Dartford

“ E. of Dartford, mainly late Early English (1251–1274) , and carefully restored by G. E. Street in 1860, is remarkable; the richness of the work within increases from west to east, culminating in a choir arcade decorated with work among the finest of its period extant; the period is that of the choir of Westminster Abbey, and from a comparison of building materials, choir arcades and sculpture of foliage, a common architect has been suggested. Greenhithe, on the banks of the Thames, has large chalk quarries in its neighbourhood, from which lime and cement are manufactured. ”

“ Coming uphill from where Dartford is seated in its deep hollow beside the Darenth, a high tableland is reached, and with it a parting of the ways. Our own route is plain to see—straight ahead—and is made additionally clear by the aid of a specially informative sign-post. For those, however, who would take the opportunity, when so near, of seeing one of the most interesting parish churches in the country, it may be hinted that two miles down the Dover road—the left-hand turning—is Stone. Let the stranger be careful when inquiring for Stone, and ask specifically for the church. ”

“ Modern industrial conditions have rendered Erith a place eminently desirable to leave unvisited. Nor do the marshes and low-lying fields beyond it, towards the mouth of the river Darent, reward the explorer, whose only course is now to turn inland and so come, past the hamlet of Perry Street, through Crayford and along the Dover Road, into Dartford town.
Dartford does not greatly concern us here, because, for one thing, it is not upon the coast, and, for another, it belongs to quite a different subject, the Dover Road ”

“ In 1837 Dunkin removed to Dartford, where three years previously he had commenced to build himself a large printing establishment. Shortly afterwards he opened a branch business at Gravesend. In 1844 he published his ‘History and Antiquities of Dartford with Topographical Notices of the Neighbourhood,’ 8vo, London, Dartford [printed] . Thenceforward he occupied himself in arranging the materials he had accumulated for the histories of Oxfordshire and Kent. He died on 22 Dec. ”

“ The party separated at Dartford, and, taking two post-chaises at the “Bull,” drove to London, the Pastor “stunned,” as it were, by a constant rapid succession of interesting objects, arriving at Greenwich nearly in a state of stupefaction.
WAT TYLER
Dartford will ever live in history as being the starting-point of Wat the Tyler’s rebellion of 1381. Tradition places the scene of Wat’s murderous attack on the tax-gatherer opposite the “Bull,” where once was Dartford Green. ”

“ Behind the carved wooden balusters of the gallery are the bedrooms, until late years largely given up to dust and cobwebs, but now rebuilt and again in use. Those who care for things that have had their day will think it fortunate that merely alteration, and not destruction, has been suffered here.
For the rest, the “Bull” at Dartford is Georgian, and its long brick front, with nine windows in a row, bears a strong family likeness to that of its namesake at Rochester. ”

“ Havelock, let me tell you, however, went to school at a very early age. He was born, as was also his brother William, at Bishop wearmouth, but his father after- wards migrated to Kent and bought a property there called Ingress Park, near to Dartford. And when only five years old he used to ride to Dartford every day, a distance of three miles, to attend school From the age if ten till he was seventeen we find him at the Charter- 208
A True-born Englishman. ”

“ J.S. Burn, in his History of the Foreign Refugees, repeating the same erroneous statement. At page 262, of his curious and interesting work be says:
"The county of Kent has been long famed for its manufacture of paper. It was at Dartford, in this county, that paper was first made in England."
But it is proved beyond all possibility of doubt that a paper-mill existed in England almost a century before the date of the establishment at Dartford. In Henry VII.'s Household Book, we have the following:—
"1498. ”

“ DARTMOUTH CASTLE—BLACKPOOL—SLAPTON SANDS—TORCROSS—BEESANDS—HALL SANDS
The little coach that runs daily from Dartmouth to Kingsbridge has a steep climb up out of Dartmouth. Here the pedestrian certainly has the advantage, for, tracing his coastwise way round through the woods of Warfleet creek, where a disused limekiln by the waterside looks very like an ancient defensible tower, he comes at last upon the strangely grouped church of St. Petrox, the Castle, and the abandoned modern battery, all standing in a position of romantic beauty, where the sea dashes in violence upon the dark rocks. ”

“ It will be enough to say that the mouth of the Dart is worthy of the river’s deserved reputation; a fine deep, winding harbour, channelled between lofty hills and embellished at its narrow mouth with the keep of an ancient castle. Dartmouth town is, in its different way, as picturesque as Totnes, and if it were not, its great memories would hallow the homeliest walls. But in treating of Devonshire villages and country houses one has hardly in mind the abodes of sea-goers and fishermen. They belong to another type altogether, and one regards them with different eyes. ”

“ There is one thing you must do at Dartmouth, because you cannot help doing so—enjoy yourself. But there is one thing you must on no account do—offend a single, though the most insignificant, member of the town. If you do, the whole population is out on you like a hive of angry bees—for in a place so shut in by hills and water everyone is related. ”

“ The town of to-day is in some respects not unlike Dartmouth. It is more open, one must admit, but there is the same close clinging of the houses to the hillside, the narrow entrance, and the river flowing down from Lostwithiel as does the Dart from Totnes. The streets are not less picturesque than that of what may not improperly be considered as the rival town, nor are they less steeply inclined; and there is just the same air of peaceful antiquity in many of its winding alleys. ”

“ Those who “know their Dart” will if possible leave this243 beautiful, sleepy old town, which is set so charmingly on the hillside amid rounded fertile uplands and many-tinted woods just before sunset. Then the passage back to Dartmouth down the river, from the brown water of the Dart to the gradually greening salt water of the estuary, is one of almost indescribable and unforgettable beauty. It lies past Sandridge where that intrepid explorer and much adventuring seaman John Davis was born; and Greenway, where Adrian and Humphrey Gilbert had their home. ”

“ From this outlook one may survey the city, brinking the wooded shores of the North West Arm, falling away down dingy terraces of unkempt streets to that other fair encircling inlet, Bedford Basin. Across the harbour, where often-times Britain's war-hounds tug at their anchor chains, rises the town of Dartmouth, with a history quite its own. ”

“ I think a waft of more spacious times has come down to us, and lingers yet about the steep streets and strange stairways, the broad eaves and bowed and bent frontages of Dartmouth—an air in essence salty, and ringing with the strange oaths and stranger tales of the doughty hearts who adventured hence to unknown or unfrequented seas, or went forth to do battle with the Spaniard. Hence sailed crusaders, and Dartmouth came a splendid third to Fowey and Yarmouth in 1342, when the port sent as many as thirty-one sail for the investment of Calais. ”

“ Kingsley: Dartside.
Of all the rivers of Devonshire, the Dart claims the first place, both for beauty and for interesting associations; and between the lonely wastes about its source on Dartmoor, and the calm, broad reaches above Dartmouth, the scenery is not only always beautiful, but adds the great charm of being beautiful in quite different ways. ”

“ Dartmouth (6579) , a market-town, and favourite resort of yachtsmen, and formerly a port of great importance, at the narrow entrance of the Dart estuary, is a place of exceptional beauty and of great historic interest, built in terraces on a steep, wooded hill. In the old town along the quay and in the Butter-Walk are fine old Elizabethan houses. St Saviour's, one of its four churches, dates from 1372, and has a splendid rood-screen and a very fine pulpit. The land-locked harbour was guarded by two castles. ”

“ The Legges rose to be Earls of Dartmouth.—The first who was raised to the peerage was that loyal and gallant naval officer, George Legge, created Baron of Dartmouth in 1682. He was descended from an ancestor who filled the Pretorian Chair of London in the years 1347 and 1354, having by his industry in the trade of a skinner, attained great wealth.
Sir Geoffrey Bullen, Lord Mayor in 1458, was grandfather of Thomas, Earl of Wiltshire, father of Anna Bullen, and grandfather of queen Elizabeth, the highest genealogical honour the city of London ever possessed. ”

“ The railway station and line to Plymouth now occupy the old creek, up which barges, and undoubtedly smuggled spirits, went to Dartington. Anyone standing on the Dartington side and looking across at Totnes will see at once what was the old character of this headland. The town occupies a long ridge, which reached to the river by one street that ran its entire length. The magnificent church of red sandstone, with its grand tower and pinnacles, occupies the centre, and on the land side, the only side assailable, towered up the castle on a mound that was thrown up in prehistoric times. ”

“ DARTMOUTH, an ancient municipal borough and seaport town of England, in South Devon, 31 miles south of Exeter and 229 miles south-west of London by rail, is situated nearly opposite the town of Kingswear, at the mouth of the Dart, which here forms a secure harbour in the English Channel. The town stretches along the shore of the harbour, overhung by steep acclivities, and presents a picturesque appearance. ”

“ Then came a time of comparative rest for the beautiful little port on the Dart, which, however, as we have before stated, saw some of the storm and stress of the Civil War. With the bold and successful enterprises of Dartmouth privateers during the long war with Napoleon, or with those of equally daring smugglers at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth century, there is no space to deal in detail. ”

“ Certain it is, that the common people in this neighbourhood were impressed with the notion that Dartmoor was a place less desirable to mortals, and more under the influence of evil spirits, than any other spot in England. I shall only say, that I found it, take it all in all, a less disagreeable prison than the ships; the life of a prudent, industrious, well behaved man might here be rendered pretty easy, for a prison life, as was the case with some of our own countrymen, and some Frenchmen; but the young, the idle, the giddy, fun making youth generally reaped such fruit as he sowed. ”

“ The news was very unwelcome to Dartmouth. Weir at least would have been a distraction. Now he must get through a dismal day, and fight his enemy by himself. To make matters worse, it was raining, and he could not go out and ride or hunt. He went into Sir Iltyd's library and talked to him for the rest of the morning. Sir Iltyd was not exciting, at his best, and to-day he had a bad cold; so after lunch Dartmouth went up to his tower and resigned himself to his own company. He sat down before the fire, and taking his head between his hands allowed the blue devils to triumph. ”

“ And she looker like she have the fire ouside and the ice in."
"Oh, she's not so bad," said the Englishman, loyally. "She has some admirable traits, and she's deuced clever, but she has an ill-regulated sort of a nature, and is awfully obstinate and prejudiced. It's a sort of vanity. She worries Dartmouth a good deal. He's a born poet, if ever a man was, and she wants him to go into politics. Wants a salon and all that sort of thing. She ought to have it, too. Political intrigue would just suit her; she's diplomatic and secretive. But Dartmouth prefers his study." ”

“ Tourists who have been up the river from Dartmouth to Totnes are inclined to think that they know the Dart; they are as much mistaken as those who think they know the Wye when they have been to Symond's Yat. ”

“ The situation of Dartmouth is eminently characteristic of the seaport towns of South Devon and Cornwall. It lies, like so many of them, at the mouth of a little river, which, running almost due south for an inconsiderable number of miles, widens at last into an estuary that gives on the sea through a narrow opening between tall cliffs. ”

“ He must be careful; the fever is dangerous."
Mrs. Dartmouth drew her curved brows together with a frown which did not soften her face. "He is writing," she said, shortly. "He is always writing."
"O, but you know that is a Dartmouth failing—ambition," said Sir Dafyd, with a smile. "They must be either in the study or dictating to the King."
"Well, I wish my Fate had been a political Dartmouth. Lionel sits in his study all day and writes poetry—which I detest. I shall bring up my son to be a statesman."
"So that his wife may see more of him?" said Sir Dafyd, laughing. ”

“ Dartmouth Castle, in part of Tudor date, commands the river a little below the town. Portions of the cottage of Thomas Newcomen, one of the inventors of the steam-engine, are preserved. Dartmouth is a favourite yachting centre, and shipbuilding, brewing, engineering and paint-making are carried on. Coal is imported, and resold to ships calling at the harbour. ”