the road now north-west of the present way to Canterbury.
   Sarr formerly had its church, which was dedicated to St. Giles. It is not recorded in Domesday, but is sketched in the early map of Thanet above described. Hasted tells us, that in the 41st Edward III. (1368) its poverty is alluded to, and it is mentioned in the time of Richard II. as being exempted from the tenth; but at what period it ceased to be used for Divine Service is unknown; we know, however, that during the fourteenth century it fell into decay, probably through the decrease of the inhabitants by the loss of the importance once attached to Sarr when it owned a haven and a ferry. Hasted has placed the church at a distance of forty rods from the village, on the road leading from Sarr to Monkton; but investigations which have arisen out of these recent researches have revealed the site of a church at a distance considerably greater from the hamlet, upon the second bluff of a large chalk-pit on the road to Ramsgate, and in a

 direct line between Elm-stone windmill and St. Nicholas church.
   The road that passes it was anciently denominated the Dun Strete, or "Street over the Down." It appears from the map before-mentioned to have gone in a straight line from the ferry to St. Lawrence's, and was probably a Roman, or perhaps a British road. Over this ancient way must have passed the Saxons when they landed at Ebb's Flete, in 447, shortly afterwards to make the conquest of Kent, and subsequently of England. Then, and much later, Thanet was covered with woods, the tradition of which is still preserved in the names of various hamlets and holdings. The rising land especially, stretching from St Nicholas towards Birchington, was one continuous forest; a spot which is still denoted by a sea-mark, where the timber was once consumed. In these woods. as Lewis tells us, were to be

Page 307  (This page prepared for the Website by Christine Pantrey)