form of the name, Otteford, is trans-
lated— has nothing to show of the ancient sanguinary engage-
ments, though late in the eighteenth century roadmakers are
supposed to have come across relics of the slain, but it
has evidence of its later importance as one of the most
princely seats of the Archbishops of Canterbury. It had
already belonged to the see for several centuries when
Warham in the reign of Henry VIII. built the palace of which
a fine ruined octagonal tower, and other portions since built into
cottages now remain. To a Becket's stay here three legends
ch. xviii AN ARCHBISHOP'S CURSES 357
are attached. Firstly, it is said that as he walked in the park,
engaged in devotional exercises, he was much disturbed by the
singing of a nightingale and therefore " in the might of his
holiness he injoyned, that from thence forth no bird of that
kinde should be so bold as to sing thereabout." Secondly, a
blacksmith having cloyed or pricked the primate's horse in
shoeing it the irate xVrchbishop uttered a curse that should
prevent any smith from ever flourishing in the parish. Thirdly,
there being no proper water supply for his palace a Becket
"strake his staffe into the drie ground" and immediately a
plentiful flow of water gushed forth. The nightingales and
the blacksmiths have presumably long since found the curse
weakened by lapse of centuries, but St. Thomas's Well is alive
at this day to testify, therefore deny it not.
Another miracle worker at Otford was St. Bartholomew,
before whose image pregnant women offered a cockerel or
a pullet according to their desire that their child should be
a boy or a girl.
It was Archbishop Warham in the early part of the sixteenth
century who made of Otford the splendid palace which it long
was, spending upwards of thirty thousand pounds upon re-
building nearly the whole — this sum he had intended spending
over the palace at Canterbury, but a quarrel with the citizens
made him divert it to Otford. In some of his many letters
which are extant the powerful Churchman frequently subscribed
himself with the pride that apes humility, "at my poor house
of Otford," "my poor lodging at Otford," " my poor place at
Otford." The splendid palace of Warham was visited by
Henry VIII. and was duly handed over to him by Cranmer
with various other archiepiscopal properties. All that now is
to be seen is a group of picturesque ruins near the church
overlooking the Darent where the old-time Pilgrims' Way
crossed the stream and backed by the rapidly rising, tree-
topped downs. Approaching the railway station from the
south the nearer spur of those downs looks not unlike Box
Hill as seen from the Dorking road.
Along the old Pilgrims' Road, keeping, as usual, to the
hillside, roughly midway between the higher ground and the
valley, we may pass in comparative solitude for some miles,
meeting but few people, and seeing but few cottages, for as
usual the inhabited road passes parallel with the old way at
358 ST. EDITH OF KEMSING chap.
a short distance —here sometimes less than quarter of a mile —
to the south. Shortly after leaving Otford, however, the spire
of Kemsing church is seen, and here we are at a very attractive
little village lying half a mile or so from the railway station.
The small church is dedicated to a St. Edith who is said
to have been born here, and a well bearing her name — which
to the consternation of the villagers ran dry a few years ago —
is an important local feature ; its water being still considered
locally a cure for bad eyes. In the churchyard an image
of the saint used to be much frequented for the preserving
of corn "from blasting, myldew, brandeare, and such other
harms as commonly doe annoy it." Old Lambarde, who
generally waxed indignant in recording the miracles that took
place in his county, says :
" The manner of the which sacrifice was this : Some silly body brought
a peck, or two, or a Bushel of Corn, to the Church : and (after prayers
made) offered it to the Image of the Saint : of this Offering the Priest used
to toll the greatest portion, and then to take one handfull, or little more of
the residue (for you must consider he would be sure to gain by the bargain)
the which after aspertion of holy water, and mumbling of a few words of con-
juration, he first dedicated to the Image of St. Edithe, and then delivered it
back to the party that brought it : who then departed with full perswasion,
that if he mingled that hollowed handfull with his seed Corn, it would
preserve from harm, and prosper in growth, the whole heap that he should
sowe, were it never so great a Stack or Mough. . . .
How much that God of the Romans, and our Gods of Kemsing
differed in profession, let some Fopish Gadder after strange Gods make the
accompt, for I myselfe can finde no odds at all."
" Kemsing is yet the Mother Church (as they say), and Seale
is but a child (or Chappell) of it," according to the old writer.
Seal is a pleasant little village backed by the tree-grown hills
of Wilderness, Knole and wooded commons towards Ightham.
Its church with some Early English features is mainly Perpen-
dicular, is built of the local stone, and has several monuments
and other memorials of the dead interesting to antiquarians,
the most notable being a large and beautifully preserved brass
(dated 1395) to Sir William de Bryene.
From Seal to Ightham a beautiful four-mile walk may be
taken nearly all through fine woods, either directly following
the road over the hill, or turning to the left half a mile beyond
Seal a lower way may be taken by Styants' Bottom. For a
xviii A FAMOUS HILL 359
cyclist I would recommend the main road, for I can recall on
one occasion having to push my machine along rutty, stony
ways for a considerable distance only then to have to turn
back and rejoin the open road. Either way takes us to
Oldbury Hill, a famous spot owing to the extensive pre-Roman
camp here, the entrenchments enclosing more than one hundred
and twenty acres. Near the rough steps leading up to the
camp on the eastern side about two hundred years ago a
murder was committed and the murderer was duly hanged in
chains on a gibbet erected close by the scene of his crime.
The place was long known as Gibbet or Gallows Field,
and when the neighbouring mill was burnt down two or
three years ago, the iron cage in which the murderer's body
had been hung was unearthed. A crude traditional verse
about the crime runs :
' I, Oldbury, of a bloodthirsty mind,
Prompt by the Devil to thieving,
To murder was inclined ;
When with Will Woodin I did meet,
And bore him company,
Surely then I did him greet,
But full of treachery.
I cut bis throat from ear to ear,
Cruel and inhumanly ;
And for that crime I suffer here
And die upon a tree."
The making of the murderer's name Oldbury would seem to
be an error of memory, for the place-name if not as old as
murder is far older than the specific crime.
The slopes of Oldbury have been described as one of the
finest, if not the finest, of terminal moraines in this country.
Readers who would learn the geological minutiae of the district
should read the deeply interesting if somewhat inchoate volume,
" Ightham : The story of a Kentish Village and its Surround-
ings," written by Mr. F. J. Bennett with the assistance of
several other zealous students of the district.1
Part of Oldbury Hill has been extensively quarried for stone
for " metalling " roads, and especially was this done when much
of the stone was taken in 1844 for macadamising the Edgware
1 Published (1907) by the Homeland Association, Ltd., the various local
o-uides of which have done much to stimulate interest in home-travel,
360 A LOVELY VALLEY chai\
road. Much of the famous hill, overgrown with pine woods
and chestnuts, is enclosed and on the northern slopes are
wide strawberry fields, but it has been suggested not un-
reasonably that the Hill, so rich in evidences of our past,
should be bought for the nation and systematic search made
for its relics. The whole district is so interesting, both from
the geological and archaeological points of view, that such
a consummation is devoutly to be wished. On the north side
of Oldbury Hill are remarkable crags known as Rock
Shelters from beneath which we have a very fine view across to
the chalk hills. These " shelters " — though much destroyed
by the stone taken for road metalling and other utilitarian pur-
poses— are almost without parallel in the south of England,
and are as picturesque from their situation as they are interest-
ing from the history which the geologist is able to piece
together about them. We are told, for instance, that deep water
at one time flowed about these hills, while bones recovered in
the neighbourhood testify to the prehistoric monsters that
ranged about it in the days of palaeolithic man. To the south-
east of Oldbury, in what is known as Rose Wood, are many
ancient Pit Dwellings which have been partially explored by
Lord Avebury and other students of primitive man — these
"dwellings" are "some forty circular, basin-like pits, symmetri-
cally made and resembling inverted cones, five to ten feet deep
and fifteen feet in diameter."
The little Shode which rises a mile and a half north of
Ightham and flows through a lovely valley south past that
village down to Plaxtol, Hadlow and the Medway, small as it
is, is particularly interesting for the deep gorges formed in
its course in the neighbourhood of Ightham. These gorges
have set geologists a-theorising, but if we are unable to
account for them we may at least enjoy the beauty which
they offer — sometimes steep and well-wooded, and sometimes
with their sides rounded by centuries of denudation. The
picturesque village of Ightham itself, with its timbered houses
and its interesting old church, is the delightful centre of a
district which is not excelled in varied attractiveness by any
other in the county.
A notable inhabitant of Ightham, a man who has investi-
gated his " world," as he describes the county within a few
miles' radius of his place, is Mr. Benjamin Harrison, a student
xviii EOLITHIC MAN *6i
,r
of geology and natural history whose zeal and labours have won
for him a position which may best be recognised, as has been
suggested, by describing him as the Gilbert White of Ightham.
To Mr. Harrison students of prehistoric man owe it that
investigations into human antiquities have been pushed much
farther back, so that he may be described as the father of
eolithic man — beside whom, if the present theories are correct,
palaeolithic man is comparatively recent, and neolithic man a
creature of the day before yesterday. Mr. Bennett, in the work
already referred to in describing a typical walk round Ightham,
has given us a charming sketch of the veteran geologist :
" Starting from the bottom of the village, we walk up its
steep and quaint street. Just before where the roads fork we
come to an old-fashioned grocer's shop front, and notice that one
of the windows is filled up with antiquities of various kinds, fire
backs, etc., and noticing also some flint implements we at once
look at the name, and are, of course, prepared to see that of
Harrison. We now know we are before the residence of — we
may say — the hero of this book. So we at once enter, and
find that as soon as he understands that we seek to interview
him for scientific purposes we receive a hearty welcome.
We note that he is a thick-set veteran, full of vigour
and intellect, and most interesting in every way. We may
find him, perhaps, earnestly gazing on a flint implement ;
or, may be, completing a most skilfully and artistically coloured
sketch of one ; or serving a customer. Hearing that we
wish to plan out a walk he is alert at once, turns quickly round
and gets out a sheet of sugar-paper, and very quickly and
accurately turns that into a map of the proposed walk ; full of
instructions of all that we should see. Most likely we are told
to visit the Rock-shelters and the Celtic Camp at Oldbury. We
thank him and proceed on our archseo-geological quest with our
sugar-paper map as a guide. It may also be a botanical
ramble, for Mr. Harrison is well up in the plants of his district ;
indeed, when anyone in the village, whether gentle or simple,
wants any information, they generally come to Mr. Harrison,
and usually find what they want."
In 1 3 15 a royal licence was granted giving one William de
Inge the right of holding a weekly market and a yearly three
days' fair in Ightham. The fair — reduced to one day — still
survives, being held annually on the Wednesday in Whitsun
362 RAISING REBELLION chap.
week. It is locally known, why I have not been able to ascer-
tain, as " Cockscomb Fair."
Ightham, peaceful little village as it now is, was twice deeply
stirred by civil strife in the long past. When Jack Cade was
forming his large Kentish army the local constables formally
summoned to his banner John Thrope, baker, Richard Thrope,
John Mercer, Will Godewyn, Will Sawyer, John Smith and
other folk of the village and they presumably all went to swell
the formidable army on Blackheath. Then again we have an
intimate old account of the way in which the popular feeling
was stirred up here to aid Wyatt and his fellow leaders :
"The sheriff continued on the alert, and from time to time
kept the privy council informed of the movements of the rebels.
He forwarded a deposition of one William Colman, a black-
smith at Ightham, who stated that William, the eldest son of
Sir Henry Isley, came to his shop two hours before daylight
to have his horse shod, and told him ' the Spaniards were com-
ing into the realm, with harness and handguns, and would
make the English worse than conies, and viler : ' and as he left
the forge, he said with a loud voice — ' Smith, if thou beest a
good fellow, stir and encourage all thy neighbours to rise
against these strangers. I go to Maidstone, and return again
shortly.' ' Why,' quoth the smith, ' these be marvellous
words : We shall be betrayed if we stir.' ' No,' said Isley,
' we shall have help enough, for the people are already up in
Devonshire, Cornwall, Hants, and other places.' ' The people
were not "up " and Kent had to suffer sadly by being left to
rebel alone.
The church though modernised has a number of interesting
monuments, the most attractive one to the curious being that
inscribed as follows :
"D. D. D.
To the Precious Name and Honour
of
DAME DOROTHY SELBY,
the relict of
Sir William Selby, Knt.,
the only daughter and heir of
Charles Bonham, Esq.
She was a Dorcas.
Whose curious needle turned the abused stage
Of this lewd world into the golden age ;
xvin THE PRICKING OF A PLOT 363
Whose pen of steel and silken ink enrolled
The acts of Jonah in records of gold.
Whose art disclosed that plot, which, had it taken,
Rome had triumphed, and Britain's walls had shaken,
In heart a Lydia, and in tongue a Hannah,
In zeal a Ruth, in wedlock a Susannah ;
Prudently simple, providently wary
To the world a Martha, and to Heaven a Mary.
Who put on immortality j of her Pilgrimage 69.
in the year \ of her Redeemer 164 1.''
The " plot " which Dame Dorothy is credited with disclosing
was the Gunpowder Plot, and a story runs that she disclosed it
by means of her " curious needle," as set forth some years ago
by one of her descendants. An anonymous letter had been
delivered telling of the intentions of Guy Fawkes :
" The letter is stated in Rapin's History of England to have been
delivered to Lord Monteagle's servant by an unknown person (26th
October, 1605) with a charge to give it into his master's own hand, and the
writing was unknown and somewhat ' unlegible. ' Lord Monteagle carried
the letter to Cecil's Earl of Salisbury, who either thought, or pretended to
think, little of it ; and the affair was dropped till the King, who had been
at Royston, returned to town, when the letter was further considered, and
the plot was scented. Most authors attribute this to the sagacious timidity
of Tames, who was fond of the reputation of this discovery, and publicly
assumed the credit of it.
There is an old tradition that it was Dame Dorothy Selby who dis-
covered the meaning of the anonymous letter ; and a report, less well
founded, adds that she discovered it by working it on a piece of tapestry.
I cannot vouch for this latter report, but the following facts are beyond
dispute. My great-great-grandmother, Dorothy (the daughter of Sir Henry
Selby, Knt., second son of George, cousin of Sir William Selby, the
husband of Dame Dorothy), handed down this tradition to her children,
and as such it was stated to me by my grandmother, the late Mrs. Selby, of
the Mote, who died in 1845 at the age of 90."
For nearly three centuries — until within the past twenty
years — Ightham Mote or the Mote House as it is variously
termed, belonged to the Selby family. It stands over two
miles to the south of the village on the further slope of the
hills, more or less hidden by surrounding trees; the last portion
of the delightful journey from the small hamlet of Ivy Hatch
being through a tree-grown gorge well representative of much
of the wooded scenery of the greensand hills. To visitors stay-
ing in the Sevenoaks district, Ightham Mote is one of the show
places to which they will inevitably be taken ; it has long been
3^4
IGHTHAM MOAT
CHAr.
-
Ightham Mote.
one of the objectives of cycling and sketching clubs' excursions,
and few who journey thither will be found to deny that it
justifies the interest taken in it. In the first place it is situated
xvin AN INTERESTING WALK 365
in the centre of lovely country with a tiny tributary of the
Shode diverted to form its once protective but now merely
ornamental moat. Then, too, the building is as perfect a
mansion of its kind as the country has to show. It was origin-
ally built about the middle of the fourteenth century by Sir
Thomas Cawne — whose effigy is in Ightham Church — and was
added to in Tudor days. The ragstone castellated tower is
believed to be Tudor, as is much of the timber work and the
gables with their carved barge-boards of the portion giving on
to the beautiful courtyard. A visitor to the ancient residence
in 1837 when "huge timber logs placed on andirons still
blazed in the capacious chimney of this most venerable hall,"
going to the chapel said " one could have fancied that one saw
Sir Richard Haut returned from Bosvvorth's bloody fray offering
up his praises in this his own family oratory, to the arbiter of
battles, for the event of that which had restored to him his
home and patrimonial possessions."
East of the Mote is the village of Plaxtol, beyond which we
cross the Shode near a spring known as Plaxtol Spout, and so
reach Allen's Farm near to which in 1857 were dug up a
number of Roman remains, including a beautiful bronze
statuette of Minerva. A little beyond again, backed by the
sjrand extent of the Hurst Woods, is a remarkable survival of
domestic architecture in the remains of Old Soar, a fortified
manor house dating back perhaps as early as the earliest part
of the Mote. The place bears evidence of having been built
at a period when, if every Englishman's house was his castle, it
was a castle which he might at any time be called upon to
defend.
A good walk is that from Old Soar, by the hamlets of Crouch
and Bastead, to Ightham — giving us beautiful views across the
little Shode valley to Oldbury Hill, a close view of the curious
Shode gorge and a fine view northwards again, with Ightham
church standing on its knoll boldly ahead. It would not be
easy to find a more attractive and interesting walk of eight or
ten miles than that from Ightham to Oldbury Hill, the Mote,
Plaxtol, Old Soar, and Crouch, back to the starting-point.
Indeed, each of the "hams" of this neighbourhood may be
made an attractive centre for pedestrians of the most varied
powers of endurance.
A little to the south of Ightham is a tumulus, from which
366 FIGHTING AT WROTHAM chap.
many stone implements have been recovered, while another is
near Borough Green, anciently Barrow Green, by Wrotham
station — the railway centre of a fascinating district. Wrotham,
to the north of Ightham, is a place scarcely less interesting
than its neighbour. Here, near to the large church — rich
in memorial brasses — stood one of the many, and one of
the early, palaces of the Archbishops of Canterbury. It
was mostly pulled down in the time of Archbishop Islip
that its materials might go to the completion of the palace at
Maidstone. Wrotham, situated on an old Roman way, has not
much in itself to tell us of a romantic past except in its
associations with the risings of Jack Cade and of Sir Thomas
Wyatt. The hundred of Wrotham seems to have entered with
spirit into Cade's attempt, the Constable of the place summon-
ing the men of the district to rebellion. Possibly Lord Say, the
Lord Lieutenant, who lived at Knole, and his son-in-law,
William Crowmer the Sheriff — Sir James Cromer according to
Shakespeare — were unpopular magnates ; if so, they paid for it
with their lives during the brief success of the rebels. These
constables, John Thorpe and John Wyberne, formally called
upon various people of their district to join the army of Cade,
and the success with which they did so may be gauged from
the fact that to Cade's army Kent contributed some twenty
thousand men.
A century later when Sir Thomas Wyatt called upon Kent to
prevent the Spanish marriage and all the dire consequences
prognosticated, Wrotham was the scene of actual fighting. The
battle took place in Blacksole Field when the Queen's troops
under the Sheriff, Sir Robert Southwell and Lord Abergavenny
met and put to flight Wyatt's men under the Isleys and one
Anthony Knyvett.
Just beyond Wrotham the Pilgrims' Road takes a northward
bend — -seemingly for the purpose of keeping at its usual
middle distance between the hills and valley ; but following
the road above it up Wrotham Hill we get magnificent views to
the southwards over the Hurst and Mereworth Woods to the
left and the woods and parks on the hills about Sevenoaks
while between we have the break of the Shode valley. Here
we are on the chalk with roads running north to the Thames
by Gravesend and Uartford, the nearest villages being the
small Stansted with its thousand-year-old yew, Ridley, and
XVIII
MEGALITHS
367
Kingsdown with its plain little church in the woods. Return-
ing to Wrotham we have within three or four miles to the east
—near to our Maidstone district at the Mailings — Trotterscliff,
Birling, Ryarsh, Addington and Offham, a small group of
Birling.
places particularly attractive to those interested in megaliths, or
rude stone monuments of pre historic people.
Trotterscliff, the nearest of these at the foot of the chalk
downs, is especially notable for having on a hill to the north
the Coldrum cromlech, wanting only its capstone. Here half
a century ago were found many Romano-British remains.
Nearly six miles to the east on the other side of the Medway
368
STONE CIRCLES
CHAP.
valley we saw Kits Coty House and the Countless Stones, at
one time connected, it is conjectured, with Coldrum by a great
avenue of stones ; about six miles to the north are many Sarsen
stones, a supposed ancient circle, in a hollow in a wood
named Cockadamshaw, while a mile or so south is the Stone
Circle or fallen cromlech in Addington Park. Mr. Bennett in his
" Story of Ightham," to which reference has already been made,
*t£
un-vS-cr-x. '"
Quintain on Village Green at Off ham.
gives some interesting particulars of the relations of these old
monuments to the lives of those who designed them, and
suggests the nature of their secular and religious use. To
the student of such things this district thus affords many
opportunities for investigating megaliths, but even the least
studious traveller finds something attractive in these strange
evidences of man's activity in the long past ; as Thomas Wright
-that literary Briareus as he has been termed— put it in " The
xvni THE OFFHAM QUINTAIN 369
Celt, the Roman and the Saxon," the whole district is one of
our hallowed sites, owing to these strange survivals of a savage
past among rich scenery of diversified woodlands, pastures,
corn-fields, and hop gardens of the present. It has been
pointed out that many of the sarsen stones are built into some
of the local churches. An ingenious suggested derivation of
the word " sarsen " is that sar in Saxon signified grievous or
troublesome, and hence sarstan or stone, the removal of which
must have been a very long and troublesome work !
Ryarsh is a pleasant little village, near neighbour to Biding,
the old manor house of which is now a farm, Birling Manor
being a modern residence. Here we are near the foot of the
chalk hills with the Medway ahead of us to the east. A delightful
footpath takes us through the attractive Leybourne Park,
leaving which we pass Mailing at the north-western extremity
of our Maidstone district and come to Offham, an attractive
village set amid hopfields and backed by the broad Mereworth
Woods.
On the green at Offham is a curious survival of one of the
games of our ancestors in the shape of a quintain, which has
been maintained for centuries at the cost of the estate on
which it stands ; this is a tall post with a cross-piece pivoted
at the top, broad at one end, and pierced with holes. At
the further end of the cross-piece hung a bag of sand,
and the agile youth of the neighbourhood up to the end of
Tudor times used to exercise themselves and their horses in
tilting at the broad piece of wood "he that by chance hit it not
at all, was treated with loud peals of derision ; and he who did
hit it made the best use of his swiftness, lest he should have
a sound blow on his neck from the bag of sand, which instantly
swung round from the other end of the quintain. The great
design of this sport was to try the agility of the horse and man,
and to break the board, which whoever did, he was accounted
chief of the day's sport." It would be a healthier exercise
for the youth of to-day than watching other youths play
football.
Offham Church, a small Early English and Norman (restored)
edifice, stands some distance from the village, nearly half-way
to Addington, a little scattered place, with its church pictur-
esquely situated on a mound. Addington Church has some
B B
37o
THREE YEARS' WORK
CH. XVIII
brasses, but has lost its most remarkable feature, a wall
inscription which, when Hasted wrote, was still to be seen
declaring not only the date of the edifice, but the time it took
a-building —
" In fourteen hundred and none
Here was neither stick nor stone ;
In fourteen hundred and three
The goodly building which you see."
ft :.
hi
*w-
CHAPTER XIX
DARTFORD AND GRAVESEND
Coming from the small, variedly picturesque and crowdedly
interesting bit of country that lies south of the chalk downs,
between Darent and Medway, we find the northern portion
between those rivers a far larger tract, bordered on the north
by the Thames, with a greater air of sameness in the wide
stretching undulations of its orchards, hop and fruit gardens and
fields. Though there is an air of sameness about the country
stretching east and west of the little Darent, yet there are
leafy lanes, overlooking wide extending orchards, there are
frequent copses primrose-starred in spring and blue with
abundance of wild hyacinths later, and, especially in an
easterly direction, there are long miles that may be followed
by the lover of quiet ways without touching at anything more
than small retired villages. To the west, by orchards and
strawberry-grown hillsides, we soon come to the sophisticated
places forming a portion of the belt of outer suburbs — or
places which, if they may not yet be described as suburban,
have already over them the shadow of coming events that shall
convert them to that state.
Following at first the course of the Darent along its narrow
valley through the chalk, we come to Shoreham, backed to the
west by the height through which is bored the Polehill Tunnel,
from Knockholt to Dunton Green stations. From here, old
and new companion each other down to the Thames — the old
in the shape of remains of castles and ancient ecclesiastical
foundations stimulating to the imagination and gratifying to the
sense of antiquity ; the new in the shape of paper mills and
other useful but unlovely factories. Following the river we
B B 2
372 ALONG THE DARENT chap.
come to Lullingstone, Eynsford, Farningham, Horton Kirby,
Sutton-at-Hone, Darenth, and so to Dartford itself, the
principal town on the river, a gradual change from the rurality
of the Westerham Valley to the business of the manufacturing
towns near to the Thames. Certain of these Darenth-side
places have been hit off in a jingling quatrain by some local
rhymester of the past — -
" Sutton for mutton,
Kirby for beef,
South Darne for gingerbread,
And Dartford for a thief."
Lullingstone's old church, with various brasses and sixteenth
century monuments, situated at the edge of the beautiful Lulling-
stone Park, is a capital place from which an admirable walk
may be taken by road and footpath over the western hill to
Chelsfield and thence through a rich bit of orchard country by
Crockenhill to Swanley Junction — a new town in the midst of
a fruit-growing district. Or a pleasanter route over the hill to the
south of Chelsfield would be that by Green Street Green and
High Elms to Downe— by the residence of one distinguished
scientist to a place long the home of another. At flowering
time the fruit country about Swanley Junction is beautiful
enough, but it lacks colour and variety at other seasons. Beyond,
bowered in orchards, is the parent village of Swanley itself.
Returning to the Darent — a large portion of the valley of which
is given up to cherry orchards and other fruit growing, we have at
Eynsford the small representative of a place at one time of
considerable importance owing to its ford. Here was a large
castle the ruins of which are to be seen on the right bank of
the river, ruins made interesting from the fact that it was a
dispute between the then owner and a Becket which led to
the quarrel with the King and so indirectly to the great
tragedy of Canterbury Cathedral. A road hence going to the
south-eastward over the chalk hills to Kemsing may be
followed by those whose enjoyment is to be found in wide
prospects — and an extensive view is one of the best features of
a country ramble, a thing worth walking for.
From Eynsford to Farningham the beauty of the orchard is
varied by the unbeautifulness, as the children put it, of
paper mills. Farningham itself is a village along the high
xix A MERCHANT PRINCE 373
road from London to Tonbridge, picturesquely situated in a
valley, with the air about it of an old coaching village. From
Farningham there is choice of two roads, one each side of the
Darent — linked, a mile or so away, by a connecting road past
the interesting Elizabethan manor house of Franks. The road
to the right is the more attractive, as following it brings us shortly
to Horton Kirby, its thirteenth century cruciform church pos-
sessing many beautiful Early English features, and with, by the
river-side, the remains of an ancient castle. South Darenth,
beyond, is a modern village near to old Sutton-at-Hone, at
which the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem established a
Commandery in the reign of King John. The scanty remains
have long since been converted to domestic uses. At
Sutton Place, near the four cross roads, lived and died a
merchant prince and navigator of the times of Elizabeth and
James, Sir Thomas Smith, or Smythe. He was a director of
the East India and Muscovy Companies, and treasurer of the
Virginia Company, so that the wealth which he amassed came
from all parts of the world. He was a promoter of expeditions
in search of the North-West Passage and his name was given
by Baffin to Smith's Sound. His monument may be seen in
Sutton Church.
Darenth — or Darne as it is sometimes locally shortened —
is a small, scattered place with a particularly interesting old
church, portions of which are thought to date back to the time
of St. Dunstan. It is a small edifice and the fact that many
Roman bricks are worked into the walls indicates its age. It
has also a font with a series of carved figures that have been
variously described as Anglo-Saxon and Norman, as re-
presenting a succession of incidents from the life of St.
Dunstan and as being mere insignificant fancies of the
sculptor.
Along the valley of the Darent, along the hilly ground
about Swanley, by South Darenth and near the woods to the
east of Darenth itself, are various great charitable establishments
and public institutions— convalescent and other homes,
schools, hospitals and asylums — erected in this district, it may
be believed, for its healthfulness.
Beyond Darenth the river from which it takes its name is
more and more given up to manufacture as we near Dartford,
passing on the way extensive powder mills. Dartford itself
374 THE PEASANTS' REVOLT chap.
is not particularly attractive. It is about three miles from
where the Darent, on which it is situated, flows into the Thames
opposite Purfleet and is now the centre of a large paper-
making industry and other manufactures. Here, indeed,
Sir John Spielman, jeweller to Queen Elizabeth, is said to have
established the first paper mill in England, and as he died in
1607 Dartford has been a centre of the industry for over three
centuries. He is also said to have brought over to England
in his portmanteau the first two young lime trees ever seen in
these parts, and to have planted them in front of his mill,
where they flourished for close upon two centuries. The lime
was, it may be said, already known in England in Chaucer's
time. It was a generation after Spielman's death that Lord
Leicester planted the stately avenue of these trees at Penshurst.
Spielman's monument is to be seen in the church, in which
are fragments of a fresco depicting St. George and the Dragon
and a number of fifteenth century brasses. At Dartford there
was a Priory of Augustinian nuns which on the dissolution of
the monasteries Henry VIII. had converted into a palace for
his own use ; later it was the residence of Anne of Cleves.
Dartford is associated with one of the most notable incidents
of the Peasants' Revolt of the fourteenth century The unpopular
poll-tax had set the people agog in various parts of the country
and the preaching of John Ball inflamed them to the point of
rebellion. Then a certain Tiler of Dartford, John or Wat,
whose daughter had been brutally assaulted by the collector of
the obnoxious impost, beat out the offender's brains, and thus
brought matters to a crisis on June 5th, 1381. According to
one story the Dartford man was John the Tiler, while Wat the
Tiler — now familiar in all the history books as Wat Tyler —
the leader, was said to be a Maidstone or an Essex man. The
popular version of the story makes the vengeful Dartford man
and the leader of the peasants' movement one and the same
Wat Tyler — and certainly the demands of romance seem thus
to be better suited. The revolt was short and sharp, the men
of Kent and the men of Essex moving parallel along the
Thames towards London, where a sudden fracas during an
interview with the young King Richard led to Lord Mayor
Walworth's killing of Tyler. (The Fishmongers' Company has
the very dagger with which, according to tradition, he did the
deed.) That which Tyler and his fellows were doing on
xix JOHN BALL'S LETTERS 375
either side the Thames Jack Straw was doing in the eastern
counties and all were seemingly inspired by the one-time
priest of York, John Ball, whose letters, as Green puts it,
began for England the literature of political controversy. In
a biography of Richard II., " by a Person of Quality,"
published in 1681, half-a-dozen of Ball's brief addresses are
given in black letter, and help to indicate the spirit which
animated the " Revolt."
"John Bell S. Mary Prist gretes wele all manner men, and byddes them
in the Name of the Trinity, Fadur and Son and Holy Ghost, stotid manlyche
togedyr in trewthe, and helps trewthe, and trewthe shall helpe yovve : Now
regneth Pride in prise, and Covetous is hold wise ; and Lechery without en
shame, and Glotony without en blame. Envie regneth with treason, and
slouthe is take in grete sesone. God do bote, for now is the time, Amen,
in Esex, Southfolc, and Northfolc.
Tack the Miller's Epistle.
"Jakk Mylner asket help to turn his Mylne aright. He hath Grounden
small, small, The Kings Son of Heven he shall pay for all. Look thy Mylne
do a right, with the four Sailes, and the Post stand in stedfastnesse. With
right and with might, with skill and with will, lat might help right, and
skill go before will, and right before might, than goeth our Mylne aright.
And if might go before right, and will before skill than is our Mylne
mysadyght.
Jack the Carter 's.
"Jakk Carter pryes yow all, that yee make a gode end of that yee have
begunnen, and doth wele, and ay bettur and bettur, for at the even men
heryth the day : for if the end be wele than is all wele. Lat Peres the
Plowman my Brother duele at home, and dyght us Corn, and I will so with
yow, and help that yee may so dyght your mete and your drynk, that yee
none fayle. Lokke that Hobb Robbyoure be wele chastised for lesing of
your Grace, for yee have grete nede to take God with yow in all yowr dedes,
for now is time to beware.
Jack Trewman's Scroll.
" Jakk Trewman doth yow to understand, that falseness and gile havith
regned to long, and trewth hath been sett under a Lokke, and falsneth and
gile regneth in everylk Flokke. No man may come trewth to, both syng
Si dedero, Speke, spend, and speed quoth John of Bathon, and therefore
sinn fareth as wilde flode, trew love is a way that was so gode, and
Clerks for welth worth hem wo. God do bote, for nowze is time."
John Ball was in prison at Canterbury when the trouble
came to a head at Dartford and the first thing that the risen
376 CRICKET IN THE LAW COURTS chap.
people did was to free him before marching in their thousands
on London.
Dartford has given its name to one of the rarest of British
birds, the Dartford warbler, first found in this neighbourhood
in 1773 by the naturalist Latham. The little singer has since
been found in various parts of the country, but never plenti-
fully. Unlike the other warblers it remains in England
all the year round and it is supposed that the severe winters
kill so many as to prevent any continued increase of their
number, the stock only being maintained by migrants from over
Channel.
To the south-west of Dartford is the rising ground of Dart-
ford Heath, from which there are wide views, especially that
Thameswards over the marsh through which runs Dartford
Creek, as the short navigable stretch of the Darent is some-
times named. On the Heath there are a number of hollows
in the chalk which are by some archaeologists thought to be
ancient pit-dwellings, and similar things are to be seen at
Crayford, less than a mile to the north-west.
On Dartford Heath nearly two centuries ago was played a
cricket match which led to a quarrel between the sides, the
taking of their trouble to the Law Courts, and the referring
back of the trial to the cricket field. The story was told
in a 1726 newspaper thus — "On Monday is to be deter-
mined a Suit of Law on Dartford- Heath by a Cricket Match
between the Men of Chinkford, and Mr. Steed's Men : they
had a hearing about two Years ago before the Lord Chief
Justice Pratt, when the Merits of the Cause appear'd to
be, that at a Match between the above-said Players, the
Chinkford Men refused to play out the Game at a time the
other Side had the Advantage ; but the Judge, either not'
understanding the Game, or having forgot it, referr'd the said
Cause back to Dartford Heath, to be play'd on where they left
off, and a rule of Court was made for it accordingly." Most
wise Chief Justice Pratt ! The result of the trying of the
" referr'd back Cause " is not recorded.
South-east of the Heath is the village of Wilmington set, as
so many of these places between the Rivers Cray and Darent
are set, amid cherry orchards ; a place that was once the manor
of Warwick, the Kingmaker. South through orchards and fields
XIX LIBELLING A NATION 377
lie Svvanley and various scattered hamlets, while west a most
attractive walk by footpath may be taken through Joyden
Wood to Bexley or North Cray.
Through Dartford ran of old the Roman Watling Street ;
following this in the easterly direction we pass over the small
heath of Dartford Brent where the local martyrs were burnt
during the Marian persecutions. " Brent," however, does not
here signify burnt, as might be imagined, but is a dialect word
meaning steep. Following the Watling Street takes us to
some of the higher country giving us good views and quiet
ways. Three miles from Dartford it will be found that the
road has been deflected, south is a curve to Betsham and South-
fleet amid their cherry orchards, the straightness of the Roman
way being represented by a footpath crossing the higher part of
Swanscombe Park or Wood, crossed by another path leading to
Swanscombe Church. In this wood is a great cavern which
has long had the local name of " Clabber-Napper's Hole."
It has been suggested, with doubtful authenticity, that Clabber
is a perversion of " Caer Parbre," or the dwelling in the wood
or trees, but it does not seem reasonable that the ancient namer
of the spot should have drawn upon French as well as Welsh.
The cavern is traditionally referred to as the lair of a great free-
booter and kidnapper who came to be regarded as the local
"bogey." The old Roman Road passes within two or three
hundred yards of the home of this mysterious evil-doer. The
footpath along the eastern side of the wood takes us down to
Swanscombe Church in which are some interesting monuments
to the Weldon family associated with this neighbourhood.
Several of the Weldons distinguished themselves in the Civil
Wars in the Parliament's cause, the most notable being
Sir Anthony Weldon, author of " The Secret History of the
first two Stuart Kings," and of "A Catt may look at a King;
or a Brief Chronicle and Characters of the Kings of England
from William the Conqueror to the Reign of Charles I." Sir
Anthony, who occupied the position of Clerk of the Kitchen to
James I., was dismissed from his post for having libelled the
nation to which the King belonged. The old mansion of the
Weldons having fallen into decay was taken down over a
hundred years ago. It was from Swanscombe that the
assembled Men of Kent set out with boughs in their hands to
37S GREENHTTHE chap.
meet William of Normandy and dictate their terms to the
Conqueror, as recorded by Lambarde in a passage quoted at
the beginning of this book.
Though cement works and river-side trades do not make a
picturesque appearance, there are attractive bits to be found
along the Kent side of the Thames here by the searcher after
such — quaint old cottages and houses, interesting churches and
rustic scenes, though the chimney stacks disfigure the
country, and nearly everything is tinged with their smoke.
Having come down near the river again at Swanscombe,
Milton Street, Greenhithe and Stone its near neighbours to the
west towards Dartford may be visited.
People who pass in pleasure steamers and ocean-going
vessels down the Thames from London, along the winding of
the channel, get but a poor and inadequate impression of the
country near the river bank, but here and there a place may
appear a somewhat picturesque group of buildings backed by
attractive looking country. Greenhithe is one of these places,
for it still may be said to justify its name. The grounds of
Ingress Abbey, to the east of the town, afford a pleasant
background, as the town is seen by those coming down stream.
This place was originally attached to Uartford Priory — the
present mansion having been built partly of stones from the
demolished London Bridge x by Alderman Harmer, in the
first half of the nineteenth century. At Ingress Abbey Sir Henry
Havelock passed the early years of his childhood.
It was from Greenhithe, on May 18th, 1845, that Sir
John Franklin set out on his last tragic expedition in command
of the " Erebus" and "Terror" to search for the North-West
Passage. The expedition passed hence down the Thames to
be lost before many months in the unknown. Fourteen years
wrere to elapse before Franklin's fate was revealed, and then
it was ascertained that he had died just over two years after
leaving Greenhithe. In the river near here are naval training
ships, where youths are fitted for the profession which
Franklin strikingly adorned — since Nelson's time no officer
had so touched the popular imagination as Franklin, who
1 Some of these stones travelled far ; part of the balustrading is at the
land end of Heme Bay Pier, and some of the stones were until a few years
ago outside Garrick's Villa at Hampton-on-Thames. They were removed
when tramway invasion necessitated the widening of the road.
xix AN ANCIENT JEST 379
as a lad yet in his 'teens fought under the great captain at
Trafalgar.
Stone, near to Greenhithe, — frequently referred to as
Stone-near-Dartford, — is chiefly interesting for its beautiful
church, known as " the lantern of Kent," a church of which
George Street, the architect, when engaged in restoring it in
i860, said that in France it would be classed as a national
monument, and preserved as such at the public cost. In 1638
this church was badly damaged by fire in consequence of
being struck by lightning, and the Rector, Mr. Richard
Chase, who had already come to loggerheads with his
parishioners, dismissed his cura.te and left the place without
any spiritual guidance. Before the fire he never " came
himselfe above once or twice in a twealve month, and then only
to reccon for tythes or pick quarrels," and after the fire the
parishioners had to lay their piteous position before Parliament.
Mr. Richard Chase seems to have been a worthy companion of
his contemporary at Minster.
"And, now, since our Church hath bynn burnt, wee have had neyther
prayers nor any other function ner thes two yers : and he would have
dismist his Curat assone as the Church was burnt, which had bynn one to
us, wee having noe use of him ; but nowe, of late, wee have none resident
in our parish to bury our deed. Soe that as Mr. Chase leves our soules
cure to the neighbouring ministers, soe our bodies to lye as noysom
carrion, unless the dead will bury ther dead."
It was ten years after this petition that the living of Stone
was sequestered, but presumably in the interval the Rector was
made to see the reasonableness of putting it into a fit state for
use. The building was reverently restored by Street and
remains one of those best worth visiting, its full story, so far
as that can be ascertained — with the evidence showing it to
have been erected by the builder of Westminster Abbey — is
given by the architect named in the third volume of the
Archceologia Cantiana.
The name of the " lantern of Kent " is attached to Stone
Church in accordance with an ancient joke recorded by
Reginald Scot, " It is a common jest," said the enlightened
"discoverer" of witchcraft, "among the watermen of the
Thames to show the parish church of Stone to the passengers,
calling the same by the name of the 'lanterne of Kent,'
affirming and that not untruly, that the said church is as
3^o KENTISH CHALK ch. xix
light (meaning in weight and not in brightnesse) at midnight
as at noonday."
Two hundred years ago, when most East Kentish folk who
had occasion to go to London went by water from Gravesend,
a loaded tilt-boat was wrecked here in the Long Reach, owing
to the " desperate obstinacy and rudeness " of the steersman.
He would " tack again and stand over upon a wind," though
his rowers told him it blew a storm ; " he called them Fools
bid the Wind Blow-Devil (a rude Sailor's Proverb) the more
Wind the better Boat." In consequence the boat shipped a
sea and foundered, himself and fifty-three passengers being
drowned, only five of those aboard succeeding in swimming
ashore. The extent to which these tilt-boats — or boats with
canvas shelters at the end — were utilised may be gathered from
the fact that early in the seventeenth century they went from
" Lion Key " twice a day with the tide in each direction " betwixt
London and the towns of Deptford, Greenwich, Woolwich,
Erith, and Greenhithe in Kent," while "at Billingsgate are
every tide to be had Barges, Light Horsemen, Tilt-boats and
Wherries, from London to the towns of Gravesend and Milton
in Kent, or to any other place within the same bounds ; and
as weather and occasions may serve beyond and further."
The fare in the tilt-boat was sixpence in the time of Defoe.
As the approach to Rochester along the Medway is given
over to lime and cement works, so all along this stretch of
Kent wrhere the chalk comes down near the river the trade
in lime-making and exporting and in the quarrying of chalk for
the purpose of sending it to less favoured districts is carried
on as it has been carried on for a couple of centuries. It was
so when Defoe perambulated the country, for even then the
" chips " which crumbled where the large chalk was quarried
for lime were carried away in hoys and lighters in prodigious
quantities to be sold to the farmers of Norfolk, Suffolk, and
Essex, who sent to fetch it from the boats by land carriage ten
or fifteen miles, " Thus the Barren Soil of Kent, for such the
Chalky Grounds are esteemed, make the Essex Lands Rich
and Fruitful, and the mixture of Earth forms a Composition,
which out of two Barren Extreams, makes One prolifick
Medium ; the strong Clay of Essex and Suffolk is made
Fruitful by the soft meliorating melting Chalk of Kent which
fattens and enriches it." The whole of this tract of our
*e
8
382 POCAHONTAS chap.
county bordering the Thames shows evidence of the extent
to which the chalk has been removed, in great pits — sometimes
now converted into gardens — giving a scarred appearance to
the river-side county.
Gravesend, as we approach it coming up or down the
Thames, has a certain picturesqueness, especially perhaps in
the eyes of those who have been down to the sea in ships and
return after a long voyage, to whom it is often the first home
town of which they get an intimate view. Its buildings show
diversified with trees and backed by the rising chalk hills.
It is a place of considerable importance for its shrimp fishery
fleet, and from the fact that it is practically the limit of the
Port of London — the point at which in-coming vessels are
visited by the Customs officers, the point at which the river
pilots are taken on board. The old part of the town has a
certain picturesqueness in its narrow ways, but it has not
much to hold the attention of visitors. Opposite, on the
Essex coast, is Tilbury, a famous old place in the scheme of
Thames defences, where Queen Elizabeth xeviewed her army
when the Spanish Armada threatened her dominions.
In Gravesend Church was buried the romantic Indian
Princess, Pocahontas, who married John Rolfe — the first
tobacco cultivator of Virginia, as smokers may like to be
reminded — visited England and died in 1617, when arrange-
ments had been made for her to return with her husband
to Virginia. Recently attention has been drawn once more
to her story by the discovery, during building operations near
the church, of remains supposed to be hers. According to
the church register, however, the beautiful young Indian " was
buried in ye chauncell," so it is scarcely likely that the peculiar
skull found last summer is that of Pocahontas.
On a wall near a Gravesend bowling-green a local eighteenth
century celebrity was commemorated in the punning fashion
admired at the time : —
" To the Memory
of Mr. Alderman Nyun
An honest Man and an excellent Bowler.
Cuique est sua Fama.
1* nil forty long years was the Alderman seen,
The delight of each Bowler, and King of this Green :
As long be remembered his art and his name,
XIX BOWLED OUT 383
Whose hand was unerring, — unrivalled his fame.
His BIAS was good, and he always was found
To go the right way, and take enough ground.
The Jack to the uttermost verge he would send,
For the Alderman lov'd a full-length at each end.
Now mourn ev'ry eye that has seen him display
The Arts of the Game, and the wiles of his Play,
For the Great Bowler, DEATH, at one critical cast,
Has ended his Length, and close rubb'd him at last.
F. W. posuit. MDCCLXXVI."
Rosherville Gardens, laid out largely amid disused chalk
quarries which stretch along the river-side west of Gravesend,
have long been famous as one of the places in which the
Cockney takes his pleasures anything but sadly. The
" Gardens," which were originally established by one Jeremiah
Rosher — hence the name — lie between Gravesend and North-
fleet. The latter place is worth visiting on account of its
very large church, from which are to be had good views up
and down stream. All about these places are wide fruit
gardens and nursery grounds — the district being particularly
noted for its rhubarb and asparagus. The railway from
Gravesend to Rochester runs for some distance closely
parallel with the old Thames and Medway Canal, which was
completed a few years before the coming of the railways, only
to fall into early disuse.
CHAPTER XX
COBHAM, ROCHESTER, AND THE THAMES MARSHES
Leaving Gravesend we have choice of ways to the triple towns
of Strood, Rochester, and Chatham. First we reach Chalk, its
landmark church notable for curious carvings over the doorway.
Here Dickens spent his honeymoon and here he wrote the be-
ginning of his perennially amusing " Pickwick." Passing Chalk
we may go by Gadshill ; going south to the Watling Street we
can take the beautiful road by Cobham Park, or crossing that
highway can take a very pleasant round — through the chalk
country, of hops, orchards, and woodlands — by Nurstead and
Meopham. Here we should pause to remember that in
this village was born in 1608 John Tradescant the younger,
the famous botanist and traveller whose " Closet of rarities "
forms part of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. Tradescant
and his father deserve our grateful remembrances for the many
trees and plants they introduced into this country, trees and
plants so familiar now that it is difficult to realise what our
gardens (and especially our suburban gardens) would be with-
out them, for among the trees which we owe to them are
the acacia, the plane, and the lilac.
From Meopham to Wrotham we may go over a picturesque
bit of the Downs by following the south road, or by yet more
attractive roundabout ways through well-wooded country,
touching at many retired hamlets, may come down to the
Medway at Snodland or Hailing and thence follow the river to
the triple towns. The whole of this tract with its up and
down lanes, its wide woodlands, its hillside hopfields is full of
beauty. Turning east after passing Meopham Church an
attractive route over Foxen Down takes us to Luddesdown
CH. XX
A QUAINT OLD INN
385
Church and thence to Cobham at the western end of the
beautiful park.
The clean and neat old village is a famous point of pilgrim-
The Leather Bottle, Cobham
age for Dickensians, the quaint old " Leather Bottle " inn
being familiar to all readers of " Pickwick." Was it not
here that the misanthropic Tracy Tupman retired ? Was it
c c
386
THE PICKWICKIAN "FIND"
CHAP.
not here that Pickwick and Winkle found him ? And above
all was it not here that the enthusiastic Pickwick bore in
triumph his archaeological treasure so strangely inscribed
" +BILSTUMPSHIS.MARK"? The Dickens' room is
crowded with pictures and other matters associated with the
Master.
Cobham Church, restored, has much to interest the visitor ;
«>n*tM.^
Cobham Church.
especially is it rich in monumental brasses from the thirteenth
to the sixteenth centuries. Here was an ancient college of
which there are but scanty remains, the New College— dating
from the modernity of Elizabeth's time — consisting of twenty
almshouses. Cobham Park with its undulating turf, its
broad stretches of bracken, its grand oaks, ashes, limes,
XX COBHAM TO GADSHILL 387
and chestnuts, is one of the most attractive as it is one
of the most extensive in the county. The most notable of
the trees is a great chestnut known as " The Four Sisters."
Cobham Hall, a noble red brick Elizabethan mansion with a
magnificent collection of pictures representing many schools,
is open to visitors on Fridays. Hither Charles I. and his
Queen came just after their marriage "all the high-waies
strewed with roses and all maner of sweet flowrs." The grand
park, in which are many deer and a large heronry, may be
crossed and Strood reached by footpath, which passes the high-
placed, ugly and costly Mausoleum which was raised in 1783
but has never been utilised. The way takes us first through
the park with glimpses of the red brick mansion, then through
woodlands, with many very tall hornbeams and birches, to an
outlook over the Medway valley, and so by hopfields to
Strood.
The road from Cobham passing between the park and the
open Ashenbank Wood is as attractive as the park itself;
where it joins the Watling Street we might easily imagine
ourselves in the New Forest. To the north of the main road
is the little village of Shorne, the church of which has brasses
and other monuments and a sculptured font not dissimilar
from that at Northfleet. From the neighbourhood of the post
office is to be had a splendid view of the shipping-dotted
reach of the Thames known as the Lower Hope. A vague
Sir John Shorne, supposed to have belonged to this village
in mediaeval times, was looked upon as a kind of uncanon-
ised saint "who achieved fame by the curing of ague and
gained notoriety as the custodian of the devil, whom, it is
alleged, he imprisoned in a boot, with the result that shrines
were erected to his memory." " Maister John Shorne " had
a shrine here and was also worshipfully regarded in other
places. His village is much uglified by red brick since Charles
Dickens thought it one of the most beautiful in Kent.
From Shorne we come out on to the Gravesend road
and turning to the right soon reach that place of many
memories — Gadshill. Here Prince Hal and Poins played their
trick on the fat knight until —
" Falstaff sweats to death
And lards the lean earth as he walks along,"
C C 2
388
A KENTISH DICK TURPIN
CHAP.
only to tell a different story of his own behaviour, how he was
"at halfsword with a dozen of them two hours together."
The fooling of genius is familiar to all, and Falstaff 's connection
with the hill is appropriately perpetuated in the name of an inn.
"■■■ %W
Ma
J"^fl't.<r»^-4-cri»
Shorne Churchyard.
Gadshill — the summit of which is broad highway between
shrub grown gardens — was notorious as a scene of robberies
for centuries, but the most romantic episode attaching to it is
the robbery effected at four in the morning "by one Nick on
a bay mare just on the declining part of the hill on the west
XX
GADSFIILL
3S9
side." The highwayman got away to Gravesend, ferried over
the river and galloped helter-skelter, reaching York the same
afternoon. Changing his dress Nick went to the Bowling
Green where he met the Lord Mayor of York, entered into
talk with him — and so, when charged with the crime, proved
an alibi and got off on the strength of his Worship's evidence,
the jury considering it impossible that a man who played at
bowls at York one afternoon could have been at Gadshill on
iH*^
The Sir John Falstaff Inn, Gadshill.
morr ing
tne
suggested
of the same day ! Nick's exploit probably
to Harrison Ainsworth that ride to York of Dick
Turpin's which has come to be better known than Turpin's
actual doings. On the south side of the road on the top of
the hill, masked by greenery, is Gadshill Place, which was
bought by Charles Dickens in 1856 and where he died in
1870. The story has often been told how, as a boy, Dickens
fixed his affections on this house, and how, as a man, his
dream of possessing it was realised. Many as were the homes
associated with the novelist this is the one likely longest to be
390 DICKENS' LAND chap.
the shrine which his admirers will visit : here in his pleasant
home Boz spent his later years and here he suddenly passed
away on June 9, 1870. His affection for the house grew with
his stay in it. Shortly after he had entered into possession he
wrote to a friend :
" At this present moment I am on my little Kentish freehold (not in top-
boots, and not particularly prejudiced that I know of), looking on as pretty
a view out of my study window as you will find in a long day's English ride.
My little place is a grave red brick house, which I have added to and stuck
bits upon in all manner of ways, so that it is as pleasantly irregular, and as
violently opposed to all architectural ideas, as the most hopeful man could
possibly desire. The robbery was committed before the door, on the man
with the treasure, and Falstaff ran away from the identical spot of ground
now covered by the room in which I write. A little rustic alehouse, called
the Sir John Falstaff, is over the way — has been over the way ever since,
in honour of the event. Cobham Park and Woods are behind the house :
the distant Thames in front ; the Medway, with Rochester, and its old
castle and cathedral on one side. The whole stupendous property is on the
old Dover road."
Gadshill Place has come to be regarded very appropriately as
the centre of Dickens land — over the Medway are Rochester
and Chatham associated both with his life story and with his
novels, north by the marshes is Cooling with its reminders of
" Great Expectations," south-west is Cobham as we have seen,
and south-east the supposed Dingley Dell, with further afield
Canterbury familiar to David Copperfield. Dickens loved this
quarter of Kent associated with his early childhood as it was to
be with his latest life, and many people love it the more for its
association with him. On the Higham side of the hill are many
pine trees and an obelisk — falling to pieces — erected to the
memory of a citizen of Rochester.
Strood and Frindsbury, Rochester and Chatham, Brompton
and Gillingham — all grown together but that the Medway sepa-
rates the first two from the others— form a congeries of towns
with curious nooks and corners of old buildings and tiled and
gabled roofs — (especially as seen from the railway). By the
river they are given over to cement works and other manufac-
tures ; on the heights Chatham is given over to the military and
on the river side to the naval works and dock-yards. Things
have not changed very much — if we allow for the coming of
tram-cars, the growth of the cement industry, and the extension
of building operations— since Mr. Samuel Pickwick summed
XX
THE FOUR TOWNS
39i
up the four towns of Strood, Rochester, Chatham and
Brompton thus : " The principal productions of these towns
appear to be soldiers, sailors, Jews, chalk, shrimps, officers and
dock-yard men. The commodities chiefly exposed for sale in
the public streets, are marine stores, hard-bake, apples, flat-
fish, and oysters."
Of these towns Rochester is by far the most interesting both
for what it has to show and for the story it has to tell — the
others, with their long streets of new houses spreading by the
.
Vieiu frotn the Chatham Recreation Ground, looking ever the Barracks and
Dockyard to Brompton.
riverside and up the chalk hill with their unpicturesque busy-
ness need not detain us long, unless curiosity impels to a visit
to the great Dock-yards. At Strood we may recall however
that Anne Pratt, who did so much to popularise the study of
wild flowers, was born in 1806, being the daughter of a whole-
sale grocer.
According to an old saying certain Kentish folk are born with
tails, and that caudal addition is supposed to be a privilege
peculiarly attaching to those who hail from Strood. It was all
owing to the way in which their rude forefathers behaved to
392 MEN WITH TAILS ch. xx
Thomas a Becket when the Primate and the King had fallen
out, or so at least says Polydore Virgil when honouring " his
great God Saint Thomas." " When as it happened him upon
a time to come to Stronde the Inhabitants thereabouts (being
desirous to dispite that good Father) sticked not to cut the tail
from the horse on which he road, binding themselves thereby
with a perpetuall reproach : for afterward (by the will of God)
it so happened, that every one which came of that kinred of men
which plaied that naughty prank, were born with tails, even as
brute beasts be." Lambarde, to whom we owe the story, points
out that the same legend attaches to St. Augustine and his rela-
tions with some unmannerly Dorsetshire folk.
Strood and Rochester are connected by a bridge — running
closely parallel to the most hideous of all railway bridges —
successor after a long interval, to one of wood that crossed the
Medway here as early as 1300, for in that year Edward I. paid to
a citizen of Rochester twelve shillings in lieu of a horse which
had been hired and which had been blown off the bridge into
the river. Apparently this old bridge afforded but a hazardous
crossing, for in the British Museum is an ancient manuscript
poem in old French telling of the " Harpur a Roucestre," and
of how when midway over the bridge a violent wind blew him
over into the Medway (the pun is the minstrel's), of how he called
on the Virgin for assistance and still harping her praises was
carried a league down the stream where he landed in safety, and
duly offered up thanks for his miraculous preservation. By the
reign of Elizabeth the old wooden bridge had given place to " a
very Fayer Bridge of Stone," and that again has long since been
replaced by an iron structure.1
Its position on the road from Dover to London has made
Rochester an important place ever since the time of the Roman
occupation, and a native of the city forty years ago had the
curiosity to collect all references to remarkable visitors in old
manuscripts and printed records and contributed an entertaining
miscellany of such to the Archeelogia Cantianas Some of
these visits were of distinguished Continental travellers passing
to or from London, others were of English monarchs journey-
1 The stone bridge had at one time high, iron railings, — " that drunkards,
not uncommon here, may not mix water with their wine," as a French
gentleman put it, — but these were replaced by a stone balustrade in the
18th century. 2 Vol. VI. pp. 43-82.
" 1 I!
394 A BAKER SAINT chap.
ing thither to see their navy. Then too, the city was a stage
on the road for pilgrims from London to Canterbury — " Lo
Rouchester standeth here faste by " — and the century that saw
pilgrimages go out of fashion saw the navy rise into greatness
and the shore of the Medway become the chief of places for
the building and fitting out of ships.
Though the seat of a Roman castrum, it is by the remains
of its Norman castle and its interesting Cathedral that
Rochester chiefly appeals to the visitor now. The massive
keep and the Cathedral are the most prominent objects seen
over a medley of old gabled roofs as we reach the place by
train and each is worthy a visit for that which it has still to
show, and for that which it has to suggest of the past. The
Bishopric dates back to the beginning of the 7th century, when
it was one of the two first sees founded by St. Augustine. The
building, in which there are remains of the original Saxon and
the Early Norman churches, is full of architectural interest and
beauty and contains a number of remarkable old tombs and
monuments, notably that of Bishop Gundulf, the famous
monkish architect to whom London owes its White Tower and
who did much for Rochester, including, the building of the
Castle. The Cathedral was also long celebrated and much
frequented for the shrine of St William the patron saint of
the city. St. William was a baker from Perth who was
bound as pilgrim for the Holy Land when (it is believed
in 1 201) he was murdered outside the walls of Rochester
and came to be associated therefore with this city.
Ernulf was another of its bishops to whom Rochester Cathedral
owed much improvement. He is the worthy who will be
remembered by readers of " Tristram Shandy " as author of
the portentously long and forceful curse which was read out by
Dr. Slop at Mr. Shandy's request the while my Uncle Toby
whistled " Lillabullero " — "May the Holy and Eternal Virgin
Mary, mother of God, curse him — May St. Michael, the
advocate of holy souls, curse him — and may all the angels,
and archangels, principalities and powers, and all the heavenly
armies, curse him. (Our Armies swore terribly in Flanders
cried my Uncle Toly, — but nothing to this. — For my own
part I could not have a heart to curse my dog so)."
Besides its monuments to ecclesiastical dignitaries Rochester
Cathedral has others that will appeal more intimately to most
XX
THE POOR TRAVELLERS
395
people in the neighbouring memorials to Richard Watts the
1 6th century philanthropist, and to Charles Dickens, the
novelist who has made the philanthropist familiar to thousands
of readers. It is not necessary to do more than refer to
" The Seven Poor Travellers," the reading of which must alone
make many people desirous of visiting the quaint hostel in
The C>y/>t, Rochester Cathedral.
the High Street over the doorway of which runs the
inscription
" Richard Watts, Esq.
by his Will, dated 22 Aug., 1579,
founded this Charity
for Six poor Travellers,
who not being Rogues, or Proctors,
May receive gratis for one Night,
Lodging, Entertainment,
and Fourpence each."
The small gabled house thus inscribed, which was rebuilt in
396
WATT'S' CHARITIES
CHAP.
1771 and again "renewed and inscribed" in 1865, represents
but a small portion of Watts' charities, the annual value of
which is considerable, supporting almshouses and contributing
to hospitals and other local institutions. At the time that
Richard Watts left certain lands in the neighbourhood for the
good of his townsfolk he could have little idea of the way in
The Bull at Rochester.
which the growth of the city would increase the value of his
bequest, now said to reach the amount of seven thousand
pounds a year. The quaint inscription which suggested
Dickens' story was but one of the many features of old
Rochester which appealed to the novelist. " The old High
Street of Rochester is full of gables, with old beams and
timbers carved into strange faces. It is oddly garnished
xx THE FIVE PEREGRINATORS 397
with a queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of
a grave, red-brick building, as if Time carried on business
and hung out his sign." Time has changed the city much,
but his " sign " still projects, and if the High Street is no longer
" full of gables " there is still much to be seen reminding us of
its past, the Guildhall, associated with Pip and Joe Gargery,
Eastgate House (the Nuns' House of " Edwin Drood "),
"Satis House," and the Bull still attract Dickensian
pilgrims.
In the year 1732 Hogarth and four friends set out on a
" Five Days Peregrination by Land and Water " down the
Thames and reached Rochester, where they enjoyed a two
hours' dinner " on a dish of soles and flounders, with crab
sauce, a calf's heart, stuffed and roasted, the liver fried and the
other appurtenances minced, a leg of mutton roasted, and
some green peas, all very good and well dressed, with good
small beer, and excellent port." After dinner rest a while, says
the proverb, and after such a dinner rest would certainly have-
seemed advisable to most people, but the peregrinators were
apparently equal to anything, and at once sallied forth when
" Hogarth and Scott stopped and played at hop-scotch in the
colonnade under the Town-hall ; and then we walked to
Chatham, bought shrimps and ate them." The walk was not
a very long one for, as has been said, the towns are clustered
together here, a fact which is well put in the Hudibrastic
versifying of the " peregrination " made by the Rev. W. Gostling
when he told of the five surveying the scene from the top of
the castle :
" All roundabout us then we gaze,
Observing, not without amaze,
How towns here undistinguished join,
And one vast One to form combine.
Chatham with Rochester seems but one,
Unless we're shown the boundary-stone.
That and its Yards contiguous lie
To pleasant Brompton standing high ;
The Bridge across the raging Hood
Which Rochester divides from Strood
Extensive Strood, on t'other side,
To Frindsbury quite close ally'd :
The Country round and river fair,
Are prospects made beyond compare,
Which quite in raptures we admire ;
Then down to face of earth retire."
398
PEPYS AFFRIGHTED
CHAP.
Visitors should follow the jovial peregrinators in getting the
wide view which is obtainable from the battlements of the
Keep, a view of the broad stretching Medway, its course
marked by the clustering chimney shafts of cement works,
of the wooded hills, of the mass of slate-roofed grey houses
which is Strood, and of the other towns now spread about this
bit of the old Watling Street. When Pepys was here in
1665 he found little pleasure presumably in the climb — " to
Rochester, to visit the old castle ruins which have .been
Hi
Rochester Castle,
a noble place : but, Lord, to see what a dreadful thing
it is to look upon the precipices, for it did fright me mightily."
Here and there on the old walls may still be seen the beautiful
wild pink, though no longer in such profusion as when Anne
Pratt wrote of the castle as " bathed, though in ruins, with
a flush of flowers," and when a local rhymer sang in about a
hundred lines of
" The Castle Pink ! The Castle Pink !
How wildly free it waves,
Exposed to every blast that blows,
And every storm tiiat raves."
xx ROCHESTER CASTLE 399
The grand old ruined Keep forms the most prominent
object in the view of the visitor approaching Rochester. After
long being the chief stronghold in this part of Kent, and the
scene of various sieges, it fell into a state of disuse until
nearly a quarter of a century ago it was secured by the
city and the grounds laid out as a place for public recreation.
Its massy walls, stout pillars and bold carvings tell of the
days when such a place could be held long against a foe,
of the time when Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, owner of so large
a portion of Kent, sought unavailingly on the death of the
Conqueror to hold it on behalf of Robert of Normandy,
its besieging by King John, and its subsequent capture by
the Dauphin, of the fruitless siege by the barons when it was
held by Simon de Montfort. It is true that the present
structure did not witness all these changes, for the existing
Keep was built early in the 12th century; use being made of
the earlier one which in turn had incorporated something
of the old Roman castrum, built according to unsupported
legend by Julius Cassar. Time in carrying on his " business "
here has made the grim building of many memories the
centre of a beautiful public pleasance, where young Rochester
seems ever to be feeding the numerous pigeon-tenants of the
Keep.
It was at Rochester that Charles II. rested for the night on
his way to London when he had "come into his own again "
in May, 166c, staying at what has since come to be known
as Restoration house, a handsome, Elizabethan residence,
and it was at Rochester that his brother James II. stayed
twice during that time when, loth to stay and unwilling
to fly, he was playing weakly into the strong hands of William
of Orange. It is said that it was from 47 High Street that
James made his final escape, stealing from the house by
the back entrance at the dead of night with a single companion,
and making for the river, where a small skiff was in waiting.
When day broke the abdicating monarch was upon a smack
in the Thames and a few hours later reached the French coast
and the safety of ignominious exile.
Chatham and Brompton are mainly attractive for their
military * and naval establishments. The great Dock-yard
with its reputation of over two centuries is a wonderful hive of
impressive busyness which attracts and fascinates many visitors.
400
THE SCAPEGOAT PETT chap.
Here many ships have been launched from the days of
Elizabeth ; here was much building and work in the days
when Mr. Samuel Pepys was Secretary to the Admiralty, and
here in those days, too, befell the Dutch attack when De
Ruyter brought his fleet up Medway and Thames and did
considerable damage to the English navy. There seems to
have been a good deal of bungling in high places, and a
scapegoat being called for, the unhappy lot fell on Peter Pett,
Commissioner of the Navy at Chatham and member of a
family the name of which was represented in the Dock-yards
for a couple of centuries. Pett was removed from his position,
imprisoned in the Tower and threatened with impeachment.
A contemporary satirist, Andrew Marvell it has been suggested,
dealt with the matter in stinging fashion ;
s' After this loss, to relish discontent,
Some one must be accus'd by Punishment.
All our miscarriages on Pett must fall ;
His name alone seems fit to answer all.
Whose Counsel first did this mad War beget ?
Who all Commands sold thro' the Navy ? Pett.
Who would not follow when the Dutch were bet ? ... .
Who to supply with Powder did forget
Langiiard, Sheerness, Gravesend and Upnorl Pett.
Who all our Ships expos'd in Chatham's Net ?
Who should it be but the Phanatkk Pett?
Pett, the Sea Architect, in making Ships
Was the first cause of all these Naval slips ;
Had he not built, none of these faults had bin ;
If no Creation, there had been no Sin."
East of the Dock-yards on the further sides of hills in which
a large part of Chatham is basined are Gillingham and Grange,
the latter close to the marshes, the former at the beginning of
the broad stretch of fruit-growing country extending from here
to Faversham. It is a far cry from the cherry orchards
of Gillingham to the cherry orchards of Japan but Gillingham
deserves mention on another account, for here was born
William Adams, destined to be the first Englishman to reside in
Japan, where he lived from 1600 until his death in 1620.
Adams' letters are the earliest news which we have from the
far eastern Empire, and it is interesting to recall that he
"buylt" ships for the country that has now become a great
naval power, and also to know that our adventurer's summing
XX
CHALK HILL HAMLETS
401
up of the Japanese, was so sure that it might — except in the
matter of spelling — be that of the latest globe-trotter : " This
Hand of Iapon is a great land . . . The people of this Hand
of Iapon are good of nature, curteous above measure, and
valliant in wane ; their iustiee is severely executed without any
partialitie upon transgressors of the law. They are governed
-^3
i^fe, i
Old Road, Chatham {Wat ling Street).
in great ciuilitie. I meane, not a land better governed in the
world by ciuill policie."
East of Chatham on the broad Watling Street is Rainham
with an interesting church, and southwards are many quiet
wooded ways up the rising^ chalk land with but few and small
hamlets, as at Bredhurst and Lidsing from which we can go
D i>
402 THE THAMES MARSHES chap.
through woods to Kits Coty House and so to the Medway
again. Returning to the river at Rochester, a pleasant rising
road may be followed through Borstal, and keeping to the
higher way it affords us again and again views over the Medway
valley, and an especially beautiful one when we near the great
chalk pits overlooking Burham. Descending to the river
opposite Snodland we can cross to that place and so return to
Strood by Hailing and Cuxton. Most of the names of these
Medway-side villages are associated with cement, the little
lines for carrying the chalk from the hill-side quarries are
familiar objects, and the chimney shafts go far to destroy the
beauty of these reaches of the river, yet there is much that is
attractive about the scene on a bright day when barges with
ruddy brown sails are passing along, but we must go far up the
stream to find the Medway as Spenser describes it.
" Like silver sprinkled here and there,
With glittering spangs that did like stars appear."
To the north of Rochester spread the broad-stretching
marshes lying between the Medway and the Thames. Here
are various small villages and old churches, with many
retired farms scattered on the flats, and about the lower hills
into which the land rises as we near the Gravesend district.'
This peninsula formed by the river Thames and Medway is
probably but little visited. I have zig-zagged over it without
seeing anyone beyond villagers and field labourers except
at the beautifully situated golf-links below Higham Upshire.
Yet there is much pleasant country to be seen in the wooded
hills and cornlands stretching across the central part of the
peninsula and a charm in the broad marshes going down to
the river. The villages have not much to detain us except
that of Cooling (or Cowling), the old castle of which, part
hidden by trees, is well worth visiting. Besides some portions
of the walls there remains a fine flint and stone 14th century
machicolated gatehouse almost perfect. Through the entrance
is seen a modern house strangely contrasting with the ancient
gateway. On the right-hand tower the visitor will notice an
old enamelled inscription with seal duly attached. This runs :
" Knoweth that beth and shall be,
That I am made in help of the contre,
In knowing of which thing,
This is Chartre and witnessing."
xx THE ISLE OF GRAIN 403
The castle was built by John Lord Cobham, a powerful
noble of his time, who was succeeded by his granddaughter,
one of whose five successive husbands was that Sir John
Oldcastle, the Lollard martyr, whose name first appeared in
Shakespeare's '• Henry IV." in place of that of Sir John
Falstaff. Oldcastle shut himself up in Cooling and refused the
Archbishop's citations, but was finally arrested and, after
escaping from the Tower of London, was re-captured, tried,
and executed for opinions which little more than a century later
he would have been executed for denying. When Wyatt was
seeking to raise Kent on behalf of Protestantism he unavailingly
attacked Cooling, but the Lord Cobham of that day defended
it so stubbornly that the siege had to be raised.
To the west of the castle beyond wide fields given up
to the cultivation of vegetables is the interesting little village
of Cliffe, a place of importance in the early times of the
Church, overlooking wide marshes. Here Mr. J. Holland
Rose thinks that when Napoleon contemplated the invasion
of England he probably "hoped to effect a landing near
the mouth of the Thames (perhaps on the Cliffe peninsula
between Sheerness and Gravesend)." East of Cooling by
winding lanes we may go to High Halstow, St. Mary's Hoo,
Allhallows and Stoke, by fields of radish and other seed crops,
and so down to the marshland pastures and the end of
the peninsula at the Isle of drain, — cut off by Yantlet
Creek — with its restored little church noticeable for a castel-
lated tower lower than the body of the building. Coming
down off the higher ground towards Grain we see on our left
over broad saltings, or marshes partly under water at high tide,
the shipping of the Thames, and on the right that of the
Med way. Going down to the shore by Grain Tower we have,
over half a mile away across the mouth of Medway, the
Dockyard of Sheerness.
The country here has changed a good deal since the old
distich was written,
" He that rideth in the Hundred of Hoo
Besides pilfering Seamen shall find dirt enow."
D D 2
CHAPTER XXI
SITTINGBOURNE, FAVERSHAM AND SHEPPEY
Leaving Rochester and Chatham with the strange mixture of
past and future — the past of an ancient cathedral, a Norman
castle, old houses and a fiction-master's creations, the future
which the great dock-yards are concerned in safeguarding — we
come to a long stretch of country largely given over to the
cultivation of fruit ; cherry orchards appear to predominate,
but are varied with tracts of plums, pears and apples, with
fields upon fields of bush fruit, while there are also many of
those hop-gardens which form our county's most persistent
characteristic from the Weald to the marshes and "isles." To
the railway traveller the journey from Chatham to Faversham in
spring seems to be through "orchards, orchards all the way,"
and the fruit country may be followed northward to the marshes
about the Medway estuary, and southward up the hills that lie
between Maidstone and Ashford. The railway traveller gets
but a "sample," and, beautiful as it is in blossoming and lamb-
ing time, not the best sample of this part of the country.
The same may be said of the journeyer along the highway,
the old Watling Street, with which the railroad keeps closely
parallel for most of the distance, — who gets but a glimpse of
"the Cherrie Garden and Apple Orchard of Kent." It was
in the Sittingbourne district that the first cherry orchard is
reported to have been planted, so we may believe that it was
hereabouts " our honest patriote Richard Harrys (fruiterer to
King Henrie the 8) planted by his great cost and rare industrie
the sweet cherrie temperate pipyti and the golden renate . . .
about the year of our Lord Christ 1533." Of the coming of
the cherry and of the "honest patriote" we saw something in
CII. XXI
MORALISING ON A CHERRY STONE
405
an earlier chapter, here it must suffice to say that from Gilling-
ham to Faversham, zig-zagging north and south of the Watling
Street, we may pass by mile after mile of well kept orchards,
may be struck again and again by the radiatings which always
make the spectator a centre, thanks to the commonly adopted
quincuncial arrangement of the trees.
The popularity of the cherry in Fuller's time is made plain
by that writer's enthusiastic testimony — "No English fruit is
Sitthi gbou me.
dearer than those at first, cheaper at last, pleasanter at all times ;
nor is it less wholesome than delicious . . . We leave the
wholesomeness of this fruit both for food and physic, to be
praised by others, having hitherto not met with any discom-
mending it. As for the outlandish proverb, ' He that eateth
cherries with noblemen, shall have his eyes spurted out with the
stones,' it fixeth no fault in the fruit; the expression merely
being metaphorical, wherein the folly of such is taxed, who
associate themselves equal in expense with others in higher
dignity and estate, till they be losers at last, and well laughed
4o6 BIRDS AND GUNS chap.
at for their pains." Even in a cherrystone the moraliser may
find his text.
Rainham, or Renham as it was anciently spelt and is now
frequently pronounced, has no special attractiveness beyond
some curious monuments and brasses in the church, but from
it we may find pleasant ways by orchards and fields to Upchurch,
Lower Halstow — High Halstow we saw dominating the Thames
marshes — and the marshes. The little Halstow church is
worth visiting for it contains some Roman masonry reminding
us that here we are in a neighbourhood where the Romans
had an important centre and where it is believed they had their
most extensive British potteries. Many pieces of such pottery
and other remains have been recovered in this district on both
sides of that highway, which is the most enduring mark the
Romans left us. Some of the best remains of native glass of
the Roman period have also been recovered hereabouts.
The marshes are broken much by broad creeks or inlets,
and though there is something of a sameness about them
there is a distinct charm in the wide, grassy stretches when seen
under a bright sky, and a quiet that should please the greatest
of solitudinarians. Here; too, the lover of birds may sometimes
see some unusual visitors, but until such visitors are brought
under an all-the-year-round Protection Act it seems unwise to
specify either the birds or the localities in which they have
been seen. The way in which rare birds are shot must have
been newly brought home to many readers by Mr. W. J. Davis's
interesting compilation on "The Birds of Kent," and must
have suggested that collectors and indiscriminating " sportsmen "
should not be allowed to welcome such visitants with a charge
of shot " pour encourager les autres." It would be well if the
shooting of our rarer birds could be made an offence against
the law, as it is one against good taste ; any one convicted of
the offence twice might be made ineligible for having a gun
license.
From the little marsh-land village of Wade may easily be
reached the toll (and railway) bridge leading into Sheppey,
the only link of the kind between the mainland and the Isle.
Leaving Sheppey for a while we may return by the small
village of Bobbing — where having "slipped into orders" the
"execrable Titus Oates" was for a brief while vicar — to the
main road and to the pleasantly situated Newington, a village
xxi DR. PLOT, HISTORIOGRAPHER 407
surrounded by hop-gardens and orchards, lying mostly to the
north of the high road. Its station is a good centre from which
to reach the marfh district, affording within a walk of a few
miles the most varied scenery, where hoplands and orchards
gradually give place to the marsh meadows and saltings.
To the south by further stretches of hops and orchards, as
we rise towards the chalk ridge are the villages of Hartlip and
Stockbury, a little to the west of the former are the remains of
an extensive Roman villa opened up and closely explored in
the middle of the last century. Other Roman remains were
found at about the same time at Sutton Baron (or Barne)
about two miles east of Stockbury. Near here, too, are the
orchard-surrounded villages of Kredgar, Tunstall and Borden.
At Sutton Baron was born and died the antiquary Robert Plot,
first custodian of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, historio-
grapher royal, secretary to the Royal Society, and friend of our
two great diarists, Pepys and Evelyn. Plot produced such
" natural histories " of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire that
Evelyn wished he might continue the work throughout all the
counties. Eater critics have been less kind. "Pliny, who
wrote what he believed to be true, though too often assumed
upon the credit of others, has been called a liar, because he
knew nothing of experimental philosophy, and Dr. Tint,
because he did not know enough of it." Plot is buried at
Borden and there his widow erected a monument to his memory.
Returning to the high road again by the hamlets of Chestnut
Street and Key Street we come out opposite the road to
Bobbing and Wade, and turning to the right have Sitting-
bourne about a mile and a half away. The hamlets through
which we pass here are chiefly notable for their names.
Chestnut Street reminds us of the numbers of sweet chestnut
trees seen in this district, descendants it is suggested
of those originally introduced by the Romans, who fondly
hoped to establish the tree for the sake of its food nuts, but
the fruit it bears in this country is rarely anything but
insignificant. It remains, however, one of the notable trees of
our well-wooded county, though mostly grown in coppices as
game cover, and for hop poles. Key Street takes its name
from Keycol Hill — between it and Newington — which,
according to Hasted, derives from Caii Collis or Caius Julius
Caesar's Hill !
4o8 THE SWALE MARSHES chap.
Sittingboume; reached by a navigable creek from the Swale,
claims the distinction of being a sea port. It is one of the
principal centres of the fruit-growing country and forms with
its near neighbours Milton and Murston an important place for
the manufacture of cement, paper and brickjf It is too the rail-
way junction for reaching the Isle of Shep«ey. Sittingboume
church, having been destroyed by fire in tlfe eighteenth century,
has little beyond a curious monument to an unknown lady and
infant, but Milton church has Roman and herring-bone work
in its masonry. Milton — Milton Royal as it claims to be
named — is one of the chief centres of the oyster fishery, and
has long shared with Whitstable association with that delicate
bivalve the reputation of which on this coast goes back to
the days of the Romans. Here we overlook the marshes ex-
tending to the Swale, and going past the church may follow a
footpath to an old quadrangular earthwork known as Castle
Rough near to Milton Creek, where tradition says the Danish
chieftain Hasting made a fortress in 894, after bringing eighty
of his ships up the Swale.
These Swale marshes and the country adjacent seem indeed
to have had great importance in olden times. On the further
side of the creek and near to Sittingboume is Bayford Castle,
first erected — "a pre-conquest earthwork'' — in the same year
as Hasting formed his camp at Castle Rough, by King Alfred
for the purpose of keeping watch upon the Danish invaders.
It subsequently underwent conversion into a Norman castle, and
centuries since fell from its high estate to being a mere farm
house, and its ditch-surrounded enclosure to being an orchard.
A mile and a half to the east of Bayford is the mound — amid
cherry orchards —on which stood another of our Kentish castles,
thatofTonge or Tong, anciently, if old Geoffrey of Monmouth
is to be accepted as a veritable historian, Thong. The story
runs that Hengist asked permission of Vortigem to send over
for more Saxons to oppose the British king's enemies, and, that
conceded, then pointed out that he ought to have some town or
city granted him, to which Vortigem did not agree. " ' Give
your servant,' said Hengist, ' only so much ground in the place
you have assigned me, as I can encompass with a leathern
thong for to build a fortress upon as a place of retreat if
occasion should require. For I will always be faithful to you,
as I have been hitherto, and pursue no other design in the re-
xxi ROWENA THE SAXON 409
quest which I have made. With these words the King was
prevailed upon to grant him his petition ; and ordered him to
despatch messengers into Germany, to invite more men over
speedily to assistance. Hengist immediately executed his
orders, and taking a bull's hide, made one thong out of the
whole, with which he encompassed a rocky place that he had
carefully made choice of, and within that circuit began to build
a castle, which, when finished, took its name from the thong
wherewith it had been measured."
Then came eighteen ships full of Saxons bringing with them
Hengist's beautiful daughter Rowena, and at a feast at the new
" Thong " Castle Vortigen fell in love with and married her.
The romantic story has been set amid other scenes, but — allowing
for the dropped h — seems fittingly to belong, and may well be
recalled, here, though some writers who have no liking for the
"flowers" of history dismiss the whole matter as an idle tale.
On the main road just south ofTorige Mill near the place where
the old castle stood is another of the orchard villages, Bapchild,
with an Early English and Norman Church, while Rodmersham,
another of them, is a little farther south. All along the road
and a couple of miles on either side we may visit villages and
hamlets among the cherries — places which are at their best at
the Maytime of the year. Northwards, however, we soon
through the fruit tree country to the marshes bordered by the
Swale and its creeks. Where these are given over to six ep
pasturing they have a distinct attractiveness, but in the neigh-
bourhood of Teynham they are marked and marred by unlovely
brick fields. Of an old rhyme concerning this bit of country
there are two contradictory versions, one of«which savs
If you'll live a little while.
Go to Bapchild
If you'd live Long
Go to Teynham or Tong."
This sounds satisfactory for those compelled to live in the
marsh country, but then comes the pessimistic rendering
" He that would not live long,
Let him dwell at Murston, Teynham or Tong."
Incidentally, perhaps, it illustrates the fact that such place-
rhymes are produced not so much with the view of enunciating
410
KENTISH VINEYARDS
CHAP.
a truth as with the object of making an easily remembered
jingle. Perhaps the first version was made by a marsh-dweller
and the revision by one who preferred the hills. Healthful or
not there is nothing about Teynham now to remind us that at
one time the archbishops of Canterbury had a vineyard here.
Kent had several vineyards in the 13th century, but they long
since passed out of cultivation, giving place to other fruit and to
the ubiquitous hops. Here and there we come across vine
Favcrsham from the Creek.
covered cottages, but then it may be believed that the vine is
more ornamental than fruitful.
Faversham, which Cobbett commended as "a very pretty
little town " is a mixture of old and new, of the comfort of a
substantial place with traditions, and the sordidness which be-
longs to so many creekside towns ; it had old time importance
owing to the fact that the Watling Street from Dover first
touched an inlet of navigable water where a creek comes inland
from the Swale. That it was a place of importance in Roman
times has been shown by the discovery of many remains which
have found their way into various collections, notably the
xxi ARDEN OF FEVRESHAM 411
Clibbs collection in the British Museum. Later it was favoured
as a Royal residence, being described in the 9th century as
" the King's little town of Fevresham," and his " royal villa."
Here in 930 Athelstane held a wittenagemote. The mediaeval
progress of the place was as usual marked by the establishment
of an Abbey. This was founded by King Stephen and his
Queen, who were buried here with their son. Abbey Farm, to
the north of the town, not far from the creek, is on the site
of the Abbey, of which there are but scanty remains.
Faversham Abbey has however an important place in our
literary history, for in the middle of the 16th century it and its
lands belonged to one Thomas Arden, or Ardern, one time
mayor of the town, who on Sunday, February 15, 1 550-1 was,
as the "Wardmote Book of Faversham" records, " heynously
murdered in his own parlour, about seven of the clock in
the night, by one Thomas Morsby, a tailor of London, late
servant to Sir Edward North, Knight, chancellor of the
augmentations, father-in-law unto Alice Ardern, wife of the
said Thomas Ardern." The " heynous " murder is chiefly
marked out from other domestic tragedies by the way in which
it touched the popular imagination so that Holinshed devoted
five pages of his "Chronicle" to recording it, and a great
dramatist — by some critics recognised as William Shakespi
— wrote a great tragedy on the theme. According to the
chronicler and the dramatist Alice Arden and her paramour
made incessant attempts on Arden's life only to be foiled
again and again. The woman took all and sundry into her
confidence, making them accessories, and various attempts
were made on the goodman — now at Rainham as he journeyed
homewards, an attempt frustrated by an arrival on the
scene of " Lord Cheiny " ; and now as he went to visit that
nobleman in Sheppey, when a kindly fog fell. In the end
the poor man was done to death in his own home, which was
presumably near the Abbey, behind which the body was thrown
and promptly discovered, the murderers having no time to
cover up their tracks :
'• I fear me he was murdered in this house
And carried to the field ; for from that place
Backwards and forwards may you see
The prints of many feet within the snow.
And look about this chamber where we are,
412 A GREAT TRAGEDY chap.
And you shall find part of his guiltless blood ;
Eor in his slipshoe did I find some rushes,
Which argueth he was murdered in this room."
The play which recounts the horrible story in all its details up
to the close, where five of the principals are ordered off to
execution, was first claimed for Shakespeare by a Faversham
critic, Edward Jacob, in 1770, and since then various writers
have taken sides, but the matter remains not proven. The
most notable counsel on behalf of the Shakespearean author-
ship being Mr. A. C. Swinburne, who says "Considering the
various and marvellous gifts displayed for the first time on our
stage by the great poet, the great dramatist, the strong and
subtle searcher of hearts, the just and merciful judge and
painter of human passions, who gave this tragedy to the new born
literature of our drama ... I cannot but finally take heart to
say, even in the absence of all external and traditional testimony,
that it seems to me not pardonable merely or permissible, but
simply logical and reasonable, to set down this poem, a young
man's work on the face of it, as the possible work of no man's
youthful hand but Shakespeare's."
It is not possible to visit Faversham and forget the horror
which inspired one of the most Shakespearean of pre-Shakespear-
ean plays, but though there are references to a local inn, the
Flo wer-de- Luce, and to a farm at Bolton (i.e. Boughton) and
to Harty Ferry, there is little of local colour in the tragedy,
which is a crude story of greed, lust and punishment, in
the central character of which, the wife, it is not easy to
realise the great woman whom Mr. Swinburne sees — her
"penitential breath" seems rather the common cry of one
who had been found out —
" Pale and great,
Great in her grief and sin, but in her death
And anguish of her penitential breath
Greater than all her sin or sin-born fate,
She stands the holocaust of dark desire,
Clothed round with song for ever as with fiie."
Where the Abbey once stood now spreads a large orchard
and the name remains only as attached to the neighbouring
farm, but much of the history of the town may be found in the
large cruciform tall-spired church in which are to be seen some
curious old paintings dating, it is believed, from the time when
XXI
FAVERSHAM CHURCH
413
the building was first erected in the Early English period.
The church, which has monuments, brasses and other things of
interest which well repay careful examination — including a
brass to King Stephen, who was however probably buried in
the long-gone church attached to the Abbey— was at one
Mi
^
*r
Town Hall, Favcrsham.
time much frequented by pilgrims because it had a chapel dedi-
cated to St. Thomas of Canterbury and altars to St. Crispin
and St. Crispianus, who are looked upon as Faversham's special
saints in that according to one tradition they fled hither from
Rome during the Diocletian persecutions and set up as cobblers.
The " Golden Legend " however makes them exercise their
craft and suffer martyrdom at Soissons in France. Perhaps
4H SAINTS AT FAYERSHAM CHAP.
they visited Faversham first. It would not be pleasant to think
that they were entreated here as the legend tells us, for " these
holy men being sought of Rictius Varius, were founden amend-
ing and clouting poor men's shoes, which were taken and
bounden with chains and brought unto him. And after many
interrogations and questions, they, refusing to sacrifice to the
idols, were stretched and bounden unto a tree, and were com-
manded to be beaten with staves, and after, awls such as shoes
be sewed with, were threaden and put under the ongles or nails
of their fingers, and lainers or latchets of their skin were cut
out of their back. Who among these sharp and strong pains
praying, the awls sprang from their ongles and nails, and smote
the ministers that pained them and wounded them cruelly."
Millstones were hung round their necks, and they were thrown
in the river but swam easily ashore ; they were to be cast into
molten lead but it spurted into their persecutor's eye and
blinded him ; they were placed in boiling " pitch oil and
grease " but were led out of it by an angel unscathed. Then
they prayed that they might come to the Lord and the swords
did not refuse to behead them. We may be sure that the
martyrs' shrine at Faversham was much visited after the Battle
of Agincourt —
" This day is call'd the feast of Crispian :
He that outlives this day and comes safe home,
Will stand a-tip-toe when this day is named
And rouse him at the name of Crispian."
The saints are said to have carried on their shoemaking
trade " at a house in Preston Street, near the Crosse well, now
the sign of the Swan," and that house, even after the
Reformation had done away with their altar in the parish
church, was long a place of pilgrimage for other workers in the
craft of which St. Crispin is the special patron.
Faversham Grammar School is a famous foundation first
established in 1527 and later re-established by a royal charter
of Queen Elizabeth in 1576. After standing for three hundred
years near the church, it was rebuilt thirty years ago and is to
be seen on the left by the railway traveller approaching the
town from London.
The central part of Faversham consists of narrow streets of
old houses, and has an air of comfortable prosperity, but as a
XXI
ROMAN REMAINS
4iS
busy commercial centre it has spread southwards to Preston
and Ospringe and, northwards to Davington — each of which
places has a church with interesting monuments. At Preston
is a monument to Roger Boyle, father of the first Earl of Cork.
Ospringe church, which has been carefully restored, is a very
old edifice, presumably of earlier date than the Benedictine
Priory to which it was attached, which was founded in 1153.
This priory belonged to the "poor nuns of Davington "—to
the wrecking of two of whom beyond Heme Bay we owe the
twin towers of the church of Reculver. What remains of the
o
Xsfi
' Mai son Dieti.
Old House, Ospringe.
Priory is now a private residence. Near Ospringe again, we
have ecclesiastical remains in all that is left of Stone church —
fenced-in ruins with much Roman material in the masonry.
Here, too, is Judd's Hill, or Judde Hill, with remains of a
Roman camp, to which it has been suggested the old church
was attached. Hasted records that many coins and other
Roman relics were discovered here and at Davington. To the
west of Ospringe and just south of the main road is the small,
scattered parish of Norton — with an old ghost story attached
to Norton Court. The story runs, as jotted down from the
account of one present, that on the last day of August, 17 19, a
couple of men were sent out rabbiting and returning in the
416 A COFFIN APPARITION chap.
evening were near the house when their dog crept close and
the men took to their heels and rushed to the gate. Then the
following conversation took place.
" Are not you prodigiously frightened ? "
" I was never so frightened in all my life."
" What was it you saw ? "
" Nay, what was it that frightened you so ? "
"I saw a coffin carried, just by us, on men's shoulders."
" I saw the same, as plain as I ever saw anything in
my life."
There was staying at Norton Court at the time an improvi-
dent divine, one-time secretary of the Royal Society, Dr. John
Harris. Harris scoffed at the men's tale and, at the eating of
the rabbits the next day, said " if the devil had had a hand in
catching them he was sure they were good." On the
Wednesday, talking of dreams at breakfast, the Doctor said he
thought they were always recounting their dreams and talking
of apparitions, and that he would make a collection of them
and have them published ; " for my part," added he, " if I ever
took notice of a dream, it should be of one I had last night.
I dreamed that the Bishop of , in Ireland, sent for me to
come over to him, and I returned answer that I could not—
for I was dead ; when methought I laid my hands along by
my sides, and so died." On the following Monday, just one
week after the coffin-apparition, Dr. Harris died. He projected
a " History of Kent " of which only one volume, " inaccurate
and incomplete," was published.
South of Faversham we may go by beautiful ways towards
the hilly country, through woods and lanes, to Throwley,
Sheldwich and Selling, and so to Charing and Ashford or to
Chilham, in districts described earlier. At Sheldwich is the
grand park of Lees Court — the mansion built by Inigo Jones
— with tragic memories. Here in the Commonwealth time
lived Sir George Sondes, a Royalist whose loyalty cost him im-
prisonment and about thirty thousand pounds. A few years
after he returned to Lees Court the younger of his two sons
murdered the elder as he lay asleep, and was duly hanged at
Maidstone a fortnight after the crime. A couple of miles to
the west of Lees Court is Belmont Park, the seat of the first
Lord Harris, conqueror of Seringapatam in 1815, and now the
residence of his descendant the present Lord Harris who has
xxi THE SHEPPEY FERRY 417
won new laurels for the family in piping times of peace on the
cricket field.1
Following the main road through Faversham brings us in a
couple of miles to Boughton Hill, and one of the most extensive
views over the well-cultivated and wooded country, across the
grassy marshes to the boat-dotted estuary of the Thames. By
orchards and hop gardens, through the little village of Good-
nestone with its tiny church and Graveney, we reach the pasture
marshes stretching along by Whitstable Bay to Whitstable,
passing on the way near the disused church of Seasalter, which
parish is now amalgamated with its neighbour. Though largely
protected by a defensive hank the marshes are here, it is
reported, being gradually encroached upon, and at low tide there
is a wide stretch of muddy sand exposed on which are often to
be seen large numbers of sea and shore birds.
A hundred years ago a collector of curious notices gave the
following one as belonging to this neighbourhood. A famous
post was erected by the direction of the surveyor of the roads
of Kent inscribed "This is a bridle path to Faversham, if you
can't read this, you had better keep the main road." To this
was given as parallel the Irish wayside bull : " On the edge of a
small river in the Co. Cavan, there is a stone with the following
strange inscription — ' N.B. — When this stone is out of sight it
is not safe to ford the River.'' I have looked in vain for the
bridle path notice ; ridicule perhaps prevented its mainten-
ance.
Leaving Faversham by Davington Hill we get, from the small
village of Oare, a good view of the " crick " by which boats
reach the town. West in the marsh is Luddenham church.
Going on to Harty Ferry we pass across the»marsh where many
sheep pasture, and reach the embankment by which the land
has been reclaimed. The ferry house is at the other side of the
Swale on the Isle of Sheppey, and a patient wait will at length
be rewarded by the arrival of the boat across the three-quarters of
a mile of hitrh-tide water At low tide there are innumerable
gulls, curlews and other birds, and these the wayfarer may well
have time to watch if delayed as I have been for over an hour
1 Lord Harris has recent])' issued a full "History of Kent County
Cricket " tracing the game as played by Men of Kent and Kentish men
from the beginning up to their winning for the county the position of
"Champion" in 1906.
E E
4i8
SHEEP ISLE
CHAP.
by thunder, hail and wind, that made the return of the boat im-
possible, a squall which washed boats and barges from their moor-
ings, and even swept the gulls like large snow flakes down the
wind. It was August, and the sun was shining brightly but an
hour after the country had been shadowed by grey-edged clouds
of inky blackness.
Harty Ferry is the best crossing for those who would visit
Sheppey from end to end, afoot or awheel; for others there is a
light railway from Queenborough which may be reached by
ferry steamer from Port Victoria or by train or road from
Queenborough.
Sittingbourne. It was near Harty Ferry, by the way, that
Thomas Arden was temporarily saved from his pursuers by fog,
his murderers being hidden in " a certain broom-close betwixt
Faversham and the ferry." There is still, it may be mentioned,
a Broomfield to the west of Oare which may have been on the
way to the old course of the ferry— a fact which seems to have
escaped the annotators of the tragedy.
In its southern and eastern parts the island is largely marsh on
which sheeppasture— it is Sheppey or Sheep isle— with wide corn
fields on the higher ground, but as we get nearer the north side
the country becomes hillier and more diversified with trees
— mainly side-lopped elms — with wooded combes on the north.
XXI HOGARTH AT QUEENBOROUGH 419
From the higher ground, between the villages of Eastchurch
and Minster, are beautiful distant views across the Swale
and its marshes to the district from which we have come and
in the other direction over the wide estuary of the Thames to
the Essex shore, the water ever dotted with shipping. It is by
its marshlands and its views that the isle appeals to me, its
villages and its great town of Sheern ess have little that is attrac-
tive, though those who look for the varied life and movement
of a busy seaport and dockyard town will find them in plenty
in the latter place. Its fronts to the Thames and Medway
are always lively with varied shipping from the sombre vessels
of the Navy to the barges with their red-brown sails, the
fishing smacks and trawlers, fussy tugs and smaller craft,
gadding about between the pier and the various moored ships.
Queenborough — which owes its name to the Queen of
Edward III. — was the site of a strong castle destroyed in the
1 7th century, of which but part of the moat and well, still in use,
remain. Now the place is chiefly notable as a port of embark
ation for the Continent. When Hogarth and his fellows were
here they found it like " a Spanish town, viz., there is no sign
of any trade," could get no fresh meat or poultry to eat, and
noted a curious epitaph on " Henry Knight Master of a Shipp
to Greenland and Herpooner 24 voyages —
In Greenland, I Whales Sea horses, Bears did Slay
Though Now my Body is Intombe in Clay."
At Sheerness the veritable historian of the outing tells us
Hogarth was laughed at, as well he might be, " for sitting down
to cut his toe-nails in the garrison " !
Minster Church standing high with grand views over the busy
river and the mainland, is interesting on account of various
monuments and brasses, notably the monument to Sir Robert
de Shurland, one-time Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, the
romantic tradition of whose death is set forth with humoristic
details by Barham in his legend of "Grey Dolphin." The
Hogarthian company were also told the story — with a difference.
Summarised, the tradition is that Shurland, finding a monk would
not bury a corpse that had been washed ashore, had him buried
also ! King Edward I. or Queen Elizabeth — accounts van-
thus widely — being on board ship off the Nore, Shurland
mounted his horse, swam out to the vessel, got royal pardon
E e 2
420
A PROPHECY FULFILLED
CHAP.
for his crime, and swam back again On landing he met a
mysterious old woman, who said that though the horse had
saved his life then it would yet be the cause of his death.
Shurland, to disprove her prophecy, dismounted, and slew his
steed. Years later, walking on the shore, he kicked the horse's
£-/-/:
lk.*%
y/y/^
The highest point in tin- Isle of Shejipey.
skull, injured one of his toes, and died. In proof of the truth
of tradition a horse's head forms part of the monument.
Near to Minster Church was a nunnery, founded in the seventh
century by Sexburga, of which there are but few remains ; it was
destroyed by the ravaging Danes, and only re-established four
XXI
IRON I'VRITKS
421
or five hundred years later, tliuito flourish until the Dissolution,
when it was given to the Cheyneys of Shurland — a fine old
mansion now a farm house, beautifully situated to the east of
Eastchurch.
Along the foot of the clay cliffs at the north side of Sheppey
as along the similar strip between Whitstable and Reculver —
are found quantities of iron pyrites. This was presumably the
" certaine stone " used by " one Mathins Falconer (a Eraban-
der) " for the making of copperas when Lambarde saw his fur-
nace at Queenborough in 1579.
f
^^Z&z*--*-;'^
. >s ■-■
CHAPTER XXII
KENT NEAR LONDON
London, properly a Middlesex city, has so spread into the
neighbouring counties of Essex, Kent, and Surrey that miles of
their highways have become but parts of the capital. Village
after village has been brought under the great central influence
until it is difficult to say where, despite City limits and County
limits, London ends in any given direction. Daniel Defoe,
early, and Horace Walpole later, in the 18th century, com-
mented on the way in which London was reaching to the outlying
villages, marvelled over its growth, and foretold the absorption
of places many of which were annexed in the 19th century,
and now, at thebeginning of the twentieth, the spread of Suburbia
has reached from fifteen to twenty miles in many directions,
and further spreading is indicated by the cutting up of estates,
the advertising of " eligible building sites," far into what was a
generation or two ago still the heart of the country. This
change means the destruction of much beauty, for the notice-
board of the builder is too often the shadow of coming events
which mean the transmogrifying of country into suburb, of
suburb into town. Such notice boards are common objects of
the wayside south as far as Westerham and east as far as
Gravesend, though happily the big section of our county com-
prised in such a triangle still includes wide stretches of
unspoiled commons, parks, and farmlands. Its whole extent,
too, is so brought into touch with town by trains and trams
that anywhere within it may be explored on a " half-holiday "
excursion.
Though London has absorbed so much of our county we
may well glance at those places which have become part of the
ch xxn TRINITY HOUSE 423
" Great Metropolis " or of its greater Suburbia. Going down
the Thames we reach the division between Surrey and Kent at
Deptford, a place that became one of naval importance in
Henry VIII. 's time, when there was established here ' The
Corporation of the Elder Brethern of the Holy and Undivided
Trinity"— the original of that body, now known as Trinity
House, which regulates and manages lighthouses and buoys
around the shores of England. It was here at Deptford
that Elizabeth honoured Drake on board the Golden Hind
after his circumnavigation of the world, and it was here that
Tsar Peter the Great came to learn the art of ship-building, and
where he grieved John Evelyn by driving wheelbarrows through
the beautiful holly hedges of Sayes Court — but hedges, the
trees which the diarist recorded planting, and the mansion to
which they were attached, have long since gone. Evelyn,
indeed, had given up Sayes Court a few years before his death,
on inheriting the stately domain of Wotton in Surrey. Now
Deptford has little about it to suggest its past, for the naval
establishments have removed otherwhere, the site of Sayes Court
is occupied by a "Workhouse, and the headquarters of the
Trinity House Brethren are on Tower Hill. It is a dingy, busy
river-side district where engineering and other works are carried
on.
It was at Deptford — in the churchyard of St. Nicholas —that
there was buried on June 1st, 1593, that singer of brave trans-
lunary things, Christopher Marlowe, a poet who, had life been
granted him, might, it has been conjectured, have rivalled the
greatness of his contemporary of Stratford-on-Avon. He was,
however, but thirty when a tavern brawl here in Deptford — fol-
lowing on a visit to Drake's Golden Hind — brought his life to
an end. Had Shakespeare died at Marlowe's age Marlowe
would rank as the greater poet.
A little further down the river is Greenwich, a place that,
backed by its fine park and with the noble Hospital on the
river-side, has more to attract the visitor than any other of our
Thames-side places. Here the Danes brought their vessels,
and inland, on the height of Blackheath, formed one of their
camps Here, later, were stately palaces of the nobility and
monarchs ; for the first Edward is believed to have lived here,
and the Good Duke Humphrey — whose bad wife we met at
Leeds Castle —built a magnificent mansion to which he gave
424
OUEEN ELIZABETH
CHAP,
the name of Placentia, formed the park and built in it a high
tower. After many changes and rebuildings Placentia.has be-
come Greenwich Hospital and Naval Museum, the tower has
been replaced by the Observatory, though much of the park re-
mains. In Tudor times Greenwich was a place of great import-
ance ; Henry VIII. was born and was twice married here, and
here his daughters Mary and Elizabeth were born and his son
Edward VI. died.
In the splendid times of Henry VIII. and of his younger
daughter it was the centre of much courtly pageant— at Green-
wich ambassadors were received in pomp and circumstance, and
the Court was wont to enjoy its Christmas festival. The river
was then the great highway and was frequently gay with the
coming and going of the nobles or with stately processions, as
when Henry set out from Greenwich for Westminster with his
second bride, after her long courtship, for the beginning of her
short triumph and her coronation at Westminster. Something
of the state which was kept here may be gathered from Paul
Hentzner's account of the pomp which attended Queen Elizabeth
on her passage from her private apartments to the Chapel. On
his journey down to Greenwich the German lawyer was first
impressed by "The ship of that noble pirate, Sir Francis Drake,
in which he is said to have surrounded this globe of earth."
(There is a lawyer-like safeguarding in the "said to have.")
"We were admitted, by an order Mr. Rogers had procured from
the Lord Chamberlain, into the presence chamber, hung with rich tapestry,
and the floor, after the English fashion, strewed with hay, through which
the Queen commonly passes on her way to chapel. At the door stood a
gentleman dressed in velvet, with a gold chain, whose office was to introduce
to the Queen any person of distinction that came to wait on her ; it was
Sunday, when there is usually the greatest attendance of nobility. In the
same hall were the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, a
great number of Councillors of State, officers of the Crown, and gentlemen,
who waited the Queen's coming out, which she did from her own apartment
when it was time to go to prayers, attended in the following manner :—
First went gentlemen, barons, earls, Knights of the Garter, all richly
dressed and bareheaded ; next came the Chancellor, bearing the seals in a
red silk purse, between two, one of whom carried the Royal sceptre, the
other the sword of state, in a red scabbard, studded with golden jleurs de
lis, the point upwards : next came the Queen, in the sixty-fifth year of her
age, as we were told, very majestic ; her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled :
her eyes small, yet black and pleasant ; her nose a little hooked ; her lips
narrow and her teeth black (a defect the English seem subject to, from
their too great use of sugar) ; she had in her ears two pearls, with very
xxii GREENWICH HOSPITAL 425
rich drops; she wore false hair, and that red ; upon her head she had a
small crown, reported to be made of some of the gold of the celebrated
Lunebourg table ; her bosom was uncovered, as all the English ladies have
it till they marry ; and she had on a necklace of exceeding fine jewels ;
her hands were small, her fingers long, and her stature neither tall nor low ;
her air was stately, her manner of speaking mild and obliging. Thai day
she was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of tin- size oi beans,
and over it a mantle of black silk, shot with silver threads ; her train was \ cry
long, the end of it borne by a marchioness ; instead of a chain she had an
oblong collar of gold and jewels. As she went along in all this state and
magnificence, she spoke very graciously, first to one, then to another,
whether foreign Ministers, or those who attended for different reasons, in
English, French, and Italian ; for, besides being well skilled in
Greek, Latin, and the languages I have mentioned, she is mistress ol
Spanish, Scotch, and Dutch. Whoever speaks to her, it is kneeling ; now
and then she raises some with her hand."
With the growth of docks, the spread of manufactures, the
smoke-gloom which hangs over London and follows far clown
the Thames, the incessant passage of steamboats of all kinds,
from the black fussy little tug to the large ocean-going vessels,
it is not easy to picture the river as it must have appeared in
the olden days before the colour of all things had been deadened
by smoke, when the air was clearer, the barges of the nobles
were gaily decked with colours, and colour still played a
large part in the national costume. With the coming of the
Commonwealth, Greenwich fell from its high estate, and though
the Merry Monarch had the decayed Placentia demolished and
a new palace designed by Inigo Jones, it was never completed.
Then in the time of William and Mary (who was born here),
after the naval battle off La Hogue, the Queen had the happy
idea of converting the palace into a hospital for maimed sailors.
The necessary alterations were begun, but little was done until
after Mary's death, when William completed it as a memorial to
his consort. As Macaulay says :
li A plan was furnished by Wren : and soon an edifice, surpassing that asy-
lum which the magnificent Lewis had provided for his soldiers, rose on the
margin of the Thames. Whoever reads the inscription which runs round the
frieze of the hall will observe that William claims no part of the merit of the
design, and that the praise is ascribed to Mary alone. Had the King's life been
prolonged till the works were completed, a statue of her who was the real
foundress of the institution would have had a conspicuous place in that court,
which presents two lofty domes and two graceful colonnades to the multi-
tudes who are perpetually passing up and down the imperial river. But
that part of the plan was never carried into effect ; and few of those who now
426 THE GLORIES OF GREENWICH chai\
gaze on the noblest of European hospitals are aware that it is a memorial of
the virtues of the good Queen Mary, of the love and sorrow of William, and
of the great victory of La Hogue. "
For over a century and a half the Greenwich Pensioner, "that
strange composition of battered humanity and blue serge, ' was
a familiar object. Then, about forty years ago, it was found that
the pensioners preferred having their pensions and living in their
own homes to being congregated at the Hospital, and the mag-
nificent building was put to appropriate new uses as a Naval
College, Sailors' Hospital, and Naval Museum. Wren's hand-
some Painted Hall should be visited for its fine series of naval
pictures, while the Hospital as a whole — to which Inigo Jones, Sir
Christopher Wren, and Sir John Vanbrugh all contributed —
should be seen from the splendid river terrace, and again from
the slopes of the park which, with its deer, its undulating ground
of nearly two hundred acres ; its splendid trees, is one of the most
beautiful places of the kind near London. According to Horace
Walpole, compared with Greenwich, "even the glories of Rich-
mond and Twickenham hide their diminished heads." I do
not fancy that many people would now say ditto to Mr. Wal-
pole.
The Observatory, where all manner of astronomical, meteoro-
logical, and magnetical observations are continuously being
carried on, erected by Charles II. on a hill in the middle of the
park in place of Good Duke Humphrey's tower, is of world-wide
fame. Through here runs the meridian from which all measure-
ments east and west are made, and from which our time is
calculated. " Greenwich time " stands for unexceptionable
accuracy.
Just south of Greenwich and adjoining the park is Blackheath,
an open space which has been a popular gathering place for
centuries since the northernmen formed their camp upon it.
A great cave suggests that pre-historic man made use of it ;
tumuli long since opened, and the discovery of numerous
Roman relics all round the neighbourhood, show its old import-
ance. In 1381, 1450, 1497, and 1554, when the flag of rebellion
was raised under the successive leadership of Wat Tyler, Jack
Cade, Lord Audley, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, it was on Black-
heath that the insurgents camped before marching on London.
Here, in the first of these rebellions, the " prest of S. Mary,"
xxii JACK CADE ALIAS MORTIMER 427
John Ball, preached his famous incendiary sermon on the
text
" When Adam delved and Eve span,
Who was then the gentleman?"
to the assembled multitude of a hundred thousand followers
whom his words had largely recruited to Wat Tyler's banner.
When Cade was here he had with him "infinite numbers"
according to Shakespeare. hour scenes of the second part of
"Henry VI." are laid on Blackheath, and in the first of them
we get an idea of the unruly multitude — and in the " asides " a
hint of the coming downfall of the leader.
"•Holland. I see them. I see them. There's Best's son, the tanner oi
Wingham —
Bevis. He shall have the skins of our enemies, to make dog's-leather
of.
Ho/I. And Dick the butcher —
Bevis. Then is sin struck down like an ox, and iniquity's throat cut like
a calf.
HoII. And Smith the weaver
Bevis. Argo, their thread of life is spun.
HoII. Come, come, let's fall in with them.
Drum. Enter Cade, Dick Butcher, Smith, the Weaver, and a
Sawyer, with infinite numbers.
Cade. We, John Cade, so termed of our supposed father —
Dick. [Aside] or rather, of stealing a cade of herrings.
Cade. For our enemies shall fall before us, inspired with the spirit oi
putting down kings and princes — Command silence.
Dick. Silence !
Cade. My father was a Mortimer —
Dick. [Aside] He was an honest man, and a good bricklayer.
Cade. My mother a Flantagenet —
Dick. [Aside] I knew her well ; she was a midwife.
Cade. My wife descended of the Lacies.
Dick. [Aside] She was, indeed, a pedler's daughter and sold many laces.
Smith. [Aside] But now of late, not able to travel with her furred pack,
she washes bucks here at home.
Cade. Therefore am I of an honourable house.
Dick. [Aside] Ay, by my faith, the field is honourable ; and there was
he born, under a hedge, for his father had never a house but the cage.
Cade. Valiant I am.
Smith [Aside] A' must needs ; for beggary is valiant.
Cade. I am able to endure much.
Dick. [Aside] No question of that ; for I have seen him whipped three
market-days together.
Cade. I fear neither sword nor fire.
Smith. [Aside] He need not fear the sword ; for his coat is of prool
428 THE GREAT CAMPING GROUND chap.
Dick. [Aside] But methinks he should stand in fear of fire, being burnt i'
the hand for stealing of sheep.
Cade. Be brave, then ; for your captain is brave, and vows reformation.
There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny ; the
three- hooped pot shall have ten hoops ; and I will make it felony to drink
small beer ; all the realm shall be in common ; and in Cheapside shall
my palfry go to grass ; and when I am King, as King I will be—"
This was in June ; in July the King-to-be was wounded and
captured by Alexander Iden, and died in a cart on the way to
London.
Audley's brief rebellion, which is less well known than the
others, and was occasioned by heavy taxation, had started in
Cornwall. On June 17, 1497, the day after they reached
Blackheath, the rebels were defeated and before the end of the
month their leader, "clothed in a paper coat," was beheaded
on Tower Hill. Bishop Latimer, in preaching before Edward
VI. half a century later, gave a pleasant scrap of autobiography.
" My father was a yeoman, and had no lands of his own,
only he had a farm of three or four pound by year at the
uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept half a dozen
men. He had walk for a hundred sheep ; and my mother
milked thirty kine. He was able, and did find the King a
harness, with himself and his horse, while he came to the
place that he should receive the King's wages. I can
remember that I buckled his harness when he went unto
Blackheath Field."
But Blackheath has seen the pageantry of peace as well as
the panoply of war, having been the great meeting place to
which the King or his nobles journeyed for the welcoming
distinguished visitors, the place to which official London went
to meet the monarch returning from victorious war.
The neighbourhood of the heath boasted many notable
mansions in the 17 th and 18th centuries — here the dramatist-
architect Sir John Vanbrugh, the polite Lord Chesterfield,
the brave General Wolfe, and the unhappy Queen Caroline
successively dwelt. Vanbrugh " Castle " and Vanbrugh House,
still standing, were built by that dramatist-turned-architect,
for whom a fellow wit proposed the epitaph : —
" Under this stone, reader survey
Dead Sir John Vanbrugh's house of clay : —
Lie heavy on him, earth, for he
Laid many heavy loads on thee."
xxn CHARLTON HORN FAIR 429
AtVanbrugh House, Thomas Hood stayed for a short time
during the last few months of life, and to Blackheath Felix
Wanostrocht — the Nicholas Felix of the cricket field — removed
the school which he had at Camberwell — the school which
Hood as a boy had attended and of which he sang in his
" Ode on a distant Prospect of Clapham Acadenn. black-
heath, Lee, Lewisham— these contiguous places have Income
part of the great suburban London. Lewisham was the birth-
place of an eminent divine, Brian Duppa, and the burial place
of the unhappy young Irish poet Thomas Dermody, who
boasted, " I am vicious because I like it."
Woolwich, the next great centre beyond Greenwich along
the Thames, which between them takes a northerly bend by
Blackwall and Bugsby's Reaches, is not a place to detain long
anyone who is not interested in military and naval matters j
such can gain permission to inspect the Arsenal and other
"sights." Kent, which for centuries claimed the privilege of
leading the van in battle, may well be proud oi having within
its confines such establishments as Woolwich, Sheerness, and
Chatham— all concerned in the consolidation of national de-
fence. At Woolwich was born that sweetest of Cavalier singers
Richard Lovelace.
Charlton, near Woolwich, was long— until about forty years
ago — the scene of a more or less unruly ''Horn Fair" every
October on St. Luke's clay. According to tradition the Fair
originated in the time of King John owing to that monarch
having an amour with a millers wife in the neighbourhood. The
gathering place was Cuckold's Point, near Deptford, from which
the mob, bearing and wearing all kinds of horns, marched in
procession through Deptford and Greenwich to Charlton ; the
men at one time attending in women's clothes — which suggests
that King John may have forestalled the disguise of Sir John
Falstaff.
In 1642 there was seen " the strange appearance of a Man-
Fish abouithree miles within the River Thames, having a musket
in one hand and a petition in the other." The story of the
apparition seems to have been a hit at the readiness of the Men
of Kent to " petition," and the promptness with which they were
prepared to back their appeals with force. It seems also to
have suggested to some ingenious person of Woolwich a
" fake " for the wonderment of Londoners, for shortly after-
4^o ALONG THE CRAY cMap.
wards a pamphlet was published giving " a Relation of a terrible
Monster, taken by a Fisherman near Wollage, July 15, 1642,
and is now to be seen in King Street, Westminster, the shape
whereof is like a Toad and may be called a Toad-fish ; but
that which makes it a Monster is that it hath hands with
fingers like a man, and is chested like a man, being neere five
foot long and three feet over, the thickness of an ordinary
man."
Beyond Woolwich, by the open Bostall Common and wood-
land overlooking the marshes of Plumstead and Erith, largely
reclaimed in Elizabeth's time, we come to Erith, passing on the
way Abbey Wood, which takes its name from Lessness Abbey,
an establishment of which there are a few remains. Erith,
a place of many manufactures and of old maritime importance,
has yet a certain rural attractiveness in many of its surroundings ;
south of it, by market gardens and orchards, we come to Cray-
ford, situated on the little River Cray not far from its junction
with the Darent. Here Hengist overthrew the Britons so
that, as the " English Chronicle " has it, they " forsook Kent-
land and fled with much fear to London." London is now
extending with its suburban villa-building so far in this direc-
tion that it is interesting to learn that the River Cray was in
the middle ages the bound of the citizen's right of chase.
Near Crayford are several of those pits in the chalk, over the
ancient use of which archaeologists have puzzled.
At this town the Watling Street crossed the Cray, and following
it Londonwards we come to Bexley Heath and Welling. The
old village of Bexley, on the Cray, a little south of its residential
"expatiation," is still a pleasant-looking place, with park-like
surroundings backed by Dartford Heath and the extensive
Joyden Woods, which we approach yet nearer at North Cray.
At Blendon Hall lived for a time William Camden, to
whom directly or indirectly all students of archaeology and
topography owe much. At Bexley an ingenious student of
moths and butterflies has started a " farm " for the breeding of
those insects, an enterprise likely to be successful in days when
" collectors " of such find it simpler to buy than to capture
their " specimens." Crossing the Cray at Bexley a very
pleasant journey may be made by the road which, with the
stream mostly on our right, takes us to the Crays and Orping-
ton, through country rich in fruit and hop gardens and still
XXII
THE CRAYS
43i
well diversified with trees. At North Cray " carotid-artery-
cutting Castlereagh " committed suicide. North, Foot's, St.
Paul's, and St. Mary's Crays are all ancient places, mostly with
The Parish Church, Bromley.
unlovely modern additions, with old churches possessing not-
able features, that at St. Paul's being the most interesting
building, that at St. Mary's rich in monumental brasses.
432 HOLWOOD PARK chap.
Orpington — where the Cray starts on its eight-mile flow to the
Darent — is an old village the centre of an extensive fruit and
hop-growing district which spreads far into the surrounding
parishes. Few travellers by railway passing through Orpington
Station can fail to be struck by the wide hillside fields of straw-
berries, as further on by the tracts of black currants — gayzels
as they are sometimes termed in this county — and other bush
fruit. The wonderful neatness with which a many acred field of
strawberries is kept would have gladdened the heart of that
good Bishop who, as reported by Izaak Walton, declared of the
strawberry that " doubtless God could have made a better berry,
but doubtless God never did."
In the southern part of this district of Kent near London, to
which following the course of the Cray has brought us, there are
still beautiful commons, handsome parks and wide woodlands,
though some of the commons are getting built around and
sophisticated. Farnborough, Keston and Hayes, however, re-
main as rural as any district within fourteen miles of London.
Farnborough has nothing particular to claim our attention, but
a pleasant road or pleasanter footpath across the fields by
quaintly named Farthing Street takes us to Downe, where the
great investigator Charles Darwin lived for many years and
carried on those studies which revolutionised natural history.
It is, perhaps, appropriate that the home of the man who taught
us so much should now be converted into a school. In the field
opposite his house Darwin is said to have pursued those observa-
tions which resulted in his important work on the earthworm.
West of Farnborough, on high ground, is the fine extent of
Holwood Park, from the footpath crossing which from Keston
to Downe are to be had some grand views through the trees ;
while from the higher ground of " Caesar's Camp " a more ex-
tensive landscape may be seen. Here is believed to have been
an ancient British town, and here, as villa and other remains
have testified, the Romans had an important station. Outside
the park on the north is the small but lovely Keston Common,
one of the most attractive "playgrounds" within easy reach of
London ; on the common is a spring traditionally known
as Caesar's Well, the water from which supplies a series of
three beautiful, tree-shaded lakes, and from the last of them
emerges the little Ravensbourne that, passing through Bromley
and Lewisham, reaches the Thames at Deptford.
xxn SUBURBAN COMMONS 433
Holwood Park was long the residence of "the heaven sent
minister " William Pitt, and to his ownership attaches a story
similar to that of Dickens and Gadshill, for, born in the neigh-
bourhood, it is recorded that Pitt as a child " longed to call
the wood of Holwood his own ; " a desire he was able to gratify
shortly after becoming Prime Minister. It was here that he
concerted with William Wilberforce the campaign againsl
slavery. On the footpath through the park already referred to
is a stone seat, placed there nearly half a century ago to com-
memorate a history making conversation. It is inscribed with
a passage from one of Wilberforce's letters : " I well remember,
after a conversation with Mr. Pitt, in the open air, on the root
of an old tree at Holwood, just above the steep descent into the
Vale of Keston, I resolved to give notice, on a fit occasion, to
bring forth the abolition of the slave trade." Leaving the park
by a series of steps surmounting the park paling, the road to the
right will take us pleasantly by Keston Mark and Bromley Com-
mon—which is no common — to Bromley, but a more attrac-
tive way is over the corner of Keston to the old windmill
and pretty little Keston village, happily placed between two
wooded commons, for coming through it we are on the
broad, gorse-grown tract of Hayes. On the Keston edge
of this common is the little church where Dinah Maria
Craik, author of that ever popular story "John Halifax,
Oentleman,'' is buried.
Hayes Common in spring time, with its wide prospeet, ith
gorse and hawthorn, its fine trees at the northern end, is one
of the most beautiful bits of country easily accessible from
London. Hayes village, a quiet little place north of the
common, is chiefly memorable in that it was here that the great
Lord Chatham lived for many years. It was to Hayes Place,
which he had built, that he was removed after his collapse
in the House of Commons, and there a month later he
died. At Hayes, in 1759, the second William Pitt, a man
who made history, was born, and at neighbouring Pickhurst,
exactly a century later, died Henry Hallam, a man who
wrote history. Near Hayes is West Wickham — close on
the Surrey border— with, a mile from the village, Wickham
Court, a handsome Tudor manor house traditionally associated
with Henry VHP's courtship of Anne Boleyn, for here it is
said that the lady stayed during some part the time that the
F F
434 A THOUGHTFUL HUSBAND chap
King was planning to clear her way to the throne ; Anne
Boleyn's Walk is still pointed out in the grounds.
Just north of West Wickham Station is Langley Park, long
the residence of the Style family. Here in the 16th century
lived Sir Humphrey Style, cupbearer to Charles L, and his
half-brother, William Style, a distinguished writer on law. A
long letter from Sir Humphrey to his wife (February, 1632)
gives interesting particulars of the preparations necessary for
attending the Assizes in state in the olden time. There is
much instruction as to the horses to be utilised, " well dressed,
fed, and trimmed," and how they are to be taken " softely " to
Dartford to meet Sir Humphrey. The latter half of the letter
maybe given as illustrating the thought which had to be taken
when a Kentish gentleman desired to make a brave appearance
in Stuart days :
" On Saturdaye morninge, before you goe out of towne, send Snelgar to
Sir John Spralie, to fetch the horse hee hath lent me, and let him be wel
looked to at my stable in London, till I coom thither on Mundaye ; then I
will dispose of him, and would have Mr. Brookes to fit the boyes shute to
him, and if there be ever an ould laced band of mine past my wearing, let
the boye have it. If the Croidon shoemaker hath not brought my boots
and the boy's, let him be sent for with all speede. I woold have the
Cochman, if thou canst spare him, to goe to Langlie for a daye or two, and
let him take oile with him to oile the great Coche, and let him bee sure it
bee well mended and [clea]ne, for I wolde have that Coche brought to mee
on Shrove Sundaie to London, to be theare in readinese. I would have
thee send for Sir Cornelius Fairemedu, to desier him not to faile to be
ready according to his promis, on Tewesdaye morning, to goe along with
mee ; allso that he speak to Sir John Ashfield and Mr. Braye, and anyone
gallant man like himselfe, that maye make the better showe. Let Mr.
Brooke be spoken to [that] my satten shut bee in readines, and, if I have
never a silver hatband, that he bespeake mee a curius neate one. I wold
have brought from Langley the felt hat laced with satten, and my damask
night bagg and cloth.
"This is all, Sweete hearte, I can remember for this time. I pray thee
bee merry, and make mutch of thy self, and take the coch and go brode
this fayre wether ; it will do thee good. So, with my best love to thee,
and my kind remembrance to my sister and all our friends, in great haste by
reason of the spedie departure of the bearer, who hath promised me safely
to deliver this letter, I rest
Thy trewly loveing husband."
North of Langley Park are Beckenham and Bromley, and
even in Cobbett's time it could be said, "when. you get to
Beckenham, which is the last parish in Kent, the country be-
gins to assume a cockney-like appearance." A brass to Lady
XXII
BECKENHAM AND BROMLEY
435
Style's " trewly loveing husband " may be seen in Beckenham
Church. Beckenham is a large, residential, suburban town,
and Bromley — which in recent years has been granted the
dignity of a municipal borough — has become the same. Here
was longa palace of the Bishops of Rochester — built by Gun-
13 IS ■:
:
mm
mr\
jA ( U-***-tv*% -
Beckeuluiiit.
dulf — and in the parish church we arc reminded of Dr. John-
son, for his wife is buried here, with a Latin inscription which
he wrote, and here also lies his friend Dr. John Hawkesworth.
In the neighbourhood of Bromley are still pleasant walks by
Sundridge and Bickley Parks, and still some fairly rustic lanes
F F 2
436
THE LAST NAPOLEON
CHAF.
but great are the changes within the past quarter of a century.
Just beyond Bickiey is Chislehurst, with its beautiful common,
its wooded hills dotted with villa residences.
On the west side of Chislehurst common is Camden Place —
named after the Elizabethan antiquary who died here in 1623.
More recent memories attaching to the mansion are those
of the exiled Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugenie. Here
Napoleon died in 1873, and here half a dozen years later was
/
ifcf/wu.
/>'( 1 keiihaiu.
brought the body of his gallant young son the Prince Imperial,
killed in Zululand. The procession along the beauteous
common was a sight the impressiveness of which is little
likely to be forgotten by anyone present when the last hope of
the French Imperialists, killed in a foreign war, was brought
to be laid by his father, near the home of their exile. The
bodies of the Emperor and Prince have both been removed
from the Roman Catholic chapel where they rested to the
xxn AN OLD TIME PALACE 437
Mausoleum prepared for them by the Empress Eugenie at
Farnborough in Hampshire.
In Camden Park and other places about Chislehurst are-
many of those pits excavated by prehistoric man, such as are
to be seen on Dart ford Heath and elsewhere, and facilities
have been made — even to the lighting of them with electricity
— for their investigation. The spired church of Chisle-
hurst, picturesquely situated at the south-east corner of the
common, has a number of interesting old monuments — notably
of the Walsingham, Warwick, and Townsend families. From
Chislehurst we may easily reach the Crays and Sidcup, or
turning northwards may go by Mottingham to Eltham. At
Mottingham the curious in such phenomena may like to know
that, on August 4, 1585, "in a field which belongeth to Sir
Percival Hart, betimes in the morning the ground began to
sink, so much that three great elm trees were suddenly
swallowed into the pit, the tops falling downward into the
hole ; and before ten o'clock they were so overwhelmed that
no part of them might be discerned, the concave being
suddenly filled with water. The compass of the hole was
about 80 yards, and so profound that a sounding line of fifty
fathoms could hardly find or feel any bottom."
At Eltham we reach a place of old time splendour, for here
several of our Kings had a grand palace, in which they
frequently resided until Henry VIII. migrated to Greenwich
and Eltham fell into desuetude. The old banqueting hall
with its grand oak roof — which George III. wished to transfer
to Windsor— is all that remains of the palace long a favourite
residence of Plantagenet and Tudor Kings, where Parliaments
were held and foreign visitors received, where, as the records
tell, the Court often passed the festive season of Christmas,
and where Wolsey drew up the Statutes of Eltham for the
practical guidance of those responsible for the good order of
the Royal Household.
In the time of the Commonwealth Eltham Palace was the
residence of the Earl of Essex, the Parliamentarian General
who died therein 1646 ; later it was bestowed by Charles II. on
one Sir John Shaw who had lent him much money when in exile.
Shaw seems to have been well rewarded for his timely assistance,
for after the Restoration he was described as "a miracle of
a man," holding more places than any other man in England.
438 THE TULIP TRAFFIC ch. xxn
The old palace is Eltham's chief attraction, but its church is
also worth visiting. In it is buried Thomas Doggett, the come-
dian who died in 1722, having established five years earlier the
Thames Watermen's race for " Doggett's coat and badge." He
was one of the most popular actors of his day, and was described
by a contemporary thus, in Elian fashion, " on the stage he's
very aspectabund, wearing a farce on his face, his thoughts
deliberately forming his utterance congruous to his looks. He is
the only comic original now extant." Here, too, is buried Bishop
George Home, whose " Commentary on the Book of Psalms "
was much read a century ago.
A letter which a Mrs. Amy Owen of Eltham sent to her
friend John Evelyn ("Mon Amy — that is My Friend," as he
punningly addressed her) is interesting for the glimpse it affords
us of the old tulip craze.
" Honoured Sir,
' I am heartily sorry that I forced you to buy tulips for your fine
garden. I must confess your guineas look more glorious than now these
tulips do ; but, when they come to blow, I hope you will be better pleased
than now you are. I have sent you some of my ordinary sort, and, sir, when
mine are blown, if you please to come and see them, Mr. Evelyn shall buy
no more, but have what he pleases for nothing. I am so well pleased with
those that I have, that I shall neither buy more, nor part with any, unless
it be to yourself.
I cannot, sir, send my husband's service to you, because I do not
acquaint him with my trading for tulips."
We may see beautiful gardens all through our county, but the
traffic in tulips — "a traffic which is so innocent, so laudable,
and so frequent even among very great persons " — has long
since ceased to be a fashionable hobby.
Though midway between such great suburban centres as
Bromley and Woolwich, Eltham offers pleasant rurality in
some of the country walks around, and especially in the
direction of Bexley and North Cray. To the north of it rises
Shooters Hill, and a couple of miles to the west of it is Eee,
and here, within the bounds of the county of Eondon, we may
bring to an end our wanderings in the highways and byways of
Kent. It has been pointed out how, standing anywhere in one
of our hopfields, the avenues of poled bines always radiate from
us, and so it may be said that in this rich county, start where
we may, we are in a centre from which beautiful or interesting
places are within reach of us in every direction.
INDEX
a Becket, St. Thomas, 23, 26, 131, 186,
i95» 356, 392
Abbey Wood, 430
Abbot's Cliff, 157
Acol, 102
Acrise, 180
Adams, William, 400
Addington, 367, 369
Adisham, 74
Agelric, 267
Aldington, 204, 206, 237
Alkham, 161, 180
Allday, the Rev. Mr., 56
Allington Castle, 289 et seq.
Amherst, Sir Jeffrey, 348
Andredsvveald, 208
Anne of Cleves, Queen, 339, 374
Appledore, 208
" Arden of Feversham," 41 1
Argyll, Duke of, 346
Armada, the Spanish, 152, 215
Arthur, King, at Dover, 151
Arundel, Archbishop, 239
a Saravia, Hadrian, 82, 238
Ash, 125, 130
Ash Level, 124
Ashenbank Wood, 387
Ashford, 220 et seq.
Ashurst, 317
Astley, John, 262, 292
Astor, Mr. W. W., 336
Audley, Lord, 428
Austen, Jane, 74, 228, 299
Austin, Mr. Alfred, 238
Aylesford, 285 et seq.
Badlesmere, 226
Badlesmere, Lord, 30, 226
Baker's Cross, 250
Baker, Sir John, 249
Baker, Sir Richard, 250
Ball, John, 427
Bapchild, 409
Barfreston, 84, 15S
Barham, 80, 226
Barham Court, 283
Barham Downs, 75, 78, 178
Barham, Richard Harris, 32, 36, 38, 44, 48,
75, 104, 419
Barton, Elizabeth, the Holy Maid of Kent,
55, 204
Bathing Machines, 109
Bayford Castle, 408
Bayham Abbey, 325
Beachborough Park, 178
Beaconsfield, Lord, 352
Beakesbourne, 85
Beale, Benjamin, 109
Bearsted, 297
Beckenham, 434
Bedgebury Cross, 253
Bedgebury Wood, 252
Behn, Aphra, 230
Bellenden, Mary, 347
Belmont Park, 416
Benenden, 217, 252
Benhani, Canon, 51, 324
Bennett, Mr F. J., 288, 359
Beresford, Viscount, 253
Bertha, Queen, 45, 118
Betsham, 377
Betteshanger, 131
Beult, the, 248
Bewl, the, 254
Bexley, 430
Bidborough, 318
Biddenden, 217
" Biddenden Maids," the, 217 et seq.
Bickley Park, 435
Bicknor, 298
Bifrons, 83
Bilsington, 193, 207
Birchington, 106, 108
44Q
INDEX
Birrell, Mr. Augustine, 267
Bishopsbourne, 80
Burham, 462
Blackheath, 423, 426 et seq.
Blackmanstone, 189
Black Prince, the, 23, 35, 328
Black Prince's Well, 89
Blake, Admiral, 114
Blean, 19, 90
Blean Woods, 90, 92
" Bobbe-up-and-down," 28
Bobbing, 406
Bockingfold, 280
Boleyn, Anne, 291, 337 et seq., 433
Boleyn, Sir Geoffrey, 337
Boleyn, Sir Thomas, 337
Bonnington, 207
Borden, 407
Borough Green, 366
Borsholder, the Dumb, 281
Borstal, 402
Bostall Common, 430
Bough Beech, 336
Boughton Aluph, 227
Boughton Green, 305
Boughton Hill, 417
Boughton Malherbe, 300 et seq.
Boughton Street, 90
Boulogne Gates, 85
Bourne Park, 82
Boxley Abbey, 292 et seq.
Boyle, Lord, quoted, 311
Brabourne, 232
Brabourne, Lord, 228, 237
Brasted, 341, 345
Bredgar, 407
Bredhurst, 401
Breeches Pond, 219
Brenchley, 324
Brenzett, 192
Bridge, 82
" Broad Arrow," origin of Government
mark, 335
Broad Oak, 18
Broadstairs, 114
Broad Street. 295
Brockman, Sir William, 178
Bromley, 434
Brompton, 399
Brookland, 192
Broome Park, 78
Broomfield, 306
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, quoted, 332
Brydges, Sir Egerton, 75
Buckingham, Luke of, 55
Buckland, Frank, 169
Burnand, Sir Francis, 158
Butter Market, Canterbury, 50
Byron, 33, 153
C
Cade, Jack, 222, 238, 349, 362, 366, 427
Csesar, 9, 78, 83, 138, 148
Caesar's Camp at Folkestone, 163, 180 ; at
Keston, 432
Camden Place, 436
Camden, William, 71, 133, 333
Canterbury, the city of, 41 et seq.
Canterbury Castle, 48
Canterbury Cathedral, 18 et seq.
Capel, 325
Capel le Feme, 1S0
Carlyle, Thomas, quoted, 279
Caroline, Queen, 428
Carter, Elizabeth, 137, 3T3
Carter, G. R., 124
Casaubon, Meric, 73, 119
Castle Hill, 280
Castle Rough, 408
Caudle, Mrs., at Margate, in
Caxton, William, 101, 305
Cement, 378, 402
Chalk, 384
Challock Church, 226
Challock Wood, 227
Channel Tunnel, 156
Charing, 239
Charing Hill, 240, 241
Charles I., 55, 79, 387
Charles II., 112, 209, 399
Charlton, 429
Charnock, Thomas, 122
Chart, 281
Chart, The, 341
Chartham, 87
Chartham Hatch, 88
Chartsedge, 341
Chart Sutton, 303
Chase, Rev. Richard, 379
Chatham, 390, 359
Chatham, Lord, 433
Chaucer, 27 et seq.
Chelsfield, 372
Cheriton, 180
Cherries, 2, 14, 267 et seq., 404
Cherry Garden Valley, 164
Chesterfield, Lord, 428
Chestnut Street, 407
Chevening, 344
Chicbele, Abbot, tomb, 33
Chiddingstone, 336
Chilham, 87
Chilham Park, 86
Chillenden, 130
Chijlington Manor House (Maidstone
Museum), 262
Chilstone Park, 300
Chipstead, 348
("hislehurst, 436
Chislet, 100
" Chronicles of Clovernook," quoted, 248
Churchill, Charles, 153
" Clabber-Napper's Hole," 377
Clampard, Thomas, 280
ClifTe, 403
Cloth-making, .'47, 252, 256
Cobbett, William, 137, 271, 242, 256, |il
Cobham, 385
INDEX
44!
Cobtree Hal), 289
( lockadamshaw, 368
Coldharbour, 318
1 old red, 15b
• 1 ildrum, 367
( Jolepeper, William, 297
( ;oli imb, < 1 1I1 'in I. quoti d, 57
( '. imbe I lank, 346
( looling, .|i>->
Cooper, Thomas Sidney, 50, 88, 90
( lopi I till, •< ■
Cosway, Sir William, 207
( lottington, Sir Francis, 55
( !oursehorne, 247
Court-at-Street, 203
Courtenay, Archbishop, 262
Courteney, Sir William : see Tom
Cowden, 317
Cowper, Earl, 72
Cox, Dr. J. Charles, on Canterbury, 48
Cox Heath, . 1
Craik, Dinah Maria, 433
Cranbrook, 245
Cranmer, Archbishop, 100, 205
Cray, the, 430
Craytbrd, 430
Crays, the, 431
Cricket, 61 etseg., 376, 417
Crispe, Henry, 106
Crispe, Sir Nicholas, 107
Crockham Hill, 340
Crockhurst Street, 325
Crundale, 86
Cudham, 343
Culmer, Richard, 35, 119
Cumberland, Richard, 316
Curzon, Lord, 139
Cuxton, 402
D
1 labrieschescourt, Sir Eustace, 73
1 lamer, Hon. .Mrs. Anne Seymour, 346
Dane-John, Canterbury, 47, 49
Danes destroy Minster, 120
Darent, the, 8, 341, 343, 345, 371
Darenth, 373
Dark Entry, legend of the, 39
1 (artford, 373 ft seq.
Dartford Brent, 377
Dartford Heath, 376
Dartford Warbler, the, 376
Darwin, Charles, 432
" I >avid Copperfield," 50
Davington, 415, 417
Deal, 131 et seq.
De Burgh, Hubert, 151
Defoe, Daniel, 138, 224, 266, 310, 380
De Montfort, Simon, 78
Denge Marsh, 181
1 lenge W01 uls, 86
1 lenne Hill, 75
I >ent-de-Lion, 108
1 >enton, 75, 180
Dcptford, 423
Dering, Sir Edward, 323
De Ruyter, 1 14
Desmond, 307
Detling, 295
De Witt, T14
Dickens, Charles, 50, 114, 148, 289, 3">4
384 et seq,
" Discovery of Witchcraft," 234 ct seq.
Ditton, 285
Dobell, Sydney, 248
Doggett, Thomas, 438
I lomneva, i"S
1 torset, I 'tils'- 'if, 63
Dover, [45 et
I >"■.' . Road, the, ;S, 80
1 lowne, 4 ;->
I ii.uiia. \ tllage, ' 1
Drayton, Mi' hael, 1, 243
1 lucking-stool, 68
Duncombe, J., quoted, 63
Dungeness 181
Dunkirk, 89
Dymchurch, 175, 195
Dymchurch Wall, 187
E
Eadbald, 168, 177
Eastchurch, 419
East Farleigh, 27S
East Mailing, 285
East Peckham, 322
Eastry, 105, 130
East Sutton, 303
Eastwear Bay, 166
Eastwell, 224
East well Park, 224
Ebbsfleet, 117
Ebony, 210
Eden, the, 336
Edenbridge, 340
Edinburgh, I >uke of, 225
Egbert, 104, 131
Egerton, 240
Egerton, verses by Mr., 5S
Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, 307
Elham, 178
Elham Valley, 78, 80, 165, 178
Elizabeth, Queen, 150, 201, 247, 253, 382,
423. 424
Eltham, 437
Epitaphs, 255, 263, 281, 304, 350, 351
Erasmus, 206
Eridge Park, 316
Erith, 430
Ernulf, Bishop, 394
Etchinghill, 178
Ethelbert, 45, 96, 118, 131, 168
Ethelburga, 177
Evelyn, John, 190, 233, 269, 271, 307, 423,
438
Ewell, 161
Eynsford, 372
Eythorne, 158
442
INDEX
Fairfax, Lord, at Maidstone, 266, 279
Fairfield, 195
Farnborough, 432
Farningham, 372
Farthing Street, 432
F'aversham, 410 et seq.
Fawke Common, 355
Filmer, Sir Robert, 303
Five Oak Green, 325
Fletcher, Phineas, 248
F"lood Street, 237
Fogge, Sir John, 220
Folkestone, 157, 163 et seq.
" Folkestone Beef," 168
Ford, 100
Fordcombe, 317
" F'ordidge trout," 71
Fordwich, 67
Fotherby, Dean, tomb, 33
F'our Wents, 258
Fox, Charles James, 109
Foxen Down, 384
Franklin, Sir John, 378
FVedville Park, 75
French Street, 341
F'rinsted, 298
Frith, John, 343
Frith Wood, 252
F'uller, Thomas, 5, 71, 190, 212, 247, 297,
4°S
Gadshill, 387 et seq.
Games, 17
( larlinge Green, 86
Ghosts, 322, 339, 415
Gillingham, 400
Gleig, G. R., 226
Godard's Castle, 296
Godden Green, 355
Godinton Park, 238
Godmersham, 228
Godmersham Park, 86
Godwin, Earl, 143
Golden Green, 323
Golden Hind, the, 423
Golding, Captain, 108
Golf, 127
Goodnestone (near Barham Downs), 74
Goodnestone (near Faversham), 417
Goodwin Sands, 114, 138, 142, 212
Gosse, Mr. Edmund, quoted, 230
Gosson, Stephen, 50
Gostling, Rev. William, 209, 397
Goudhurst, 254, 256
Grafty Green, 300
Graham, Sir Richard, 55
Grain, Isle of, 403
Graveney, 417
Graveney Marshes, 91
Gravesend, 382
Gray, Stephen, 240
Gray, Thomas, 76, 109, 113
Great Chart, 238
Green, J. R., 117, 137
Greenhithe, 378
Greenwich, 423 et seq.
Gregory and the " Angles,"
Grocyn, William, 262
Groombridge, 317
Grove Ferry, 71
Guestling, the, 127
Gundulf, Bishop, 285, 394
Gunpowder Plot, 363
Guston, 157
H
Hackington, 19
Hale Street, 323
Hales, Judge, 88
Hailing, 402
Ham Street, 207
Hamilton, Andrew, quoted, 309
Hammer Stream, 248
Harbledown, 20, 28, 89
Hardinge, Lord, 317
Harmer, Alderman, 378
Harrietsham, 298
Harris, Dr. John, 416
Harris, Lord, 416
Harris, Richard, 269, 404
Harrison, Mr. Benjamin, 360
Hartley, 251
Hartlip, 407
Harty Ferry, 412, 417
Harvey, William, 166, 168
Hasted, 219
Hasting, 209, 408
Hastingleigh, 232
Havelock, Sir Henry, 378
Hawkesworth, Dr, John, 435
Hawkinge, 180, 245, 251
Hayes, 433
Hayes, Sir James, 253
Hazlitt, William, 267
Hemsted Park, 217
Headcorn, 303
Hengistand Horsa, 9, 116, 217, 157, 286, 400
Henrieita Maria, Queen, 79, 310
Henry II., penance of, 35
Henry VIII., 85, 170, 337 et seq.
Hentzner, Paul, 93, 149, 161, 424
Heme, 99
Heme Bay, 93, 95
Hernehill, 91
Herschel, Sir John F. W., 252
Hever Castle, 336 et seq.
Higham, 402
Hililenborough, 321
Hillborough, 98
Hinxhill, 233
" Hodening," 116
Hogarth, William, 397, 419
Hollingbourne, 295. 298
Holwood Park, 432
INDEX
443
Honey wood, Mary, 298
Hood, Thomas, 429
Hooker, Richard, 81
Hoole, John, 215
Hope Point, 141, 145
Hopkin-., Matthew, 205
Hops, 2, t3, 237, 260, 267, 270 et seq.
Home, Bishop George, 438
Horsmonden, 254
Horsted, 287
Horton, 88
Horton Khby, 373
Horton Park. 176, 203
Hospital at Harbledown, 89
Hothfield Heath, 238
Hothtield Place, 238
Howell, James, 79
Howfield Wood, 88
Hacking, 298
Hueffer, Mr. F. M.. quoted, 197, 205
Humphrey of Gloucester, Duke, 150, 423
Huntingdon, S.S., William, 258
Hunton, 280
Hurst, 207
Hutchinson, Colonel John and Lucy, 136
Hythe, 172, 199
1
Ickham, 73
Ide Hill, 322, 348
Iden, 210
Iden, Alexander, 222, 238
Iden Green, 258
[ghtham, 358 et seq.
Ightham Mote, 363
" [ngoldsby Legends " : see Barham, R. H.
Ingress Abbey, 378
Iron smelting, 254
Isley family, 345, 362
I wade, 406
J
Jacob, Edward, 412
James I.. 236
James II., 399
Jerrold, Douglas, 97, 248
Joan, C^ueen, 307
Joan, "the Fair Maid of Kent," 35
John, King, 78, 161, 180
John, King, and the Abbot of Canterbury,
Johnson, Rev. John, 247
Johnson, Samuel, T37, 231, 435
Jonson, Ben, 326 et seq.
foyden Wood, 377, 430
Judds Hill, 415
Julliberrie Grave, 87
Keble, John, 81
Kempe, Archbishop, 230
Kemsing, 358, 372
Kenardington, 207
Kennington, 224
Kent Brook, 340
Kent Ditch, 209, 216, 251
Kent Hatch, 341
" Kentish fire," 267
Kent Street, 284
Kent Water, the, 317
Keston, 432
Keycol Hill, 407
Key Street, 407
Kilndown, 253
Kilndown Woods, 254
Kingsdown (near \V aimer), 141
Kingsdown (near Wrotham), 367
Kiii2;sgate, 112
Kingstone, 80
King's Wood, 227
Kipling, Mr. Rudyard, 189, 195, 242
Kippings Cross, 325
Kits Coty House, 287 et seq.
Knight, Edward Austen, 74
Knockholt, 344
Knole Park, 351
Knowlton Park, 130
Lamb, Charles, no, 216
Lambarde, William, 3, n, 156, 183, 188,
203, 349, 358, 392
Lambe, William, 304
Lamberhurst, 245, 254
Lanfranc, Archbishop, 267
Langdon, Fast and West, 157
Langley, 305
Langley Park, 434
Langton, Archbishop, 26 ; tomb, 33
" Lantern of Kent, the," 379
Lardner, Nathaniel, 251
Large, Captain, in
Latimer, Bishop, 212, 428
Leaveland, 226
Lee, 438
Leeds, 305
Leeds Abbey, 305
Leeds Castle, 305 et seq.
Lees Court, 416
Leigh, 335
Leland, 95
Len. the, 300, 30J
Lenham, 240, 298
Lessness Abbey, 430
Lewis, Hardwicke, 109
Leybourne, 285
Leybourne, Juliana de, 285
Leyburn, Sir Roger de, 285
Lidsing, 401
Lifeboat, the first, 174
Linton. 31 4
"Little America," 157
Littiebourne, 72
Little Chart, 240
Liulestone-on-Sea, 192
London Bridge, stones from, 378
444
INDEX
Loose, 305
Longbeech Wood, 241
Longfellow, H. W. , quoted, 140
Louis VII. of France at Canterbury, 26
Lovelace, Richard, 50, 429
Lower Halston, 406
Lower Hardres, 85
Luddenham, 417
Luddesdown, 384
Lukin, Lionel, 173
Lullingstone, 372
I ydd, 181, 185
Lydden, 161
" Lyddite," 1S5
Lydgate, John, 269
Lyminge, 177
Lympne, 172, 193, iggetseq.
Lyttelton, Lord. 313
M
Macaulay, Catherine, 230
Maidstone, 260 et set/.
Malmain's Farm, 15s
" Man of Kent," 16
Mann. Sir Horace, 305
Mann, Sir Horatio, 63
Manston, 116
Margate, 108 et seq.
Markbeech, 317
Marlowe, Christopher, 50, 423
Martello towers, 140, 170
Martin Mill, 146
Mary, Queen, 425
Master, William, the tragedy of, 233
Matfield Green, 325
Medway, 6, 278, 317
Megaliths, 367 et seq.-, see Kit's Coty House
Megrim's Hill, 217
Meopham, 384
Meredith, Mr. George, quoted, 85, 183,
268, 310
Mereworth, 283
Mereworth Woods, 322
Mersham, 207
Middleton, Lady, 283
Milgate Park, 308
Military Canal, the, 193, 199, 208
Milton, 408
Milton-next-Canterbury, 8S
" Minnis," 180
Minster (Sheppey), 419
Minster (Thanet), 106, 119
Moldash, 226
Monchelsea, 304
Mongeham, 131
Monkton, 112, 121
Montagu, Mrs. " Blue Stocking," 176,
313
Montreal, 348
Morley, Samuel, 335
Mq.te. the, near Maidstone, 308
Motley, quoted, 152
Mottingham, 437
Mulso, John, 305
Mundey Boys, 240
Murston, 408
Muskerry, Lady, 321
Mynn, Alfred, 296
N
Nackington, S5
Names, curious, 219
Napoleon's threatened invasion, 78, 403
Napoleon III., T33, 345, 436
Newbolt, Mr. Henry, quoted, 37
Newenden, 216
Newington (near Folkestone), 180
Newington (near Ratnham), 406
New Romney, 183
Nick, the highwayman, 388
Noble, Rev.^Mark, 279
Nonington, 75
Northbourne, 131
North Foreland, 102, 112, 113
Norton Court, 415
Norton, Thomas, 354
Nurstead, 384
O
Oast-houses, 14
Oates, Titus, 406
Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, 267, 289, 399
Oflham, 367, 369
Olantigh, 230
Oldbury Hill, 359
Oldcastle, Sir |ohn, 403
"Old England's Hole," 83
Old Soar, 365
Orgarswick, 189
Orpington, 432
Ospringe, 415
Otford, 356
Otham, 305
Otterden, 240
Otway, Thomas, " The Orphan," 233
" Owlers," 195
Oxney, 208
Oysters, 93, 124, 408
Ozengell Hill, 116
Paddlesworth, 165, 178, 180
Paddock Wood, 324
Parry, Bishop, quoted, 187
Patrixbourne, 83
Peasants' Revolt, the, 374
Peasmarsh, 210
Peasons Green, 280
Pegwell Bay, 116
Pembury Woods, 325
Penn, William, 252
Pennenden Heath, 267
INDEX
445
Penshurst, 326 et seq.
Pepys, Samuel, 222, 243, 310, 39S
Peter Becker's Stairs, 157
Peter the Great, 423
Petham, 86
Petitions, Kentish, 57, 178, 266
Petrifying springs, 294
Pett, Peter, 400
Petty France, go
Pilgrims' Road, 20, 27, 74, 88,
343> 357
Pit Dwellings, 360, 376, 4 ,7
Pitt, William. 139, 344, 433
Placentia, 424
Plantagenet, Elizabeth, 73
Plantagenet, Richard, 226
Plaxtol, 360, 365
Playden, 210
Plot, Dr. Robert, 407
Pluckley, 240
Plumstead, 430
Pocahontas, Princess, 382
Polders, 129
Polehill Tunnel, 371
Porteous, Bishop, 346
Porter, Endymion, 55
Port Victoria, 418
Postling, 176
Pratt, Anne, 270, 276, 391
Preston, 415
Pulteney, Sir John de, 328
Quarry Hill, 172 •,
Quarry Hills, 304
Queenborough 418
Quex Park, 106
Quintain at Offham, 369
R
Ragstone, 156, 304, 341
Rainham, 401, 406
Ramsay, Rev. James, 283
Ramsgate, 115
Ravensbourne, the, 432
Reading Street, 210
Reculver, 96 et seq.
Redleaf, 336
" Red Rover, The," n t
Rhee Wall, the, 1S6, 192
Richard I at Canterbury, 26
Richard IP, 307
Richborough, 123 et seq.
Ridley, 366
Ridley, Bishop, 100
Ringwold, 145
Riverhead. 348
Robertsbridge Junction, 211
Rochester, 391 et seq.
Rodmersham, 409
Roger of Wendover, quoted, 232
Rolfe, John, 382
Rolvenden, c6
Romans in Kent, 45, 87, 116, 123, 199,
203, 239, 406, 432
Romney, 185
Romney, Henry, Earl of. |
Romney Marsh, 174, 181 et seq., 199
Romney, New, 185
Rosherville, 383
240, 294, Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, 108
Rother, the, 8, 181, 1S5, 193, 200, 208, 211
Rowena, 409
Row ling I louse, ; 1
Ruckinge, 207
Rupert. Prince, 114
Rust hall Common, 317
Ryarsh, 367, 369
Rye, 181, 183, 210
s
Sackville, 352 et seq.
St. Augustine, 9, 22, 41, 117
St. Augustine's Abbey, 41 et seq., 55
3l Bartholomew, 357
St. Crispin and St. Crispianus, 1 1
St Dunstan, 178, 373
st Eanswith, 16S
si. Edith, 358 _
St. Eustace, miracles and well, 232
St. John's, 355
St. Peger, Sir Anthony, 306
St. Margaret's, 145
St. Margaret's Bay, 141, 146
St. Martin's Church, Canterbury, 20, 22,
45
St Mary Cray, 268
St. Mildred, 106. 119
St. Nicholas-at-Wade, 102
St. Paul's Cathedral railings, 254
St. Peter's, 115
St. Radigund's Abbey, 162
St. Rumwald, 293
St. Skneon Stock, 287
St. William of Rochester, 394
Salt Pans, 125
Saltwood, 175
Sandgate, 170
Sandhurst. 216, 252
Sandown Castle, 136
Sandwich, 114, 123 et seq.
Sarre, 102, 121
Sawbridge, John, 230
Sawtre, W , the first "heretic" burnt, 239
So t, Reginald, 227, 234 et seq., 27T, 379
Scotney Castle, 254
Scotland Hills, 66, 72
Scots Hall, 233
Scott, Sir Gilbert, 335
Scott, Sir Thomas, 233 et seq.
Scott, Sir Walter, memorial to, 256
Seabrook, 180
Seal, 35S
Seasalter, 417
446
INDEX
Selby, Dame Dorothy, 362
Selling, 416
Sellinge, 203
Seyenoaks, 348 ct scq .
Sevenoke, Sir William, 349
Shakespeare's Cliff, 154 et set/.
Sheerness, 419
Sheldwieh", 226, 416
Shenstone, William, quoted, 256
Shepherd's Well, 158
Sheppey, 93, 406, 418 ct scq.
Shepway Cross, 199
Shipborne, 322, 355
Shode, the, 323, 360, 365
Sholden, 131
Shooters Hill, 438
Shoreham, 371
Shorne, 387
Shorne, Sir John, 387
Shorncliffe Camp, 170
Shurland, 421
Shurland, Sir Robert de, 419
Sibertswold, 158
Sidcup, 437
Sidney, Algernon, 326, 333
Sidney, Hon. Mary, quoted, 331
Sidney, Sir Philip, 320, 326 ct scq.
Sigismund, Emperor, at Dover, 150
Sissinghurst, 245, 248
Siuingbourne, 408
Small Hythe, 210
Smarden, 303
Smart, Christopher, 322
Smeeth, 237
Smith, Sir Thomas, 373
Smith, W. H., 139
Smith-Marriott, Rev. Sir W., 256
Smugglers, 90, 108, 111, 135, 193, 195
et scq.
"Smugglers' Leap, The," 102
SnargateJ 102, 195
Snodlandj 402
Soakham Down, 227
Sole Street, 86
Somerhill, 320
Sondes, Sir George, 416
Southborough, 318
Southfleet, 377
South Foreland, 147
Speldhurst, 318
Spenser, Edmund, quoted, 6
Spielman, Sir John, 374
Spot, Thomas, quoted, 11
Stalisfield,' 240
Stanford, 201
Stanhope, Lady Hester, 139, 344
Stanley, Dean, quoted, 9, 22, 24
Stansted, 366
StaplehurSt, 245. 24S
Staple-next- Wingham; 1 31 1
Stelling, 85
Stephen, King, 4 13
Stockbury, 407 ,
Stocks, the, 210
Stonar, 119
Stone (Oxney), 209
Stone (near Faversham), 415
Stonebridge Green, 140
Stone-near-Dartford, 379
Stone Street, .the, 65, 85, 175, 178, 201
Storm, the Great, 138, 142
Stour, the East, 7, 207, 220
Stour, the Great, 7, 72, 119, 220, 228, 240,
300
Stour, the Little, 7, 8, 66, 72
Stour Valley, 86 et scq.
Strawberries, 432
Streatfield, Rev. Thomas, 341
Street, George, 379
Street Stones, 95
Strood, 391
Studdal, 131
Sturry, 67
Stutfall Castle, 199
Style, Sir Humphrey, 434
Style. Sir Oliver, 280
Sugar-Loaf Hill, 163, 180
Sundridge, 345
Sundridge Park, 435
Sutton-at-Hone, 373
Sutton Baron, 407
Sutton Valence, 303
Swale, the, 93
Swanley, 372
Swanscombe, 377
Swift, Jonathan, 127
Swinburne, Mr. A. C, quoted, 179, 332,
412
Swinfield, tSo
Swinford Old Manor, 238
Tait, Archbishop, tomb, 35
Tankerton, 95
Tappington 75, 180
Taylor, the Water Poet, 56, 110, 144. 297
Teise, the, 254
Temple, Archbishop, tomb, 34
Tenison, Bishop, 346
Tennyson, Lord, 140, 263 et seq., 294
Tenterden, 143, 210
Teston, 283
Teynham, 409
Thackeray, W; M., 310, 314, 342, 346
Thames, 6, 378
Thanet, 101 et seq.
Thanington, 88 ' - .
Thornham, 295 -
Throwley, 226, 416
Thunor, 105
Tilbury, 382
Tolsford Hill. 176
Tom, John Nichols, 91
Tonbridge, 318 ct scq.
Tonford, 88
Tong, 408 '
Tovil, 278
KENT
Scale, 1 1530,000
English Miles
1 ? 3 » 5
Railways..
Principal Roads..
Dallinpton
C.GrisNez,
FRANCE
Emery Walker sc.
INDEX
44?
Toys Hill. 322, 336, 341
Tradescant, John, 384
Trenleypark Woods, 66, 72
Trimworth, 232
Trinity House, 423
Trottcrscliff. 367
Tudeley, 325
Tunbridge Wells, 309 et seg.
Tunstall, 407
Tusser, Thomas, 271, 275
Twysden, Isabella, 282
Twysden, Sir Roger, 322
Tyler, Wat, 374, 427
U
Ulcombe, 303, 307
Under River, 355
Upchurch, 406
Jpper Hardres, 85
Upstreet, 100
Vanbrugh, Sir John, 428
Vane, Sir Henry, 322
Vine, Rev. F. T., 133
Vortigern, 408
W
Waldershare Park, 157
Walland Marsh, 181, 192, 208
Waller, Edmund, quoted, 331
Wallis, John, 222
Walmer, 138
Walpole, Horace, 74, 249, 283, 305, 321,
35i
Waltham, 86
Walton, Izaak, 50, 71, 81, 300, 432
Wanostrocht, Felix, 429
Wantsume, 7
Warbeck, Perkin, at Deal, 134
Warehorne, 207
Warham, Archbishop, 206, 356
Warley's Library, Dr., 178
Wateringbury, 280
Watling Street, 65, 80, 377
Watts' Charities, 395
Weald, the, 216, 242 et seg.
Weavers at Canterbury, 51 et scg.
Weldon, Sir Anthony, 377
Welling, 430
Wellington, Duke of, 139 et scg., 225
Westenhanger, 201
Westerham, 341 ct seg.
Westerham Hill, 343
West Farleigh, 279
Westgate, 105, 108
Wi 1 I Lythe, 199
West Mailing, 284
Westminster Abbey, 157, 304, 379
West Peckham, 322
Westwell, 226
Westwell Leacon, 239
White Hill, 227
White Horse, the Kentish, 9
Whitfield, 157
Whitney, John, 345
Whit stable, 93
Wii khambreux, 72
Wilbei force, William, 433
Willesborough, 233
William the Conqueror, 10
William III., 108
William IV., 425
Willsley Green, 248
Wilmington, 376
Winchelsey, Archbishop, 26
Winchilsea, Earl of, 225
\\ ingham, 73
Willlrl-.il. ill. , 232
Wittersham, 209
Wolfe, General James, 342, 428
Wollage ( ireen, 7^
\\ olsey, Thomas, 185
Womensw 1 M. 75
W..I id. \ 1. \i ilas, 297
Woodl lnirch, 103
\\ . 1 idnesborough, 129
W.«il-smuggling, 193
Woolwich, 429
W01 itton, 7^
Wordsworth, "To the Men of Kent," 79
Wormshill, 298
\\ oil 1 in. Dean Nicholas, 302
Wotton, Sir Henry, 55, 300c/ scg.
Wrotham, 366
Wyatt, Sir Henry, 290
Wyatt, Sir Thomas, the elder, 290, 337
Wyatt. Sir Thomas, the younger, 263, 292
366
Wye, 220, 227, 229 et scg.
Yalding, 280, 283
Yeoman's " Wooing Song," 15
Young, Edward, 313
Ypres, William de, 292
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WORLD. — " Mr. Moutray Read has written a well-ni^h perfect
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PALL MALI. GAZETTE.— ■" A book over which it is a pleasure to
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WESTMINSTER GAZETTE. — " A delightful addition to an
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so abundant and yet so natural a flow, that one is kept entertained and
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ings with which Mr. Frederick Griggs illustrates this charming book are
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TIMES. — "A book which may be described honestly as one of the
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writer who could not be dull if she tried, makes her book very delightful
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WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.— ■" A very charming book. . . .
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quarian, the picturesque and the sentimental kinds of tourist."
ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.— "Cram full of interest and entertainment.
The county is singularly rich in material for gossip and comment, and Mr.
Tompkins has made a very charming book from it. Nothing more can
well remain to be said, yet all that is said in these pages is to the point."
Highways and Byways in the Lake Dis=
trict. By A. G. Bradley. With Illustrations by
Joseph Pennell.
ST. JAMES'S GAZETTE.— " A notable edition — an engaging
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the most part the artist's work is as exquisite as anything of the kind he
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by Joseph Pennell and Hugh Thomson.
DAILY CHRONICLE.—" So delightful that we would gladly fill
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WESTMINSTER GAZETTE.— -"Will be read with intense interest
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