Chapter I: Preface

_The Road to Hastings is hilly. Not, perhaps, altogether so hilly as the Dover Road, and certainly never so dusty, nor so Cockneyfied; but the cyclist who explores it finds, or thinks he finds, an amazing amount of rising gradient in proportion to downhill, no matter which way he goes._

_Sevenoaks town, the matter of twenty miles down the road, is certainly preceded by the long, swooping down-grades of Polhill; but the lengthiest descent, by mere measurement in rods, poles, and perches, is only an incident in descending, while the inevitable corresponding rise is, the climbing of it, a long-drawn experience. To the motorist, who changes from high-gear to lower, and then, as the gradient stiffens, to lowest, and so with labouring engine crawls uphill, like a bluebottle up a window-pane, the revulsion from charging along the levels at an illegal pace, raising veritable siroccos of dust, is heart-breaking._

_Sevenoaks town crests the ramparted downs, and the hilly road goes up to it in steep lengths, with other lengths as near as may be flat, leading you to believe you are there, when in sheer cold fact you are not there, and still have other incredible gradients to climb. And yet, returning, you shall find the descent by no means so precipitous. River Hill by that time will have taken pride of place._

_For the other hills, let them be taken on trust; they are surely there, as also are those long rises, insensible to the sight of the toiling cyclist, but patent to his feeling as he wearily pushes round his unwilling pedals. For the motor-cyclist, with disabled engine, the Hastings Road is more tragical than anything Shakespeare ever staged._

_The_ HASTINGS ROAD _is, in short, the pedestrian’s road. You would not say so much of the Bath Road or the Exeter Road between Hounslow and Taplow, and Staines; nor even of the great North Road where it runs flat through Bedfordshire and Hunts. There the way recedes ever into the infinite, and there, if anywhere, the hurtling motorist is to be excused of his illegality. Here, however, on the way to Hastings, you linger by hillside and valley, for the road goes through the most beautiful parts of Sussex and of Kent, and marches through much diverting social and national history, to the scene of the crowning tragedy of Battle. I am not of those who find the story of the Battle of Hastings sheer dry-as-dust. It is to me a living story, though over eight hundred years old, and it will live for you who explore that stricken field, if so be you explore it away from the perfunctory guides who parrot the half-holiday public through the grounds of Battle Abbey._

_But they are not necessarily the larger happenings that interest me in these pages. I can find it easily possible—nay, effortless—to turn from catastrophic struggles, and take an absorbing interest in some one’s back garden: that is the way to keep boredom at arm’s length. The mediæval knight who swore by his “halidom,” and the modern hop-picker who says “blimy!” (and stronger things than that) are both entertaining persons; would that Time were bridged, and they could be introduced to one another! What the knight and the “caitiff” would severally think of either would be well worth the hearing._

_For mere topography: let us maintain an invincible curiosity as to whence this river comes or whither it goes; as to what lies on the other side of yonder hill, or at the end of some alluring byway. Let us find entertainment in the manner in which the city, town, or village next on the map is different from those we have already passed; and with interests so varied the way will be all too short._

CHARLES G. HARPER.

PETERSHAM,
SURREY.
_April, 1906._

THE ROAD TO HASTINGS

MILES

London Bridge—

New Cross (New Cross Gate) 3¼

Loampit Hill 4½

(Cross Ravensbourne)

Lewisham (St. Mary’s Church) 5¾

Rushey Green 6½

South End 7¾

(Cross Ravensbourne)

Holloway 8¾

Bromley 10

Mason’s Hill 10¾

Bromley Common 12½

Lock’s Bottom 13¼

Farnborough 14

Green Street Green 15¼

Pratt’s Bottom 16¾

Halstead Station 18¼

Polhill 19½

Dunton Green 21¼

(Cross River Darent)

Riverhead 22

Sevenoaks (Station: Tubb’s Hill) 23

“ Town 24

River Hill 25¼

Hildenborough 27¾

Tonbridge 30

(Cross River Medway)

Pembury Green 35

Kipping’s Cross 36¼

Lamberhurst 40

Stone Crouch 43

Flimwell 44¾

Hurst Green 47¾

Silver Hill 48½

Robertsbridge 50¼

(Cross River Rother)

John’s Cross 51¾

Battle 55½

Starr’s Green 56¾

Baldslow 59

Ore 61¾

Hastings (Old Town) 63½

INTO HASTINGS BY “NEW LONDON ROAD”

Baldslow 59

Hollington 59¾

Silverhill 60½

Hastings (Albert Memorial) 62¼

SEPARATE PLATES

ENTRANCE TO HASTINGS, BY MINNIS ROCK AND THE OLD
LONDON ROAD _Frontispiece_

PAGE

LEWISHAM 19

ENTRANCE TO THE WIDOWS’ COLLEGE 27

IN THE FIRST QUADRANGLE, WIDOWS’ COLLEGE, BROMLEY 31

THE ROAD ACROSS BROMLEY COMMON 45

KNOCKHOLT BEECHES 59

AN OLD WAYSIDE COTTAGE, BELOW POLHILL 67

THE SOUTH FRONT, KNOLE (_Photo C. Essenhigh Corke & Co._) 99

THE PANTILES, TUNBRIDGE WELLS 127

THE TOAD ROCK 135

KENT 149

LAMBERHURST 155

SCOTNEY CASTLE 161

WEIRD OAST-HOUSES, LAMBERHURST 165

THE MOATED CASTLE OF BODIAM 183

“DUKE WILLIAM COMFORTS HIS YOUNG SOLDIERS” (_Central
Incident of the Battle of Hastings. From the
Bayeux Tapestry_) 211

BATTLE ABBEY 229

HASTINGS OLD TOWN 261

ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

Business-Card of the “Bolt-in-Tun” Coach Office 9

The Colfe Almshouses 22

The Old Toll-house, Pratt’s Bottom 56

A Phyllis of Knockholt 61

Longford 69

Riverhead 72

Sign of the “Blackboy” Inn 78

Sign of the “Bricklayers’ Arms” 79

Old Mansion, formerly the “Cats” Inn 81

Seal of Sevenoaks Grammar School 83

Knole, from the Road 89

The Gateway, Knole 92

The Stone Court, Knole 95

The “Dumb Bell” 101

The Seven Oaks 103

The “White Hart” Inn 105

River Hill and the Kentish Weald 110

Tonbridge Castle 114

The “Chequers,” Tonbridge 118

A Sporting Weather-vane 119

Church of King Charles the Martyr 124

Tunbridge Ware 133

Scene at “High Rocks” 138

The Marquis of Abergavenny’s “A” 139

The Neville Gate, Frant 140

The “Blue Boys” Inn 143

Bayham Abbey: Across the Water-meadows 158

Etchingham Church 172

The Ancient Vane, Etchingham 174

Brass of Sir William de Etchingham 175

The Fox preaching to the Geese 176

The Abbey Farm 179

William the Conqueror (_Bayeux Tapestry_) 198

Last Stand of the English (_Bayeux Tapestry_) 213

Flight of the English Churls (_Bayeux Tapestry_) 215

A Descendant of the Saxon Churls 227

Battle Church 232

A Bye-road at Battle 233

The Road past Crowhurst Park 235

Junction of Roads spoiled by Tramways, Baldslow 238

“Huz and Buz”: Entrance to Holmhurst 241

Queen Anne, at Holmhurst 245

Ruins of the Old Church, Ore 247

The Old London Road 249

All Saints’ 253

Old House, All Saints’ Street 258

Old Tackle-boxes, Hastings 265

St. Clement’s Church 279

A Slain Norman (_Bayeux Tapestry_) 284