Chapter I: Preface

_It has been said, by whom I know not, that "prefaces to books are like signs to public-houses; they are intended to give one an idea of the kind of entertainment to be found within." But this preface is not to be like those; for it would require an essay in itself to give a comprehensive idea of the Dover Road, in all its implications. A road is not merely so many miles of highway, more or less well-maintained. It is not only something in the surveyor's way; but history as well. It is life, touched at every point._

_The Dover Road--the highway between London and that most significant of approaches to the Continent of Europe--would have been something much more in its mere name had it not been for the accident of London: one of the greatest accidents. It would have been considered a part of the great road to Chester and to Holyhead: the route diagonally across England, from sea to sea, which really in the first instance it was._

_For the Dover Road is actually the initial limb of the Watling Street: that prehistoric British trackway adopted by the Romans and by them engineered into a road; and it would seem that those Roman engineers, instructed by the Imperial authorities, considered rather the military and strategic needs of those times than those of_ LONDINIUM; _for London was not on the direct road they made; and it was only at a later date, when it was grown commercially, they constructed an alternative route that served it._

_It would be rash to declare that more history has been enacted on this road than on any other, although we may suspect it; but certainly history is more spectacular along these miles. Those pageants and glittering processions are of the past: they ended in 1840, when railways were about to supplant the road; when the last distinguished traveller along these miles, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, came up by carriage to wed Queen Victoria._

CHARLES G. HARPER.

FEBRUARY, 1922.

THE ROAD TO DOVER

London Bridge (Surrey side) to--

MILES

Borough (St. George's Church) 1/2

Kent Street 3/4

Newington ("Bricklayers' Arms") 1

New Cross 3-1/4

Deptford 4-1/4

Blackheath 5

Shooter's Hill 8-1/4

Shoulder of Mutton Green 9-1/4

Belle Grove 9-1/2

Welling 10-1/4

Crook Log 10-3/4

Bexley Heath 11-1/4

Crayford (Cross River Cray) 13-1/4

Dartford (Cross River Darent) 15

John's Hole 16-1/4

Horn's Cross 17

Greenhithe 18

Northfleet 20-1/4

Gravesend (Jubilee Tower) 22

Milton 23

Chalk Street 23-1/2

Gad's Hill ("Falstaff" Inn) 26-1/4

Strood (Cross River Medway) 28-1/4

Rochester (Guildhall) 29

Chatham (Town Pier) 30

Rainham 34

Moor Street 34-1/4

Newington 36-3/4

Key Street 38

Chalk Well 39

Sittingbourne (Parish Church) 40

Bapchild 41-1/4

Radfield 41-3/4

Green Street 42-1/2

Ospringe 45-1/2

Preston 46-1/2

Boughton-under-Blean 49

Boughton Hill 50

Dunkirk 51-1/4

Harbledown 54

Canterbury (Cross River Stour) 55-1/4

Gutteridge Gate 57

Bridge (Cross River Stour) 58-1/4

Halfway House 62-3/4

Lydden 65-3/4

Temple Ewell 67-1/2

Buckland 69

Dover 70-3/4

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Mercery Lane, Canterbury Frontispiece

South Gateway, Old London Bridge 6

The "George" 7

Old Telegraph Tower, Tooley Street 10

The "Spur" Inn 15

Saturday Night in the Old Kent Road 21

Greenwich Observatory 26

Arms of Spielman and his first wife 52

Dartford Church 54

The "Bull" Inn, Dartford 56

Dartford Bridge 59

Riverside, Gravesend 69

Denton Chapel 80

Joe Gargery's Forge 81

Ancient Carving--Chalk 82

Sailors' Folly 83

Jack come home again 84

The Light Fantastic. Bank Holiday at Chalk 85

Gad's Hill Place. Residence of Charles Dickens 92

The "Falstaff," Gad's Hill 94

A Good Samaritan 111

Rochester Castle and the Medway 116

High Street, Rochester: Eastgate House 122

Jack in his Glory 123

The Invasion of England: England 127

The Invasion of England: France 131

Paid off at Chatham 135

Key Street 148

Yard of the "Lion" Hotel, Sittingbourne 160

Ospringe: a June hop-garden 167

"Sir William Courtenay" 177

"Courtenay" 180

Westgate, Canterbury 190

The Duc de Nivernais 193

The Black Prince's Arms and Badge 205

"A Gorgeous Creature" 215

William Clements 216

Bridge 218

"Old England's Hole" 223

Barham Downs 227

Watling Street: Moonrise 231

Floods at Alkham: The Drellingore Stream 239

St. Radigund's Abbey 241

Dover Castle, from the Folkestone Road: Sunrise 251