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Victoria County History of Kent Vol. 3  1932 - Romano-British Kent - Roads - Page 141

About ½ mile further on, in a plantation at Cherry Tree Shaw, the causeway appears as a broad, raised mound. The road leaves the county boundary a mile beyond and enters Surrey on the top of the hill at Tatsfield Firs, Titsey. The alignment is picked up again ¾ mile to the south-east, between Clacket and Church Woods where, for nearly a mile, it follows the Titsey—Tatsfield parish boundary, and just beyond, in Thrift Wood, the causeway is clear and rabbit burrows show the stony matrix. A straight line across Cronklands and the High Chart in Limpsfield parish would bring it into Kent again by Hurst Farm, near Crockham Hill, in Westerham parish. From Westerham the line agrees with the modern road as far as Stone Street (a significant name); here the modern road bends slightly westward, but the alignment is again picked up north of Marlpit Hill, and continues for about 2 miles through Edenbridge (the old name of which is Stangrave18) to the point where the modern road forks. The line then continues by Eden Park, across the stream at Broome Farm, changes its direction to south-east ½ mile beyond Eden Hall, and passes out of Kent at Kentwater, where it crosses the boundary on its way to Sussex.
   (6) THE PILGRIM’S WAY.19—It cannot be said to what extent the Pilgrim’s Way was in use in Roman times. Roman remains have only been found close to its course in the Medway valley, and as these can be referred to settlements near by, the most that can be said is that certain sections of the road seem to have been used. A hard surface, said to be a Roman road, was found in 1927 under the Pilgrim’s Way near Twitton, west of Otford.20 The section between Rochester, Cuxton, Whorne’s Place, and Upper Hailing has burials along its course, and it may be that this road served for traffic between Rochester and the Snodland settlement via Upper Hailing and Holborough, and by keeping to the slope of the hill avoided the low-lying marsh land that the more direct riverside route would have encountered.
   (7) THE MAIDSTONE—WESTERHAM R0AD.—The evidence for this road is not at all well supported. Discoveries of remains along its line have been made in the neighbourhood of Ightham, and for the rest we have to depend on a reference to a street in a charter of 94521  granting lands at Mailing to Burhic, Bishop of Rochester. This street may perhaps be identified with the road we are considering, but it is equally likely to be the High Street of West Mailing, where a paved road 14 ft. in width and with a water channel in the centre was found 18 in. below the surface.22  Finally, a Jutish burial found in a sand-pit at Aylesford about ¼ mile off the line of the road may help to establish its antiquity, but isolated discoveries are not of much use in this way, and at present the matter must remain in suspense.
   (8) DOUBTFUL ROMAN R0ADs.—In this paragraph it will be convenient to mention several roads that may possibly be Roman, though evidence of their age is at present lacking.
   A road has been traced from the old ferry over the Thames north of Higham, southward by Hoo Junction and Shorne Ridgeway to the London road, and future study will probably extend our knowledge of its exact route and importance.
   18  Arch. Cant. xxi 109.                      19  See Arch. Cant. xxxvii, 1—20, particularly p. 10.
   20  Arch. Cant. xxxix, 158.                 21  Cart. Saxon. vol. ii, 516, No. 779.
  
22  Arch. Cant. xxiii, 9, and pottery has been found at St. Leonards Street, West Mailing (see Index).

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