The Kentish Traveller's Companion, 5Th Edition Canterbury 1799
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James Simmons (publisher) The Kentish traveller’s companion, 5th edition Canterbury 1799 <frontispiece - table of distances> <i> <sig A> 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 Rochester, Canterbury, Margate, Ramsgate, Sandwich, Deal, and Dover. ILLUSTRATED WITH A correct Map, on a Scale of one Inch to the Mile, AND A Table of Distances, in measured Miles, from London, and between the principal Towns in Kent. THE FIFTH EDITION, REVISED, CORRECTED, AND CONSIDERABLY ENLARGED. - - - - - - - - - - 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. CANTERBURY: PRINTED AND SOLD BY SIMMONS AND KIRKBY; AND SOLD BY ALL THE BOOKSELLERS IN KENT; ALSO BY J. JOHNSON, ST. PAUL’S CHURCH YARD, LONDON. 1799. <ii> <blank> iii CONTENTS. STAGE I. Antiquity and extent of Kent – Lewisham – Deptford; Trinity Society – Greenwich – Blackheath – Woolwich – Eltham – Welling – Erith – Crays – Crayford – Dart= ford.1 STAGE II. Dartford Brent. – Detail of the course of the Roman Road from Dartford Brent to Strood – Stone; Church and Castle – Swanscombe; Ingress; Gavelkind – Northfleet – Southfleet – Gravesend – Milton – Higham – Cliffe – Cowling Castle – Shorne – Cobham – Chalk – Gad’s Hill – Strood – Rochester. 57 STAGE III. Rochester; the Bridge; Castle; St. Margaret’s; Cathe= dral; Description of the city – Chatham; Victualling office; Hospitals of St.Bartholomew and Sir John Haw= kins – Chatham Church, the Dock Yard – Gillingham – Rainham – Newington – Sittingbourn. 137 STAGE IV. Bapchild – Tong – Tenham – Green-street – Ospringe – Faversham – Boughton under Blean – Harbledown to Canterbury. 194 iv STAGE V. Description of Canterbury; Castle; St. Augustin’s Mo= nastery; Cathedral – St. Stephen’s – Sturry – Fordwich – Sarr – Reculver – Thanet – St. Nicholas – Monkton – Cleve – Mount Pleasant – Minster – Birchington – Margate. 216 STAGE VI. Description of Margate – Drapers – Hackendown Banks – King’s Gate – North Foreland – Broadstairs – Goodwin Sands – St. Peter’s – Ramsgate – Ebbsfleet – Stonar – Richborough – Sandwich. 260 STAGE VII. Ancient and present state of Sandwich; Conjectures on the decay of the Cinque Ports – Woodnesborough – Eastry – Northbourn – Deal – South Foreland – St. Mar= garet’s Bay – Dover. 294 STAGE VIII. Buckland – St. Rhadagund’s Abbey – Waldershare – West Langdon Abbey – Ewell – Barham Downs, and Wat= ling-street – Broome – Denhill – Barham. – Ileden – Higham – Bishopsbourn – Bridge – Patricksbourn – Bi= frons – Bekesbourn to Canterbury. 354 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, therefore, has made no further altera= tion, than in giving it an English sound. Whence it acquired this name, antiquarians are not agreed. Lam= bard, 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, because of old this county was full of woods: but this has generally been deemed too forced an etymo= logy. The conjecture of the judicious Camden is more commonly allowed to have a better foundation – that it was so called from Britain here stretching 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. 2 Kent is a maritime county, situated in the south east part of Britain, opposite to France; from which king= dom 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 li= mits, and the Thames 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 12,480,000 acres of land, upwards of 40,000 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, ex= tensive as it now is, it is supposed to have been for= merly 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, through Peckham, and from thence to Lambeth Ferry. Subsequent even to the Norman Conquest, the inhabitants of Surry seem to have encroached on the boundaries of Kent; the pa= rish of Deptford having been wholly within the latter, though the former now claims that part of it in which are the manor of Bredinghurst, and the manor and seat of Hatcham. Bredinghurst, which is at Peckham Rye, near Camberwell, is particularly recorded as being one of the Knights Fees in Kent, and divers inquisitions taken since the time of Henry II. have found Hatcham to be within the same county. Hatcham lies on the north side of the road, and at a little distance from it. The old manor house was taken down but a few years since, and nearly on the same scite is erected that large /* Yorkshire, Devonshire, Lincolnshire, Hampshire, and North= umberland. 3 building, which can hardly fail of drawing the travel= ler’s attention. Of Hatcham, it is observed by Mr. Hasted, in his new and valuable History of this County, that the name shews its situation close to the confines of both counties, the same as Kent Hatch in Westerham points out its situation at the very outside of Kent, and as a messuage, called Kent House, does its near neighbour= hood to the boundaries of it between Beckenham and Croydon in Surry. Admitting then, what, as Mr. Hasted notices, is supposed by many, Kent, at an early period to have had ancient London then situated on the south side of the Thames, within its boundaries, it is not a very forced conclusion, that Kent-street might take the name from its lying within the county, and not merely from its leading out of Southwark into Kent. At present, and certainly for several centuries, the entrance this way into the county is not far from New Cross. The recep= tion of prisoners from the county of Surry having been for a long space of time at New Cross, inclined several to be of opinion, that the limits of the county are upon that spot; but in this they are mistaken; for they extend to a small bridge, now concealed by the raising of the road beyond Hatcham, near the way to Bredinghurst. After passing through the gate at New Cross, the road on the right hand leads to Lewisham, Bromley, Seven= oaks, 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 community ob= tained afterwards the appropriation of the rectory of the parish, and the advowson of the vicarage; and when 4 King Henry V. suppressed the alien priories, he made these possessions 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 appurtenances, to Ambrose Dudley, Earl of Warwick. But, after various changes, it has for some time be= longed to the family of the present Earl of Dartmouth, who is now the proprietor of it. The church of Lewis= ham being judged incapable of a repair, application was made to parliament in 1774, by the inhabitants, to empower them to raise money for building it; an Act was obtained; in pursuance of which the old church was taken down, and a new one erected on the same ground. Between this place and Dulwich, but in Lewis= ham parish, is a hill with an oak upon it, called the Oak of Honour, because Queen Elizabeth is reported to have dined once under it. Indeed, the original tree, which should have perpetuated the rememberance of its having served for a canopy to this illustrious princess, has long since perished; but, it is said, care has been always taken to plant an oak near the spot, on which this tra= ditional anecdote might be constantly ingrafted. The river Ravensbourne directs its course through this parish; at the hamlet of Southend it moves the engines, by which the late Mr. How made those knife blades, so famous throughout England. The main road from New Cross will convey the tra= veller 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 5 near the Thames, but in very ancient writings the latter was denominated West Greenwich, and afterwards Dept= ford-Strond. Deptford was a place of little note, ’till King Henry VIII. erected here a storehouse for the royal navy, and from that time it has been enlarging.