A Canterbury Pilgrimage in 1723

In the present melancholy conditions for both writers and printers, it is hoped that the following pages (perhaps of no great weight) may provide an interesting pot-boiler and a further contribution to the records of Kentish topography. Unlike the “ Tour in 1735 ” which I published in Arch. Cant. XLIII (1931), the present material has already got into print. But after more than forty years, and con­sidering the recondite field in which it appeared, it seems nearly as remote from the reach of the ordinary reader as does the original manu­script. Because of this and the interesting flashes of contemporary life and observation, I hope the tom: may be acceptable. One could wish there were any comment on the goal when reached at Canterbury, but there the record tantalizingly stops dead.

I have not been able, thus far, to identify the writer of these notes, nor, apparently, had the Historical MSS. Commission. Perhaps he was the private secretary of the noted Lord Harley. All that emerges from the text is that he was a Welshman (like the two or three clergy­men mentioned at Dartford) ; a man with an interest in monumental inscriptions ; and (see under Faversham) a person with some antipathy towards Nonconformists. Some further hint of his dislikes is met with early in the matter of the picture at Lambeth House.* There also the reader should note the astonishing story of the guide who stated that Holbein’s portrait of Warham was 800 years old. Those looking up the 1735 tour will find another case where the custodian of portraits appeared to know nothing about them.

The writer is evidently not strong on points of the compass, as a marginal sic will remind the reader from time to time.

The game of cricket at Dartford is of distinct interest, in pre- Hambledon days, and it is an even earlier reference than the match between Kent and Sussex at Lewes, recorded in the Sussex part of the 1735 tour.f

* The text already uses the modern title of “ Palace ” for the archiepisoopal manor-house of Lambeth, connected with the see of Canterbury since c. 1190. But “ Lambeth House ” was still in common use in the eighteenth century; and strict usage limits the word “ Palace ” to an episcopal residence in the oathedral city exclusively.—V.J.T.

| See regarding this Lord Harris’s History of Kent Cricket (1907). On p. 34 is the record of a match played in 1705 between Malling and Chatham and, at the above date, one between Tonbridge and Dartford. The paragraph on pp. 60 and 61 is quoted on p. 12 of Lord Harris’s History.—Ed. [pg57]

It is unfortunate that so little notice is given to Rochester Cathedral, since there is none at all of her sister at Canterbury. But at least we meet the noble medieval bridge crossing the Medway and which was so deplorably destroyed in the last century, along with that of Maid­stone ; from considerations so injudicious that the modern successor at Maidstone proved inadequate but a few years later.

The reader must surely admire the energy of these Georgian riders in so hot a season, as for example accomplishing a ten miles’ ride and visits to Cuxton and Cobham, and back in Rochester before noon. It reminds me of the formidable excursions polished off by the Kent Archaeological Society in the days of horse-brakes, when we read our last century Proceedings.

Of further general interest is the comment on the exceeding narrow­ness* of the great Watling Street in many places ; and the modern survival in business of the inns named at Dartford, Rochester, Faver- sham and Canterbury.

It is remarkable that no notice is taken of the busy town of Sitting­bourne in the riders’ way. But I suspect that the delightfully human touch of what happened with the poitrin pears may have occurred soon after they left Chatham; and consequently none of them can have been taking much notice of anything for a season. (A human touch worthy of what we read in an unpublished tour through Kent nearly a century earlier, how a “sprightly and pretty French she-rider ” undressed herself quite unselfconsciously during a supper party at Canterbury, a custom “ common amongst them of that nation ”, declares the chronicler sweepingly.) Possibly John Newman’s recovery took longer than that of any of them, as he is immortalized by name.

The lover of Kentish landscape will note that the hop gardens did not escape the eye of our Welshman ; nor those thirty miles of orchards east of Medway which in springtime are perhaps the loveliest thing of their kind in all England.

The remark on Faversham municipal discords and the town’s consequent good claim to return a member would imply that the chronicler found contemporary politics about on a par with those of

* One suspects that this anomaly probably lasted, throughout almost all the eighteenth century, sweeping improvements becoming necessary, somewhere about 1800, when the stage-coach began to be developed seriously and an excellent national system of fast main road travel came into being. See the text (under Boughton-under-Blean) for Thorpe’s information that from the top of the hill a good road had. been made all the way into Canterbury about the year 1620. The striking improvement in surface noted at this section would naturally imply also some measure of widening. Thorpe’s date seems early, however, in view of the fantastic conditions reported on Watling Street as late as the reign of George I; and may possibly be suspect, since the 1635 tour makes no mention of any particular difference through the Blean : indeed, the road is there called by the writer of that tour a “ hedg’d Cawsey ”, and he comments on the “ choking dust ” thrown up by the horses, despite the explicit statement in 1723 that the highway had been well maintained ever since about the beginning of the reign of Charles I. —V.J.T.

[pg58]our own day. His counterpart a century earlier waxed equally satirical at the expense of the Marshmen when he got to Dymchurch and went to sessions there.

More appetizing is the charming ad vivum picture of the kindly Thorpe, ever willing to burden himself further for the interest of these passing travellers, whose name appears like a gleaming thread in the tapestry from time to time.

I think the reference in the tour to the world-famous brasses at Cobham is the earliest I know other than the notes and crude drawings, of the late sixteenth century, in B.M. Lansdowne MS. 874.

And so the reader is left to Lord Harley and his suite.

(AU marginal notes are additions by myself.)

The overline numerals in the text refer the reader to the Notes at the end.

(Historical MSS. Commission, No. 29, vol. VI, MSS. of the Duke of Portland, at Welbeck Abbey, London, 1901.)

. 7« Journeys in England, by Lord Harley, afterwards the second Earl of Oxford.

I.—In Kent.

Hine quo nunc iter est tibi ?

Ready to wend on our pilgrimage to Canterbury.

On Monday, August 26th, 1723, pretty early in the morning I attended my Lord Harley on horseback out of Dover Street towards Hyde Park corner, but was kept in the dark which way the exclusion was intended, till we turned down by Bucking­ham Wall[fn1] towards the Horse ferry[fn2] . While the servants with the horses were crossing over in the ferry boat, we got over in a pair of oars to Lambeth, and took a short view of the Archbishop’s Palace, the inside of which I had never before peeped into, and perhaps never shall again. The first room we were conducted into was the Great Hall, a very handsome capacious room, built by Archbishop Juxon, as my Lord informed me from his knowledge of the arms (I think three or four blackamoors’ heads) which were stuck in two or three places about the Hall. It is indeed a very noble room, and great pity it is that more use is not made of it. I mean, that it is not so used as the generous and charitable founder designed, for hospitality, &c. We were thence shewn upstairs, and passing through some few rooms came into the Gallery, which is the Archbishop’s private library, [pg59]and a very proper room it is for such use; and it seemed very well furnished, and great exactness was used in placing the books to the best advantage, according to their several dimensions. Some pictures there are in it but none that I remember very remarkable, excepting one which upon account of the vileness of the artist* ought not to have been placed there or any where else to common view by any person who has any true value or esteem for the person it represents; for I think it is the worst piece of portrait that ever in my life I saw, and if it were in any other place one would go near to suspect it to be a designed abuse upon the youth supposed to be represented by it, for I defy any burlesque painter to do it more effectually, though he were instructed by any inveterate enemy of the family. If one were to form a judgment from this piece one would be apt to give credit to the silly, common report of some people that he is no better than an idiot; but I rather think the painter deserves that appellation ; and it is hardly to be imagined that anybody can be so injudicious as not to perceive either the meanness or abuse of this piece, and its unfitness for such a place wherever all sorts of gentlemen are doubtless received. Before we came into this gallery we passed through a room furnished with many pictures of Archbishops and Bishops, chiefly very modern. We saw a very fine piece of Holbein (as my Lord informed me) which, upon account of the art, made some amends for that which *15M)' raised my spleen so much in the Library. It was of Bishop Wareham, and seemed a very curious one, though I cannot agree (p. 76) with the person who showed it to us and for the honour | of the Archbishop’s palace affirmed it to be 800 years old. In passing on this way we saw a picture of a young man in a Spanish habit, which by the family is called the Proud Spaniard; but Lord Harley informed me it was done for Prince Charles when he was in Spain. The public library seems well furnished with books, but the room is somewhat dark.

From hence we came the direct road for Dartford by Green­wich and over Shooters Hill, whence there is a noble prospect of the river and the town towards the west, and also into Kent eastward. On the east ascent of this hill a pretty ancient beggar has fixed his abode, and is somewhat particular in his address to travellers. He only tells them simply the hour of the day (it was a quarter past ten when we passed by), and I believe is generally successful in this way of application ; and if he can in time afford it, I would recommend to him the assistance of my friend Gibbs[fn3] to erect a more decent habitation than he now has on this pleasant situation, and if after the example of great wits, * Marginal note : “ no artist ” written above in MS. [pg60]

they would have a motto for the entertainment and speculation
of them that pass by, I would recommend to him De paupertaie
tacentes plus poscente ferent.

As we passed over Bexley Heath, about three miles from this
hill, we had a pretty long prospect, which opened to the right*
and terminated in a sea mark. I think the fellow whom we
met there and enquired of about it called it Peachey, or some
such name ; and we saw the same mark again, as I take it, a few
miles before we entered into Rochester, and in our return I
found that it was likewise to be seen from the west end of Black-
heath.

We came into Dartford to the sign of the “ Bull ” about
twelve. On the right, as we entered the town, there is a pretty
snug hospital consisting of two sides of a square, to the east
and north, built by one Horseman of Horseman’s Place in 1572.
After dinner we went to see the Church, accompanied by our
landlord, who, I doubt not, is with great justice esteemed as one
of the chief wits of the place, and he gave us a specimen of it,
as we went along, by asking one of his neighbours, who had
pulled down the front of his house, with a very facetious air,
How long it had been since he kept open house ? In this Church
there have been some monuments of antiquity, but most of the
brasses with the inscriptions are now torn off the stones ; though
there are some few still remaining; but not having time to
transcribe them at present I hope to do it some other opportunity,
D.V. There has been lately a good deal of money laid out upon
the inside of this Church, so that it looks very neat and hand-
some ; and the inhabitants seem to be a good sort of people,
and are desirous of establishing by subscription an afternoon
Lecturer ; and there is one Mr. Jones lately come into the town
for that purpose and keeps the school there ; but upon some
dispute with the Vicar, Mr. Chambers (who will not as yet be
persuaded to lend his pulpit for this use), they cannot get this
lecture fixed. This Mr. Chambers is a Welshman, as is Jones
likewise, and was nominated to this vicarage by Francis Lord
Bishop of Rochester, whose right it is to present to it, though
this choice of his was contrary to the desire of the inhabitants,
who had humbly requested him for Mr. Price, a Westminster
scholar, and a worthy son of the former incumbent here, and
who had for some time assisted his aged father, but his Lord-
ship did not think it convenient to let them have him for their
Vicar, nor Mr. Chambers to have him for the Lecturer, which
they endeavoured at when he failed of getting the cure.

In the afternoon we came hence directly for Rochester, and
upon the heath as we came out of the town the men of Tunbridge

61

and the Dartford men were warmly engaged at the sport of cricket, which of all the people of England the Kentish folk are most renowned for, and of all the Kentish men the men of Dart­ford lay claim to the greatest excellence.

We had every now and then very pleasant views of the river from this road, and about five miles from Dartford is a small bottom or opening ’twixt the hills, called Stonebridge, from such a bridge of stone being there over a small creek, where the tide when it rises high runs for a considerable way cross the great road into the country.

We got into Rochester at the “ Crown ” inn about half an hour after six in the evening, where we passed over one of the neatest bridges, across the Medway, that I have seen. It joins a village on the west called Strood to the town of Rochester, and was sic&ii) built chiefly, if not solely, at the expense of Sir Robert Knolles, who, together with many other benefactors, did likewise leave an annual income, now amounting to 5001. per annum, for the constant repair of it, which income, being entrusted to the care and management of some honest gentlemen of the county is faithfully looked after, and the bridge kept in very good order. Here we had at supper the company of a very worthy and in­genious gentleman, Dr. Thorpe[fn4] , the physician of the town, and the only one there, who happening to hear of Lord Harley’s being there, came to pay his respects to him. And very fortunate it was that my Lord was accidentally known here (for he designed to be incognito at every place, and accordingly as it falls out in such cases was some way or other everywhere discovered), for by this means we had this agreeable companion while we stayed here. He was formerly of University College in Oxford, seems to have a good share of knowledge, especially as to English antiquities ; is extremely modest, but very communicative, and his good company was very useful as to the enquiries we were to make here, and made our stay much more agreeable than it otherwise could probably have been.

On Tuesday August 27, about eight of the clock in the morning, we rode out accompanied by Dr. Thorpe to see a little church three miles up the river Medway, called Cuxton, through very straight narrow lanes which I do not much wonder at in a by-road across the country, since the very great road improperly so-called, I mean, that from London to Canterbury, is in many places so exceeding narrow for several furlongs together that two single horsemen cannot pass by one another -without very great inconvenience, much less any wheel carriages, even so much as two wheelbarrows ; so very stingy and saving of their ground are these yeomen of Kent; and perhaps they think, by this [pg62]parsimony of their ground by the roadside, to make amends for the great havoc that is made of their soil all along the banks of the Thames by the dealers in lime, who convey it in great quantities hence for the support of the London builders ; so that in this sense those traders may be said as properly to carry Can- tium in Londinium, as dGneas did Ilium in Italiam.

The reason of our visiting this church of Cuxton was in order to see a monument there, which was erected in the year 1603, in memory of Anne Harley, second wife to Sir Robert Harley (and her only son), who is supposed to have died in childbed at a house which is at a little distance below the hill which the church stands upon, called Whorne’s Place, and belonged at that time to the family of the Levisons, her relations, whom she came to pay a visit to, and died there. Her monument, which is (p. 77) a very handsome one, was this year (repaired by the direction and at the expense of my Lord Harley. There is another monu- (John—the men^ hRere for one of the Marsham family, which together with tomb tota another built altarwise to one .... Bottyler, sometime rector mm o. o£ ^ (.1^(3}^ having a brass plate upon it, is all that is worth notice there. There was a loose plate likewise, now lying upon (really ^s tomb °^ Bottyler’s, which did belong to the gravestone of ohn Turned Master Walter . . . . , of London, woolpacker; but these ob.tiB46) inscriptiong the Doctor promised to send a copy of. Here we met a very odd compliment from some of the poor women of the place who strewed mint upon the road out of their aprons as my Lord passed along. But he stopped their civihty, by ordering them a piece of money, with which I dare say they took care to provide something that might be of more use to them in that dry and parching season. The position of this church is somewhat remarkable, for its east end, if I may so call it, stands to the ' sic south*, and this has given occasion to these two lines which are in some manuscript piece of Dr. Plot’s, now in the custody of Dr. Thorpe, in which this place is mentioned and thus taken notice of—

He that would see a church miswent

Let him go to Cuckeston in Kent.

We took a compass from hence to the north-west, to see Cobham church, which is about two miles and a half off, a place of good renown and some resort in times of yore. The hills on the right hand as we came towards it from Cuxton seem very barren, but some part of them have been lately very considerably improved by sowing of cinquefoil, and doubtless the rest will bo ordered after the same manner in due time. Cobham church, which is a large and spacious one, stands upon part of the [pg63]

eminence of the hill, and has in times past been a collegiate one ;
and it has at this time several gravestones lying in it with old
inscriptions on brass plates, some belonging to the family of the
Cobhams, and some to the members of the College. I should
have been very sorry not to have had more time to take more
particular notice and to transcribe the inscriptions of the most
remarkable and ancient of them, had not our kind companion,
the physician, promised to send a very faithful account and
transcript of them to Lord Harley, which he is very capable of
doing, as well as things of far greater consequence, with great
exactness. The ruins of the College, which was founded by one
of the Cobhams, are on the north* side of the church ; and the
cloisters belonging to it did join to the church on that side. The
ruins of it are now converted into almshouses for some poor
people of this and the neighbouring parishes. The old hall on
the south side is still standing pretty entire, and is about the
bigness of the refectory of Edmund Hall in Oxford, but it is now
a mere lumber room. The screen at the entrance into it is like-
wise entire, as is the door-way into the buttery, which was locked,
and now doubtless converted to some other use.

We moved hence towards the south east, leaving Cobham
Hall (the ancient seat of the Cobhams) on the left hand in a
bottom as we passed through the park belonging to it, which
was formerly noted for its great extent, so that now where we
crossed it from the entrance of the avenue to the end of the pales
is reckoned above three miles ; but it has now no deer in it, and
but very few other creatures that I could see, both that and the
great house having the face of great ruin approaching. The
estate is now about 2,2002. per annum, but has for some time
been contested for at law by ... .

We got into the great Canterbury road again a little above
Strood, and into our inn at Rochester betwixt eleven and twelve
o’clock, having|rode that morning about ten miles. Whilst
dinner was getting ready we stepped into the cathedral, and
had just time to take a very short cursory view of that ancient
building, which now looks but very poorly and desolate. I think
every one of the brass plates are taken off the gravestones, but
there are two or three old monuments still remaining. The
oldest, as I remember, is Bishop Lowe’s, enclosed in a pew on the
south* side of the choir; it is built with stone, altarwise, and
has an inscription still legible, but this, and a modern one very
remarkable on Hr. Caesar, a physician formerly of this place, on
the left hand as you enter into the church at the south* gate,
is promised to be sent after us by the obliging and good-natured
physician who still survives there, and constantly attended us.

64

We left our inn at Rochester betwixt three and four this after­noon, and as we come out towards Chatham there is, on the left hand side of the street, a kind of hospital with an inscription on the front, signifying that it was founded by one Watts (and is now called Watts’s Hospital), and that in it all travellers in want, -solicitors excepting they be contagiously diseased, rogues or proctors,* may be entertained at bed and board for one night, and have a groat given them the next morning. The reason of his excepting all proctors from any share of his charity was this :—When he thought himself a dying man he sent for a proctor, whom he entrusted to make his last will and testament; but it seems Master Watts recovered that fit of sickness, and upon looking over his will some time after, he found that the honest proctor in whom he had confided had made provision for himself by securing to himself the executorship. Upon this he immediately got a new will made, and in it excluded all of this fraternity from ever having any benefit of this his benefaction. He bequeathed this charity in the year 1579, to be given after his wife’s decease, who married again another husband; and there is another inscription upon this front, above the former, which signifies that with his (her second husband’s) assistance, she assured everything to the use designed in 1586.

On the same side of the street, a little further, is a new build­ing, a kind of school, erected by Sir Joseph Williamson, Bart., in 1707, for teaching of mathematics : I suppose principally for the service of the Navy.

We could not conveniently see the stores at Chatham (which if I were writing seriously to posterity, and not keeping a diary for my own amusement, I would make some apology for), and so we left Rochester passing through part of Chatham betwixt three and four o’clock that afternoon. I do not remember to have seen any gentlemen’s houses of any note as we passed the great road for Faversham, nor to have seen any gentlemen, excepting it were two of my own countrymen, whom we over­took driving some Welsh cattle from Bartholomew Fair, who were highly delighted as well as myself with my addressing them in their own language, though I dare say they were much better pleased with my Lord’s talcing notice of them in plain English after he had observed our conversation, and bidding them take up a piece of white money which he threw to them to drink their friend’s health, which I presume they did very heartily in the first tavern they got to. I think there was nothing came in our way but adventures of this low kind.

The heat and dustiness of the season made us take notice of a fellow who was attending horses loaded with pears for some [pg65]market or other and we got some of them for ourselves, and my Lord ordered some for the servants, which considering the heat I do not wonder they embraced greedily, but I (p. 70) believe both they as well as we wish they had| been let alone, for everybody found some inconvenience from them. I wish it was not they that infected John Newman’s horse, which had the bellyache all that night and next day, and John sympathized with his horse or his horse with him : I shall not forget their name in haste, they were called poitrin pears. It was a little hard, considering what fine orchards we saw on each side of us, we should have no better fortune with fruit on the first venture; but considering again that Kentish cherries were long since out of season, and Kentish pippins not yet come in, we might rest well contented with tasting poitrin pears, or smelling Kentish lime kilns.

When we came within half a mile of Ospringe, there is a little way on the right of the road a pretty tolerable house built by one Jugg, and called by the Kentish wits Jugg’s Folly, the builder of it, who owned the powder mills at Faversham, having been broke by carrying on this edifice, or rather, very properly as my Lord expressed it, he was blown up by it. We turned off the great road on the left hand at Ospringe, and riding about half a mile got to the “ Ship ” at Faversham, at half-hour past seven that evening, so that it was too late for us to look about the town that night. It is a pretty large town, and is governed by a Mayor, a Recorder, twelve Jurats, and twenty-four Common Councilmen, sends no members of parliament, but seems as factious and as full of discord as if it did. It subsists chiefly by the benefit of a creek, through which the tide comes up to the very town, and brings ships of a pretty large burden. Their chief commodity is oysters, in which they deal for above 7,000?. annually.*

The next morning betwixt six and seven o’clock we looked a little about the town, and went through a very large open spacious street (called Court Street) in order to see the church. This street has very little besides its spaciousness to brag of, there being no houses in it that make any extraordinary figure, though there is one which is somewhat memorable; it is on the right hand, about the middle of the street as we went along. It is ®) the house in which King James[fn6] was when he endeavoured to get off at this place. While he was in it the Prince of Orange’s Declaration was read under his window by one Napleton,® an inferior sort of lawyer, who had notice of his Majesty’s being [pg66]within, and did it designedly to affront him. But the Kling gave the fellow no other reproof than just looking out of his window and telling him that he made haste to be rich. This house either is at this time or was then inhabitated by one Southouse. They were the trained bands of this place that the King was taken by, having been forced again to the shore, as he endeavoured to get to sea through this creek, which is very difficult to get clear of, without a very skilful pilot, which it seemed he had not procured.

* Twenty years later they estimated they lost £9,000 by a frost. See paper on Briefs, p. 33.—Ed.

Out of this street we turned into a lesser one on the right, called Church Street, which, agreeably to its denomination, led us into the church, in which are many monuments of antiquity. And I am in some measure contented for my not having had time to transcribe them, by being since told by our good Rochester physician that he had got all of them, and would send copies amongst other things of that kind which he had promised to send. But there is one modern one, which I cannot help remem­bering out of the particular regard I have to hypocrisy and vanity joined together. On the north side within the church there is a very handsome monument fixed up in the wall, with an English inscription giving notice, in very ample terms, that there is left to that parish a considerable benefaction of 20s. a year for a sermon to be preached on such a day, and 5s. annually for the clerk for <p- 80) his attendance! on that day, and 20s. to the sexton, who is enjoined, upon the penalty of forfeiting his title to this benefit, to expend two bottles of oil (one every half year) upon the iron rails of an altar monument, which is in the north side of the churchyard. This last particularity of the oil (though there were other ostentatious singularities which I do not remember) excited our curiosity to see what was further done in the church­yard, and there we saw a very grand monument of that sort, with inscriptions on all sides of the greatest humility and arrogance that one would desire to read ; but the rails were the chief things to be observed, which, considering the oil which was to be bestowed on their purification, would not have surprised one with an extraordinary brightness. I mean, if its brightness and cleanli­ness were something singular, as indeed they were, for the oil was just slovenly poured on without any rubbing, in order for to clean the irons, that it made it ten times more nasty and dirty than it would otherwise have been by suffering the plain calamity of the weather. The person who ordered this splendid monument and the other marble one in the church was one Isles, who was a poor lad of the lower rank of this town, and had been bound to some inferior trade in it, but run away from his master to London, where he got into some way of life which [pg67]enabled him to leave this memorandum of himself and his family Our landlord informed us (which I could hardly believe, consider­ing his zeal for a remembrance both in the inside and outside of the church) that Isles was a Dissenter and a Presbyterian; but when I recollected, my knowledge and acquaintance with some of these people, I could easily reconcile it. He purchased this vault in the churchyard (over which the monument there is placed) for ever for five guineas, from the present incumbent, Mr. Cooke, who gave absolution to Charnock and Keys, and from that act of his has been commonly called Absolution Cooke.

Within this church on the north side is the monument with a very proper inscription of ... , Southouse, who wrote a little book of the antiquities of this place, entitled “ Monasticon Fevershamense ”,

From Faversham we set out about eight in the morning for- Canterbury, which is about nine miles distance from it. We got into the great road again at the east end of Ospringe, and about two miles further passed through a village called Boughton, but by the present neighbours and inhabitants commonly called Bocton, and sometimes Bocton Bleen. It is the same town mentioned by Chaucer in his Canterbury Tales by the name of Boughton under Bice[fn7] . I should hardly have taken more notice of it than of any other village we passed through, but for the mention of it in the scene of those ancient pilgrims. It is about a mile west of a large hill or forest called the Bleen, covered with wood, but of a very small shrubby kind. From the western ascent of this hill, there is a prospect of part of the sea towards sic the north east*, and from the ascent of this hill into the town of Canterbury is a very fine made road, which I supposed to have been part of the old Roman Way, but have been since informed by Dr. Thorpe that it was made at the expense of the gentry of that county about a hundred years ago, and has been ever since kept in good repair and order by the bordering parishes. The nearer we approached to Canterbury the larger [the] hop gardens we saw, but not more fertile than those lesser ones which we saw at a greater distance from it. About eleven o’clock we got into the “ Red Lion ” at Canterbury.

NOTES

[pg68]still the only span over the Thames in the metropolis. That at West­minster was not built until more than twenty years later.

It may be of use to record (as possibly unknown to all students grate­ful to Thorpe) that his MS. collections are now in the British Museum. The monumental text of Reg. Roff, has, passim, minor variations from his MS. version ; and each contains the exceedingly valuable account of the painted glass at Gillingham still extant in 1621, which deserves reprinting in Arch. Cant, when present difficulties diminish. Though Gillingham was a Canterbury peculiar, Thorpe printed it along with the few Rochester parishes east of Medway. He also tackled the following Canterbury churches moderately near his home at Rochester, but these ever since the publication of 1769 have remained in MS.:—(Hari. 6587).

Raine am Newington Tunstall Bredgar (north of the Downs) Linton Otham Bbarsted Kolltncbowi (south of the Downs)