Old Kent Road

“ Saint Thomas’s Road marks the site of this stream, and the “Thomas à Becket” inn perpetuates a house of call for wayfarers; but the fame of all these things—of the heretics, the cutpurses, the varied thieves and beggars who were executed here, with their quarters stuck on poles by the ford by way of warning, is lost in the latter-day commonplace of the Old Kent Road.
Yet, at this place, which was something more than a mere water-splash, and the Golgotha of this road out of London, many met their end through being born a little in advance of their time. ”

“ The loads of vegetables strolling up Old Kent Road, the belated pockets of last year’s hops coming, roped sky high, out of the gates of the goods station; the rapid barrows returning from Covent Garden with supplies of flowers and fruit for suburban shops—all these help. At half-past seven comes a transition period. The day’s work has begun and it has not begun. Every five minutes increases the haste of those who come out of the giant model dwellings, and up from the tributary roads; girls, as they run, stab at their hats ”

“ Old Kent road, which leads out of London towards Canterbury, is an ancient highway, and follows nearly, if not quite, the route pursued by the Canterbury pilgrims of the poet Chaucer. In the main it is unusually broad and well kept, but progress will be slow at first, as the suburbs extend a long way in this direction, and for the first twenty-five miles one can hardly be said to be out of the city at any time. ”

“ Many of these streets, such as Old Kent Road, such as Tooley Street, have become wholly commercial, have turned into long lines of gray warehouses and decaying side streets, haunted by many children; some, like Jamaica Road, and most of Bermondsey, have entirely fallen into the hands of the grayest commerce, but here and there you are bound to find a still splendid Georgian house, looking rather like a distressed Irish lady, who does her best to keep her transformation combed, and to maintain the traditions of the Ballymullins of County Mayo. ”

“ The 1/2500 Ordnance map of Kent (LV. 10) seems to me to commit a slight error at this point. There is no need to take the Old Road through the gas works. It obviously goes south of the lodge, curls northwards on leaving the park, and is lost in the buildings near the smithy. After this it forms the lane which bounds to the north the fields marked 111 and 119. ”

“ We are agreed that it is a sad spectacle which is to be observed in the Old Kent Road on a Saturday night, when the legs of half the pedestrians appear to have lost their cunning. We say in disgust that these people are intoxicated. ”

“ The children, who are born of poor parents—grooms, gardeners, carpenters, carmen, working men of all kinds, are sent for a year to the Old Kent-road, and are then drafted to Margate, where, in addition to receiving the best education which a large school can supply, they receive also the health which is to be found on the North Kent coast, if anywhere. ”

“ Kent and Sussex here march together, and the village was, until 1894, in both counties, the dividing-line being the little river Teise that flows under the picturesque and narrow bridge in the village street. In that year, however, Lamberhurst was transferred wholly to Kent. The old “Chequers” inn, type of an old English hostelry, has lately been neighboured by an upstart hotel, disturbing with its raw newness the ancient peace of this Sleepy Hollow. ”

“ I said, to console him.
“I’ll walk ahead as a pace-maker,” suggested Kent.
“Good!” It appeared a splendid idea. “I’ll take the rear. Tynsdale had better follow you close, to get the benefit of your pace-making.”
Kent led with a swinging pace along the sandy, rutted road for an hour and a half. The country stretched flat on each hand, often broken by patches of forest. A telephone line on our left irritated me with the monotony of its ever-recurring, never-ending succession of poles. I had the old sensation of walking up-hill. We found no water. ”

“ In early 19th century maps Cold Blow Farm was the representative of the old manor (Kent has a Cold Blow in Bexley) . A curious 15th century corruption was Coldabbeye, though there was never an abbey there. The farm succumbed to suburban expansion in the 19th century; but Harbour Road, Cold Harbour Lane, and Cold Harbour Place, tell us of its site. ”

“ From Southampton to London the road would remain; the roads from London to Canterbury and to the ports of Kent would grow in importance; but our road, the base of that triangle, would necessarily have decayed: there was less traffic than ever before from west to east, from the Mendips and Cornwall to the Straits. The metals of the Devonian peninsula, and of the Severn valley had lost their economic position, the iron of the Sussex Weald had taken their place. The expeditions to Ireland and the new Scottish problem had removed to Chester and to Lancaster the centres of strategical importance ”

“ Wrotham, relation of, to Old Road, 226-227 (and map) ; view from, 231-233. Wye, in Kent, why unsuitable as a centre for Kentish ports, 42-44. Yaldham, relation of, to Old Road, 226, 227 (and map) . Yarmouth, in Isle of Wight one of harbours of Second Crossing, 54. Yews, often mark Old Road, 103; indicate recovery of road at Box Hill, 186. Yew Walk, at Albury, mentioned, 174. York, why Roman capital, 65. Printed by T. and A. Constable, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press
FOOTNOTES: [1] The sacredness of wells is commingled all through Christendom with that of altars. ”

“ I began to recall a dozen stories of footpads and highwaymen, outrage and robbery, which I had read, and found but cold comfort in the reflection that the Kent Road, from the amount of traffic that used it, was accounted one of the safest in England. It was not wonderful, that with nerves so disordered, I went in front of danger; or that when--opposite the Marshalsea, where the chain crosses the road, near the entrance to White Horse Yard--a man came suddenly out of a passage and caught hold of my companion's rein, I cried out, and all but turned my horse to fly. ”

“ Passing over the Kennett at Kentford, where the ragged remnants of the old bridge even yet stand in the water, beside the new, and where the unusually good Flamboyant-traceried Gothic windows of the church, looking down from a roadside knoll, gladden the heart of the ecclesiologist, the character of the road becomes, like the life of a saint on earth—flat, featureless, dull, and uninteresting. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Chance and a deranged railway schedule conspired against the peace of mind of the shy and shrinking Kent. Outside of Boston a few miles is a junction and a crossing. Here Kent’s train was held up by some minor accident. Here, too, the train from the north on the other road stopped for orders. Thus it was that Kent, stepping out to take the air, found himself looking into an open Pullman window, at a woman’s face framed in deepest black: a young face, but saddened and weary, whose unforgettable appeal of wistfulness had looked out upon him from the canvas in Sedgwick’s studio. ”

“ Keeping along the level way, we come presently to a cross-road, and, turning sharply to the left, pass the farmhouse where, for generations, the “Carters” have resided. A few minutes’ walk along the railway line brings us to a pleasant indentation in the shore, where Kent’s Bank, a tiny watering place, with a trim hotel and cosy-looking villas, bright with flowers and creeping plants, is striving to rival its more famous neighbour. ”

“ The road is a thoroughfare for hawkers, policemen, and lovers, because a narrow lane follows the line of the tumble-down fence, leading on one side to the hinterland of West Kensington railway station and on the other gradually widening into a terrace of small red-brick houses, the outworks of similar terraces beyond. Why anybody at least fifty years ago should have built in what must then have been open country or nursery gardens along the North End Road these thirty-six porticoed houses remains inexplicable. ”

“ I explained to my companions: [Pg 325] “I’m as certain as I can be that this road enters Steinbild close to the water’s edge and avoids the main street. The curve seems to show that. I’d like to follow it. To lie in the woods, away from anywhere, and watch the river, may not gain us anything. In the village we may find a boat. We’ve any amount of time, anyway, and can always come back. It’ll not be so very dangerous, with due caution, if the place is as dark as the villages we have seen so far. Will you chance it and follow me?”
“We’ll follow wherever you lead,” said Kent heartily. ”

“ The new suburban railway from London to Bexley Heath crosses the road, and has a station—a waste of sand, stones, and white palings—here. The place, says Hasted, in his “History of Kent,” was called Well End, from the safe arrival of the traveller at it, after having escaped the danger of robbers through the hazardous road from Shooter’s Hill, which derivation, though regarded as a happy effort of the imagination, is considerably below the dignified level of a county historian. Indeed, I seem to see in this the [Pg 45] irresponsible frivolity of the guards and coachmen of the Dover Mail. ”

“ 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 ”

“ People constantly breathing the same atmosphere may notice a change in the "surroundings," but to common observers, or prying people paying occasional visits to this place, Kent Street seems ever the same—an eye-sore to public gaze, a satire on parish cleanliness and care, a disgrace to parish authorities in general, and landlords and ground landlords in particular. ”

“ The Holyhead Road, in its long course towards the Irish Sea, holds much of this old romance, and not a little of a newer sort. Cities whose history goes back to the era of the Saxons who first gave this highway the name of “Watling Street,” lie along these many miles; and other cities and towns there are whose fame and fortunes are of entirely modern growth. Some have decayed, more have sprung into vigorous life, and, in answer to the demand that arose, a hundred years ago, for improved roads, the old highway itself was remodelled, in the days that are already become distant. ”

“ There is one very fine gabled residence, now used as a school, on the south side of the city. The gateway called the College Gate is here shown. It is built of oak, with clinker boarding, and is extremely picturesque. The street in which it stands leads up to the cathedral precincts. The ancient house architecture of Kent is very valuable for examples. In the neighbourhood of Broadstairs the chimneys, both of brick and stone, afford a great store of quaint{126} examples for this little understood branch of building. ”

“ Something of the kind was present at Winchester. The whole stream of traffic which passed out from the capital to the rest of England went through the lane of the moneylenders, and we may say with certitude that the north gate, the limit of that lane, was the starting-point of the Old Road.
The north gate has now disappeared. It lay just south of the grounds now known as North-Gate House. The deflection of the street is comparatively modern ”

“ North End may be described as a series of residences on each side the lane, more than a mile in length, which runs from the church at Walham Green to the main road from Kensington to Hammersmith. There were but few houses in it when Faulkner published his map in 1813. Market gardens were on both sides the road, and the gardeners cottagers were very old. ”

“ Here, at least as far as the Anchor Inn, and somewhat further, the modern highway corresponds to the Old Road. It thus follows the lowest of the valley, but there is no reason at first why it should not do so. The rise is fairly steady, the ground dry (an insignificant stream gradually disappears beneath the chalk) , and the direction points straight to the shortest approach for the ridge which cuts off the basin of the Channel from that of the Thames. ”

“ These characters do not attach to the London turnpike after the fifteenth milestone is passed; it turns somewhat sharply to the right (or southward) and falls by a corner into the road from the Meon valley at the entry of Chawton village. Such a course one may be certain was not followed by the Old Road. It could not but have preserved the alignment which the valley had already given it, and which corresponds, moreover, with the High Street of Alton itself. ”