Chapter VI: Part 6

_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 Halling on either side, but with this great difference--that Snodland is on the south, Lower Halling 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 conformation 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[35] (as is the descent to Snodland) or of chalk (as is that to Lower Halling). During more than half the year, therefore, the descent to Snodland was preferable; during the other half indifferent.

_Secondly._--Immediately before and beyond the Lower Halling 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 unearthed 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 hillside 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 Halling, 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 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 Burham--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 ingenuity or research might easily develop into a greater number--seem to me to settle the discussion in favour of Snodland.[36]

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[37] as we went our way, and apart from the stones and fragments 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 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 Pilgrims Way leaves it to reach the site where Boxley Abbey once stood, our weakness 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] 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.

[36] The full trace of this crossing may be followed in the 1/2500 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 between 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.

[37] 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 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.

BOXLEY TO CANTERBURY

_Twenty-six miles_

From Boxley to Charing the Old Road presents 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 conditions 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 obliterated. 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 changes, and even from decay, but exhibiting 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 hill 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 uninterrupted by combes, or any jutting promontories, 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, Hollingbourne, Lenham, Charing, are left just to the south. They are now connected by the high-road which joins up the valley, and were once, it may be presumed, 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 possesses 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.[38]

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 ploughing of this land during the two generations 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 England presents this peculiarity. The watersheds 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 landscape, 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 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 something 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 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 importance, and was a very conscious little town.

It counts more in Domesday than any other of the valley villages between Maidstone 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 magnificent and still remarkable after its rebuilding, 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,[39] 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 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 included. 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 Canterbury 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 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 determining. 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 open land as far as this great park of Eastwell, 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 entirely 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.[40]

The portion near Boughton Aluph is perfectly 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 field has lost it again under the plough; it reappears on the hillside beyond in a line of yews.[41] 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 discovered 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 promontory 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 this point from the place where I was standing (X). But we were wrong. At this point the road turned _up_ the hill, its track very deeply marked, lined with trees, and at 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 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 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 Godmersham 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 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 two miles away, is what I believe to be a gap in the Old Road, and I will give my 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 England.[42] 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 alongside 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 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 deceived 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 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.[43]

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 connected with written history.

* * * * *

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 centuries 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 meaning 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; 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 conquered. 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.

I remembered as I sat there how a boy, a half-wit, had told me on a pass in Cumberland 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.

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 alignment), 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 Watling 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 itself 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 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 commissioners 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 signifies the history of the three centuries during 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 without 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 swaddling, watching the door from the cloister, 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 à 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 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] The lane is continuous after Boxley, though not everywhere 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, 1/2500 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 reappears as a long hedge and division between fields, and after the pits at Hart Hill becomes a lane again.

[39] 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.'

[40] The 1/2500 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.

[41] 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.

[42] Professor Boyd-Dawkins in connection with his examination of the iron implements found in Bigberry Camp has traced the Old Road for a mile or two westward. The map may be seen in Owens College at Manchester.

[43] 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.

INDEX

=À Becket, St. Thomas=. See '=St. Thomas=.'

=Addington=, 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 prehistoric roads,
16.

=Aylesford=, a crossing of the Medway, its claims discussed,
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 Canterbury, stormed by Caesar, 43;
compared with St. Catherine's Hill at Winchester, 70;
Professor Boyd-Dawkins's examination of, 271 (note), visited on
journey and described, 273-275.

=Bishopstoke=, church of, on site of Druidical stone circle, 109.

=Bishop Sutton=, church of, passage of Old Road as near as possible
to south of, 110;
mentioned in Domesday, 130;
passed on our journey, 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 described, 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 '=Roman Britain=.' (Conservation of
antiquities in, 81-82.)

=British Coins=, discovered at Gatton, 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, approach 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 prehistoric
roads, 145.

=Caesar=, first eye-witness of conditions of southern Britain,
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 (Bigberry Wood), stormed by Caesar, 43;
of Winchester (St. Catherine's hill), 70;
of Holmbury, Farley Heath, and Anstie Bury, alluded to, 170-171;
of Oldbury, of Fosbery, 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 necessity of central depôt for Kentish ports, 41;
importance of its position on the Stour, 42;
resistance to Caesar, 43;
origin of its religious character, 44;
compared with Winchester, 66-71;
entered by Westgate, 277.

=---- Cathedral=, visited, 278-280.

=Cassiterides=, their identification with Scilly Isles doubtful,
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 (note 1).

=---- 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,
Chevening, 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.

=Cobham Farm=, Old Road lost at, 258.

=Coldrum= (or =Trottescliffe=), megalithic monument, 252-253 (and
note), and 236 (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 conditions previous to Roman
Conquest, 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 mentioned in, 130;
Wrotham, Oxford, Charing mentioned in, 221.

=Dorking Lime Pits=, track lost after, 178.

=Dorsetshire Downs=, their position 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;
strategical and political importance of, 153-154.

=Farnham Lane=, marks end of disused western portion of Old Road,
27.

=Flanking Roads=, 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 Shalford, position of, 166-167 (and map);
of Mole, discussed, 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 passage to north of crest
described, 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 Snodland in particular, 250-251.

=Gilbert Street=, place-name suggesting passage of Old Road, 137.

=Glastonbury=, example of original importance of West Country, 22.

=Gloucester=, medieval tax on iron at, 20.

=Godmersham=, exceptional passage of Old Road to north of crest
at, 106 (note);
track of Road at, 267-269 (and map).

=Goodnestone=, village of, geographical centre of Kentish ports,
why unsuitable as a political centre, 42.

=Goodwin Sands=, probably prehistoric, 39.

=Greystone Lime Pits=, Merstham, recovery of Old Road at, 206.

'=Grey Wethers=,' name of platform beyond Medway opposite Wrotham,
233.

=Grésivaudan=, example of advantage of Partial Isolation, 30.

=Gris Nez=, look-out towards English shore, 32;
forbids harbours near it, but provides 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 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;
mentioned in 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, megalithic monument, 254 (note 2).

=Hyde Abbey=, site and ruins of, 123-125.

=Icknield Way=, alluded to, 22;
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, political advantages of, 22-31.

=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 Winchester 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 journey, 132.

=Jews= occupied principal street of Winchester, 118;
their wealth in early Middle Ages, 118 (note).

=Jolly Farmer=, Inn at Puttenham, 160.

=Kemsing=, manor of, 226;
on map, 227.

=Kent=, shape of, forces Old Road westward, 18;
causes complexity 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 Chilham, 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 Halling=, a crossing of the Medway, its claims discussed,
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 Pilgrimage,
95 (note);
example of church passed to south, 110.

=---- House=, passage of Old 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 green-sand south of North
Downs, 23;
endurance of relics of, 73.

=North Country=, not important in early times, 19.

=---- Downs=, their position in scheme of prehistoric roads, 16;
the original and necessary platform of the Old Road, 24-25
(with map);
view of these from Wrotham, 231;
'funnel' formed by them at passage of Medway, 237;
road leaves them after Charing, 260.

=---- Street=, place-name suggesting passage of Old Road, 137.

=Old Road=, why the most important of English prehistoric roads,
17-24;
its first track sketched, 25;
why it ended at Canterbury, 31-42;
why it began at Winchester, 44-58;
short cut from Winchester to Farnham 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;
coincidence of, with modern road from King's Worthy to Itchen
Stoke, 124;
arguments in favour of its crossing the Itchen at Itchen Stoke,
127-132;
recovering of lost portion in Ropley Valley, 132-136;
corresponds to high-road after Alton, causes of this, 149-154;
diversion at Puttenham, 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 recovered, 204-207;
discussion of track near Marden Park, 211;
and across Titsey Park, 214-216;
its loss after Chevening, 217;
typical section of, 225-230 (with map);
its crossing of Medway discussed, 236-253;
clear along Downs to Charing, 256-260;
crosses Eastwell Park, Boughton Aluph, Godmersham, Chilham
Park, 263-269;
lost for two miles east of Chilham, 270-271 (and map);
passes Bigberry Camp, 273;
enters Canterbury 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=, 1/2500, references 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, 174;
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 by approach 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 Canterbury 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, preserves 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;
diversion 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 use of 'Second Crossing,' 55.

=Portsmouth=, as a harbour of the 'Second Crossing,' 54.