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The Valley of Holmesdale. Its Evolution and Development

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The Valley of Holmesdale. Its Evolution and Development http://kentarchaeology.org.uk/research/archaeologia-cantiana/ Kent Archaeological Society is a registered charity number 223382 © 2017 Kent Archaeological Society /fE/VT Pre- Saxon Physical Features. J/0*hdU>rv Richboroiiffh rhtjtr w "IT' 'lfl«"/l.^ •II f * OtOl> Verrtcs Guildford ReUtccleO H V'* v r'7«M<;-<8 Netuenden ( 155 ) "THE VALLEY OE HOLMESDALE." ITS EVOLUTION AND DEVELOPMENT. BY CAPT. H. W. KNOCKER. THE Vale of Holmesdale is not confined to the county of Kent, its limits being commonly reputed to be the Castle of Guildford to the west and the Castle of Rochester to the east, the chalk hills forming its northern boundary and the sandstone ridge separating its southern confines from the Weald. The motto of our county indicates our claim to have never yet been conquered, but that of the Holmesdale goes one better, indicating that we never shall be. The sentiment is perpetuated in the old rhyme, the second half of which is adopted in recent years by the Borough of Reigate as its motto: " The Vale of Holmes- dale. Never wonne nor never shale.-" As to the name, Lambard, writing in 1570, refers to Reigate Castle " which Alfrede de Beverley calleth Holme, and which the Countrie people do yet terme the Castle of Holmesdale. This tooke the name of the Dale wherein it standeth, which is large in quantity, extending it selfe a great length into Surrey, and Kent also, and was (as I con- iecture) at the first called Holmesdale, by reason that it is (for the most part) Convallis, a plaine valley, running between two hils, that be replenished with stoare of wood : for so much.the very word (Holmesdale) it selfe importeth." East of Rochester there is, apparently, no record of the name being attached to the geographical continuation of the same formation, but as far as West Kent is concerned we have from an early date three natural divisions: first The Upland; secondly, The Weald; and thirdly, The 156 ctTHE VALLEY OE HOLMESDALE. Holmesdale, lying between the other two. East Kent con- tents itself with the simpler division of Upland and Weald. Diagram No. 1 makes this clear. The principle of communal responsibility for individual action was approved and enforced by our Saxon forefathers at a very early date, and this has a most important bearing on our subject, and it is proposed in this article to trace the evolution of the Holmesdale, and to trace it by the help primarily of the basis of population, upon which it is gene- rally admitted our county was first subdivided by our Saxon forefathers, who desired to give effect to this principle. As a natural sequence of this enquiry, we have the deduc- tions to be drawn from the relative positions of the places from which such subdivisions drew their nomenclature. Such an enquiry must practically be limited to the period covered by existing documentary evidence, and before touching upon any evidence so comparatively recent as the records in question, a short reference to the earlier surviving local indications of man's handiwork may not be out of place. In the progress of the inhabitants of any given area four stages can usually be noted. We have first the savage huntsman, secondly the pastoral herdsman, thirdly the agricultural ploughman, and fourthly the manufacturing artisan. At the date of the Roman occupation we find that while East Kent was already in the third, West Kent was hardly out of the second, and the Weald had not emerged from the first; no part of the county had yet reached the fourth stage. The development of our county has been largely a question of accessibility. Forming, as it does, the nearest point of communication between England and the rest of Europe, we should readily expect to find the Upland intersected, as it in fact is, by a great highway running from west to east and thence to the coast. In Diagram No. 1 this highway is marked in a firm line. It will be noticed that it passes outside and to the north of the Holmesdale Valley, and runs from London to Canter- bury, and there breaks up into three branches, communica- N?2. THE HOLMES DHL B Sormc Pre-t/ornnain ftootots. L o ruZarv Cray for v. A - * ,t w,1r ,, «r's«r'«w"Mtr *«• +»^*.•/f«^••«(lr•*'(lV'«^» ' "" **K'*i "THE VALLEY OE HOLMESDALE." 157 ting with what were originally the three principal harbours or landing-places at the eastern extremity of our county—Rich- borough, Dover and Lympne. The reasons for this arrange- ment are excellently set forth in Mr. Belloc's book, The Old Road, though many of his deductions are open to question. This road and its three branches were doubtless improved, if not originally constructed by the Romans. As regards the Weald itself, the majority of the roads or droveways ran due north and south, the object doubtless being to reach as soon as possible the greater highway in the Upland run- ning east and west. But somewhere in a south-easterly direction lay one other route or droveway, traversing the Wealden forest and giving more direct access from the Newenden and Rye district to London. This road is also roughly indicated by a dotted line on Diagram No. 1. So also a.re portions of three roads commonly reputed to owe much to Roman hands, and doubtless extending to link up other centres. The portions marked are those connecting the four British or British- Roman fortresses in or near West Kent—Keston, Oldbury in Ightham, Squerries in Westerham, and Camp Hill by way of Edenbridge. In addition to the highways constructed principally for the continental traveller or merchant, the needs of the actual resident must not be overlooked. A glance at Diagram No. 1 shews the physical features of the county, while Diagram No. 2 shews the same thing on an enlarged scale for West Kent, and one of the first requirements of any inhabitant of a sparsely populated district engaged in pastoral or agricultural enterprise must ever be some facility for moving his flocks to successive pasture grounds, or, as the quantity of his produce increases, for enabling him to reach new markets or ports. We know that the whole country lay unfenced, the Weald valley and the higher Uplands being for the most part densely wooded, whilst the lowest portions of the open valleys were at all times liable to inundation by floods. The earliest roadways we should naturally expect to find on the slopes of the most open foot 158 " T H E VALLEY OE H O L M E S D A L E . " hills, safe from the floods in the valley below and also com- paratively safe from wolves, as well as the human despoilers likely to be found in the woods. Roads in this position would require the least upkeep. On Diagram No. 2 the approximate positions of some of these earliest roadways affecting the Kentish Holmesdale are indicated by thin dotted lines. The first roadway marked on the diagram is that from the Surrey county boundary near Westerham to the Darenth river ford at Dartford. The second, from the same ford along the opposite side of the Shoreham Valley and thence north to Rochester. The third, from Rochester along the opposite side of the River Medway towards Canterbury. Each of these roadways lies in more than one valley, and it is obvious that a means of crossing the River Darenth at the point where the Holmesdale Valley meets the Shoreham Valley would be of the greatest convenience, and it is with- out the least surprise that we find at this point a ford of great antiquity giving its name to the adjacent village of Otford. Further west there was doubtless a means of crossing the Medway in the vicinity of Snodland—perhaps more than one. In any event, by linking up the roads across each of the two rivers, and by continuing our Holmesdale Valley in an easterly direction, we can piece together stretches of different roadways which may well have been used as one. And so irresistible has this sug- gestion proved, that many persons see in these several portions one great continuous highway, which they trace from Winchester to Canterbury, or even from Stonehenge to the Straits of Calais, and to which they point as being the great and only highway from the west to the east of England, calling it the "Pilgrims' Road." The present writer has studied with some care the exhaustive treatises of Mr. Belloc and Mr. Hope Moncrief, not to mention those of Mrs. Ady and General James, but their conclu- sions are based on arguments many of which can only be termed fantastic. It is, of course, admissible that the foot hills on which the roads lie were some of the earliest cultivated portions "THE VALLEY OE HOLMESDALE." 159 of the country side, and therefore included commonly in the demesne lands of the later manors through which the road runs. It is, perhaps, equally well known that our parish churches are almost invariably built near the manor house, or at the least within the lord's demesne. The presence of a road would doubtless assist the parishioners to reach their church, but our imaginative friends point to the situa- tion of these very parish churches as evidence that the road in question was developed, if not primarily constructed, for the religious movement represented by the pilgrimages of the Middle Ages. There is, however, no reason to believe that the lengths of road alleged to make up the Pilgrims' Road are more ancient than the four extensions leading in a northerly direction to Dartford and Rochester (as shewn upon the Diagram No.
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