Kentish Town

“ The Kentish custom of gavelkind, by which the estate was divided among all the sons equally, the youngest son taking the homestead, prevailed, and in some places lingered long in many villages and manors round London, viz. Kentish159 Town, Stepney, Mile End, Hackney, Canonbury, Newington Barrow (Highbury) , Hornsey, Islington, Streatham, Croydon, Peckham Rye, Kensington, Walworth, Vauxhall, Wandsworth, Battersea, Lambeth, Barnes, Sheen (Richmond) , Petersham, Edmonton, Fulham, Tottenham, Ealing, Acton, and Isleworth.
FAMILY LIFE
Claud MS., B. iv. ”

“ In June, at the crisis of interest, the Camerons came over, and took the fine old house of Surrenden Dering in Kent which they made a sort of country-house to the Embassy. Kent has charms rivalling those of Shropshire, and, even compared with the many beautiful places scattered along the Welsh border, few are nobler or more genial than Surrenden with its unbroken descent from the Saxons, its avenues, its terraces, its deer-park, its large repose on the Kentish hill-side, and its broad outlook over what was once the forest of Anderida. ”

“ CHAPTER XIV Which, among, other things, has to do with shrimps, muffins, and tin whistles
A typical Kentish Village is Dapplemere with its rows of scattered cottages bowered in roses and honeysuckle,—white walled cottages with steep-pitched roofs, and small latticed windows that seem to stare at all and sundry like so many winking eyes.
There is an air redolent of ripening fruit, and hops, for Dapplemere is a place of orchards, and hop-gardens, and rick-yards, while, here and there, the sharp-pointed, red-tiled roof of some oast-house pierces the green. ”

“ To this day the landscape of the Kentish world, with its low broad distances, its hop gardens and golden stretches of wheat, its oasts and square church towers, its background of downland and hangers, has for me a faint sense of adventure added to the pleasure of its beauty. ”

“ Wrexby, therefore, acquiesced in helping to build up her children to stoutness, and but for the blindness of all people, save artists, poets, novelists, to the grandeur of their own creations, the inhabitants of this Kentish village might have had an enjoyable pride in the beauty and robust grace of the young girls,—fair-haired, black-haired girls, a kindred contrast, like fire and smoke, to look upon. ”

“ The name Franklins of Kent has found a place in our literature, and all the native-born men of London, or those who had resided in it for a year and a day, were similarly accounted freemen. Kentish people, when they migrated, carried with them some, at least, of their own laws and customs, certainly their personal freedom.
The very remarkable custom of Kentish gavelkind may be considered in reference to the customs in and around London. Its nature has already been discussed. Its chief privilege was partible inheritance among the sons, and, failing sons, among the daughters. ”

“ There is nothing to keep us in Welling, nor indeed in Bexley Heath, except to note that they are the first two Kentish villages upon our route, now little more than suburban places spoiled of any virtue they may have possessed. ”

“ One thing that strikes one at once is the proof any list of Kentish villages gives of the forestal character of Kent. As one of my aims is to save trouble on the part of some future writer who shall produce the long overdue History of Kentish Place-Names, I will here transcribe all which indicate a woodland origin. ”

“ When we came in view of the foot of the lake we perceived that it ended, as it had begun, in pride and loveliness. The village of Kenmore, with its neat church and cleanly houses, stands on a gentle eminence at the end of the water. The view, though not near so beautiful as that of Killin, is exceedingly pleasing. Left our car, and turned out of the road at about the distance of a mile from the town, and after having climbed perhaps a quarter of a mile, we were conducted into a locked-up plantation, and guessed by the sound that we were near the cascade, but could not see it. ”

“ We miss the wild loveliness of Surrey commons, the rare picturesqueness of the rolling downs round Guildford and Dorking, but this Kentish land has a charm of its own, which grows upon you the longer you know it. These steep slopes and wooded hollows, these grand old church towers and quaint village streets, these homesteads with{128} their vast barns of massive timber and tall chimney-stacks overshadowed with oaks and beeches, cannot fail to delight the eyes of all who find pleasure in rural scenes. ”

“ THE KENTON PLACE
The tiny town, however, was not all that belonged to the Cragg's Crossing settlement. Barely a quarter of a mile away from the village a stream with beautifully wooded banks ran diagonally through the countryside. It was called a "river" by the natives, but it was more of a creek; halfway between a small rivulet and a brook, perhaps. But its banks afforded desirable places for summer residences, several of which had been built by well-to-do families, either retired farmers or city people who wished for a cool and quiet place in which to pass the summer months. ”

“ Those fit gates for a summer palace, the light and airy arches which lead to Sion House, passed also, the country begins to take an air of town—houses and gardens are smaller—single blessedness is rarer—turnpikes more frequent—and terraces, places, and crescents, are many in number;—then the town of Kensington, small and mean, looking a century behind its neighbourhood. ”

“ These are those true Kentish men in whose mouths the sound of "th" is impossible, and who pronounce the definite article "the" like a Frenchman. To hear a Kentish rustic holding forth upon the iniquities of "de wedder" when he is intent upon abusing the climate is as humorous an interlude as to listen to a Kentish housewife who talks in unaccustomed plurals and asks the hungry tourist at tea if he will have any more "bread and butters." ”

“ KINGSGATE—THE NORTH FORELAND—BROADSTAIRS—ST. PETER’S The plebeian jollity of the older part of Margate, by the Harbour and the Jetty, the Fort and the Paragon, gives place westward to modern and more select Cliftonville.
The walk past Cliftonville the select, along the grassy cliffs, leads round by Foreness Point and discloses a succession of chalky nooks, “gaps,” and “gates,” where little ravines run down to the sea: every one of them pretty well peopled in the summer season. If you want a cloistered holiday, you will not be well advised to repair to the Kentish coast for it. ”

“ The “white cliffs of Albion” have rightly272 been the subject of comment and description from the earliest times, for there is nothing in the rest of the whole wide world in the least resembling them. Except for a little of the same chalk formation on the other side of the Channel, at this narrow pass, we in England have a world-monopoly of chalk, and a brave show of bastioned chalky heights the Kentish coast makes. Nowhere else are they so stately as at Dover, for here military art has crowned and set a seal upon the defensible works of nature. ”

“ The Kentish man’s liberty was his marked characteristic in the Middle Ages—a characteristic which had come down to him from the earliest Kentish settlers. Descended partly from Frisians—who were themselves, as the remnant of their ancient language shows, also of the old Gothic stock—and strongly marked by their love of freedom, the people of Kent preserved, through all the changes of the Anglo-Saxon period and the later powerful influences of feudalism, their free institutions, the relics of which, in the customs incidental to the gavelkind land tenure, have come down to our time. ”

“ Kennicott summarized the whole case against wildness: “Let's try it some other time, Carrie.”
She gave it up. She looked at the town. She saw that in adventuring from Main Street, Gopher Prairie, to Main Street, Joralemon, she had not stirred. There were the same two-story brick groceries with lodge-signs above the awnings; the same one-story wooden millinery shop; the same fire-brick garages; the same prairie at the open end of the wide street; the same people wondering whether the levity of eating a hot-dog sandwich would break their taboos. ”

“ Near Sevenoaks their road turned out of the old Canterbury way and pointed south toward the coast, leaving the chalk lands and coming down into the clay of the Weald. It was a wretched, rutted mule-track running through thick forests with occasional clearings in which lay the small Kentish villages, where rude shock-headed peasants with smocks and galligaskins stared with bold, greedy eyes at the travelers. ”

“ The river widens, and we sweep along by the rich slopes and deep wooded vales of the Kentish shore. From time to time little pastoral villages emerge, from plantations of willows and poplars, and all water-loving trees. ”

“ Again, the law of gavelkind, although not extending over the whole of Kent, belongs to so important and numerous a portion of the population, that, as in the case of ancient demesne, it comes to be considered as the typical custom of the county, and attracts all other variations of local usage into its sphere of influence. The Custumal published among the Statutes speaks of the personal freedom of all Kentish-men, although it has to concern itself specially with the gavelkind tenantry. ”

“ In our tramp the question of "Kentish man," or "man of Kent," often cropped up, and we had an opportunity [403] of having the difference explained to us. A "Kentish man" is one born on the east side of the river Medway, and a "man of Kent" is one born on the west side.
The position of the residence "Overblow" is delightful. It stands on a little hill, the front having a fine view of the Thames valley and the marshes, the side looking on to the pretty hollow, in the centre of which stands Shorne Church, and the back being flanked in the distance by the beautiful Cobham Woods. ”

“ As I have always understood that the contrary is the case, and that the inhabitants of East Kent are called "Men of Kent," and those in West Kent, "Kentish Men"—because in East Kent the people are less intermixed with strangers than in West Kent, from its proximity to the metropolis—I was desirous of correcting what appeared to me to be a manifest error: but not finding any direct authority on the point, I consulted my friend Charles Sandys, Esq., of Canterbury, as a Kentish antiquary, on the subject. ”

“ On the 13th the Kentish men occupied Tower Hill, and loudly threatened his life. Early on Friday, the 14th, he celebrated mass before the king, and remained in the chapel after Richard had left the Tower. As soon as the king had gone the Kentish men entered the Tower, and made one of the servants show them where the archbishop was. He had passed the previous night in prayer, and was awaiting their coming. As they rushed into the chapel they cried ‘Where is the traitor to the kingdom, where is the spoiler of the commons?’ To which he replied, ‘You have come right, my sons ”

“ The turbulent people of Kendal no doubt acquired their character from the old-time circumstances of the place, ever subject to incursions of Scottish raiders. Sturdy independence, and a readiness to hold their own, thus become traits in these men of the dales and fells. Something of the ancient trials of Kendal town may yet be seen, behind the modern smug facing of shops in the older streets, where houses and cottages are built around courtyards approached only by narrow alleys easily to be defended, in case of attack. ”

“ Although the distance from Central London is even greater, it is a curious fact that the “genteel” people, with incomes varying from 500l. to 2000l. a-year and upwards are flocking to South Kensington as fast as the houses can be run up. You can’t exactly say that this is the effect of tradition, for the old court end of the town about which Leigh Hunt used to tell us such pleasant stories, is by no means identical with this modern creation of South Kensington. It can scarcely be regarded as a question of healthier and better air, for there is no healthier quarter of London than Tyburnia ”

“ We be no traitors, but wise. Hearken to the maid! She hath been in east and west and north and south. Hear her, wherefore she counselleth patience.
The roar fell to a growl and anon to a muttering, and they turned their angry faces to Calote.
Brothers, she said, ye of Kent are ready. Yea, 't is very true. Were all men so strong in fellowship as Kentish men, would be little to fear. But in Essex men be not so well-fed, nor so wise. Kind-Wit dwelleth not in their cots. ”

“ However much Kentish farmers may grumble about the agricultural outlook, their strop-and-razor colleagues, the barbers of that county, should now replace any grief in which they also may be indulging in reference to their industry, with great gaiety, for there is every prospect of a long and prosperous run of hirsute harvests. ”

“ Geatescumbe, in the boundaries of the land of the Abbey of Abingdon, near Oxford, [7] and others.
These names suggest that there was a migration into the Thames valley of people called by the race-names of the Goths, Geats, or Jutes, from Kent up the river. If we similarly trace the Kentish name itself up the valley, we meet with very old examples of it: Kenton, now Kempton, in Middlesex; Kentes, in East Berkshire; [8] Kentswood, near Pangbourn; and Kentwines treöw, at Shefford, near the Thames above Oxford. ”

“ Kenilworth of to–day at first sight gives the traveller the impression of being merely a sleepy town, with the architecture of its long main street, which is a full mile in length, picturesquely broken up by the interspersing of modern and older buildings. Few, indeed, would suppose that any manufacture of the slightest importance could occupy the thoughts or the energies of its inhabitants ”