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Thomas Fisher (publisher) The Kentish traveller’s companion, 1st edition Rochester 1776 <frontispiece – roadmap> <i> <sig A> THE KENTISH TRAVELLER’s COMPANION. <ii> <blank> <iii> THE KENTISH TRAVELLER’s COMPANION, IN A DESCRIPTIVE VIEW OF THE TOWNS, VILLAGES, remarkable BUILDINGS and ANTIQUITIES, SITUATED ON OR NEAR The Road from LONDON to MARGATE, DOVER and CANTERBURY. ILLUSTRATED With a correct MAP of the ROAD on a Scale of One Inch to a Mile. —— O famous Kent, —— What county hath this Isle, that can compare with thee! That hast within thyself as much as thou canst wish; Thy rabbits, venison, fruits, thy sorts of fowl and fish; As what with strength comports, thy hay, thy corn, thy wood, Nor any thing doth want, that any where is good. Drayton’s Poly-Albion. PRINTED AND SOLD By T. Fisher, Rochester; and Simmons and Kirkby, Canterbury. MDCCLXXVI. <iv> <blank> <v> ADVERTISEMENT. THE favourable reception given to the very concise description of the towns and villages on the Kentish road, published in 1772 with the History and Antiquities of Rochester, has in= duced the editors to revise and very considerably enlarge it, by collecting the best information of whatever is thought worthy a Travellers attention in this much frequented Tour; nor have they spared for either pains or expence to render it what they hope it will prove, a pleasing and useful Companion. <vi> <blank> vii CONTENTS. STAGE I. Antiquity and extent of Kent. – Lewisham. – Deptford; Trinity Society. – Greenwich. – Blackheath. – Woolwich. – Eltham. – Welling. – Erith. – Crays. – Crayford. – Dartford. 1 STAGE II. Dartford Brent. – Detail of the course of the Roman road from Dartford Brent to Strood Hill. – Stone; Church and Castle. – Swanscombe; Ingress; The custom of Gavelkind. – Northfleet. – Southfleet. – Gravesend. – Milton. – Higham. – Cliffe. – Cowl= ing-Castle. – Shorne. – Cobham. – Chalk. – Gad’s Hill. – Strood. – Rochester. 34 STAGE III. Rochester; the Bridge; Castle; St. Margaret’s; Cathedral. – Chatham; Victualling-office; Sir John Hawkins’s Hospital; Dock- Yard. – Gillingham. – Rainham. – Newington. – Sitting= bourn. 84 STAGE IV. Bapchild. – Tong. – Tenham. – Green-street. – Ospringe. – Fa= versham. – Boughton under Blean. – Harbledown to Canter= bury. *77 viii STAGE V. Description of Canterbury; Castle; St. Augustine’s Monastery; Cathedral. – St. Stephen’s. – Sturry. – Fordwich. – Sarr. – Reculver. – Thanet. St. Nicholas. – Monkton. – Cleve. – Mount Pleasant. – Minster. – Birchington. – Margate. 97 STAGE VI. Description of Margate. – Drapers. – Hackendown Banks. – King’s Gate. – North Foreland. – Broadstairs. – Goodwin Sands. – St. Peter’s. – Ramsgate. – Ebbsfleet. – Stonar. – Richborough. – Sandwich. 117 STAGE VII. Ancient and present state of Sandwich; Conjectures on the decay of the Cinque Ports. – Woodnesborough. – Eastry. – North= bourn. – Waldershare. – West Langdon Abbey. – Deal. – South Foreland. – St. Margaret’s Bay. – Dover. 145 STAGE VIII. Buckland. – St. Rhadagund’s Abbey. – Waldershare. – West Lang= don Abbey. – Ewell. – Barham Downs, and Watling-Street. – Broome. – Denhill – Nethersole. – Barham. Ilden. – Higham. – Bishopsbourn. – Bridge. – Patricksbourn. – Bifrons. – Bekes= bourn to Canterbury. 187 1 <sig B> THE KENTISH TRAVELLER’S COMPANION. STAGE I. Antiquity and extent of Kent. – Lewisham. – Deptford; Trinity Society. – Greenwich. – Blackheath. – Woolwich. – Eltham. – Welling. – Erith. – Crays. – Crayford. – Dartford. A course of more than eighteen hundred years, cannot be strictly said to have deprived the county of Kent of its ancient name. Cæsar denominated it Cantium; time, there= fore, has made no further alteration than in giving it an En= glish sound. Whence it acquired this name, antiquarians are not agreed. Lambard, who wrote his famous Perambulation of this county in 1570, fancied it might be deduced from Caine; which, in the British tongue, signifies a green leaf, 2 because of old, this county was full of woods: but, this has generally been deemed too forced an etymology. The con= jecture of the judicious Camden is more commonly allowed to have a better foundation, – that it was so called from Bri= tain here stretching out into a large corner eastward, and might therefore be derived from the word Canton, or Cant, which signifies a corner, and is still so used in heraldry. Kent is a maritime county, and is situated in the south-east part of Britain, opposite to France; from which kingdom, its nearest limits is about twenty-one miles. It is bounded on the east by the sea; and on the south, partly by the sea, and partly by Sussex, from which the river Rother divides it. Sussex and Surry are its western limits, and the Thames is its northern boundary. It is in length, from east to west, 63 miles; and in breadth, from Rye in Sussex to the mouth of the Thames, 35 miles. Its circumference measures nearly 170 miles. It contains 1248000 acres of land, 39242 houses, 408 parishes, and 30 considerable towns. If this computation is accurate, there are not more than five/* counties superior to Kent in size: but, extensive as it now is, it is supposed to have been formerly larger. At the western quarter particularly, it is thought to have included all the land lying on the north-side the road from New-Cross, thro’ Peckham, and from thence to Lambeth-Ferry. Were not the discussion of this point foreign to the design of our intended itinerary, this conjecture might be supported upon some very plausible grounds; and, admitting it to be a true opinion, it is not unreasonable to infer, that Kent-street took the name from its lying within the county, and not merely from /* Yorkshire, Devonshire, Lincolnshire, Hampshire, and Northum= berland. 3 its leading out of Southwark into Kent. At present, and certainly for several centuries, the entrance this way into the county, is about New-cross. Phillipot, the author of that valuable and scarce book, entitled Villare Cantianum, was inclined to think, that the reception of prisoners from Surry, having for a considerable time been usually at this spot, might give rise to the notion that this was the real boun= dary of the two counties. After passing thro’ the gate at New-cross, the road on the right- hand leads to Lewisham, Bromley, Sevenoake, and Tunbridge in Kent; and to Rye and Hastings, two of the cinque-ports on the coast of Sussex. The manor of Lewisham was given by Elthrude, niece to king Alfred, to the abbey of St. Peter, at Ghent in Flanders, by which grant it became a cell of benedictine monks to that convent. This religious commu= nity obtained afterwards the appropriation of the rectory of the parish, and the advowson of the vicarage: and when king Henry V. suppressed the alien priories, he made these posses= sions a part of the endowment of his new-erected carthusian convent at Sheene in Surry. Upon the general dissolution of monasteries in England, this manor came to the crown, and remained there ’till the 5th of queen Elizabeth, who then granted it with the appertenancies to Ambrose Dudley, earl of Warwick. But, after various changes, it has for some time belonged to the family of the present earl of Dartmouth, who is now the proprietor of it. The church of Lewisham being judged incapable of a repair, application was made to parlia= ment by the inhabitants, to empower them to raise money for building it; and the new church is not yet finished. – Between this place and Dulwich, but in Lewisham parish, is a hill with an oak upon it, called the oak of honour, because queen Elizabeth is reported to have once dined under it. Indeed, the original tree, which should have perpetuated the remem= 4 berance of its having served for a canopy to this illus= trious princess, has long since perished; but, it is said, care has been always taken to plant an oak near the spot, on which this traditional anecdote might be constantly in= grafted. The main road from New-cross will convey the traveller to Deptford, which probably acquired this name from the deep channel of the river at the passage of it in this place. It is now usually called upper Deptford, to distinguish it from the lower town, which is situated nearer the Thames, but in very ancient writings the latter was denominated West-Greenwich, and afterwards Deptford-Strond. Deptford was a place of little note till king Henry VIII. erected here a store-house for the royal navy, and from that time it has been enlarging. In this dock-yard, the treasurer of the navy had formerly a house; of late years, there has been no commissioner resident, but it has been under the immediate inspection of the navy- board. More than a thousand men are constantly employed in the various departments of it; and, since the considerable enlargements it has received, is now the greatest arsenal for naval-stores. Here the royal yachts are generally kept, and near the dock is the seat of Sir John Evelyn, where Peter the Great, czar of Muscovy, resided, whilst he was informing himself in the art of ship-building. – By an order from queen Elizabeth, the ship Pelican, in which Sir Francis Drake sailed round the globe, was laid up in the mast-dock belong= ing to this yard. Phillipot is chargeable with a small mistake in asserting that nothing was left of this vessel in a short time; for out of her remains, a chair was made and pre= sented to the university of Oxford. This appears from a copy of verses composed by the celebrated Cowley upon this inci= dent. – The well-adapted and pleasing lines here referred to, are as follows. 5 To this great ship, which round the world has run, And match’d in race the chariot of the sun; This Pythagorean ship (for it may claim, Without presumption, so deserv’d a name) By knowledge once, and transformation now, In her new shape this sacred port allow.

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