THE OLD EOAD LUH (0Li! I o z «2»& THE OLD ROAD BY H. BELLOC ILLUSTRATED BY WILLIAM HYDE PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY LONDON: CONSTABLE AND CO. LTD. 1911 ciea 5 04- Be TO PHILIP KERSHAW AND HAROLD BAKER MY COMPANIONS ON THIS JOURNEY CONTENTS PAGE ON THE ROAD AND THE FASCINATION OF ANTIQUITY 3 THE THEORY OF THE OLD ROAD That such and such Causes determined the Track of the Old Road, and that it ran from Winchester to Canterbury . 15 The Causes of the Development of Winchester and Canterbury, and of their Position as Termini of the Old Road . . 29 The Causes of the Preservation of the Old Road ; its General Character, and our Application of this in our Method of re covering it . . . .72 THE EXPLORATION OF THE ROAD Winchester to Alton . 117 Alton to Shalford . 147 Shalford to Dorking Pits . . 160 BOXHILL TO TlTSEY . . 188 Titsey to Wrotham . 214 Wrotham to Boxley .... 231 Boxley to Canterbury . . 256 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS WINCHESTER, . . Photogravure frontispiece Facing page A ROAD MOST TYPICAL OF ALL THAT ROADS HAVE BEEN FOR US, 8 THESE PITS WHICH UNCOVER THE CHALK BARE FOR US, . ... 26 GLIMPSES OF THE ITCHEN AWAY BEHIND US, 60 THE CHURCH OF SHERE, . . 110 THE HEAD-WATERS WHICH FORM THE ITCHEN, THE ALRE AND OTHER STREAMS 128 ROUGH, AND MARKED ONLY BY RUTS IN THE WINTER SOIL, AND BY ITS RANK OF SECULAR TREES, . 162 THAT CURIOUS PLATFORM WHICH SUPPORTS IN SUCH AN IMMENSE ANTIQUITY OF CONSECRA TION THE RUINS OF ST. CATHERINE'S CHAPEL, 163 A PLACE OF CLOSE DARK AND VARIOUS TREES, FULL OF A DAMP AIR, AND GLOOMY WITH STANDING WATER-RUTS, . . _ . 174 THAT SPLENDID AVENUE OF LIMES, . 176 xii THE OLD ROAD Facing page IT STOOD OUT LIKE A CAPE ALONG OUR COASTING JOURNEY, OUR NAVIGATION OF THE LINE OF THE DOWNS, . . .182 AND BEYOND THE WHOLE OF THE WEALD, 200 THE MOST IMPORTANT OF THE RIVERS IT MEETS UPON ITS COURSE, THE MEDWAY, . . .238 ROCHESTER . ... 252 THE SHEEP IN THE NARROW LANES, OR THE LEANING CONES OF THE HOP-KILNS AGAINST THE SKY, . 260 THE PLOUGHLANDS UNDER ORCHARDS: ALL THE KENTISH WEALD, . . 263 SUCH A MAGIC OF GREAT HEIGHT AND DARK NESS, . . . 278 MAP . at end ON THE EOAD AND THE FASCINATION OF ANTIQUITY ON THE EOAD AND THE FASCINA TION OF ANTIQUITY There are primal things which move us. Fire has the character of a free companion that has travelled with us from the first exile ; only to see a fire, whether he need it or no, comforts every man. Again, to hear two voices outside at night after a silence, even in crowded cities, transforms the mind. A Eoof also, large and mother ing, satisfies us here in the north much more than modern necessity can explain ; so we built in beginning : the only way to carry off our rains and to bear the weight of our winter snows. A Tower far off arrests a man's eye always : it is more than a break in the sky-line ; it is an enemy's watch or the rallying of a defence to whose aid we are summoned. Nor are these emotions a memory or a reversion only as one crude 4 ON THE ROAD AND THE theory might pretend; we craved these things — the camp, the refuge, the sentinels in the dark, the hearth — before we made them ; they are part of our human manner, and when this civilisation has perished they will reappear. Of these primal things the least obvious but the most important is The Eoad. It does not strike the sense as do those others I have mentioned ; we are slow to feel its influence. We take it so much for granted that its original meaning escapes us. Men, indeed, whose pleasure it is perpetually to explore even their own country on foot, and to whom its every phase of climate is delightful, receive, somewhat tardily, the spirit of The Road. They feel a meaning in it ; it grows to suggest the towns upon it, it explains its own vagaries, and it gives a unity to all that has arisen along its way. But for the mass The Eoad is silent ; it is the humblest and the most subtle, but, as I have said, the greatest and the most original of the spells which we inherit from the earliest pioneers of our race. It was the most imperative and the first of our neces sities. It is older than building and than FASCINATION OF ANTIQUITY •u • wells ; before we were quite men we knew it, for the animals still have it to-day ; they seek their food and their drinking-places, and, as I believe, their assemblies, by known tracks which they have made. It is easy to re-create in oneself to-day a sense of what the Eoad means to living things on land : it is easy to do it even in this crowded country. Walk, for instance, on the neglected Pennines along the water shed of England, from Malham Tarn, say, to Eibblehead, or from Kirkby Stephen up along the crest to Crossfell and so to Alston, and you will learn at once what follows on an untouched soil from the absence of a track — of a guide. One ravine out of the many radiating from a summit will lead to the one valley you seek ; take another stream and you are condemned at last to traverse mountains to repair the error. In a fog or at night, if one has not such a path, there is nothing to help one but the lay of the snow or the trend of the vegetation under the last gale. In climbing, the summit is nearly always hidden, and nothing but a track will save you from false journeys. In descent it alone will save you a precipice or 6 ON THE ROAD AND THE an unfordable stream. It knows upon which side an obstacle can be passed, where there is firm land in a morass, and where there is the best going ; sand or rock — dry soil. It will find what nothing but long experiment can find for an individual traveller, the precise point in a saddle or neck where approach is easiest from either side, and everywhere the Road, especially the very early Eoad, is wiser than it seems to be. It reminds one of those old farmers who do not read, and whom we think at first unreasoning in their curious and devious ways, but whom, if we watch closely, we shall find doing all their work just in that way which infinite time has taught the country-side. Thus I know an old man in Sussex who never speaks but to say that everything needs rest. Land, he says, certainly ; and also he believes iron and wood. For this he is still ridiculed, but what else are the most learned saying now ? And I know a path in the Yosges which, to the annoyance of those who travel by it, is irrational : it turns sharp northward and follows under a high ridge, instead of directly crossing it : FASCINATION OF ANTIQUITY 7 some therefore leave it and lose all their pains, for, if you will trust to that path you will find it crosses the ridge at last at the only place where, on the far side, it is passable at all ; all before and beyond that point is a little ledge of precipice which no one could go down. More than rivers and more than mountain chains, roads have moulded the political groups of men. The Alps with a mule-track across them are less of a barrier than fifteen miles of forest or rough land separating one from that track. Eeligions, which are the principal formers of mankind, have followed the roads only, leaping from city to city and leaving the ' Pagani,' in the villages off the road, to a later influence. Consider the series Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Athens, and the Appian Way : Eome, all the tradi tion of the Tuscan highway, the Ligurian coast, Marseilles and Lyons. I have read in some man's book that the last link of that chain was the river Ehone ; but this man can never have tried to pull a boat upon the Ehone up-stream. It was the Eoad that laid the train. The Mass had reached Lyons before, perhaps, the last 8 ON THE ROAD AND THE disciple of the apostles was dead : in the Forez, just above, four hundred years later, there were most probably offerings at night to the pagan gods of those sombre and neglected hills. And with religions all that is built on them : letters, customs, community of lan guage and idea, have followed the Eoad, because humanity, which is the matter of religion, must also follow the road it has made. Architecture follows it, commerce of course, all information : it is even so with the poor thin philosophies, each in its little day drifts, for choice, down a road. The sacredness which everywhere attaches to The Eoad has its sanction in all these uses, but especially in that antiquity from which the quality of things sacred is drawn : and with the mention of the word ' antiquity ' I may explain another desire which led me to the study I have set down in this book : not only did I desire to follow a road most typical of all that roads have been for us in western Europe, but also to plunge right into the spirit of the oldest monument of the life men led on this island : I mean the oldest of which a continuous record remains. Hi ofa55 P Old Road alternative YaldTvami -> Old Road disused Wrotham/ 228 THE EXPLORATION the Old Road in one of its three historical phases : first as the only artery of the country-side, then as an alternative way supplemented by a valley road, and finally as a decayed and unused path whose value has been destroyed by the more modern highway below it. It is astonishing to see with what precision each of these phases is shown, how exactly each division ends, and how thoroughly the character of each is maintained. In the first, from Otford to Kemsing, a distance of about two miles, one can see the two valley villages below one, and the track one follows is the only good road between them, though it lies above them both and can only be reached from either by a short rising lane. A short cut across the fields connects the two places, but if one wishes to use a proper and made way, there is none to take but that which still represents the Old Road, and so to go up out of Otford and then down into Kemsing. One has to do, in other words, exactly what was done for centuries when the archbishops came up to London from Canterbury ; wher ever one may desire to halt one has to leave OF THE ROAD 229 the Old Road and come down from it to the village below. In the second part, between Kemsing and Yaldham, the modern influence has been sufficient to provide an alternative. The distance is somewhat more than two miles. The Pilgrim's Way runs up along the hill side, a metalled lane, while below in the valley the old footpaths and cart tracks have been united into a modern permanent road, and a man going from Kemsing through Heaverham to Yaldham need not take the Pilgrim's Road above as his ancestors would have had to do, but can go straight along the lower levels. Finally, with Yaldham and on to Wrotham the more common condition of modern times asserts itself. The lower valley road becomes the only important one, the Pilgrim's Road above dwindles into, first, a lane very little used and falling into decay, then a path thick with brambles and almost impassable. A man going from Yaldham to Wrotham nowadays is bound to use the modern valley road. When we had pushed through the brambles of the deserted path for perhaps a mile and a half, the way broadened out 230 THE EXPLORATION again, crossed the London Road, and turn ing the corner of the hill overlooked the church and roofs of Wrotham a hundred feet below. Of Wrotham, the second link in that chain of palaces which afforded shelter to the Archbishop and to the King, as the one journeyed to Lambeth, the other to the sea- coast, I have already spoken. I desire here to discuss rather the topographical interest of the corner upon which we stood and its connection with the prehistoric road which it was our principal business to examine. And for that purpose, though it occupied but the last part of a day, I would devote to a separate division the passage of the Medway which was now at hand. OF THE ROAD 231 Wrotham to Boxley Eleven miles At Wrotham is a kind of platform, or rather shoulder, which is made by such a turning of the great chalk hills as I shall presently describe. This turning revealed to us the plain at our feet as we came round the corner of the hill and saw before us the whole valley of the Medway. We were perhaps some hundred feet above Wrotham and five hundred above the sea as we stood upon this platform before noon, and overlooked the great flats and the distant river and the further hills. It is a view of astonishing effect, such as I did not know to be in south England ; for our rivers are small, and, exquisite as is their scenery, they do not commonly impress the mind with grandeur. The Medway, perhaps because it is the relic of some 232 THE EXPLORATION much greater river now drowned by the sinking of the land, perhaps because its tidal estuary lends it twice a day an artificial breadth, gives one the impression of those continental streams, the Seine or the Meuse, which are sufficient to animate a whole country-side, and which run in so wide a basin that a whole province attaches to their name. The manner of this landscape was that of a great gesture ; its outline was like the movement of a hand that sketches a cartoon ; its sweep was like the free arm of a sower sowing broadcast. The bank, moreover, upon which the Old Road here stands is so steep that it produces an effect of greater height and whatever expansion of the mind accompanies a wide horizon. There dominated that view a character of space and dignity which not even the Itchen valley from the heights, nor the Weald from the crest of the Surrey Downs, could equal. The crossings of the Wey, of the Mole, and of the Darent, the valleys which there interrupted the general line of our hillside road, seemed narrow and OF THE ROAD 233 familiar as one gazed upon this much greater plain. Far off, miles and miles away, the hills continued their interminable line. The haze, and a certain warm quality in the winter light, added to the vastness of the air, and made the distant range seem as remote as a to-morrow ; it was lost in a grey-blue that faded at last into a mere sky upon the extreme east. Along those hills our way was clearly to be continued. Their trend was not, indeed, due east and west as the Old Road had run so long : they turned a little southerly ; but the general line, bending down to Canterbury and to the Straits, followed that crest, and its furthest visible height was not far distant from our goal. Just opposite us, upon the further side of the valley, was faintly to be discerned such another shoulder as that upon which we stood. We made it out upon our map to bear the good name of ' Grey Wethers,' as does that rock far off eastwards, out of which was built Stonehenge. Upon that shoulder had stood the abbey of Boxley. It marked the point where, beyond the 234 THE EXPLORATION valley, the Pilgrim's Way is recognised again. But in the interval between, across this broad flat valley, its passage had never been fixed. We might have thought, had we not hitherto learnt much of the Old Road, that no problem was there, save to cross in a direct line the valley before us, and make by evening that further shoulder of ' Grey Wethers,' where we should find the road again ; but we had followed the track too long to think that it could so easily be recovered. We guessed that in so wide a gap as was here made by the Medway in the line of hills a difficulty, greater than any we had yet met, would arise, and that we should not overcome it without a longer search than had been necessary at the Wey or even the Mole. We were now familiar with such plat forms and such views. Upon a lesser scale we had felt their meaning when we stood upon the rock of St. Catherine's at evening and considered the crossing of the Wey ; or on that other spur, eastward of Dorking, when we had seen Box Hill beyond the valley under the growing night. They OF THE ROAD 235 also, the men long before us, had chosen such particular places from whence to catch the whole of a day's march, and to estimate their best opportunity for getting to the further shore. We knew how difficult it was to trace again their conclusion, and to map out the Old Road in places like these. To debate its chances and draw up the main line of our decision, we went down into Little Wrotham, and at an inn there which is called the ' Bull,' we ate beef and drank beer, spoke with men who knew the fords and the ferries, compared our maps with a much older one belonging to the place, and in general occupied our minds with nothing but the passage of the river : the passage, that is, which alone concerned us ; the place where men, when men first hunted here, fixed their crossing-place, and carried the Old Road across the tide- way of the stream. Now, having said so much of the land scape, it is necessary to turn to the more minute task of topography. For it is the business of this book not to linger upon the 236 THE EXPLORATION pleasures of our journey, but to reconstitute an ancient thing. And for that purpose a simple sketch-map will explain perhaps as much as words can do. The features of this map are very few, but their comprehension will be sufficient for my readers to grasp the matter upon which we are engaged. A single heavy line indicates the crest of the hills — a crest from over six hundred to over seven hundred feet in height. A dotted line indicates the limit of what may be called the floor of the valley. The ¦Known portjbn of Old Road Conjectural • ' Possible crossings of The tfednoy Churches The two megaftthla tnonommntt brackets )( show the four possible crossings of the river. Two points, numbered A and B, mark the ' shoulders ' or platform. The OF THE ROAD , 237 first (^4) above Wrotham, the second (B) at Grey Wethers. Finally, the megalithic monument at Coldrum and that near Grey Wethers (whose importance will be seen in a moment) are marked with circles. Far up the valley on each hill continues the remnant of an ancient road, and the reader will see from this, that, as in the valley of the Mole and of the Darent, our difficulties were confused and increased from the fact that, quite apart from the crossing of the river, other prehistoric tracks led off northwards upon either side of the river, whose crossing was our con cern. The great main range of chalk which runs all across south-eastern England ; the range whose escarpment affords for sixty miles a platform for the Old Road is broken, then, by the Medway, which cuts through it on its way to the sea. But there is not only a gap ; it will be seen that the hills ' bend up,' as it were, upon either bank, and follow the stream northward, making a kind of funnel to receive it. The effect of this is best expressed by saying, that it is as though the Medway valley had been scooped 238 THE EXPLORATION out by a huge plough, which not only cut a five-mile gap in the range, but threw the detritus of such a cutting to left and right for miles beyond the point of its passage. It is at the mouth of this gap that the two shoulders or turning-places are to be found ; one on the west at Wrotham, the other on the east at Grey Wethers : while beyond them the Downs turn northward either way, to sink at last into the flats of the Thames estuary. The interval between these ' shoulders ' was the most considerable of any that had to be filled in all our exploration. The reason that this gap in the Old Road should be found at such a place was evident. It was here that the road had to cross the most important of the rivers it meets upon its course, the Medway. Alone of the rivers which obstruct the road, it is a tidal stream, and, as though in recognition of its superior claim, the hills receded from it more grandly than they had from the Wey at the Guild ford, or the Mole at the Dorking passage. They left six miles of doubtful valley between them, and across these six miles a track had to be found. THE MOST IMPORTANT OF THE RIVERS IT MEETS UPON ITS COURSE, THE MEDWAY OF THE ROAD 239 A clear statement of the problem will lead one towards its solution. I have said that for several miles before Wrotham, the chalk hills, well defined and steep, running almost due east and west, present an excellent dry and sunny bank for the road. As one goes along this part of one's journey, Wrotham Hill appears like a kind of cape before one, because beyond it the hills turn round north ward, and their continuation is hidden. I have also told how, a long way off, over the broad flat of the Medway valley, the range may be seen continu ing in the direction of Canterbury, and affording, when once the river is crossed, a similar platform to that from which one is gazing. We knew, also, that the road does, as a fact, follow those distant hills, precisely as it had the range from which we made our observation, and if no physical obstacles intervened, the first travellers upon this track would undoubtedly have made a direct line from the projecting shoulder of Wrotham Hill to the somewhat less con spicuous turning-point which marks the 240 THE EXPLORATION further hills of Grey Wethers, where also Boxley once stood. But obstacles do intervene, and these obstacles were of the most serious kind for men who had not yet passed the early stages of civilisation. A broad river with a swift tidal current, flanked here and there (as tidal rivers always are before their embankment) by marshes ; a valley floor of clay, the crossing of which must prove far more lengthy than that of any they had hitherto encountered, made the negotiation of this gap a difficult matter. Moreover, the direct line would have led them by the marshiest way of all : the fields of Snodland brook. Oddly enough the difficulty of rediscover ing the original track by which the road forded the Medway, does not lie in the paucity of evidence, but rather in the con fusion arising from its nature and amount. So great is this confusion that some authori ties have been content to accept alternative routes at this point. Savage trails, however, never present alternatives so widely separate, and least of all will they present any alternative, even OF THE ROAD 241 one neighbouring the main road, where a formidable obstacle has to be overcome : to do so would be to forfeit the whole value which a primitive road possesses as a guide (for this value depends upon custom and memory), and when a tidal river had to be traversed, a further and very cogent reason for a single track was to be found in the labour which its construction upon a marshy soil involved. If some one place of crossing had held a monopoly or even a pre-eminence within the limits of recorded history, the evi dence afforded by it would be of the utmost value. But an indication of this simplicity is lacking. It is certain that within historic times and for many centuries continuously, the valley and the river were passed at four places, each of which now may lay a claim to be the original passage. The modern names of these places are, in their order from the sea, Cuxton, Lower Hailing, Snodland, and Aylesford. Before proceeding I must repeat what was said above, that two tracks of great antiquity continue the Old Road northward 242 THE EXPLORATION on each side of the Medway far beyond any point where it would have crossed ; these tracks (I have called them elsewhere 'feeders') are not only clearly defined, but have each received the traditional name of the Pilgrim's Way, and their presence adds a considerable complexity to the search for the original passage. So much of the elements of the problem being laid down, let us now recapitulate certain features which we have discovered to be true of the road in the earher part of its course, where it had to cross a river, and certain other features which one knows to be common to other British track-ways over valleys broader than those of the Mole or the Wey. To these features we may add a few others, which are conjecturally those that such a road would possess although we might have no direct evidence of them. A list of these features will run very much as follows : — (1) The road will attempt the shortest passage of the valley floor, the breadth being more or less of an obstacle, according as the soil is more or less low, covered, or damp. OF THE ROAD 243 (2) It will seek for a ford. (3) Other things being equal, it would naturally cross a river as high up as possible, where the stream was likely to be less difficult to ford. (4) It would cross in as immediate a neighbourhood as possible to that height upon which survey could be made of the opportunities for crossing. (5) The nature of the bottom at the crossing would influence it greatly, whether that bottom were gravel and sand, or treacherous mud. Moreover, a primitive road would often leave evidence of its choice by the relics of good material thrown in to harden the ford. (6) A point of so much importance would probably be connected with religion, and almost always with some relic of habitation or weapons. (7) It would often preserve in its place- name some record of the crossing. (8) It would (as we had found it at Dorking and at Otford) choose a place where a spur on either side led down to the river. To these eight points may be added the 244 THE EXPLORATION further consideration, that whatever was the more usual crossing in early historic times affords something of a guide as to prehistoric habits, and, finally, that where a tidal river was concerned, the motives which were present on any river for seeking a passage as far up stream as possible would be greatly strengthened, for the tide drowns a ford. Now, in the light of what the map tells us, and of these principles, let us see where the crossing is most likely to be found, and having determined that, discover how far the hypothesis is supported by other evid ence. To begin with Cuxton : At Cuxton the firm land of the hills comes upon either side close to the river. An ancient track-way upon either side leads very near to the point of crossing and cannot be followed, or at least nothing like so clearly followed further down the valley. At Cuxton, moreover, as a constant tradition maintains, the crossing of the river by pilgrims was common. On the other hand there is nothing approaching a ford at this place. The OF THE ROAD 245 bottom is soft mud, the width of the river very considerable, the tidal current strong, and of all the points at which the river might have been crossed, it is the most distant from the direct line ; indeed, com pared with the next point, Lower Hailing, a traveller would add five or six miles to his journey by choosing Cuxton. Now, consider Aylesford, the other ex treme ; the highest up as Cuxton is the lowest down the river of the four points. Aylesford has many powerful arguments in its favour. It has produced one of the most interesting and suggestive prehistoric relics in England : I mean that ' Aylesford pottery' which is an imitation, or possibly even an import, of the pottery of northern Italy in the first or second centuries before our area. It has furnished a mass of other antiquities : armillae of gold have been found in the river and British coins and graves on the northern bank. It preserves in the last part of its name the tradition of a ford, and though ' ford ' in place-names by no means always signifies a ford any more than ' bridge ' signifies a bridge, yet in this case we have historic knowledge that a ford 246 THE EXPLORATION existed ; and (as is most frequently the case) the ford has been bridged. A further argument, and in its way one of the strongest that could be adduced, is the position of the place in the earliest of our annals. Whether ' the Horse and the Mare,' Vortigern, and the rest are wholly legendary or not, cannot be determined. Certainly the texture of the story is fabulous, but Bede and ' Nennius ' have both retained the memory of a great battle fought here, in which the British overcame the Pirates, and what is most significant of all, the legend or memory records a previous retreat of the Saxons from a defeat at Otford. We know, therefore, that a writer in the seventh century, though what he was writing might be fable, would take it for granted that a retreat westward from Otford would naturally lead along some road which passed the Medway at Ayles ford. We get another much later example of the same thing when Edmund Ironside, after his great victory at Otford over the Danes, pursued them to Aylesford, and was only pre vented from destroying them by their passage over the river under the cover of treason. OF THE ROAD 247 This is very strong evidence in favour of Aylesford, and when one remembers that the manor was ancient demesne, its antiquity and importance are enhanced. But against Aylesford there are three strong arguments. They are not only strong, they are insuperable. The first is the immense width of valley that would have to be crossed to reach it. That is, the immense tract of uncertain, wooded way, without a view either of enemies or of direction. The second is the clay. A belt of gault of greater or lesser width stretches all along the Downs just below the chalk. Here it is particularly wide, and no straight line can be taken from Wrotham to the Ayles ford gravels without crossing nearly two miles of this wretched footing, which, throughout its course, the road has most carefully avoided. That a ford of great antiquity was there ; that the men of the sandy heights used it ; that the Romans used so admirable a ford (it is gravel near the river on either side), that they bridged it, that they made a causeway over the clay, and that this causeway and that 248 THE EXPLORATION bridge were continuously used after their time, I am willing to believe ; but not that the prehistoric road along the chalk hills could have waded through all that clay to reach it, and have gone out of its way into the bargain. Thirdly, there is the clinching fact that a number of prehistoric remains, Kit's Coty House and the rest, he to the north of such a crossing, and that to reach Boxley itself, a site indubitably dependent upon the pre historic road, a man crossing at Aylesford would have to turn bach upon his general direction. It must further be remembered that by the seventh century some of the valleys had acquired firm roads, inherited from the old civilisation, and that in the rout after a battle, an army making for a tidal river, and not able to choose their own time of crossing (as can a wayfarer), would certainly make for a point as far up the stream as possible and for a bridge. If Cuxton and Aylesford, then, are to be neglected (as I think they certainly must be), there remain only Lower Hailing and Snodland. OF THE ROAD 249 At first sight the weight of argument is for Lower HaUing, and if the various parts of such an argument as I adduce have different proportions from those I lend them, one might conclude that at Lower Hailing was the original passage of the Medway. True, there is for the passage at Lower Hailing but one evidence that I can dis cover, but it is an evidence of the greatest weight, and such an one as is often per mitted alone to establish a conclusion in archaeology. It is this, that there was good surface over the original soil from the Pilgrim's Way on the hills above, right down to the river-bank at this point. No clay intervenes between the chalk and gravel. The primitive traveller would have had fairly dry land all the way down to the river. Even beyond the river the belt of alluvial soil is less broad than it is at Snodland ; and altogether, if the geological argument alone were considered, the decision undoubtedly would be given to this place. The claims of Snodland are asserted by a number of converging arguments. I will enumerate them, and it will, I think, be 250 THE EXPLORATION seen that though each is individually slight, the whole bundle is convincing. First. — -The spur, which leaves the main range of hills for the river (such a spur as has elsewhere, at Shalford, and at Dorking, and at Otford, attracted the Old Road towards the ford it points to), touches indeed both Snodland and Lower Hailing on either side, but with this great difference — that Snodland is on the south, Lower Hailing upon the north of the ridge. The elevation is not pronounced, the slope is slight, but a little experience of such ground at various seasons will determine one that the southern bank would be chosen under primitive conditions. In such a conforma tion the southern bank alone has during the winter any chance of drying, and in a dry summer, it matters little whether a slope be partly of clay 1 (as is the descent to Snod land) or of chalk (as is that to Lower Hailing). During more than half the year, therefore, the descent to Snodland was preferable ; during the other half indifferent. 1 Not quite half a mile of it. Snodland itself stands on gravel, which just touches the river at the site of the church and ferry. OF THE ROAD 251 Secondly. — Immediately before and beyond the Lower Hailing crossing no antiquities of moment have been discovered : a grave, possibly Roman, is, I believe, the only one. At Snodland, and beyond its crossing, they are numerous. An ancient and ruined chapel marks the descent from the hills. The church itself has Roman tiles. Beyond the river, the Roman villa which was un earthed in 1896 by Mr. Patrick is precisely upon the road that would lead from such a crossing up to the Pilgrim's Way upon the hill. Close by the origin of this lane from the ford to the hihside were discovered the fragments of what some have believed to be a Mithraic temple; and earlier, in 1848, Roman urns and foundations were found near the road at Little Culand. Thirdly.- — The crossing at Snodland is shallower than that at Lower Hailing, and (though I do not pretend that the artifice is prehistoric) the bottom has been artificially hardened. Fourthly. — There stands at Snodland a church, past the southern porch of which goes the road, and when the river is crossed, and the same alignment followed along the bank 252 THE EXPLORATION upon the further side for a little way, the track again passes by a church, and again by its southern porch. Fifthly. — The 'Horseshoe Reach' — the reach, that is, between Snodland and Bur ham — has always marked the limit between Rochester's jurisdiction over the lower, and Maidstone's over the upper, Medway. This is of great importance. All our tidal rivers have a sea-town and a land-town ; the limits up to which the seaport has control is nearly always the traditional crossing-place of the river. Thus Yarmouth Stone on the Yare divides the jurisdiction of Norwich from that of Yarmouth; it is close to the Reedham Ferry, which has always been the first passage over the river. For London and the Thames we have the best example of all — Staines. Finally, it is not extravagant to note how the megalithic monument (now fallen) near Trottescliffe, corresponds to Kit's Coty House on the opposite shoulder beyond the valley. The crossing at Snodland would be the natural road between the two. These seven converging lines of proof, or rather of suggestion — seven points which ROCHESTER OF THE ROAD 253 ingenuity or research might easily develop into a greater number — seem to me to settle the discussion in favour of Snodland.1 By that ferry then we crossed. We noted the muddy river, suggestive of the sea, the Medway, which so few miles above suggests, when it brims at high tide, a great inland river. It has hidden reaches whose fields and trees have quite forgotten the sea. We passed by the old church at Burham. We were in a very field of antiquity 2 as we went 1 The full trace of this crossing may be followed in the ^xjtj Ordnance map for Kent (xxx. 3) as follows : — From Wrotham to (a) The Kentish Drover. The significance of this sign is the use of the Old Road by drovers in order to avoid turnpike charges, (b) on north of the Trottescliffe megalithic monument, under the old quarry there, on past Bunkers to the cross-roads. Then (c) leave present path and go a little east of south under another old pit, and so diagonally across field marked 79 (on map xxx. 4), thus reaching Paddlesworth Farm, when from the (d) ruined chapel the track is marked by the division be tween fields 72 and 73 till Mark Farm is reached, whence the track is a plain road ultimately becoming the High Street of Snodland. After crossing the river it is a road all the way, passing at last between the two megalithic monuments of the hundred stones and Kit's Coty House. 2 Thus in the immediate neighbourhood alone were the Roman remains of Snodland, of Burham, of Hoborough. The group of a dozen or more round Maidstone, the bronze celts found at Wrotham. Oldbury Camp, the group of Roman foundations and coins at Plaxtol, the British and Roman coins 254 THE EXPLORATION our way, and apart from the stones and frag ments it has left, we were surrounded by that great legend which made this place the funeral of the first barbarians. It was already nearly dark when we came to the place where that old sphinx of three poised monoliths, Kit's Coty House, stands in a field just north of the lane ; the old circle of stones, now overthrown, lay below us to the south. We would not pass Kit's Coty House without going near it to touch it, and to look at it curiously with our own eyes. Though we were very weary, and though it was now all but dark, we trudged over the plough to where it stood ; the overwhelming age of the way we had come was gathered up in that hackneyed place. Whether the name be, or be not, a relic of some Gaelic phrase that should mean ' the grave in the wood,' no one can tell. The wood has at any rate receded, and only found at Boxley. The megalithic monuments of Addington, of Coldrum, Kit's Coty House, and the hundred stones. The group already mentioned at Aylesford, the camp at Fosbery, the Roman pottery at Thurnham — and this is a very incomplete list. OF THE ROAD 255 covers in patches the height of the hill above ; but that repeated suggestion of the immense antiquity of the trail we were pursuing came to us from it again as we hesitated near it, filled us with a permanent interest, and for a moment overcame our fatigue. When we had struck the high-road some yards beyond, just at the place where the Pilgrim's Way leaves it to reach the site where Boxley Abbey once stood, our weak ness returned. Not that the distance we had traversed was very great, but that this kind of walking, interrupted by doubts and careful search, and much of it of necessity taken over rough land, had exhausted us more than we knew. With difficulty, though it was by a fine, great falling road, we made the town of Maidstone, and having dined there in the principal inn to the accompaniment of wine, we determined to complete the journey, if possible, in the course of the next day. 256 THE EXPLORATION Boxley to Canterbury Twenty-six miles From Boxley to Charing the Old Road pre sents little for comment, save that over these thirteen miles it is more direct, more conspicuously marked, and on the whole better preserved than in any other similar stretch of its whole course. The section might indeed be taken as a type of what the primitive wayfarers intended when the con ditions offered them for their journey were such as they would have chosen out of all. It is not a permanent road as is the section between Alton and Farnham, therefore nothing of its ancient character is obliter ated. On the other hand, it is not — save in two very short spaces — interfered with by cultivation or by private enclosure. This stretch of the road is a model to scale, preserved, as though by artifice, from modern OF THE ROAD 257 changes, and even from decay, but exhibit ing those examples of disuse which are characteristic of its history. The road goes parallel to and above the line where the sharp spring of the hih leaves the floor of the valley ; it commands a sufficient view of what is below and of what lies before ; it is well on the chalk, just too high to interfere with cultivation, at least with the cultivation of those lower levels to which the Middle Ages confined themselves ; it is well dried by an exposure only a little west of south ; it is well drained by the slope and by the porous soil ; it is uninter rupted by combes, or any jutting pro montories, for the range of the hills is here exactly even. In a word, it here possesses every character which may be regarded as normal to the original trail from the west of England to the Straits of Dover. The villages which lie immediately below it are all at much the same distance — from a quarter to half a mile : it can be said to traverse one alone — Detling, and this it passes through to the north. The others, Harrietsham, Holhngbourne, Lenham, Char ing, are left just to the south. They are R 258 THE EXPLORATION now connected by the high-road which joins up the valley, and were once, it may be pre sumed, isolated from each other by the common fields and the waste of each village, or if connected, connected only by paths. They may have depended, during many centuries, for their intercommunication, upon the Old Road, to which each of them pos sesses a definitely marked line of approach : and the Old Road remains the typical main artery, which passes near, but not through, the places it serves.1 This thirteen miles of the way is often vague, and is indeed actually broken at one point between Cobham Farm and Hart Hill, a mile and a half east of Charing ; but it is a gap which presents no difficulty. The alignment is precisely the same before and after it ; it is but seven furlongs in extent ; it has been caused by the comparatively recent 1 The lane is continuous after Boxley, though not every where equally important. North of Hollingbourne it is but a path. It soon becomes a lane again, is enclosed in the private grounds of Stede Hill (Kent, %-ifcv Ordnance map, xliii. 12), and is but a track for three-quarters of a mile from Lenham quarries. It is lost after Cobham Farm, and re appears as a long hedge and division between fields, and after the pits at Hart Hill becomes a lane again. OF THE ROAD 259 ploughing of this land during the two genera tions of our history when food was dear. From Boxley to Lenham the plain beneath the Old Road is drained by a stream called the Len, tributary to the Medway. Just before or at Lenham is the watershed : a parting of no moment, not a ridge, hardly observable to one standing above it on the hillside. It is the dividing line between the basins of the Medway and the Stour. All the hydrography of south-eastern Eng land presents this peculiarity. The water sheds are low ; the bold ranges do not divide the river-basins, because the water system is geologically older than the Chalk Hills. The Stour rises in Lenham itself, but its course has at first no effect upon the land scape, so even is the plain below. A village, which preserves the great Norman name of the Malherbes, stands on the watershed : the whole flat saddle is a rich field diversified by nothing more than slight rolls of land, in between which the spring comes as though up from a warmer earth, long before it touches the hills. It is peculiar in England, this county of Kent, and especially its valleys. I had 260 THE EXPLORATION known it hitherto only as a child, a stranger, but no one who has so visited it in childhood can forget the sheep in the narrow lanes, or the leaning cones of the hop-kilns against the sky : the ploughlands under orchards : all the Kentish Weald. At Charing the great hills begin to turn a corner. The Stour also turns, passes through a wide gap, and from east and south begins to make north and east straight for Canterbury; henceforward the spirit of Canterbury and the approach to it occupies the road. We had reached the end of that long, clean-cut ridge which we had followed all the way from Farnham, the ridge which the four rivers had pierced in such well-defined gaps. Charing is the close of that principal episode in the life of the Way. Charing again was the last convenient halt in any rich man's journey until, say, a hundred and fifty years ago. It is some thing under sixteen miles from Canterbury, following the track of the Old Road, and even the poor upon their pilgrimages would have halted there ; though the slow progress of their cumbersome caravans may have THE SHEEP IN THE NARROW LANES, OR THE LEANING CONES OF THE HOP-KILNS AGAINST THE SKY OF THE ROAD 261 forced them to a further repose at Chilham before the city was reached. Charing, therefore, was designed by its every character to be a place of some import ance, and was a very conscious little town. It counts more in Domesday than any other of the valley villages between Maid stone and the cathedral ; it possessed the greatest and the first of those archiepiscopal palaces, the string of which we came on first at Otford ; it has a church once magni ficent and still remarkable after its rebuild ing, and it maintains to this day an air of prosperity and continued comfort. The inn is one of the best inns to be found on all this journey ; the whole village may be said, in spite of its enemies,1 to be livelier in the modern decay than the other remote parishes of that plain. We had imagined, before seeing the ground, that, after Charing, we should have some difficulty in tracing the Old Road. The Ordnance map, which has given it the traditional name of the Pilgrim's Road 1 It has enemies, like all good things. Its neighbours to the south have sung for centuries : — ' Dirty Charing lies in a hole, Has but one bell, and that she stole.1 262 THE EXPLORATION all through this valley, not only drops the title immediately after Charing, but, for some reason I do not understand, omits to mark it at all along the skirts of Longbeech wood. When we came to follow it up, however, we found it a plainly-marked lane, leading at much the same height round the shoulder of the hill, to the western lodge of Lord Gerrard's park. Just before we entered that park two local names emphasised the memories of the road : the cottage called ' Chapel ' and the word ' Street ' in ' Dun Street ' at the lodge. Within the fence of this park it is in cluded. For nearly a mile the fence of the park itself runs on the embankment of the Old Road. At the end of that stretch, the fence turns a sharp angle outwards, and for the next mile and a half, the road, which is here worn into the clearest of trenches and banks, goes right across the park till it comes out on the eastern side a few yards to the south of the main gates. The Old Road thus turns a gradual corner, following the curve of the Stour valley. The modern road from Charing to Canter- OF THE ROAD 263 bury cuts off this corner, and saves a good two miles or three, but the reasons which caused men in the original condition of the country to take the longer course of the Old Road are not far to seek. There is, first, that motive which we have seen to be universal, the dryness of the road, which could only be maintained upon the southern side of the hill. Next, it must be noted that these slopes down to the Stour were open when the plateau above was dense forest. This in its turn would mean a group of villages — such a group is lacking even to this day to the main road, and the way would naturally follow where the villages lay. Finally, the water-supply of the plateau was stagnant and bad; that of the valley was a good running stream. In its passage through Eastwell Park, the road passed near the site of the house, and it passed well north of the church, much as it had passed north of the parishes in the valley we had just left. This would lead one to conjecture, I know not with what basis of probability, that a village once existed near the water around the church at 264 THE EXPLORATION the bottom of the hill. If it did, no trace of it now remains, but whether (already in decay) it was finally destroyed, as some have been by enclosure, or whether the church, being the rallying-point of a few scattered farmhouses (as is more often the case), was enclosed without protest and without hurt to its congregation, I have no means of de termining. It is worth noting, that no part of the Old Road is enclosed for so great a length as that which passes from the western to the eastern lodge of Eastwell Park. Nearly two miles of its course lies here within the fence of a private owner. It is odd to see how little of the road has fallen within private walls. In Hampshire nothing of it is enclosed ; in Surrey, if we except the few yards at Puttenham, and the garden rather than the park at Monk's Hatch, it has been caught by the enclosures of the great landlords in four places alone : Albury, Denbies, Gatton, and Titsey. It passes, indeed, through the gardens of Merstham House, but that only for a very short distance. In Kent, Chevening has absorbed it for now close upon a century ; then it remains OF THE ROAD 265 open land as far as this great park of East- well, and, as we shall see, passes later through a portion of Chilham. Clear as the road had been throughout Eastwell Park (and preserved possibly by its enclosure), beyond the eastern wall it en tirely disappears. The recovery of it, rather more than half a mile further on, the fact that one recovers it on the same contour- line, that the contour-line is here turned round the shoulder of the hill which forms the entrance into the valley of the Stour, give one a practical certainty that the Old Road swept round a similar curve, but the evidence is lost.1 The portion near Boughton Aluph is per fectly clear ; it goes right up under the south porch. It has disappeared again under the plough in the field between the church and Whitehill Farm. There it has been cut, as we had found it so often in the course of our journey, by a quarry. Another 1 The 5-Jjj^ Ordnance map of Kent (lv. 10) seems to me to commit a slight error at this point. There is no need to take the Old Road through the gas works. It obviously goes south of the lodge, curls northwards on leaving the park, and is lost in the buildings near the smithy. After this it forms the lane which bounds to the north the fields marked 111 and 119. 266 THE EXPLORATION field has lost it again under the plough ; it reappears on the hillside beyond in a line of yews.1 But within a hundred yards or so there arises a difficulty which gave rise to some discussion among us. A little eastward of us, on the way we had to go, the range of hills throws out one of those spurs with a re-entrant curve upon the far side, which we had previously dis covered in Surrey above Red Hill and Bletchingly. It was our experience that the Old Road, when it came to an obstacle of this kind, made for the neck of the pro montory and cut off the detour by passing just north of the crest. The accompanying sketch will explain the matter. We knew from the researches of others that the road was certainly to be found again at the spot marked A. It was our impression, from a previous study of the map, that the trail would make straight for 1 Here again the 25-inch Ordnance for Kent (lv. 10) draws a conventional straight line which seemed to us erroneous. We took it to go from near Brewhouse Farm along the raised footpath to Whitehill, and then (lv. 6) under the pit, across fields 13 and 67 (not down by Soakham Farm as the map gives it), and so on to the turf where is a raised embankment and a characteristic line of yews. OF THE ROAD 267 this point from the place where I was stand ing (X). But we were wrong. At this point the road turned up the hill, its track very deeply marked, lined with trees, and at loo ft Platform of Chilham Castle (¦ Old Road 500 ft. Godmersham Ch ^Summit of ^ Spur Road known from this point Ravine Road lost here the top with yews of immense antiquity. The cause of this diversion was apparent when we saw that the straight line I had expected the road to follow would have taken it across a ravine too shallow for the contours of the Ordnance map to indicate, but too steep for even a primitive trail to have negotiated. And this led me to regret 268 THE EXPLORATION that we had not maps of England such as they have for parts of Germany, Switzerland, and France, which give three contour-lines to every 100 feet, or one to every 10 metres. We followed up the hill, then, certain that we had recovered the Old Road. It took the crest of the hill, went across the open field of Soakham, plunged into a wood, and soon led us to the point marked upon my sketch as A, where any research of ours was no longer needed. It is from this place that a man after all these hundred miles can first see Canterbury. We looked through the mist, down the hollow glen towards the valley between walls of trees. We thought, perhaps, that a dim mark in the haze far off was the tower of the Cathedral — we could not be sure. The woods were all round us save on this open downward upon which we gazed, and below us in its plain the discreet little river the Stour. The Way did not take us down to that plain, but kept us on the heights above, with the wood to our left, and to our right the palings of Godmersham. We had already learnt, miles westward of THE PLOUGHLANDS UNDER ORCHARDS: ALL THE KENTISH WEALD OF THE ROAD 269 this, that the Old Road does not take to the crest of a hill without some good reason, but that once there it often remains, especially if there is a spur upon which it can fall gently down to the lower levels. The lane we were following observed such a rule. It ran along the north of Godmer sham Park, just following the highest point of the hill, and I wondered whether here, as in so many other places, it had not formed a natural boundary for the division of land ; but I have had no opportunity of examining the history of this enclosure. Chilham Park marches with Godmersham ; where one ends and the other begins the road passed through the palings (and we with it) and went on in the shape of a clear ridge, planted often with trees, right down to the mound on which stands Chilham Castle. Down in the valley below, something much older bore witness to the vast age of this corner of inhabited land : the first barrow to be opened in England ; the tomb in which Camden (whom Heaven forgive) thought that a Roman soldier lay ; in which the country people still believe that the great giant Julaber was buried, but which is the 270 THE EXPLORATION memorial of something far too old to have a name. This castle and this grave are the entry into that host of antiquities which surrounds upon every side the soil of Canterbury. In every point of the views which would strike us in the last few miles, the history of this island would be apparent. From the mound on which Chilham Castle stands to the farm called Knockholt, just ikxmxm Traditional Pilgrims Way 200 ft Prehistoric Road Conjectural Chilham Church V ^1 Ch'tham Castle two miles away, is what I believe to be a gap in the Old Road, and I will give my OF THE ROAD 271 reasons for that conviction. Did I not hold it, my task would be far easier, for all the maps give the Way continuously from point to point. Up to the mound of Chilham the path is clear. After Knockholt it is equally clear, and has, for that matter, been studied and mapped by the highest authority in Eng land.1 But to bridge the space between is not as easy as some writers would imagine. It will be apparent from this sketch-map that between Chilham and Knockholt there rises a hill. On the south-east of it flows the Stour, with the modern main road along side of it ; on the north two lanes, coming to an angle, lead through a hamlet called Old Wives' Lees. There is a tradition that the pilgrims of the later Middle Ages went through Chilham and then turned back along these northern lanes, passing through Old Wives' Lees. This tradition may be trusted. They may have had some special reason, probably some 1 Professor Boyd-Dawkins in connection with his examina tion of the iron implements found in Bigberry Camp has traced the Old Koad for a mile or two westward. The map may be seen in Owens College at Manchester. 272 THE EXPLORATION devotional reason, for thus going out of their way, as we found them to have had at Compton. If their action in this is a good guide (as their action usually is) to the trace of the Old Road, well and good ; there is then no appreciable gap, for a path leads to Knockholt and could only correspond to the Old Road ; but I should imagine that here, as at Merstham, the pilgrims may have de ceived us. They may have made a detour for the purpose of visiting some special shrine, or for some other reason which is now forgotten. It is difficult to believe that a prehistoric trail would turn such sharp corners, for the only time in all this hundred and twenty miles, without some obvious reason, and that it should choose for the place in which to perform this evolution the damp and northern side of a rather loamy hill. I cannot but believe that the track went over the side of the hill upon the southern side, but I will confess that if it did so there is here the longest and almost the only unbridged gap in the whole of the itinerary. I am confirmed in my belief that it went over the southern side from the general alignment, from the fact that the OF THE ROAD 273 known path before Chilham goes to the south of the castle mound, that this would lead one to the south of the church, and so over the southern shoulder of the hill ; but, if it did so, ploughed land and the careful culture of hop-gardens have destroyed all traces of it. I fancied that something could be made of an indication about a quarter of a mile before Knockholt Farm, but I doubt whether it was really worth the trouble of examining.1 From the farm, right up through Bigberry Wood, we were on a track not only easy to recognise, but already followed, as I have said, by the first of authorities upon the subject. We came after a mile of the wood to the old earthwork which was at once the last and the greatest of the prehistoric remains upon the Old Road, and the first to be con nected with written history. 1 I would trace it more or less as follows on the 25-inch Ordnance map for Kent (xliv. 16) : — Through the orchards marked 378, 379a there just south of Bowerland, down the valley beyond, and up to Knockholt. But it is all cultivated land, and except for a footpath at the end there is no trace left. S 274 THE EXPLORATION It was a good place to halt : to sit on the edge of the gravelly bank, which had been cast up there no one knows how many cen turies ago, and to look eastward out towards Canterbury. The fort was not touched with the memory of the Middle Ages : it was not our goal, for that was the church of St. Thomas, but it was the most certain and ancient thing of all that antiquity which had been the mean ing of the road, and it stood here on the last crest of so many heights from which we had seen so many valleys in these eight days. History and the prehistoric met at this point only. Elsewhere we had found very much of what men had done before they began to write down their deeds. We had passed the barrows and the entrenchments, and the pits from whence coins with names, but without a history or a date, had been dug, and we had trodden on hard ground laid down at fords by men who had left no memory. We had seen also a very great many battlefields of which record exists. We had marched where Sweyn marched ; OF THE ROAD 275 Cheriton had been but a little way upon our right ; we had seen Alton ; the Roman station near Farnham had stood above us ; the great rout of Ockley had lain not far off below our passage of the Mole ; and we had recalled the double or treble memory of Otford, and of the Medway valley, where the invader perpetually met the armies of the island. But in all these there were two clean divisions : either the thing was archaic — a subject for mere guess-work ; or it was clear history, with no prehistoric base that we knew of behind it. On this hill the two categories mingled, and a bridge was thrown between them. For it was here that the Roman first con quered. This was that defence which the Tenth Legion stormed : the entrenchment which was the refuge for Canterbury ; and the river which names the battle was that dignified little stream the Stour, rolling an even tide below. The common people, who have been thought to be vacant of history, or at the best to distort it, have preserved a memory of this fight for two thousand years. 276 THE EXPLORATION I remembered as I sat there how a boy, a half-wit, had told me on a pass in Cumber land that a great battle had been fought there between two kings ; he did not know how long ago, but it had been a famous fight. I did not believe him then, but I know now that he had hold of a tradition, and the king who fought there was not a George or a James, but Rufus, eight hundred years before. As I considered these things and other memories halting at this place, I came to wish that all history should be based upon legend. For the history of learned men is like a number of separate points set down very rare upon a great empty space, but the historic memories of the people are like a picture. They are one body whose distortion one can correct, but the mass of which is usually sound in stuff, and always in spirit. Thinking these things I went down the hill with my companions, and I reoccupied my mind with the influence of that great and particular story of St. Thomas, whose shadow had lain over the whole of this road, until in these last few miles it had come to absorb it altogether. OF THE ROAD 277 The way was clear and straight like the flight of a bolt ; it spanned a steep valley, passed a windmill on the height beyond, fell into the Watling Street (which here took on its ahgnment), and within a mile turned sharp to the south, crossed the bridge, and through the Westgate led us into Canterbury. We had thoroughly worked out the whole of this difficult way. There stood in the Wathng Street, that road of a dreadful antiquity, in front of a villa, an omnibus. Upon this we climbed, and feeling that a great work was accomplished, we sang a song. So singing, we rolled under the Westgate, and thus the journey ended. There was another thing to be duly done before I could think my task was over. The city whose name and spell had drawn to it self all the road, and the shrine which was its core remained to be worshipped. The cathedral and the mastery of its central tower stood like a demand ; but I was afraid, and the fear was just. I thought I should be like the men who lifted the last veil in the ritual of the hidden goddess, and 278 THE EXPLORATION having lifted it found there was nothing beyond, and that all the scheme was a cheat ; or like what those must feel at the approach of death who say there is nothing in death but an end and no transition. I knew what had fallen upon the original soul of the place. I feared to find, and I found, nothing but stones. I stood considering the city and the vast building and especially the immensity of the tower. Even from a long way off it had made a pivot for all we saw ; here closer by it appalled the senses. Save perhaps once at Beauvais, I had never known such a magic of great height and darkness. It was as though a shaft of influence had risen enormous above the shrine : the last of all the emanations which the sacred city cast outwards just as its sanctity died. That tower was yet new when the commis sioners came riding in, guarded by terror all around them, to destroy, perhaps to burn, the poor materials of worship in the great choir below : it was the last thing in England which the true Gothic spirit made. It signi fies the history of the three centuries during SUCH A MAGIC OF GREAT HEIGHT AND DARKNESS OF THE ROAD 279 which Canterbury drew towards it all Europe. But it stands quite silent and emptied of every meaning, tragic and blind against the changing life of the sky and those activities of light that never fail or die as do all things intimate and our own, even religions. I received its silence for an hour, but without comfort and with out response. It seemed only an awful and fitting terminal to that long way I had come. It sounded the note of all my road — the droning voice of extreme, incalculable age. As I had so fixed the date of this journey, the hour and the day were the day and hour of the murder. The weather was the weather of the same day seven hundred and twenty-nine years before : a clear cold air, a clean sky, and a little wind. I went into the church and stood at the edge of the north transept, where the archbishop fell, and where a few Norman stones lend a material basis for the resurrection of the past. It was almost dark. ... I had hoped in such an exact coincidence to see the gigantic figure, huge in its winter swad dling, watching the door from the cloister, 280 THE EXPLORATION watching it unbarred at his command. I had thought to discover the hard large face in profile, still caught by the last light from the round southern windows and gazing fixedly ; the choir beyond at their alternate nasal chaunt ; the clamour ; the battering of oak; the jangle of arms, and of scabbards trailing, as the troops broke in ; the footfalls of the monks that fled, the sharp insults, the blows and Gilbert groaning, wounded, and a Becket dead. I listened for Mauclerc's mad boast of violence, scattering the brains on the pavement and swearing that the dead could never rise ; then for the rush and flight from the profanation of a temple, and for distant voices crying outside in the streets of the city, under the sunset, ' The King's Men ! The King's ! ' But there was no such vision. It seems that to an emptiness so utter not even ghosts can return. In the inn, in the main room of it, I found my companions. A gramophone fitted with a monstrous trumpet roared out American songs, and to this sound the servants of the OF THE ROAD 281 inn were holding a ball. Chief among them a woman of a dark and vigorous kind danced with an amazing vivacity, to the applause of her peers. With all this happiness we mingled. INDEX A Becket, St. Thomas. See ' St. Thomas.' Addlngton, megalithic remains at, 253 (note 2). Adie, Mrs., her valuable book, The Pilgrim's Way, referred to, 136, 214. Albury, 'Weston Street' old name of, 136 (note 2). Church, old (SS. Peter and Paul), passed, according to Ordnance map, to south by Old Road, 110 (note). Park, preservation of Old Road in, 82 ; discussion of Old Road in, 174, 175. Wood. See 'Weston.' Alfred, desecration of grave of, 125. Alresfords, the, not on the Old Road, 127 ; medieval road to, from Alton, 129, 130 (note 1). Alton, battle of, mentioned, 126 ; approach to medieval road to Alresford from, 129, 130 (note 1) ; approach to, described, 144-146. Anchor, Inn at Ropley, 137, 138 (map). Anglo-Saxon Period, character of, 83-85. See also Dark Ages. Antiquity, fascination of, 10. Arthur's Seat (near Redhill), exceptional passage of Old Road to north of crest at, 106 (note) ; described on journey, 209. Avebury, and Stonehenge, mark convergence of pre historic roads, 16. Aylesford, a crossing of the Medway, its claims dis cussed, 245-248 ; and map, 236 ; 253 (note 2). Barfleur, last southern port of ' Second Crossing,' 49, 50. Barrow, near Chilham, 269. Bentley, passage of Old Road by, 149. Betchworth Lime pits, passed on journey and described, 188-193. Bigberry Camp, fort of Can terbury, stormed by Caesar, 43 ; compared with St. Catherine's Hill at Win chester, 70 ; Professor Boy d- Dawkins's examination of, 271 (note),visited on journey and described, 273-275. Bishopstoke, church of, on site of Druidical stone circle, 109. 284 THE OLD ROAD Bishop Sutton, church of, pas sage of Old Road as near as possible to south of, 110; mentioned in Domesday, 130; passed on our jour ney, 134. Bittern (Clausentum), example of Roman use of Second Crossing, 55. Bletchingly, example of Old Road on crest of hill, 107. Boughton Aluph, hills beyond, example of Old Road on crest of hill, 107. Church, example of church passed to south, 110; passed on journey, 265 ; discussion of road to eastward of, 265, 266. Boulogne, principal historic, but probably not earliest, southern port of Straits of Dover, 35. Box Hill, its appearance from Denbies at evening de scribed, 178 ; track of Road recovered on, 181. Boxley, Roman and British coins found at, 253 (note 2). Abbey, site of referred to, 240 ; Roman and British coins found at, 253. Boyd-Dawkins, Professor, his examination of Bigberry Camp, 271 (and note). Brackham Warren, passage of Old Road by, 186. Brading, example of Roman use of Second Crossing, 55. Brisland Lane, coincident with Old Road, 140. Britain, Roman. See 'Koman Britain.' (Conservation of antiquities in, 81-82.) British Coins, discovered at Oatton, 203 ; at Aylesford, 245 ; at Boxley, 253 (note 2). Brixbury Wood, passage of Old Road along, 162. Broad Street, near Lenham, place - name significant of passage of Old Road, 136 (note 2). Bull Inn, near Bentley, ap proach of Old Road to River Wey at, 152. Burford Bridge, error caused by passage of Pilgrimage at, 95 (note) ; not crossed by Old Road, 182-184. Burham, church of, passage of Old Road to south of, 110 ; passed on journey, 253. Bury Hill Camp, on original track of Old Road, 27. Butts, the, at Alton, entry both of medieval and pre historic roads, 145. Caesar, first eyewitness of conditions of southern Bri tain, 24 ; fort at Canterbury stormed by him, 43, 275. Calais, probably first southern port of the Straits of Dover, 34-35. Calvados, reef of, 50. Camp, of Canterbury (Big berry Wood), stormed by Caesar, 43 ; of Winchester (St. Catherine's hill), 70; of Holmbury, Farley Heath, and Anstie Bury, alluded INDEX 285 to, 170-171 ; of Oldbury, of Posbery, 253 (note 2) ; Bigberry described, 273- 275. Camps, of Winchester and Canterbury compared, 70. Canterbury, why the goal of Old Road in its final form, causes of development of, 31-42 ; created by neces sity of central depot for Kentish ports, 41 ; import ance of its position on the Stour, 42 ; resistance to Caesar, 43 ; origin of its religious character, 44 ; compared with Winchester, 66-71 ; entered by West- gate, 277. Cathedral, visited, 278- 280. Cassiterides, their identifica tion with Scilly Isles doubt ful, 20. Chalk, has preserved Old Road, 75-76 ; third cause of preservation of Old Road fully discussed, 97, 98; excursion upon, 189-192. Chantries Wood, 163. Charing, block of St. John at, 94 ; example of church passed to north, 111, 257 ; described, 260, 261 ; rhyme on, 261 (note). Chawton Wood, medieval road from Alton to Alresford passed through, 136 (notel). Village, passed, 146. Chevening Park, passage of Old Road across, 217. church, example of Old Road passing to north, 111. Chequers Inn, Ropley, passage of Old Road through garden of, 138. Chilham, church, mentioned , 94 ; probable diversion of Old Road at, by Pilgrimage, 95 (note) ; probability of Old Road passing south of hill at, 106 (note) ; church probably passed from south, 110; Park crossed, 269; discussion as to track of Road east of 267-273 (and map). Chilterns, the, their position in scheme of prehistoric roads, 16; connection with Icknield Way, 23. Christianity, effect of a main road on its development, 7. Churches, Wells in. See 'Wells.' Often built on pre-Christian sites, 109 ; passed to south by Old Road, list of, 108-110; of King's Worthy, Itchen Stoke, Bishop Sutton, Seale, Puttenham, St. Catherine's, St. Martha's, Albury, Shere, Merstham, Titsey, Cheven ing, Bishopstoke, Snodland, Burham, Lenham, Charing, Eastwell, Chilham, etc. See under name of place. Clausentum. See Bittern. Clay, Old Road often lost on, 75 ; how avoided by Old Road in Upper Valley of Wey, 152 (and note) ; above Quarry Hangers, argument against identity of Pilgrim's Road with Prehistoric, 205. 286 THE OLD ROAD Cobham Farm, Old Road lost at, 258. Coldrum (or Trottescliffe), megalithic monument, 252- 253(andnote),and236(map). Colekitchen Combe, passage of Old Road across, 177. Colley Farm, Roman remains at, 197. Hill, example of Old Road on crest of hill, 107 ; described with map, 196. Compton, probable diversion of Old Road through, by Pilgrimage, 95 (note) ; also 159, 160. Cotentin, promontory of the, its value as a breakwater to the ' Second Crossing,' 46, 50 ; height of shore hills upon, 48. Cotswolds, the, their position in scheme of prehistoric road, 16, 23. Cowes, as a harbour of Second Crossing, 55. 'Crossing, Second.' See 'Second Crossing.' Cultivation avoided by Old Road, exceptions to this, 148-149. Cuxton, a possible crossing of the Medway, map, 236 ; its claims discussed, 244. Darent, river crossing, of, 219- 225. Dark Ages, reproduce barbaric conditionsprevioustoRomanConquest, 65. Denbies Park, clear trace of Old Road along edge of, 178. Detling, 257. Domesday, Worthies mentioned in, 121 (note); three churches at Alresford mentioned in, 129 ; Bishop Sutton men tioned in, 130 ; Wrotham, Oxford, Charing mentioned in, 221. Dorking Lime Pits, track lost after, 178. Dorsetshire Downs, their posi tion in scheme of prehistoric roads, 16, 23. Dover, Straits of, harbour of, originally an inlet, modern artificial character of, 36. See Straits. Downs. See North, South, Dorsetshire. Drovers, preserve old tracks by avoiding turnpike roads, 95 ; their road to London after Shere confused with Old Road, 176. Dun Street, near Eastwell Park, place-name significant of passage of Old Road, 136 (note 2); passed on journey, 262. Duthie, his record of medieval road from Alresford to Alton, 136 (note 1). Eastwell Park, preservation of Old Road, 82 ; passage through on journey, 263. Ermine Street, alluded to, 19 ; less affected than Icknield Way by revolution of the twelfth century, 87. Farnham, marks ends of North Down Ridge, 26; on original track of Old Road, 27 ; INDEX 287 strategical and political im portance of, 153-154. Farnham Lane, marks end of disused western portion of Old Road, 27. Flanking Boads, 107. Folkestone, one of modern harbours on northern shore of the Straits, its artificial character, 36. Ford, of Itchen at Itchen Stoke, discussed, 130-133 (and map) ; of Wey at Shal ford, position of, 166-167 (and map) ; of Mole, dis- cussed,181-183; of Medway, or crossing, fully discussed, 236-253. Fords, Old Road chooses those approached by a spur on either side, 111. Fordwych, original limit of tide on Stour, 43. Fosse Way, alluded to, 19 ; begins to disappear with advent of Middle Ages, 87. Froyle, passage of Old Road by, 152. Gatton, exceptional passage of Old Road to north of crest at, 106 (note) ; speculation on history of, 201 ; track of Old Road through, and pas sage to north of crest de scribed, 199 (note), 202-203. Geological conditions of exit from Winchester, 122 ; of upper Wey valley, 152 (and note) ; of Quarry Hangers, 205 ; of crossing of Medway in general, 244-251; of Snod land in particular, 250-251. Gilbert Street, place-name sug gesting passage of Old Road, 137. Glastonbury, example of origi nal importance of West Country, 22. Gloucester, medieval tax on iron at, 20. Godmersham, exceptional pas sage of Old Road to north of crest at, 106 (note) ; track of Road at, 267-269 (and map). Goodnestone, village of, geo graphical centre of Kentish ports, why unsuitable as a political centre, 42. Goodwin Sands, probably pre historic, 39. Greystone Lime Pits, Mers tham, recovery of Old Road at, 206. 'Grey Wethers,' name of platform beyond Medway opposite Wrotham, 233. Gresivaudan, example of ad vantage of Partial Isolation, 30. Gris Nez, look-out towards English shore, 32 ; forbids harbours near it, but pro vides shelter to eastward coast, 34. Gomshall, doubt as to passage of Old Road at, 176. 'Habits,' of the Old Road, list of, 104-113. Hamble, River, as a harbour of the ' Second Crossing,' 54. Harbours, multiplicity of, in Straits of Dover, produced by complexity of tides, 31, 32, 35 ; list of original and 288 THE OLD ROAD modern, on northern shore of the Straits, 35 ; of Southampton Water, Solent, and Spithead, excellence of, 55 ; list of, on Solent and Southampton Water, 55. Harrietsham, 257. Hart Hill, Old Road recovered at, 258. Hastings, mirage at, alluded to, 34. Haverfield, his map giving Roman road from north gate of Winchester, 124 (note). Headbourne Worthy, arguments for and against its standing on Old Road, 120-125 ; mentionedin Domesday, 121. High Cross, compared to Gatton, 201. Hills, ranges of, correspond with prehistoric roads, 15-16 (with map); crest of, usually avoided by Old Road, 106. Hoborough, Roman remains in, 253 (note 2). Hog's Back, hill near Farnham, continues range of North Downs, 26 ; affords example of turnpike protecting Old Road, 96 ; excellent example of 'Flanking Road,' 107; passage of Old Road along, 156 et seq. Hollingbourne, 257. Horizons, of Barfleur and St. Catherine's, 48 (map), 50. ' Hundred Stones,' the, megal ithic monument,254(note 2). Hyde Abbey, site and ruins of, 123-125. begins to disappear in Middle Ages, 87. Inns, Anchor, Chequers, Jolly Farmer, Kentish Drover, etc. See under these names. Iron, its early production in West England, 23; in the Sussex Weald, 24. Islands, examples of advantages of Partial Isolation, 31. Isle of Wight, its projection southward invites ' Second Crossing,' 46 ; importance of St. Catherine's Hill in, 51 ; harbours of, and reef off Ventnor, 55. Isolation, Partial, Geographical, pol itical advantages of , 22-3 1 . Itchen Abbas, origin of name, 126 ; Roman villa discovered near, 126 (note) ; passed on our journey, 125. Itchen, river, continuation of Southampton Water, 56 ; compared to Stour, 68, 69 ; made navigable by Lucy, 130 ; view of, from Alresford Hill, 133-134 ; crossing of, at Itchen Stoke, 130-133 (and map). ¦ Valley of, forms Win chester to Farnham Road, 60. Itchen Stoke, old church of, passage of Old Road to south of, 110; site and date of destruction of, 126. Ford at, Old Road passes Itchen by, 128-133 (and map) ; passed on our j ourney, 132. Icknield Way, alluded to, 22 ; Jews occupied principal street INDEX 289 of Winchester, 118; their wealth in early Middle Ages, 118 (note). Jolly Farmer, Inn at Putten ham, 160. Kemsing, manor of, 226 ; on map, 227. Kent, shape of, forces Old Road westward, 18 ; causes com plexity of tides in Straits of Dover, 31-32. Kentish Drover, the, 253 (note 1). King's Worthy, church of, passage of Old Road to south of, 110; mentioned in Domesday, 121 (note); its situation on Old Road discussed, 120-125 ; passed on our journey, 125. Kit's Coty House, referred to, 248 (note 1); visited 253, 254. Knockholt Farm, east of Chil ham, Old Road recovered at, 270. Land-fall, importance of, 52. Landlords, their conservation of antiquities, 82. Lead, mined in early times in the north, 19 ; in the west, 20. Len, River, 259. Lenham, traces of flanking road above, 107; church of, example of passage to north, 111 ; passed, 257. Lime Pits, Dorking, Betchworth, etc., see under their separate names ; a mark of Old Road, 192-193. London, growth of importance of as Roman rule failed, 65 ; ousts Winchester, 87. Longnose Point, alluded to, 38. Lower Hailing, a crossing of the Medway, its claims dis cussed, 248-249 ; and map, 236. Lucy, Bishop of Winchester, renders Itchen navigable, 130. Lymington, as a harbour of Second Crossing, 54. Lympne. See Portus Lemanis. Maiden Way, alluded to, 19. Marden Park, track of Old Road round, and map, 211. Margery Wood, passage of Old Road by, 198. Martyrs' Worthy, passed on journey, 125. Medina, river, as a harbour of the ' Second Crossing,' 54. Medstead, watershed near, mentioned, 113. Medway, River, crossing of, fully discussed, with map, 236-253. Valley of, view over, from Wrotham described, 231-233. Megalithic Monument. See Kit's Coty House, Addington, Coldrum, etc. Mendips, their importance as a metallic centre, 20. Merstham, probable diversion of Old Road at, by Pilgrim age, 95 (note) ; example of church passed to south, 110. House, passage of Old 290 THE OLD ROAD Road through grounds of, 204. Metals, mined originally in West England, 19. Method of Reconstruction of Old Road, 100-104. Mole, river, point of crossing discussed, 181-183; with map, 182. Monk's Hatch, passage of Old Road through, 162. Neolithic Man, his principal seat on greensand south of North Downs, 23 ; endur ance of relics of, 73. North Country, not important in early times, 19. Downs, their position in scheme of prehistoric roads, 16; the original and neces sary platform of the Old Road,24-25(withmap); view of these from Wrotham, 231; 'funnel' formed by them at passage of Medway, 237 ; road leaves them after Char ing, 260. Street, place-name sug gesting passage of Old Road, 137. Old Road, why the most im portant of English prehis toric roads, 17-24 ; its first track sketched, 25 ; why it ended at Canterbury, 31- 42 ; why it began at Win chester, 44-58 ; short cut from Winchester to Farn ham gradually superseded original western portion, 59-61 (with map) ; final form of, 62 (with map) ; causes of preservation of, 72-99 ; proportion of known to unknown, 100-101 (with map) ; characteristics or 'habits' of, 104-113. Its track from north gate of Winchester to King's Worthy, 120-125; coincid ence of, with modern road from King's Worthy to Itchen Stoke, 124; argu ments in favour of its cross ing the Itchen at Itchen Stoke, 127-132; recovering of lost portion in Ropley Valley, 132-136; corre sponds to high-road after Alton, causes of this, 149- 154 ; diversion at Putten ham, 158 ; crosses Wey, 163-166; passes St. Martha's, north of Weston Wood, Albury Park, 170-175; crosses Mole at Pixham Mill, 180-183; passes Betchworth Pits, 188 ; lost after Merstham and re covered, 204-207 ; discus sion of track near Marden Park, 211; and across Tit sey Park, 214-216; its loss after Chevening, 217; typi cal section of, 225-230 (with map) ; its crossing of Med way discussed, 236-253 ; clear along Downs to Char ing, 256-260 ; crosses East- well Park, Boughton Aluph, Godmersham, Chilham Park, 263-269 ; lost for two miles east of Chilham, 270-271 (and map) ; passes Bigberry INDEX 291 Camp, 273 ; enters Canter bury by Westgate, 277. Old Wives' Lees, doubts as to passage of Old Road by, 270-271 (and map). Ordie, Domesday name for 'Worthy,' 121 (note). Ordnance Map, 6-inch to the mile, probably wrong in track of Roman Road from north gate of Winchester, 124 (note) ; error in track given from Arthur's Seat to Oxted railway cutting, 213. Ordnance Map, „ 5^0, refer ences to fields at Ropley, 138 (notes 1, 2, 3), 139 (note) ; at Puttenham, 158 (note); Weston Wood, 174 (note) ; doubts as to track given by it through Albury Park, l74; recovery of Old Road after Gomshall, 177 (note) ; probable error east of Shere, 176 ; crossing of Mole, 183 (note) ; crest of Colley Hill, 197; error of, in regard to Gatton Park, 199 (note) ; Merstham to Quarry Hangers, 207 (note); east of Marden Park, 212 (note); east of Chevening, 218 (note) ; passage of Medway 253 (note) ; error of, east and north of Eastwell Park, and east and north of Boughton Aluph church, 265-266 (notes 1 and 2). Otford, passage of Old Road through, 218; battles of, 220; palace of, 220, 221. Oxted, error caused byapproach of pilgrimage to plain of, 95 (note). Oxted Railway Cutting, track of Old Road from Marden Park to, 211-212 (and map). Paddlesworth, passage of Old Road, 253 (note 1). Palace of Archbishops of Can terbury at Otford, 220-223. Park, Albury, Monk's Hatch, Denbies, Gatton, Merstham, Titsey, Chevening, Stede Hill, Eastwell, Godmersham, Chilham. See under these names. Pebble Combe, passage of Old Road across, 194-196 (and map). Pilgrimage, to shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury, pre serves the Old Road, 76-81 ; change of date of, 91 ; rapid development of, 91-92; ancient sites restored by, 93 ; but also prehistoric track sometimes confused by list of places so affected, 96 (and note) ; example at Ropley of its recovery of Old Road, 136 (and note) ; confuses record of passing of River Mole, 181 ; diver sion caused to Road after Merstham, 205 ; and Old Wives' Lees, 271. Pilgrim's Lane, near Merstham, 205. Pixham Mill, Old Road crosses Mole at, 182 (map), and 183 (note). Porchester, example of Roman 292 THE OLD ROAD use of ' Second Crossing,' 55. Portsmouth, as a harbour of the ' Second Crossing,' 54. Portus Adurni, possibly origin of a track to London, 200 ; doubts on its equivalence to Shoreham, 200. Portus Lemanis, the modern Lympne, perhaps original of Old Road, 27 ; its connec tion with the earliest cross ing of the Straits, 35. Puttenham, apparent excep tion to straightness of Old Road at, mentioned, 105 ; example of church passed to south, 110; medieval market at, 158 ; diversion of Old Road at discussed, 159-161 (and map) ; neolithic and bronze remains at, 161. Quarley Hill, on original track of Old Road, 27. Quarry Hangers, east of Red Hill, too steep to take Old Road, 205, 206 ; arrival at summits of, 207. Ramsgate, one of modern har bours on northern shore of Straits, its artificial char acter, 36. Reconstruction of Old Road. See 'Method.' Reculvers, one of original har bours in connection with crossing Straits of Dover, 35. Reef, of Calvados, 50; off Ventnor, 55. Reformation, effect of, on Old Road, 221-224. Reigate, derivation of name of, and relation to Old Road, 199. Religion, effect of a road on development of, 7 ; effect of Dark Ages on, in Britain, 80 ; preserves and recovers Old Road, 92-94. Representative System, mon astic origin of, 86. Richborough, one of original harbours on northern shore of the Straits, 35 (Rutupiae) ; alternative harbour in origi nal crossing, 36. Road, the, primeval import ance of, 4-5. Old. See ' Old Road.' Road, Roman. See ' Roman Road.' Flanking. See ' Flanking Roads.' Turnpike. See 'Turnpike.' Roads, prehistoric, in England, correspond to five hill ranges, 15 (with map); difficulty of recovering, 74- 75 ; especially preserved in Britain, 78 ; and their destruction in twelfth cen tury, 84, 85. Roman Britain, imperfect occupation of, 76, 77. Roman Coins, discovery of, at Gatton, 203; at Boxley, 253 (note 2). Roman Remains, near Itchen Abbas, 126 (and note) ; near Farnham, 153 ; at Colley Farm and Walton Heath, 197; at Titsey Park, 214; at Lower Hailing, Snodland, Burham, Little Culand, 251 ; INDEX 293 Plaxtol and Thurnham, Boxley, 253 (note 2). Roman Road, definite character of a, 74 ; from Winchester to Silchester, site of, 119, 124 (and note); conjectural from Portus Adurni to London, 200 ; at base of Upwood Scrubbs, 208. Ropley, passage of Pilgrimage through, and position on Old Road, 136 (and note) ; valley of, track of Old Road through, 137 (map). Rutupiae. See Reculvers. Rye, one of original harbours on northern shores of Straits, 35. St. Catherine's Chapel, near Guildford, discussed in connection with passage of River Wey, 163-165. Down, in Isle of Wight. See ' Isle of Wight.' Hill, camp at Winchester, compared to Bigberry Camp, 70. St. Martha's, doubtful whether passed to north or south, 110; derivation of name, 170 ; described, passed, 172. St. Swithin, his shrine at Winchester, 71. St. Thomas k, Becket, his shrine at Canterbury destroys that of St. Swithin at Win chester, 71 ; pilgrimage to tomb of, see ' Pilgrimage ' ; his martyrdom, turning- point of twelfth century, 89 ; date of martyrdom, jubilee and translation, 91 ; his chapel at Reigate, 200. Salisbury Plain, area of con vergence of prehistoric roads, 16. Sandwich, one of harbours on northern shore of Straits, 35. Scilly Isles, their identifica tion with Cassiterides doubtful, 20. ' Second Crossing,' passage of Channel from Cotentin to Wight so called, 46 ; its advantages, 48 ; map of, 49 ; high land marking either shore, 50-51 ; great advantage of its English harbours, 55 ; the direct route to the centre at Salisbury Plain, 56 ; principal cause of de velopment of Winchester, ibid. Seale, church of, passage of Old Road as near as possible to south of, 110; passed 157. Seine, estuary of, its import ance in production of Second Crossing, 48, 49 (and map). Severn, valley of, importance as metallic centre, 20. Shalford, Becket's fair at, 158 ; passaged Wey at, discussed, 164-167 (and map). Shere, church of, passage of Old Road to south of, doubt ful, 110; probable track of OldRoad through, described, 175. Shoelands, passed on journey, 157 ; significance of name, 157. Shrines, of Winchester and Canterbury compared, 71 ; of St. Thomas a Becket. See ' St Thomas.' 294 THE OLD ROAD Snodland, church of, passage of Old Road to south of, 110; crossing of Medway at, discussed, 248-253 (and map), 236. South Country, originally wealthiest portion of the island, 23, 24. Southampton Water, Solent, and Spithead, regarded as one harbour, north of ' Second Crossing,' 55. South Downs, their position in scheme of prehistoric roads, 16. Stane Street, example of evi dences of a Roman road, 74 ; disuse in Middle Ages, 87 ; crosses Mole at Burford Bridge, 185. Stoke, meaning of, in place- names, 127- Stonehenge, and Avebury, mark convergence of pre historic roads, 1 6 ; original starting-point of Old Road, 27. Stour, River, importance of in development of Canterbury, 42,43; compared to Itchen, 68, 69 ; source in Lenham, 259 ; entry of Old Road into valley of, 260, 262. Straits of Dover, importance of, to England alluded to, 17 ; discussed at length, 29- 40 ; complexity of tides in, 32 ; opposite shores visible, 32 ; original harbours of, 35 ; original crossing of, 37-39. Street, Stane, Ermine, Watling. See under these names. Street, in place-names indicates passage of a road, 136 (and note 2). Swegen, his march through the Worthies, 126. Thomas a Becket, St. See ' St. Thomas.' Ticino, example of advantage of partial isolation, 30. Tide, multiplicity of harbours due to their complexity, 31- 32 ; in Straits of Dover, 37- 39 ; limit of, on Stour, 43, and on Itchen, forming Canterbury and Winchester, 68 ; political importance of limitof, e.g. atSnodland,252. Tin, mined originally in Corn wall, 20. Titsey Church, old, example of church passed to south by Old Road, 110; passed on journey, 216. Park, discoveries in, mentioned, 82; flanking road on hills to east of, 107 ; Roman remains of, and passage of Old Road through, 214. Towns, inland, advantages for defence over seaports, 67 ; avoided by Old Road, excep tions to this, 149. Trottescliffe. See Coldrum. Turnpike Roads, second cause of preservation of Old Road, 76, 95. Twelfth Century, revolution of the, 84-87. Upwood Scrubbs, near Cater ham, Old Road lost in, 208. INDEX 295 Valleys, examplesof advantages of partial isolation, 31 ; of Wey, Itchen, Darent, Med way, etc. See under these names. Varne, sand-buoy, alluded to, 37. Walton Heath, Roman remains at, 197. Watershed, method of crossing one, 60-61 ; that between Itchen and Wey, 61-62 (and map) ; proximity of, toMed- stead, 113 ; direct approach to, an argument for Itchen Stoke Ford, 131 ; also for coincidence of Old Road with Brisland Lane, 135; how approached from Ropley valley, 137 (and map); passed on journey, 140 ; map of, in detail, 143 ; of Medway and Stour, 259. Watling Street, alluded to, 18 ; preserved when others dis appeared in twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 86. Wells, in churches, list of, 57 (note). Welsh Road, preserved, like the Old Road, by turnpikes, 95-96. West Country, importance of, in early times, 19-22 ; spirit of, 21. Weston, or Albury Wood, Old Road passes to north of, 106 (note) ; this part of road described in journey, 173. Weston Street, old name for Albury, significant of passage of Old Road, 136 (note 2). West Street, near Lenham, place-name significant of passage of Old Road, 136 (note 2). Wey River, discussion of how crossed by Old Road near Shalford, 164-167 (and map). valley of, forms Win chester to Farnham road, 60; its geological conditions beyond Alton, 152 (and note) ; coincidence of Old and modern road in 149- 152 (and map); Roman remains in, 153. Whitchurch, on original track of Old Road, 27. Whiteways, point in Hog's Back where Old Road branches from Turnpike, 156. Wight, Isle of. See 'Isle of Wight.' Winchelsea, one of original harbours on northern shore of Straits, 35. Winchester, why the origin of Old Road in its final form, causes of development of, 45-57 ; inland town of the Second Crossing, 56 ; great age of, 56 ; compared to Chartres, 57 ; compared with Canterbury, 66-71 ; begin ning of decay of, after twelfth century, 87 ; arrangement of Roman streets in, 117 ; site of north gate of, 118. Winds, prevailing in Straits of Dover, 33 ; effect of, on original crossing, 34 ; pre vailing, of ' Second Cross ing,' 48 (map), 49. 296 THE OLD ROAD Worthies, Headbourne, King's, Martyrs'. See under these names. Wrotham, relation of, to Old Road, 226-227 (and map) ; view from, 231-233. Wye, in Kent, why unsuitable as a centre for Kentish ports, 42-44. Yaldham, relation of, to Old Road, 226, 227 (and map). Yarmouth, in Isle of Wight, one of harbours of Second Crossing, 54. Yews, often mark Old Road, 103 ; indicate recovery of road at Box Hill, 186. Yew Walk, at Albury, mentioned, 174. York, why Roman capital, 65. Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty at the Edinburgh University Press YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY From the Library of ANNIE BURR JENNINGS the gift of ANNIE BURR LEWIS . ' ''.'.!',' ¦,', ...