Charles G. Harper

“ Here, where the track dips down and becomes a hollow way, the great gnarled roots of the thickly-clustering trees are seen in their lifelong desperate clutch at the powdering soil, and the trunks, wreathed here and there with ivy, shouldering one another in their competition for light and sustenance, form a heavy and massive frame to the picture beyond—a picture of ruined chapel and sullen pool, fed by landsprings from the broken cliff, and level marsh beyond, bounded only by that insistent row of Martello towers, and by the dull silver of the sea. ”

“ Within sight, surrounded by that almost invariable circlet of trees which seems to lovingly enfold the churches, the villages, and the townlets of the marsh, and to shelter them from the cold blasts of change, as also from those of the weather, is New Romney, the four angle-tourelles or dwarf pinnacles of its church tower—not one quite the counterpart of any of its fellows—prominent above all else. ”

“ THE SOUL, FROM A MONUMENT IN MINSTER-IN-SHEPPEY CHURCH.
From this hilltop churchyard one may glimpse a view whose like is not often seen. Sheerness to one side, the narrow ribbon of the Swale, the broad channels of the Medway and the Thames, and the great expanse of slimy marshes, gleam under the summer sun like burnished steel. When evening comes and the sunbeams slant downwards from dun-coloured clouds, the scene is one to make an artist despair of ever adequately rendering the beauty of it. ”

“ It stands on the shingle-banks that have been thrown up by the sea to ruin Romney, and it is a mere line of sad grey stucco houses with their faces to the immensity of the sea, their backs to the emptiness of the marsh, and their skylights looking up into the vastness of the sky. The place is a resort of [Pg 119] golfers in summer, an emptiness in winter, and all the year round an eyesore to those who fare the road between Romney and Dymchurch, and cannot fail to observe those gaunt houses in the distance, notching the coast-line in a hateful commonplace of detached-and semi-detachedness. ”

“ In quest of the "Marston Hall" of "The Leech of Folkestone," and of traces of Master Marsh we must leave Dover, and, climbing the steep and winding Castle Hill, come, under the frowning keep and warder towers of that great fortress, to the high, bare, chalky table-land that stretches from this point to Deal and Sandwich. It is an open, unfenced road at the beginning, and so shadeless that a very striking elm solitary by the wayside is known far and wide as the "Lone Tree." ”

“ Let us, then, proceed along the Folkestone Road, with the Oxenden plantations—now grown into dense woods of larch and pine—on the right. Wayfarers are scarce, and the lovely scenery of Broome Park and the road into Denton is quite solitary. A ladder-stile leaps the rustic fence, birds chatter and quarrel in the trees, but as you come into the hamlet of Denton, it is, in its quaint old-world appearance and apparent emptiness, like some stage scene with the actors called off. ”

“ There is no love felt for modern Folkestone by the inhabitants of the old town, who resent the prices to which things have been forced up by the neighbourhood of the over-wealthy, and resent still more the occasional descent from the fashionable Leas of dainty parties bent on exploring the queer nooks, and amusing themselves with a sight of the quaint characters, that still abound by the fishing-harbour. ”

“ Richborough, that frowns so grim down upon the Stour meadows and the flat Sandwich and Ramsgate road, is a favourite haunt of archæologists. It rises, rugged walls and bulging bastions, from low, earthy cliffs, ivy-clad in places, and shrouded by dense thickets of brushwood, where the earth falls away to the levels. The secretive ivy, incredibly aged, clasps the hoary masonry with a tenacity that will not allow of severance. They will live and die together, those walls and that "rare old plant, the ivy green." ”

“ From this hilltop it is seen how exquisitely beautiful was the situation of Saltwood in days of old, before Hythe and its neighbouring mushroom townlets had begun to throw out their villas and suburban residences upon the spurs of the downs, flouting the sylvan solitude and mediæval aloofness of that secluded fortress. It lies a mile inland, at the head of a green and moist valley, still thickly wooded, sloping to the sea. We do not fully realise, until we take thought, the due meaning of that beautiful name of Saltwood ”

“ There must actually be sufficient inhabitants in the parish to quarter fill the building! Newchurch makes a pretty picture, thoroughly characteristic of the marsh. From it the eye ranges to the wooded cliffs at Bilsington, to Aldington Knoll, and to Lympne, with its castle and church, looking fairy-like and ethereal in the shimmering light of a summer afternoon; or in the other direction to where the marsh is bounded by the sea. The picture of Newchurch itself is seen here, and is more eloquent than mere words can be. ”

“ Down to the left, away from the road to Pegwell Bay and Ramsgate, can be seen from this point the dark ruin of Richborough, and directly on that road, to the right, a belt of sparse woodland, a clump of thin, wiry trees, insufficiently nourished on the sandy and pebbly soil. In midst of this, solitary and surrounded with an atmosphere of melancholy, is an absolutely uninteresting modern house. These trees and this house form all that remains of the once important and flourishing port of Stonar, or Lundenwic, an early rival of Sandwich itself. ”

“ It is chiefly of Early English architecture, and an exquisite example of its period, with a noble chancel like the choir of a cathedral, and a remarkable crypt or undercroft, stacked with a neatly-disposed heap of many hundreds of skulls and large quantities of human bones. No one knows in any definite manner how, why, or when these gruesome relics were brought here, but legendary lore tells how they are the remains of those who were slain in some uncertain fight—so uncertain that whether between Britons and Romans, Romano-British and Saxons, or Saxons and Danes is not stated. ”

“ When, having obtained the keys, you swing back the groaning door, the reek of the dampness smites you coldly in the face, and the odour of it produces a sneeze that goes hollowly reverberating up and down the mildewed interior. Emptiness and damp are the interior characteristics of Snargate church—its pavements slimy with moisture, the walls alternately livid and green with it. It is not surprising that Barham preferred to live at Warehorne. ”

“ The business of getting out of Folkestone is a weariful affair, for there are not only the heavy rises in the roads to be surmounted, but the great rolling chalk hills that shut in the valleys reverberate the heat of the sun to a degree that is often stifling, and in these latter days the tiresome hindmost suburbs of Folkestone conspire to render the explorer's lot a hard one, going back dustily inland, beyond Radnor Park, until they join forces with what was once the rural village of Cheriton Street. ”

“ There is nothing remaining at Saltwood that can take us back to the days of Becket. The oldest, as well as the most imposing, part is the entrance, whose great drum-towers, built or restored by the cruel and haughty Archbishop Courtenay about 1350, give a very striking impression to one who stands beneath them of the almost impregnable strength of such mediæval strongholds before the days of heavy ordnance—the walls are so thick and smooth, the loophole windows so high up and small, the stout gate so strengthened with iron. ”

“ It is the one unspoiled little rural oasis in the urban and suburban deserts of a seaboard that has grown fashionable. All too soon it ends, and the villas of Seabrook are reached.
Seabrook and Hythe we have already seen. Now let us strike boldly inland, and, leaving Hythe to the left, tackle the perpetual rise and fall of the roads that lead past the romantic castle of Saltwood to the bosky glades of Westenhanger. ”

“ They and their adjacent contemporary streets are the seaside resort of yesterday; the red-brick and terra-cotta houses and hotels, in adaptation of Elizabethan Gothic and Jacobean Renaissance, that of to-day, a newer and grander place than Cubitt conceived or Dickens knew.
All those magnificent streets, those barrack-like hotels, all those bands and gay parterres, and all the fashion that makes Folkestone the most expensive seaside resort on the south coast, are excrescences. ”

“ The first two wrought much havoc, but the great February storm of 1286 was the worst, when the wind and the sea choked up the harbour with shingle and diverted the course of the Rother, and, tearing down the sea-defences, lay the hardly-won lands once more under salt water. This crowning disaster paralysed all effort. Only by degrees, and unaided, did the waters subside. The unfortunate inhabitants had lost all; many lost their lives; the port of Romney was crippled. ”

“ He seeks out, and by instinct finds, the best; and, having found the best that Kent affords, is ready to declare that it is hard to beat. It is, for example, impossible to match, even in Devon, the beauty of that fertile fruit and hop-bearing belt of country which begins at Newington, a few miles below Chatham, and continues beside the Dover Road, past Teynham and Faversham, and on to Canterbury. It is a beauty that appeals alike and at once to the artist and the man with carnal appetites and fleshly longings ”

“ The railway that, taking advantage of the levels, runs between Sandwich and Ramsgate under these walls of the aged Roman castle is not an unromantic feature. Its living commercialism serves to contrast eloquently the methods of to-day and those of an Empire dead these fifteen hundred years. He must be a soulless signalman who does not, in his cabin placed under the shadow of that wall, sometimes let his imagination loose and, conjuring up the past, people those ramparts again with the helmeted sentries of old Rome. ”

“ The chalk-pit, too, is sufficiently real. Crossing the open fields, spread starkly to the sky, between Monkton and Cleve Court, it is found on the Ramsgate road, opposite the "Prospect" inn, where it still gapes as deep and wide as ever. Do not, however, if you wish to be impressed with the truth of Ingoldsby's romantic description, view it by the brilliant sunlight of a summer's day, because at such times the great cleft in the dull white of the chalk does not properly proclaim its immensity. ”

“ It is a remarkable stretch of country to which one comes at last; a tumbled area of bare, grassy chalk downs, rising up into bold sugarloaf peaks and cones, very dry and parching. Shorncliffe Camp is hard by, occupying the high ground between Cheriton and Sandgate, and up and down this valley and these hillsides it is the fate of the brave defenders of their country to be manœuvred, in season and out. ”

“ It was in the fertile county of Kent that Barham was born, in the midst of a district that has ever been the cradle of Barhams. Eight miles to the south of the old Cathedral of Canterbury, and near by the Folkestone Road, there lies, secluded in a deep valley, an old-fashioned farmhouse, unpretending enough to the outward glance, but quaint and curious within. This is the old manor house of Tappington Everard, mentioned so often and so familiarly in the Ingoldsby Legend, and for many centuries the home of Richard Harris Barham's ancestors. ”

“ It is a relief to turn away from this evidence of Folkestone's prosperity, and to secure a quiet hillside nook whence, on one of those insufferably hot days invariably selected for elaborate evolutions and parades, to watch the sweating Tommies harried up and down the blistering valley in the service of their country, to the raucous and unintelligible yells of commanding officers, comfortably and coolly supervising their heated efforts from the easeful vantage-point of horseback. ”

“ The members of those literary brotherhoods are gone, each one to his place, and the memories of the most of them, of the books they wrote, the jokes they cracked, of their friendships and quarrels, are dim and dusty to-day. The taste in humour and pathos is not the taste of this time, which laughs at the pathos, and finds the humour, when not dull, merely spiteful and vindictive. ”

“ As Chancellor, his magnificence had outshone that of the King, he himself was gay and debonnair, clothed in purple and fine linen, feasting royally, and with hundreds of knights in his train. Nothing that the world could give had he denied himself. He was not only impressed personally with his unfitness, but the monks of Canterbury themselves, in conclave, desired to elect one of their own choice. ”

“ No manufactures have come to abolish the prettiness of the situation; the air—the atmospheric air—is sweet and fragrant as of yore, and that other air—the demeanour and deportment—of Canterbury is still, as ever, gravely cheerful, as surely befits the capital city of a Primate whose Church is still a going concern.
Ingoldsby was exactly right in his epithetical summing-up, for prettiness and not grandeur is the characteristic of the gentle valley of the Stour, wherein Canterbury is set. ”