Rambles
n
RAMBLES
ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
RAMBLES
ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
BY
FRANCIS W. CROSS & JOHN R. HALL.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
(Second Edition.)
London : Simpkin, Marshall & Co.
Canterbury : Cross & Jackman and Hal Drury.
1882.
(All Bights Reserved.)
C'2,c7
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. The Settlement of Augustine at Canterbury
II. St. Martin's Church
III. The Ruins of St. Pancras'
IV. to VII. The Monastery of St. Augustine
VIII. The Hospital of St. John ..
The Hospital of St. Nicholas, Harbledown
East Bridge Hospital
St. Mildred's Church
St. Margaret's, St. George's, St. Mary Magdalen's, and St. Paul's.
St. Stephen's, Hackington
9972Hf2
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII
PAGE.
1
15
21
45
51
58
65
72
78
Contents Continued.
CHAP. PAGE.
XIV. St. Dunstan's Church .. .. .. .. .. 85
XV. Iluly Cross, St. Peter's, St. Alphege, St. Mary (Northgate), and
other Churches
89
XVI. The Castle, City Walls, and Gates . . . . . . . . 9a
XVII. Priories, Nunneries, and Alms Houses in Canterbury . . . . 104
XVIII. Thanington and Tonford .. .. .. .. .. 113
XIX. Milton, Horton, and Chartham . . . . . . . . 122
XX. Chilham .. .. .. .. .. .. ..128
XXI. Nackington, Bridge, Bishopsbourne .. .. .. 134
XXII. Patiicksbourne, Bekesbourne, and Littlebourne . . . . . . 139
XXIII. Fordwich and Sturry . . . . . . . . . . 145
ILLUSTRATIONS.
St. Augustine's Gateway
St. Martin's — The Church . .
,, Norman Piscina ..
,, "Bertha's Tomb"
,, Roman Coffin Lid
,, Roman and Saxon Masonry
,, The Lich Gate
, , The Font
,, Ancient Stone Cross
St. Pancras' — Roman Tiles in Wall . .
,, Ruins of the Church
St. Augustine's— In the Cloisters
Ruins of the Abbey Church
Window in Abbot's Chamber
Door of N.W. Porch ..
Ruins of Ethelbert's Tower . .
Bay of Tudor Wall
St. John's Hospital — Ancient Font
,, The Gate House
(to
Frontispiece
PAGE
face) 1
1
4
7
8
9
12
14
15
17
21
(to
face)
25
28
33
3G
39
45
4G
Illustrations Continued.
PAGE.
.St. Nicholas' Hospital — Old Alms-Box .. .. .. .. .. 51
,, Norman Doorway . . . . . . . . 53
East Bridge Hospital — The Doorway . . . . . . . . . . 58
The Pilgrims' Hall . . . . . . . . 61
St. Mildred's— Roman Masonry . . . . . . . . . . Go
,, The Church .. .. .. .. .. 68
Old Bench-head .. .. .. .. .. 69
St. Stephen's — The West Door . . . . . . . . . . 78
The Church .. .. .. .. .. .. 80
St. Dunstan's— Old St. Dunstan's Place .. .. .. .. 85
,, The Church, N. side .. .. .. .. .. 87
The City Walls— A Tower on the Dane John . . . . . . . . 95
,, Westgate .. .. .. .. .. (to face) 97
The Castle .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 100
The Priories — The Grey Friars . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Thanington and Tonford — A Corbel.. .. .. .. .. 113
The Church .. .. .. .. ..115
,, The Manor House .. .. .. 118
The Tudor Gateway .. .. .. ..120
Note. — The illustrations in this volume are from original sketches made during the
present year, or from pen-and-ink copies of photographs which were specially
taken by Mr. John Bateman, of Canterbury. The aim has been to illustrate
the text rather than to ornament the book.
PREFACE.
ANTERBURY CATHEDRAL is too vast, too rich in
art, history, and tradition to be included in this little
book. But around that matchless pile, and overshadowed
by it, there are monuments which — more venerable than
Christ Church itself — are memorials of the earliest English Christianity.
Few, however, of the many thousands who, year by year, come to
Canterbury from all parts of the world, take more than a passing
glance, or bestow more than a passing thought, on these hallowed
sites. This partly arises from the fact that, while the Cathedral has
been repeatedly described and illustrated, there is no book which the
visitor can take as an intelligent guide to the city and the surround-
ing parishes. He must seek for information in various works which
are costly and difficult to obtain, or be satisfied with the few pages
of meagre and inaccurate description contained in the local guide
books.
The authors of this volume have endeavoured to give a popular
account of St. Martin's, St. Pancras, St. Augustine's, and the other
principal remains of antiquity in and around the city. They have not
PREFACE.
attempted to write a history ; they make no pretence to be learned
in archaeology ; but they have tried to make their story of Old
Canterbury interesting and, as far as possible, correct. They have
visited again and again the places described, taking notes and sketches
on the spot. They have added to their own material more valuable
matter taken — fairly they hope — from many separate works, ancient and
modern ; and they have endeavoured to weave the gathered threads
into an original pattern. Their plan has been to describe only those
antiquities which still remain, and to describe them as they are.
This will explain to the reader many omissions.
In the course of their rambles, the authors have received the
greatest courtesy and kindness from all to whom they have applied
for information, or for free access to the places visited. They
take this opportunity to gratefully acknowledge the kindness and
encouragement rendered by many friends.
Correction.—/;;/^- 11G, Zrd line from the bottom, for Henry VI read Edward VI.
CHAPTER I.
9)|e Sjettlemeut of Jwpstfcie at fettcrburu.
N his " Historical Memorials
of Canterbury," the late Dean
Stanley bids his reader stand
"on the hill of the little
Church of St. Martin, and
look on the view which is
there spread before his eyes."
Immediately below are the
towers of the great Abbey
of St. Augustine, where
" Christian learning and
civilisation first struck root
in the Anglo-Saxon race."
He reminds us that this spot
was the earliest cradle of our
most cherished institutions ;
that " from Canterbury, the
first English Christian city
— from Kent, the first English Christian kingdom — has by degrees
arisen the whole Constitution of Church and State in England." The
Norman Piscina, St. Martin's.
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
horizon which bounds our view, as we stand on this hill-side, encloses
within its narrow circle the grave of English paganism and the
birth-place of English Christianity. Here, first of all, was the voice
of prayer and praise heard in the English tongue, uttered by men
whose descendants have carried the Gospel to every quarter of the
earth. Wherever in the wide world that English tongue is spoken
to-day, the little Church of St. Martin's is a known and hallowed
spot. To it come travellers from many distant lands, desirous to
tread the ground which Augustine trod, to see the ancient sanctuary
in which Bertha worshipped, to linger on the spot where the first
Englishman was called Christian.
The associations which are enshrined around this spot are a familiar
and oft-told tale. But amongst the thousands who tread from year to
year these famous sites, there are many who have but the dimmest
idea of their matchless interest as relics of the past, and as records
of the first dawn of English Christianity. If, on our rambles amid
these venerable remains, we can lead any who accompany us to look
with deeper interest on the history written in scattered stones and ruined
walls, and to set a higher value on the memorials of the past, we shall
have gained the end we have in view.
Let us, then, retrace in imagination the ages which separate us
from the times of which we write, and suppose ourselves to be standing
on this very hill-side about thirteen hundred years ago. The Stour,
a higher and wider stream than now, was cutting its channel deeper
as it ran swiftly between the wood-covered slopes. Upon its banks
stood the wretched cluster of wooden dwellings, roughly built and
thatched — some two or three hundred may be — that formed the Can-
terbury of that day. This was the capital of the most powerful of
the Anglo-Saxon Kings of that age — Ethelbert of Kent, the Bretwalda
of the English, whose influence was paramount from the southern shore
to the border lands of Northumbria. Between the swampy banks of the
Stour and the foot of the hill of St. Martin stood his palace, probably
a simple group of wooden buildings suited to the fierce fighting-men
of a Jutish Court, unused to luxury, and heedless as yet of art.
ST. MARTIN'S AND ST. PANCRAS\
On the hill-side above the palace there stood the remains of a
small church which, according to the Venerable Bede, was "built of
old in honour of St. Martin, while the Romans were dwelling in
Britain." Bede may have erred in saying this Roman church was built
in honour of St. Martin ; but it is certain that three or four hundred
years earlier than the time of Ethelbert and Augustine, there were
Christians at Canterbury among the Roman soldiers and the British
people. When Ethelbert's ancestors came into Kent with hordes of
hardy Jutlanders the Romans had gone away, and the British Christians
were either slaughtered by the new comers, or were driven westward
into remoter parts of Britain. At the foot of the hill, and within the
precincts of the palace, there stood another Roman building or some
remains of one. Whether used in Roman times for Pagan or for
Christian worship is doubtful, but in Ethelbert's time it had become
a temple, in and around which the King and his people offered their
sacrifices, and held their feasts in honour of a god of slaughter and a
goddess of lust.
Yet within the circle of Ethelbert's heathen Court the light of the
Gospel was not wholly unknown, for Ethelbert's queen was the daughter
of Charibert, the Christian King of France. It is probable that most
of those who surrounded the Kentish king regarded with hatred and
contempt the religion of Queen Bertha, and looked with little favour
on the refinement which her Christian practice and gentle life must
have brought within the palace. During the many years that the pagan
king and Christian queen had been united, Ethelbert must surely have
heard the story of the Gospel from Bertha's lips. Her influence,
however, had not conquered him ; he was still a pagan.
With the coming of Angles and Saxons into the country, if not
even earlier than that, the true faith had departed from this little church
upon the hill at Canterbury, but when Bertha came to her new home
in Kent the ruined building was repaired, and having been dedicated
to St. Martin, it became the Queen's Oratory. Bertha had been
accompanied from France by Bishop Luidhard, or Liudhard, a retired
Bishop, and probably therefore already an aged man, as her Chaplain,
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
and by a retinue of Christian attendants. She must often have had
to witness scenes of pagan superstition and heathen revelry, and must
gladly have escaped from the heathendom of the palace to the quiet
seclusion of St. Martin's Chapel, for prayer and meditation.
Thus, for about a quarter of a century, this little Church of St.
Martin remained a Christian oasis in the pagan desert ; but the time
arrived when the wilderness itself was to blossom. Pagan though he
was, Ethelbert must have been a man of noble character, as old Fuller
says, — " a good stock fit to be grafted on." The graft prospered, and
the fruit which has sprung from it has multiplied and spread over the
world.
Stone Coffin at St. Martin's, called "Bertha's Tomb.'"
While Ethelbert reigned in Kent, there was at Rome a tender-hearted
monk whose name was Gregory. He saw, it is said, in the market-
place three English youths, fair-haired and blue-eyed, true children
of the North. They were a group of slaves, and the sight of them
THE LANDING OF AUGUSTINE.
aroused the pity and sympathy of Gregory, who hated slavery. He
spoke to the youths, and asked whence they came. He was told they
were Angles, from Deira, a Saxon kingdom of Britain. He replied,
"It is well, for they have faces of angels and should be saved, de ird,
from the wrath of God, and called to the mercy of Christ." He
enquired the name of their King, and was told "iElla." "Alleluia!"
exclaimed Gregory, " the praises of God ought to be sung in that
kingdom."
Gregory himself desired to carry the Gospel to the English people.
He was not permitted to do so ; but a few years later, when he became
Pope, he sent into the distant kingdom a band of forty missionary
clergy and monks, headed by Augustine, who was Prior of the Monastery
of St. Andrew at Rome. They slowly made their way across France,
meeting with hardships and difficulties, which led them, being faint-
hearted, to desire to turn back, and abandon their mission. Gregory
urged and encouraged them to persevere, and at last they landed in
the Isle of Thanet. The exact landing place is unknown, but they
were bidden to remain at the spot until Ethelbert met them, and heard
what they had to say. This interview took place in the open air, in
the spring of 597. Augustine set forth the object of his coming, and
his words were interpreted to the King. "These are fair words and
promises," replied Ethelbert, " but because they are new and uncertain,
I cannot at once assent to them." Nevertheless, he gave the strangers
permission to enter Canterbury. They came along the Roman road, and
down St. Martin's Hill, singing a Gregorian chant as they marched in
procession, and bearing aloft a silver cross and a picture of the Saviour.
They passed the Church of St. Martin, where Luidhard had ministered
until his death, and on reaching the city they first took up their abode
at the "Stable-Gate," which was close to the spot on which St. Alphege'
Church now stands. Soon afterwards they were permitted to worship
at St. Martin's, which they entered chanting " Open ye the gates, that the
righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in." (Isaiah xxvi.)
It was not long ere Ethelbert resolved to accept the new faith. He was
baptised by Augustine on Whit-Sunday of that same year (597). It is
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
not improbable that this event, so momentous in its consequences to
the English nation, took place at St. Martin's, or in the Stour below.
The King's conversion ensured that of his people, and on the Christmas
Day following ten thousand of them were baptised in the waters of the
Swale.
We have spoken so far of Augustine the missionary monk, but
between the conversion of Ethelbert and the baptism of the ten thousand
men of Kent, Augustine had gone over into France, and had been
consecrated at Aries. He returned as the first Bishop of the English
Church, and Canterbury became the seat of the English Primacy.
Owing to the influence of Ethelbert the religion of Christ had within
a few years been accepted throughout the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. So
far the footsteps of Augustine are traceable in history. In the following
century, however, we enter a misty region of tradition, in which facts
are uncertain, and the documentary evidence more than doubtful. Bede
finished his history of the Church in 731, and he might have gathered
his knowledge of the events at Canterbury from those whose span of
life extended back to the time when some of Augustine's companions
were still in existence.
Bede states that Augustine on his return from France repaired and
consecrated an old church which the faithful among the Romans had
erected, and that he dedicated it " in the name of God the Saviour
and Our Lord Jesus Christ." These words were assumed by the writers
of the spurious early charters to refer to the foundation of Christ Church,
and it has been generally said that the present Cathedral of Canterbury
stands on the site of that which Augustine dedicated. It is doubtful
if the words of Bede can fairly be so interpreted. They would
rather seem to refer to that Roman church of which the actual foun-
dations have been opened to view quite recently at St. Pancras ;
the church of which Thorn, a monk of St. Augustine's in the 14th
century, wrote: — " There was, not far from the city towards the east, as
it were midway between the church of St. Martin and the walls of the
city, a temple or idol-house, where King Ethelbert, according to the
rites of his tribe, was wont to pray, and with his nobles to sacrifice to
AUGUSTINE AND ETIIELBERT.
his demons and not to God, which temple Augustine purged from the
pollutions and filth of the Gentiles, and having broke the image which
was in it, changed it into a church, and dedicated it in the name of
the martyr St. Pancras, and this was the first church dedicated by St-
Augustine."
It is said that Ethelbert, on accepting Christianity, gave up his
palace to Augustine, who founded there the monastery which was at
first dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul, and at a later time was re-
dedicated to Augustine himself. It is almost certain that in obedience
to the orders of Gregory, the pagan groves and temples were not
destroyed, but were devoted to the worship of Christ. The conversion
of the Kentish people was, no doubt, more a proof of loyalty to their
king than a result of Augustine's preaching, or a miracle of grace as it
was represented to be. Even Ethelbert's own Christianity was probably,
like Constantine's, a mingling of the new faith with the old paganism,
and it is recorded that his son and successor went back for a time to his
old gods when Ethelbert and Augustine were no more.
It has seemed desirable to give a brief sketch of the history and
traditions which gather round this remarkable spot, ere we pass over the
entire site, and describe what there remains of the buildings in which
Bertha, Ethelbert, and Augustine joined in Christian worship, the foun-
dations on which were laid the whole structure of the English Church.
PIECE OF ROMAN COFFIN — ST. MARTIN S.
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CHAPTER II.
St. Sariht's 9,\m\<
T. Martin's is the most ancient
church in England, and it was at
one period the only church in this
country in which Christ was wor-
shipped. Within its walls Christian
soldiers of the Roman empire and
Christian converts among the British
might have united in the service of
the Saviour. It survived the fall of
Roman and Briton, the pillage of
Saxon and Dane. The Normans,
who pulled down most of the
churches, to rebuild them according
to their own fashion, spared this,
though they left their hand-work upon and within it. It is not a site
merely ; the fabric is there. The very walls are in part, at least, those
which resounded to the praises of God fifteen hundred years ago.
The evidences of Roman material in the walls of St. Martin's are
abundant throughout, but while in some portions the Roman tiles are
mixed with other material, elsewhere they seem to have been undisturbed
since the day when they were laid one upon the other. This is the case
B
10 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
especially in the south wall of the chancel, a portion of which has every
appearance of being original masonry. Quite recently, Canon Routledge,
who has devoted much time to the study of this church, has laid bare
the internal wall of the nave on the south side, and has discovered there
also original Roman tile work, overlaid with the characteristic salmon
coloured plaster ; so that it is probable that a considerable part of the
walls of the early Romano-British church remain intact. Then there is
another part very full of Roman tiles in good condition, but mixed
with flints and rough stones laid together irregularly. It is no
straining of probability to attribute this portion of the work, in the
chancel especially, to the period when the ancient Roman building was
repaired in order to fit it for Queen Bertha's sanctuary.
In that part of the south wall of the chancel in which we suppose
the masonry to date from Saxon times is a very rudely formed, flat
headed arch, composed of three blocks of oolitic stone. It has been
spoken of as a leper's window, which does not seem probable. It must
have been the work of unskilled masons such as we may suppose
Ethelbert's artificers to have been. A short distance east of this rude
arch is a small round-headed arch, formed of thin slabs of stone with
wide joints of sea-shore mortar. The sides of the arch are composed
of Roman tiles very regularly and evenly laid. It has been discovered
that the Roman tiles are regularly continued through the wall to the
inner surface, and the whole appearance and character of this arched
doorway is suggestive of very early construction. The engraving on
page 8 gives an accurate illustration of these two interesting arches
and of the wall masonry to which we have referred.
It has been supposed that the nave of the present church was
wholly an addition to the pre-Norman building, but Canon Routledge's
discoveries show that a part of the nave wall is of the Romano-British
period. In an old drawing of the church given by Stukeley there is
plainly shown a round arch close to the east end of the south wall of the
nave. On carefully examining that part of the wall in certain lights the
position of the arch can be traced in the flint work facing of the wall.
This arch must have been filled up before the construction of the
ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH. 11
Norman piscina on the other side of it, within the nave, and it pro-
bably belonged to the Saxon if not to the Roman building. At the west
end of the same wall is an early English arch filled up and subsequently
pierced for a window. This was evidently the arch of a south porch or
door. Formerly there was a north porch also, but this too has been
removed and the wall filled in.
The plan of the church is of the simplest kind ; a west tower
opening to the nave, which is divided from a chancel of equal length by
an early English arch. There are no aisles, but on the north side of the
chancel is a small recess used as a vestry. In one of its windows is an
interesting representation of Bishop Luidhard, Queen Bertha's chaplain.
The inscription within the nimbus is " Lindardus Episcopus." The
Bishop has a crosier and mitre in his hand. This piece of painted glass
was, we believe, found some years ago in some old curiosity shop in
London. Whatever its origin it is admirably suited for its present
position, and it is alike excellent in design and execution. The painted
glass of the other windows is all modern. One shows St. Martin parting
his cloak with the beggar ; another represents Gregory the Great.
The Norman piscina (p. 1), mentioned above, is said to be one of
the earliest ; the stone-work has been pierced to support a canopy. In
the north wall of the chancel is a very perfect aumbry, still having the
carved oak door so rarely to be met with in these receptacles for the
sacred vessels. It is attributed to the 15th century. In the same wall
of the chancel is an arched recess, of modern construction, which
contains an ancient stone coffin. There is no inscription or carving
upon the lid, which is a slab of oolite, but it is commonly spoken of as
" Bertha's tomb" (see p. 4).
In the year 1845 the church was under restoration by the Rector
(the late Rev. W. J. Chesshyre), and in the lowering of the chancel floor
the coffin was discovered imbedded in the wall. It was opened in the
presence of the Rector and of the Hon. Mr. Finch. The lid was
removed with considerable difficulty, being firmly cemented on. The
inside of the coffin was hollowed to the shape of the body, a cavity
being formed for the head. Mr. Chesshyre was strongly of the opinion
12
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
that the coffin might be that of Queen Bertha, whom a tradition of no
great antiquity represented as having been buried in the church. This
tradition is mentioned by Fuller (1655), but Somner, in 1640, makes no
allusion to it, so that it could scarcely have been current in his time. It
has to contend against the distinct assertion of the old chroniclers that
Ethelbert was buried beside Queen Bertha, in the porch of St. Martin,
in the Abbey Church of St.
Peter and St. Paul (St. Augus-
tine's Abbey). All that we
can say, therefore, is that in
the Church of St. Martin is a
nameless, ancient coffin which
some believe to be that of
the gentle and pious Bertha.
The Latin inscription, placed
by Mr. Chesshyre above the
tomb, gives expression
to the doubt as to the
burial place of Queen
I Bertha.
Many have been the
gBp^ opinions expressed on
the age of the Font,
which has probably given rise to more discussion, and been regarded
with greater interest than any other font in the kingdom. Some
even have declared it to be as old as the time of Ethelbert and
Augustine ; many have maintained that it is certainly a Saxon font,
and others that it is certainly Norman ; at last we seem to have arrived
at a composition of these two opinions, and archceologists of eminent
ability consider that the font itself is Saxon, but the carving upon it
Norman. This last theory appears to be one in which the actual evidence
and the uncertain tradition can alike be included. The font is made up
of three separate circular bands and a rim. The three bands are
composed of twenty-four distinct stones. The two lower bands are
ST. MARTIN'S CHURCH. 13
ornamented with circles irregularly and rudely interlaced. One stone
bears what resembles a Runic knot, and it would be difficult to say why
the ornaments in the two lower bands should not be pre-Norman. On
the upper band is carved a series of interlaced round arches ; this
is almost certainly Norman. Contrasting the formal pattern of the
one with the archaic irregularity of the other bands, we should be
inclined to suppose them to be the work of two different periods.
Mr. Loftus Brock points out, however, that the whole carving of the font
was done with a chisel of not over a quarter of an inch, and appears
to have been executed at one time, and that a late Norman date ; but
he argues, with much force, that as many cases even now occur of old
fonts being " decorated " with carving quite out of keeping with the
age of the font itself, such might also have been done by the Norman
craftsman who chiselled the pattern on this ancient font. The font now
stands on a modern base. It was taken to pieces and remade during
the restoration of the Church.
Old brasses are rare in Canterbury, and though those in the pave-
ment of St. Martin's are not specially remarkable they are worth mention.
There are the figures of Michael Francis Sertivoli, and Jane his wife,
with the date 1587. A plate, also in the Chancel pavement, records that
" Here lieth Thomas Stoughton, late of Ash, in the County of Kent,
gentleman, who departed this life the 12th June, 1591." There is also
a plate to Stephen Fulks and Alice his wife, dated 1406, the oldest dated
brass in Canterbury. This calls to mind an inscription on an ancient
finial cross which was dug up in the year 1767, close to the churchyard.
Upon one face it bears Helbwhyte, in raised letters within a hollow
moulding. On the other side the words " And Alys ys wyfe," are sunk
in the hollow groove showing that it was used as a memorial of some
dame Alice at a later period. This old cross now stands on a pedestal
close to the Lych Gate and is well worth observing. There is an
interesting mention of it in the appendix to Mr. Bryan Faussett's
" Inventorium Sepulchrale."
In a letter to his friend, Dr. Ducanel, dated Nov. 13, 1767, he
say : — " About ten days ago an ancient stone cross such as you have
11
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
seen on the gable-heads of churches was discovered in a garden near
St. Martin's Church. On one side is excuipt a word which we cannot
make out, but is no doubt the name of a man. On the other side is
insculpt four words which, like the former, being made up of barbarous
monkish letters, of no particular alphabet, puzzled me out of patience ;
but at length our friend Pearson un-
ravelled them, and they were no more
nor less than ' And Alys his wife.'
Say nothing; our President is to try
if he can make them out."
A number of coins, with a Roman
intaglio and a gold ornament con-
taining coloured glass were dug up at
St. Martin's. One of the coins is
remarkable both for the beauty of its
execution, and as bearing the image
Cross found at St. Martin's. of Bishop Luidhard, the Chaplain of
Queen Bertha. It has often been figured and described. During the
restoration, a mediaeval chrismatory, or vessel for the sacred oil, was
found in the wall. It is now in the possession of Mrs. Chesshyre of
Barton Court.
Many have desired to be laid in a spot so hallowed with Christian
memories as St. Martin's. Such was the wish of the late Dean Alford,
and there, in the spot he selected, is his grave, under the spreading
yew-tree beneath which he often stood to look down upon his own great
church. It bears that singularly felicitous inscription he had pencilled
down to be carved upon his tomb. "Deversorium viatoris Hierosolymam
Proficiscentis." (The sojourning place of the traveller to the heavenly
Jerusalem.) Many have vainly sought to discover whence Dean Alford
drew this poetical and beautiful figure.
CHAPTER III.
%\t Stums of St. Banou'.
THELBERT'S pagan temple, when reconsecrated
to Christ, was dedicated by Augustine to St.
Pancras. We may feel sure that it was in St.
Martin's that the Italian missionaries first held
their Christian services, but it is most likely that
St. Pancras' was the church in which Englishmen
first bent the knee to the Saviour. Dean Stanley
has given an interesting account of its Patron
saint: — " Pancrasius " he says "was a Roman
boy of noble family, who was martyred under
at the age of fourteen, and being thus regarded as the
Patron saint of children, would naturally be regarded as the Patron saint
of the first fruits of the nation which was converted out of regard to the
three English children in the market place (of Rome). And secondly,
the Monastery of St. Andrew on the Ccelian Hill, which Gregory had
founded, and from which Augustine came, was built on the very property
which had belonged to the family of St. Pancras."
The church of St. Pancras has long ceased to be more than a ruin,
and but a fragment of what remains above ground probably stands as it
did in Augustine's time, yet it is a venerable monument, whose broken
walls and crumbling arch are built of the materials which were first laid
^orritfri. teles inihe
Diocletian at the
16 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
together by Roman or British Christians upon the foundations which,
after being buried for so many ages, have again been exposed to view.
Modified in form alone they have stood where they now stand while
empires have fallen into more complete decay, and the English nation
has slowly built itself up.
The church of St. Pancras stood between the Abbey of St. Augustine
and the church of St. Martin. It is partly in the grounds of the Kent
and Canterbury Hospital, and partly in a field on the property of Mr.
Home, who kindly gave us full liberty to visit and explore it. The ruins
above ground include the east wall of the chancel, containing a large
and lofty pointed arch, turned in Roman tiles ; it was that of the great
east window of the mediaeval church. Portions of the north and south
walls of the chancel are also standing, and are from 2ft. 6in. to
3ft. thick. They are composed of very various materials, but Roman
tiles abound in every portion of the structure. On the south side of
the chancel, the lowest part of the wall is composed wholly of tiles,
quite evenly laid, and this is probably part of the original Roman
structure, but in the other portions the Roman bricks are mixed with
flint, with rough and with roughly-squared stones. In several places
stones showing early Gothic mouldings (the spoils of the destroyed
buildings) have been used to repair the fabric. The east wall of the
church is joined at right angles by the old boundary wall of the
Monastery, which in this place is very thick, but is composed of chalk,
rubble and flint, so loosely put together that it has been quite honey-
combed by rats.
Within the chancel and in its south wall is part of a piscina, the
moulding on one side and a part of the hollowed stone basin remaining.
A few feet from this, in the same south wall, is a part of an arched
doorway 7ft. wide, and from the arc of the curve remaining, it was
apparently a flatly rounded arch turned in Roman brick. It appears to
have been more ancient than the surrounding building, and there is no
trace of it on the exterior of the wall.
The extremely ancient stone font of St. Pancras, which was found
many years since within the ruined chancel, now stands for use as a
RUINS OF ST. PANCRAS 1 .
17
flower-vase in the garden of a house at the back of the College buildings.
It is a rough-hewn square block, with a circular basin chiselled out,
quite archaic in character, and without the least trace of ornament.
Ruins of St. Patients'.
The boundary wall running westward from the church is full of
Roman bricks. In this wall is the famous stone which, for how many
ages we know not, was firmly believed to show the marks of the Devil's
talons. The monks of St. Augustine's were doubtless the authors of the
story, which ran that when Augustine first held worship in St. Pancras,
" the Devil, all enraged, and not brooking his ejection from the place
he had so long enjoyed (as a heathen temple), furiously assaults the
Chapel to overturn it ; but having more of will than power to actuate the
intended mischief, all he could do was to leave the ensigns of his malice,
the print of his talons." Somner quotes the tale from Thorn, and
adds, — "Let him believe it that can give any credit to it, forme; and
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
so I leave it." He says, however, that " on the walls outside of the
south porch such tokens as the historian will have it to be the marks
of the Beast are visible enough." The external wall of the south porch
is no longer standing, but the graven stone is built into the wall facing
the adjoining field.
In the summer of 1881 some excavations which were made in the
Hospital field, on the south side of the ruins of the mediaeval church,
led to the discovery of the foundations of the Roman building which
was dedicated by Augustine to St. Pancras. These were opened up
under the direction of the Bishop of Dover and Canon Routledge. The
latter gentleman ably explained the remains to the Archaeological Society,
at their Canterbury meeting, in July of the same year, and prepared a
ground plan of the entire site of the church. We had already pointed
out, in an article on St. Pancras, that the lower part of the south wall of
the chancel was wholly composed of Roman tiles regularly laid, and
that there stood above ground a considerable piece of wall which had
evidently formed part of a Romano-British building. The subsequent
discoveries confirm the observations, and, although the foundations have
not been laid open on the north side, we can now get a very clear idea
of the size and shape of the original building. The foundations of the
south wall of the nave and part of the chancel have been opened, as
well as those of a west porch, and a south porticus. Starting at the west
we commence with the previously mentioned wall, built of Roman tiles,
evenly laid, with sea-shore mortar. This wall is from 9 to 10 feet high,
and about as long ; it is undoubtedly a part of the building in which
it is believed that Christians assembled to worship during the period
of Roman occupation of Britain, and those very bricks must have
resounded to the voice of Augustine as he preached to the Kentish court.
This piece of wall formed the north side of the west porch, and thence
we trace, in the foundations, the line of wall until we come to a south
porch or porticus of the same size (10£ ft. by 9 J ft.) This south porticus
is one of the most interesting spots on English soil. It contains the
masonry of an altar, which there is reason to suppose stands on the
foundations of that before which Ethelbert sacrificed to heathen gods,
RUINS OF ST. PANCRAS\ 19
and which Augustine consecrated to the God of Truth. The monkish
chronicler of St. Augustine's, writing in the 14th century, said : — "There
is still extant an altar in the southern porticus of the same church, at
which the same Augustine was wont to celebrate, where formerly had
stood the idol of the king." Five hundred years after Thorn wrote, the
porticus and the altar are unearthed, and bring confirmation to his facts,
though none to his legends.
Continuing to pass eastward along the foundations we come to the
end of the wall of the nave. At this point there is a portion of a large
round Roman pillar with its base imbedded in the original masonry.
Beyond this the chancel wall of Roman tiles can be traced for some
distance. Canon Routledge's plan gives the dimensions of the nave as
42£ by 26 ft., and of the chancel as 31 by 21 ft.
The Roman wall of the south porticus was pierced during the
fifteenth century for a new doorway; the floor was covered with tiles
probably of the same date. Below them there was a layer of earth, and
then a concrete floor. Fragments of Roman pottery and fused bronze
were found during the excavations, and the earth showed clear signs of
the action of fire. The west porch had also a pavement of mediaeval
tiles, below which were discovered some remains of very ancient inter-
ments. In one case the skeleton, nearly perfect, lay upon the earth,
and was covered in with rough stones formed into a rude kind of coffin,
above which was a large oolitic slab not unlike that of the stone coffin
at St. Martin's. Unfortunately, no articles were discovered to give a clue
to the period in which these bodies were buried in the porch of the
church. The mouldings of the doorway leading into the church are
Norman. The mortar of the Roman walls are in some parts of the
salmon coloured tint due to pounded tiles.
It will be seen that these ruins of St. Pancras are of national
interest and importance. Unfortunately there is no security that such
priceless relics of our earliest history will be cared for or preserved, but
an effort should be made to rescue the remains of Augustine's first
church from desecration, and secure them for future ages. The county
of Kent contains a great number of wealthy churchmen and antiquaries.
20
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
Can they not raise a fund to purchase the whole site, to be conveyed
to the Warden and Fellows of St. Augustine's, under covenant securing
to the public for ever the right to visit and inspect the ruins ? These
are days in which all intelligent persons deplore the ruthless destruction
of ancient monuments which might have withstood the hand of time
during centuries yet to come. We no longer expect to see column and
arch, and traceried window carted away to decorate some garden wall,
or marble tombs hacked to pieces for common building material : our
age has revived the love of beauty, and the respect due to the venerable
remains of ages whose art-sense was higher and purer than our own.
Surely, therefore, St. Pancras', with its fifteen hundred years' history and
associations of profound interest to English Christians will be duly
appreciated and religiously preserved.
CHAPTER IV.
Ilje IJJjoratos* of 3t Jtttpjstme.
UGUSTINE received from the hands
of the king a grant of land for the
erection of a monastery, in which to
house the band of missionaries — for as
such were they sent hither — and to estab-
lish a school in which promising English
converts might be trained as priests and
preachers. The founder of this earliest
monastery in England, " the first born,
the first mother" as it was called in Papal
bulls, was not a monk of the sort that in
later days brought scandal and shame on
Christendom. The friend and messenger
of the simple and pious Gregory was a
monk of poverty, and had little thought
of that luxurious and lordly 'pomp which afterwards became the rule
within the Conventual halls. Dr. Hook (Lives of the Archbishops,
vol. I) tells us what manner of men they were who now settled down
in the Kentish capital : they were indefatigable in preaching the
Gospel ; their books were .few, but many could repeat large portions
of Scripture ; few were they who did not know the Psalms so as to join
22 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
in the service of the church ; the readers were incessantly employed ;
in the church, at meal times, early in the morning, and late at night,
the lector was at his post ; they lived in primitive simplicity, and were
perfectly contented with what was provided for them. Augustine laid
the foundation, but did not live to see the completion of the structure
first raised. The date of his death appears to be uncertain ; it was
probably within seven or eight years from his landing in England, but
in that short time much was accomplished. Augustine in bodily stature
towered a full head above his companions, but it does not appear that
his mental pre-eminence was proportionate to the physical ; yet that he
was capable of many of the actions ascribed to him ought not to be
believed on such unreliable testimony as that of the Anglo-Saxon
historians. It would be going beyond our province, however, were we
to enter into this debateable land.
Augustine died with his work only fairly begun. His royal convert
was beside him in his last moments, and comforted him, we may be sure,
with a promise to continue true to the Faith and to its ministers. The
remains of the missionary archbishop were buried in that ground which
afterwards became so renowned a cemetery, and near the church whose
first stone he laid. His successor, Laurentius, completed this abbey
church, and dedicated it to St. Peter and St. Paul in the year 613, for it
was not till the rededication by Dunstan, in 978, that it also received the
name of St. Augustine. Ethelbert was present at the consecration, but
his gentle queen had already been laid to rest. Her remains, with those
of Luidhard and Augustine, were then removed to the north porch of the
church ; and three years later the body of Ethelbert, the first Christian
Englishman of whom we have record, was also buried in that porch.
Upon the death of the king, a time of trial and adversity came upon
the newly-founded church. Ethelbert had married again, and his son
Eadbald, having resolved to wed his step-mother, began to quarrel with
those who opposed his desire ; he turned again to the heathendom which
he had but half abandoned. We are told that Laurentius, in his despair,
passed the night in the church, and fell asleep, with the thought in his
mind of giving up the mission and returning to Rome. In the still
THE MONASTERY OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 23
midnight hour, St. Peter appeared, and scourged the faint-hearted Arch-
bishop till his back was scarred and bleeding. In the morning, the
fresh wounds were exhibited to the King, who was so impressed by the
"miracle" that he renounced his unholy intentions, and was baptised.
He became a generous patron of the monastery, which rapidly grew
greater and richer as the years rolled on.
It was not only at Canterbury that reaction against the new faith
had set in. Mellitus, bishop of London, was driven out, and came as a
refugee to the monastery. A year after his coming, he was, on the
death of Laurentius, consecrated as his successor in the Primacy. A
story is told of him which is not quite so legendary as that of Laurentius.
He was lying ill with gout when he heard that a great fire was spreading
rapidly among the thatched, wooden houses of the city. He was carried
to the spot, and, in answer to his prayers, the fire was stayed. This
tale is told by Bede, to whom we owe most that is known about
Augustine and his successors at Canterbury. Bede obtained his infor-
mation from the Abbot Albinus, the first abbot who was an Englishman.
He was "a man skilled in all kind of learning," and he sent by letter
and messenger to the famous monk of Durham whatever knowledge of
the early history of the monastery could be gained from the written
records, or the oral report of aged brethren. Thorn, the monk of St.
Augustine's, wrote at a much later date, and is less to be trusted, being
farther removed from the events he described.
As the Church in England, grew older its wealth and power accu-
mulated, but its pristine simplicity was lost. The conventual life became
less pure ; luxury and revelling desecrated the monastic halls ; and bitter
jealousies and conflicts arose between the rival establishments of St.
Augustine and Christ Church. We read of a sumptuous feast, given
by Abbot de Bourne to six thousand guests, and no opportunity was lost
of lodging and entertaining kings and nobles within the monastery; the
mitred Abbot was jewelled and arrayed in gorgeous robes ; he rode forth
to chase, or travelled to Parliament with a retinue befitting a monarch ;
the convent kitchen was enlarged ; hosts of retainers were engaged in
the service of the great officers ; gratified kings bestowed estates upon
24 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
those who excited their superstition, and ministered to their pleasure ;
and parish after parish became annexed to the monastery, for provision
of food or clothing, within which simple terms the costly luxuries of
mediaeval monasticism were conveniently included.
In Thorn's time the Abbot of St. Augustine's possessed nearly
ten thousand acres of land, and the revenues and rights of at least
a dozen great parishes in Kent. The sanctity attaching to a spot in
which Augustine and the next nine Archbishops were buried must have
added greatly to the influence of the Abbey in days when all men held
belief in the miraculous powers of dead saints' bones. The fact that
the Christian kings of Kent were interred in the same place would also
have its weight, and no chance was lost of adding to the number of
saintly relics. Thus Abbot Elstan in 1030 caused the bones of St.
Mildred to be brought from Minster to the Abbey. We have the usual
legendary tales of the wonderful works wrought by virtue of the relics.
According to accounts they were potent in time of fire and flood, and
could even stay the still more terrible scourge of Danish ferocity. It was
in 1011 that the Danes assailed and sacked the city of Canterbury and
destroyed the Cathedral. They seem to have spared St. Augustine's.
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says that Abbot Elmer betrayed the city to
save himself and his monastery, but of course the monks tell another tale.
Thorn's account is that when the ravaging Danes entered the monas-
tery to carry away what they could lay hands upon — "one of them more
desperately wicked than the rest of his comrades, conies boldly to the
sepulchre of our Apostle St. Augustine, where he lay entombed, and
stole away the pall with which the tomb of the saint was covered, and
hid it under his arm. But divine vengeance immediately seized upon
the sacrilegious person, and the pall which was hid under his arm stuck
to the arm of the thief, and grew to it, as if it had been new natural
flesh, insomuch as it could not be taken away by force or art, until the
thief came and discovered what he had done, and confessed his fault
before the saint and the monks, and then begged their pardon. The
example of divine vengeance so affrighted the multitude of the rest of
the Danes, that they not only offered no violence to this monastery
THE MONASTERY OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 25
afterwards, but became the chief defenders of the same." So runs the
monk's tale, but it is to be feared that the balance of probability is in
favour of Elmar's treachery. It is not likely that the men who sacked
the city, and murdered Archbishop Elphege would be awed into sparing
the monastery. Half a century later a new and more lasting invasion
brought great changes to St. Augustine's, as well as to most of the
ecclesiastical buildings in the country. The Normans destroyed to build
anew, and when, in the time of Lanfranc, Scotland, the Norman, was
made Abbot, he pulled down the rude Saxon church, and began to build
the Norman Church of which a few columns and arches still remain.
He died in 1087 and left the work to be completed by his successor
Wido. When all was finished, the bones of Augustine were once more
moved, to be deposited in the new Abbey, his stone coffin being secretly
built into the wall of the east end of the church. About seventy years
afterwards (1168) a fire broke out in the monastery, which destroyed
many of the ancient records and did much damage in the church. This
happened in a time of trouble and humiliation for the monastery, into
which an Abbot had been intruded whom the Chapter refused to own.
The monks would not let him minister in the church, or have any part
in the doings of the Chapter ; but he held his office, notwithstanding,
during thirteen years, when he was deposed by a mandate from the
Pope. We do not know to what extent the fire of 1168 rendered
rebuilding necessary. In 1271 the monastery was likely to be destroyed
by flood. A terrible storm arose in that year, during which there
were — "thunders and lightnings and such an inundation of rain that
the city of Canterbury was almost drowned. The flood was so high
both in the court of the monastery and the church that they had been
quite overwhelmed with water, unless the virtue of the Saints who rested
there had withstood the waters. During this storm rain poured down
for days as though a second universal flood was coming upon the earth ;
flocks and herds were swept away, and trees overturned ; the flood was
followed first by famine and afterwards by plague."
When the murder of Becket drew the interest and devotion of
the Christian world to the shrine in Christ Church, the monks of St.
26 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
Augustine's were in danger of being neglected and forgotten. The
rival Chapter spared no means to turn the whole tide of popular favour
and munificence into their own channel. There was no love lost
between the two communities ; from the two Abbots to their lowest
serving men, jealousy, hatred and malice seem to have been cherished
by one against the other.
There were times when the Chapter of St. Augustine's found it
hard to supply the daily wants of their large community. In the Paston
Letters is one from a monk, who, writing in 1464, declares that the
community were in great debt and misery, and had hardly bread to eat.
There were worse times ahead, however, and the final crash came when
John Essex, the seventieth Abbot, and thirty of his monks, signed the
deed of dissolution, in the thirtieth year of the reign of Henry VIII.
That Royal appropriator converted the monastery and its lands into
a palace and deer park. His daughter Mary gave it to Cardinal
Pole for his life, and her sister Elizabeth granted it to Henry,
Lord Cobham, who being attainted, it reverted to the Crown. The
Queen then gave it to Viscount Cranbourne, Earl of Salisbury, and
subsequently it fell into the possession of Edward, Lord Wotton, of
Marley. Through his family it passed to Sir Edward Hales, who
married a Wotton, and ultimately to his descendant, Sir Edward Hales,
of St. Stephen's.
We have touched but lightly on the chronicles, more or less
historical, of the Monastery. On the history written in stone we can rely,
but how much of history in books is better than fable ? Somner re-
published copies of old Latin charters which purported to be those by
which Ethelbert gave to Augustine his palace at Canterbury. But the
cold blast of criticism has cast its blight on these, as on so many other
interesting things in which we would fain believe. After all, these same
charters, if spurious, may yet be to some extent based on originals. If
forgeries they are ancient ones, and interesting. They are dated A.D.
605, in the early summer of which year Augustine is supposed to have
died (there is some doubt as to the date of his death). The first charter
states that King Ethelbert gives, in honour of St. Peter, land on the
THE MONASTERY OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 27
east side of Canterbury "that a monastery may be there erected." The
second says that the King gives to God a portion of land " where he
had founded a monastery." The third charter names the monk Peter,
as first Abbot of the monastery, and gives to it " Chistelet otherwise
called Sturiag." It also gives to the monastery a golden sceptre, and
a bridle and saddle adorned with gold and precious stones. Mention
is made in it of Augustine having enriched the monastery with relics of
Apostles and Saints, and " other ecclesiastical ornaments," sent him
from Rome. A fourth charter appoints the monastery the sole place
for the burial of Kings, Archbishops and Princes. The differing degrees
of assent attached to the signatures to the charter are curious, and worth
briefly noting. The king " confirms " by his own hand with the sign
of the Cross. Augustine " subscribed willingly." Eadbald the king's
son, who afterwards became an apostate, declared himself " favourable
to it." One of the king's nobles " praised it," another " consented
to it," a third "approved it," and a fourth "blessed it."
Ethelbert's successor, Eadbald, built a church for the monastery,
dedicated to St. Mary. He also gave "30 plough lands" in the Manor
of Northbourne to it. Other royal benefactors added additional plough
lands to the estates. Canute the Dane not only gave the property of
the Abbey of St. Mildred, at Minster (Thanet), but presented the monks
with the body of the saint, and Edward the Confessor gave "all the
land he had in Fordwich."
During the greater part of the middle ages the Abbey was the most
famous in England, if not in Europe, but it was not without its vicissi-
tudes, even in the days of its glory. It had lean years as well as fat,
for one of its chronicles piteously tells of food being scarce, and the
cellarer so straightened, that the monks had to send to public houses
for their daily quantum of ale. The Abbots were more apt in luxury
perhaps than in management of the monastic exchequer, and their
rivalry with Christ Church led to a costly though splendid hospitality.
CHAPTER V.
IJrc gjcrmtfitcni of St. Jwpate.
(Continued) .
HE grand gate of St. Augustine's, at the
north-west^ corner of the monastery,
faces a small square, known since the
days of Charles II. as Lady Wootton's Green.
Everyone who has a sense of beauty must
rejoice that this matchless gate was spared
< ^At v -J^il^M^^ i hH by tne spoilers who destroyed the noble
buildings to which it gave access. It is
flanked by two octagonal towers, which rise,
elegant as Saracenic minarets, above the
main building, and from tower to tower
springs a pointed arch with deep cut mould-
ings ; above this is the Gate Chamber, whose
mullioned windows and canopied niches form
brilliant bays of an arcade of singular beauty,
spanning the whole facade, and encompass-
ing the towers on either side. The decorated
battlement rises above a band of trefoiled triangles than which Gothic
art never devised a more perfectly harmonious ornament.
Window of the Abbot'' s Chamber,
St. Augustine's.
THE MONASTERY OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 29
Within the front arch is a flatter one which frames in the massive
doors of panelled oak. One might fancy these two arches were designed
to symbolize the ideal and the actual of monastic life — the first soaring
heavenward, the other drawn earthward ; the one pure as the motive,
the other debased as the conduct. With such reflections we step within
the gates and pass under the finely vaulted archway into the Great Court.
How quiet, calm, and beautiful is the whole scene ; the green sward
framed in on the one side by the buildings of the " living present," and
on the other by the ruins of the past, whose crumbling remains are
shadowed beneath stately trees ; here the rich line of traceried cloister,
and the simple dormitories of the students ; there the noble Library with
its treasures of learning, and below it the interesting crypt in which the
Augustinians acquire skill in hand-labour and learn the mysteries of
carpentry and building. On the other side the eye ranges from the
Guest Hall and the beautiful little chapel to the distant ruins of the
Abbey church over which so many changes have passed.
Few are able to realize what must have been the proportions and
grandeur of that noble Abbey. The hand of time has been less ruthless
than that of man ; the same spirit of barbarism which permitted a spot
sacred in English history to be turned into a tavern, battered down the
Abbey walls, and scattered the memorials of saints and kings. How
little, alas, is left to aid us, in imagination, restore to these ruined walls
their original beauty, and people these courts again !
Yet, thanks to the princely munificence of Mr. Beresford-Hope,
who has built for himself an enduring monument within this ancient
monaster)', this first home of missionaries to the heathen English, has
become a home and school for English missionaries to the heathen
world. Once more peace and order reign within these precincts, and
the new spirit which pervades them, links us with the memorable times
of old. We think of those who have gone forth, year after year, from
St. Augustine's into all the settlements of Englishmen in the " Greater
Britain," into Africa, India, and the farther East ; into the Western
Canadian wilds, the Australasian colonies, the West Indies, and the
distant Pacific isles ; and knowing that they have proved themselves
30 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
valiant soldiers of the Cross, we are reminded of the beautiful lines
written by Dr. Neale, on the completion of the first solemn service of
consecration in the newly founded College : —
I see the white-wing'd vessels, that bound to realms afar,
Go conquering and to conquer, upon their holy war ;
No loud-voiced cannon bear they, those messengers divine
Of England's merchant-princes, and England's battle line ;
Yet they breast the broad Atlantic, the Polar zone they brave,
They dash the spray-drops from their bow in that Antarctic wave ;
The fiend that haunt's the Lion's Bay, the dagger of Japan,
The thousand wrecks they laugh to scorn of stormy Magellan.
Where earthly arms were weakness, and earthly gold were dross,
Safe go they, for they carry the unconquerable Cross :
The Cross that, planted here at first, now planted here again,
Shall bloom and flourish in the sight of angels and of men ;
Another St. Augustine this holy house shall grace,
Another English Boniface shall run the Martyr's race,
Another brave Paulinus for heathen souls shall yearn,
Another Saint Columba rise ; another Kentigern !
Awake, and give the blind their sight ; teach praises to the dumb,
O Mother Church ! arise and shine, for lo ! thy light is come !
Till all the faithful through the world, God's one elected host,
Shall welcome the outpouring of a brighter Pentecost :
And there shall be, and thou shalt see, throughout this earthly ball,
One Church, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Lord of all !
It is not possible in our days to adequately appreciate the grandeur
of St. Augustine's when the all but sovereign Abbot ruled its little
world ; but, aided by a fragment here and there, we may form some idea
of the ancient buildings of the monastery, which extended over sixteen
acres of land, and were alike magnificent in size and style. The Abbey
church rose high above the surrounding edifices, as Christ Church now
does over the city. Its magnificent tower, named after Ethelbert, was
massive as a castle keep ; its lofty walls were pierced with arcades of
round arches, some of which, intersecting, formed the pointed arch
which ushered in the aspiring Gothic. There were countless pillars
cunningly carved in twist and spiral, with their capitals chiselled into
THE MONASTERY OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 31
quaint devices. This grand square tower rising to a height of 125 feet,
stood at the north west corner of the Abbey church. The nave was
34 feet wide, flanked by aisles, each 19 feet wide, with lofty columns
supporting the vaulted roof. Beyond were the choir and chancel with
the magnificent east window (resembling, it is said, the great window of
Tintern) forming a glorious background to the High Altar, within which
the bones of Augustine were laid. Around were numerous other altars,
all more or less resplendent in gold and jewels, and bearing saintly relics.
On the south side of the church was the porch of St. Martin,
wherein Bertha was first buried ; on the north side, the porch of St.
Mildred. Next to the church on the north side, was the Abbot's
chamber, and the Abbot's chapel, having access on one side to the
church, and on the other to the Cloisters, which ran north and then
east, around the Monk's garden. Beyond the Cloisters stood the
Refectory, and beyond that a lordly kitchen, a splendid hexagonal build-
ing with eight columns, and, doubtless, vaulted roof. A subterranean
way ran from the Kitchen to the Refectory. But yet farther to the
north was the Infirmary, another massive and extensive building, with its
own chapel adjoining. Then there were the Abbot's apartments, the
Dormitories for the monks, and the Dungeon, with its thick walls,
unpierced by door, and lighted only by a narrow window, too high to
be reached by the prisoner, who was probably lowered into the place
from above. Into this " Little Ease," there may have been put not
merely refractory monks, but quite possibly defaulting tenants, over
whom the Lord Abbot had jurisdiction. There were chambers also for
royal and noble visitors, a Guest Chapel, and Guest Hall. The monas-
tery had its own water course from the hills beyond ; its noble gardens
and orchards ; its mortuary chapel, where the dead awaited burial ; and
its cemetery where, age after age, the monks of St. Augustine, and many
of the citizens from without, were laid at rest.
What remains of all this ? A mere fragment of Ethelbert's tower ;
the wall of the north aisle of the church ; here and there the base of
a column, or the shaft of a fallen arch ; and the whole foundations of
the Church buried under a mass of earth and debris, which fills up the
32 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
site of the nave, and extends far into the field beyond, where a great
mound marks the eastern limit, and covers the remains of the chancel.
Of the other buildings of the monastery, the Guesten Hall, the founda-
tions of the Refectory, and the Gate House, are parts of the ancient
structure.
Some portion of Ethelbert's tower was still standing in the early
part of this century. The achievements of the local Vandals appear to
have culminated in the year 1822, when one of the most interesting and
instructive fragments of early Norman work was cast to the ground.
The very stones might have found tongues to swell the chorus of
"shame" which rose from those who watched the stupid work of
spoliation carried on. The pictures of the Tower taken about this
time show a lofty pile which reared itself in massive grandeur, with here
and there a remaining arch and column. It was against this beautiful
ruin that local barbarians kept jamming a battering ram for days, because
someone was nervous lest the solid mass which had stood for centuries
should suddenly fall.
CHAPTER VI.
%%t ^am&Uxg; of St Juipstiuc.
(Continued).
VAULTED archway led
from the Tower into a
Galilee Porch at the west
end of the church, beyond
which another porch, or
tower, stood at the opposite
south west corner. In the
recent excavations of the
earth covering the site of
the nave and north aisle,
the bases of some of the
columns of the church
have been laid bare, and
much of the tile flooring
of the mediaeval church is
still in situ. Some of the
tiles were very fine, both
as to design and colour,
many having the fleur-de-
lys, others the rose, and some a circular pattern requiring four tiles to
complete it. The ground sounds hollow in several places, and further
digging would probably lead to some interesting discoveries.
<>rof?ySri
34 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
A portion of the base of Ethelbert's Tower, still standing-, enables
us to judge how vast was the material it contained. The pictures of it,
which can be seen in the College Library, give us a fair idea of its
style. It was square in form, and the parts of two sides which now
remain above the foundations indicate roughly the dimensions, its walls
for some height above the ground being from ten to twelve feet thick.
The columns still standing in the angles of the Tower show capitals of
the earliest Norman style. The entrance into the Church through the
massive wall remaining is of course the work of a later period (15th
century probably), and a wonderful piece of masonry it is. The ashlar
blocks of Caen stone, with which the coarse material of the tower is
here arched and faced are almost absolutely perfect in surface and joint,
after several hundred years of exposure.
The wall of the north aisle of the Norman church still stands, and
bears above it a lofty course of brickwork of the Tudor period, added
when the ruined wall of the Abbey was utilised for the new palace build-
ings, erected after the dissolution of the Monastery. The church to
which this aisle wall belonged was the work of the two first Norman
Abbots, and must have been finished just before the end of the 11th
century. There are still remaining six of the original bays of the north
aisle. They are separated by columns about twenty feet high, with plain
Norman capitals. The Norman windows have been filled up, but the
semi- circular arches are still nearly perfect. In the second bay of the
aisle wall is a very early Norman arch. In the next is a pointed arch
inserted, probably, at the date of the Tudor alterations. It is remarkable
how admirably the stone surface of the early columns and arches has
been preserved. At the extremity of the nave aisle, there is a fragment
of an aisle arch ; of the choir and chancel, only the site remains ; but as
the bases of the pillars and the foundations of the walls are still in
the ground, we hope that the whole of them will one day be laid open.
Passing to the exterior of the north aisle wall, we are upon the site
of the palace buildings of Henry VIII. ; which, earlier still, in the days
of the Abbey's prosperity, was the site of the Abbot's Chamber. Still
more recently, in the days of its degradation, it was turned into a
THE MONASTERY OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 35
fives-court and a skittle-ground for the public-house — to such base
uses had the Church of St. Augustine been brought. On the east
side of the court is an old wall in which a blocked-up arch marks the
entrance to the Abbot's Chamber. On the other side of the wall, the
bases of the numerous clustered columns on either side of the door are
still to be seen ; it must have been a doorway of great beauty. Over
this arch was a very fine pointed window, shown in the old drawings.
It suddenly fell in about forty years ago. (See initial to Chap. V.) This
old wall contains a grilled opening, which formerly looked upon the
Cloisters from the Abbot's larder, a spot which doubtless had a powerful
attraction for the monks without. The cellarer's room was close by.
There was, not long since, in this wall a rude arch of rough stones,
roughly set together, probably pre-Norman. It has of late fallen in.
Beyond, we have a pointed doorway, which originally opened into the
Cloisters. (See initial to Chap. IV.) The north wall of the Cloisters
shows traces of the sedilia for the monks. This wall contains a good
deal of a curious conglomerate of shingle, naturally cemented by lime
deposited by a calcareous stream. The Cloisters surrounded the monks'
garden, over the walls of which we can now look into the fields beyond,
but it must be remembered that the monks were wholly shut off by high
walls from any chance of an outlook upon the external world.
The large field between St. Augustine's and St. Pancras, and the
orchard beyond it, were formerly part of the Monastery. The whole site
to the farthest boundary wall is full of roughly-rectangular mounds,
marking the position of the foundations and walls which lie below.
There are acres of walled chambers buried here, with doubtless many a
hidden treasure amongst the debris. Stone and leaden coffins have been
dug up here at various times ; many Roman coins have been found, and
other articles of great interest to the archaeologist. We have seen frag-
ments of jasper columns and marble capitals of great beauty, which were
dug from one of the many chambers which are below the surface of this
large meadow. Roman tiles are to be found in every part in greater
abundance than the little Roman church of St. Pancras will account for.
During hot and dry weather, the position and dimensions of the
THE MONASTERY OF ST. AUGUSTWE. 37
buried walls are made clear by the parched and withered vegetation
above them. The rectangular spaces are mostly from 18ft. to 24ft.
square, and without much difficulty a ground plan of the whole could
be made out. On the south side of the field is a much larger rectangular
space, surrounded by walls and debris. This is about 80ft. wide and 100ft.
in length, measured from the wall of the College. It marks the site of
the east end of the Abbey-Church.
On the east front of the Refectory, there was a subterranean passage
some thirty yards long at least, and about ten feet deep from the arched
roof to the floor. This was probably an underground communication
from the refectory to the kitchen. The foundations of the latter build-
ing remaining, indicate a grandeur in keeping with the Abbey. The
size of it can be readily made out, as the pathways in the garden are laid
down on its massive walls. It was hexagonal in shape, and must have
been extremely spacious. A base of one of the columns which is
now exposed, shows that it was grand in style as well as in size. Under
the kitchen ran the water-course, supplied from the springs on Scotland
Hills. Beyond the kitchen, and now beyond the boundary of the College,
stand portions of the walls of the Infirmary, and, at the spot called
Mount Pleasant, a part of the Infirmary Chapel. The thickness of the
walls of this Chapel and Infirmary, which were but adjuncts of the
Abbey, remind us how utterly different were the conditions under which
mediaeval builders did their work.
On the foundation of the old Refectory the College Library has
been erected, a very fine hall, lofty and well lighted, with its literary
treasures admirably arranged. Here also are preserved many objects of
interest which the visitor should not fail to see. It is worth noticing
that the fourth window on the west side frames in a view which contains
no building of later date than the era of the Reformation. The view
comprises the gate-house of Abbot Fyndon and the ancient buildings
adjoining, while Bell Harry Tower rises majestically in the distance.
The library contains several old drawings and prints of great interest as
showing the actual condition of the monastery during the last two
centuries. A curious relic of the public-house period is preserved in
38
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
the shape of a placard which announces the opening of the gardens
by " Mr. Stanmore, late of Canterbury Theatre, every Tuesday and
Thursday, upon the principle of the Royal Gardens, Vauxhall ; with
dancing, walking the tight rope, fireworks, &c, &c."
The Refectory with its interesting crypt has been restored as nearly
like the original as the few remains rendered possible. The vaulted
roof of the crypt is supported on ten elegant columns, and the place is
well lighted and spacious. It is put to a very practical use, being
furnished with benches, lathes, and all the apparatus of the carpenter's
art, for here the students are trained in such technical work as is likely
to be of good service to them in their future mission-homes. For
instance, one who first learned to handle the saw and the plane under
this vault, has built two churches for his Dyak people in Borneo
(Mr. Croysland), and numerous other illustrations might be given of
the value of the instruction the students obtain from their master in
carpentry. The walls of the old crypt were lined with painted panelling,
a portion of which was many years ago carried away to be used, we
believe, at the George and Dragon Inn.
Sla^
TVJ01
CHAPTER VII.
^l)t DJottasferg ai St. ^upstate.
( 'Continued).
N the beautiful chequered
wall of the Warden's garden
there is an interesting relic
of the Tudor period, when
the Abbey was converted
into a palace for Henry
VIII. The chequered
squares of stone and flints
are singularly effective, and
the proportions of the
recesses by which the wall
is divided into bays very
in tkeffkrderisjfanlm .
harmonious. A single bay is sketched in the initial to this chapter.
On the west side of the Great Court are the Guest Hall and Chapel,
access to both being gained by an old stone staircase, part of the original
building. The hall is a very fine apartment, a restoration of the ancient
Guest Hall, erected by Abbot Fyndon at the close of the 13th century.
Its splendid oak roof is in part ancient; the windows are reproductions of
the old ones, as nearly as could be ascertained from fragments of tracery
found in the ruins. Much as it is now it .must have been when royal
40 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
and lordly guests were entertained within its walls, and when Queen
Bess, seated on the dais, in all her glory of paint and jewels, received the
homage and flattery of her great courtiers. Charles 1st and Charles 2nd,
were also entertained under the same roof. The former ill-fated sovereign
lodged in the Abbey on the occasion of his marriage ; the latter on his
journey to London at the Restoration. At the marriage of Charles 1st
Orlando Gibbons of the Chapel Royal came down to officiate as organist,
caught the small pox, and died here. He was buried in the Cathedral.
If the old walls could but repeat to us the conversations to which they
resounded on some of these historic occasions ! But after all, the grand
old room is put to better use than the casual entertainment of Tudors or
Stuarts. It is now the Common hall of the Missionary College. Here
the students take their meals in company with the Warden, the Sub-
Warden, and Fellows, who sit at the upper table on the dais. The
Warden's chair is an elaborate, carved oak piece, probably old Flemish.
It was presented to the College by the munificent founder. On the wall
behind hangs a fine mosaic, a copy by Salviati, of a celebrated Mosaic
in St. Mark's Venice. It represents the Saviour, seated on the throne of
judgment, with the great book open in his hands. Near the dais is an
old painting of considerable interest, which was once, we believe, the fire-
place ornament of a neighbouring tavern. It represents St. Augustine's,
probably at some time during the last century, and shows Ethelbert's
Tower and other buildings of the monastery now no longer standing. On
the walls of the hall are excellent portraits of the following benefactors
of the College — Bishop Coleridge, who was chaplain to Archbishop
Howley at the same time as Mr. Lyall (afterwards Dean of Canterbury).
The two chaplains were so much alike in features that they were con-
stantly mistaken for each other — The Rev. Edward Coleridge, who gave
the first impulse to the movement for founding a missionary college,
and wrote many thousands of letters to gather in funds for its permanent
endowment — Dr. Lochde, who gave his gratuitous and valuable services
to the College for 25 years, as lecturer on medicine — Canon Gilbert,
who was one of the choir boys of Canterbury, and was advanced from
the Choristers' School to the King's School. There he so well applied
THE MONASTERY OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 41
himself to study that he gained a scholarship at Cambridge; he received
the living of Grantham, and was made honorary Canon of Lincoln. By
his will be founded three scholarships for students in that diocese. He
made many benefactions to charities during his life, and bequeathed his
plate and books to the College of St. Augustine.
From the Hall we pass to the Chapel. This is built on the site of
the old Guest's Chapel, but only a portion of the walls and the beautiful
west windows are ancient. All the windows of the Chapel contain fine
painted glass, of excellent design and colour, by Willement. A pierced
oak screen of good execution and style, separates the ante-chapel from
the nave. The latter is admirably fitted with carved oak stalls for the
Warden, Fellows and students, the stalls being copies of ancient miserere
seats. The whole Chapel is very beautiful. The east window, of five
lights, contains St. Gregory, St. Augustine, the Baptism of John, the
Adoration, and the First Miracle. A south window, of four lights,
contains the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. The north
window contains the Four Evangelists. The Reredos of marble, and
the mosaic panels (the gift of Canon Bailey) admirably harmonize. The
floor tiles are equally beautiful in design and colour, and are copies of
original tiles of the 13th or 14th century.
Below the Chapel is an extended reproduction of the ancient crypt,
which was probably used by the monks as a mortuary chapel for the
Abbey. It is divided into two portions — the eastern is now used as a
little Guild-chapel by the students. It contains a small bronze figure of
the Good Shepherd, the pedestal on which it stands having a repre-
sentation of the expulsion of our first parents from Eden. A tablet
commemorates the first Warden of the College — Bishop Coleridge (of
Barbadoes), who died in 1849. In the other portion of the crypt a
number of mural panels bear brief memorials of students of St. Augus-
tine's, who have already passed to their rest. Many of these terse
records of young lives are full of touching interest, as they show how
wide is the field over which the missionary seed of the College is
scattered. Here we are reminded of poor Kallihirua, the Eskimo
convert and student, who was baptised at St. Martin's, Capt. Ommaney,
42 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
who brought him to this country, acting as sponsor. The tablet to the
memory of this Christian child of the North, in whom so much interest
was taken during his life in England, runs thus : —
"Erasmus Augustine Kallihirua,
Arrived from 76 N.L., Nov. 1851,
Baptised Advent Sunday, 1853,
Deceased June 14, 1856,
Newfoundland."
Other memorials perpetuate the memory of Kona, who came hither
from Caffraria in 1861, and who fell an early victim to disease at
Grahamstown in 1865; Moshueshua, who left Basuto land in 1861, and
died at Hereford in two short years ; and of Mahmoud Effendi, who was
expelled from Turkey on having married a Christian English lady. The
same wall which bears these interesting records of departed students,
has two sculptured groups in high-relief. One which represents Gregory
in the market-place of Rome, speaking with the fair young English
slaves, has been erected in memory of the Rev. H. J. Hutchesson. The
other represents Augustine preaching to Ethelbert. This is interesting
in itself as a work of art, and also as the result of self denial. It was
erected by the students in memory of their deceased companions, and
they collected the cost of the group by abstaining from the use of sugar
for a considerable time.
On leaving the Chapel, visitors who are interested in the perfection
of the builder's art should notice two remarkable buttresses of the
building. They are composed of small flints beautifully shaped into
squares. Squared flints are not uncommon in Kent, but we have never
seen any to equal these. The edges of each flint are perfectly rectangular,
and the exterior surface is smooth and flat. They must have been
fashioned by Abbot Fyndon's skilful artificers, for the buttresses originally
belonged to the Gate House.
Below the Guest Hall is the present kitchen of the College. It is
a part of the original structure of the hall, as the old oak beams remain-
ing are sufficient to show. This was the kitchen of that outer circle of
the Abbey in which the Abbot's guests and retainers were lodged, and,
THE MONASTERY OF ST. AUGUSTINE. 43
no doubt, munificently entertained. The grand kitchen we have pre-
viously mentioned was situated within the inner circle which was closely
sealed to the general world. Here, no doubt, some of those sumptuous
feasts were prepared, which the old records tell us were so often served
at Canterbury, on the occasions of Royal visits. The kitchen was in
the first part of the present century the bar of the public house.
Between this and the Manciple's Room, at the gate, is the chamber
which we have spoken of as the prison. Until recently it had no
doorway. If it was really used as a dungeon, in the olden times, the
prisoner must have been lowered into it from the ancient looking
chamber above. It was not a " black hole," however, for light would
have been admitted by the small loop in the thick wall.
We have now made the entire round of the ancient buildings of
the Abbey, and have returned to the Gate House at which we entered.
Passing into the lodge, we ascend a staircase into the fine old room over
the arch of the gate. This was the chamber in which Queen Elizabeth
slept when holding her Court at Canterbury, and it was occupied
by Charles I. when he received at St. Augustine's his French bride,
Henrietta Maria. The room is now used as a museum for the Missionary
College. It contains many objects of interest sent home by the students
from their distant mission homes. During the period of the desecration,
when the wall of the Abbey church served for a tennis court, this royal
chamber was used as a malt-house and sometimes as a cock-pit.
Before quitting the spot in which we have spent many pleasant
hours, we ascend, by a spiral stone staircase, to the roof of the Gate-
house and obtain a bird's-eye view of the whole extent of the monastery.
What a panorama of English history lies before us ! There is scarcely
an age or epoch in the roll of nineteen centuries but has its record here.
The long line of unbroken roof to the left covers the rooms of the
present Collegians, — no monkish cells, but pleasant little chambers into
which the young missionaries may retire for meditation and study by
day, fired, let us hope, by a nobler faith, and loftier ambition than was
ever developed in those old ruined cloisters in the distance. Thus as
we look on the training-home of the missionaries of our own day, so
44
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
may we cast our glance beyond, to the site of the little Christian church
of Roman times, over which the flood of Saxon barbarism swept, but
happily did not endure. There is the pathway Bertha trod as she went
out to pray at St. Martin's. There is the spot where the gentle Queen
was laid to rest. There the burial place of Augustine and his immediate
successors ; of Ethelbert and the Christian kings of Kent. The ruined
Abbey stands on the site of one which pagan Danes destroyed. It was
itself the handwork of two races and of several eras — of Norman and
of Early English builders — while it bears in its Tudor masonry the
record of the dissolution of the Abbey, and the incoming of a new
order, and a reformed Faith. Thus Roman, Briton, Saxon, Dane,
Norman, and Englishman have all left their traces within the boundaries
of St. Augustine's.
CHAPTER VIII.
% \z l§m$M 0f St. Joint.
r^^#fe!lkiiSflii;
N or about the year 1084, Archbishop
Lan franc founded at Canterbury two
hospitals or almshouses. One of
these is in Northgate Street, and is
dedicated to Saint John ; the other
at Harbledown, is dedicated to Saint
Nicholas. The first was designed for
the support of maimed, sick, and weak
persons of both sexes. The other
was a lazar-house for lepers, and was
placed, like all similar institutions in
the middle ages, by the side of the
highway, at a little distance outside
the town.
We first visit the Hospital of St.
John. In the middle of busy Northgate there stands an interesting
old house, timber-panelled and gable-roofed, over a fine wooden arch.
We pass through this from the noisy street, and enter a quiet enclosure,
a peaceful haven of repose. The green sward is framed in by grey
rambling lines of buildings ; some, the ruined remains of long past ages ;
others, the present homes of those who are themselves quietly dropping
into decay. On the right is the old church, where the brothers and
<St. John's Hospital,* ''"sb*
THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN. 47
sisters, who are still able to get out, meet and worship, and beyond it
the churchyard where former generations of brothers and sisters of St.
John's have been laid to rest. We wander among the graves, and see
by the inscriptions on the headstones that this retreat from the cares
and worries of the struggling world must ensure ripe old age. Presently
we find that one of the sisters of the hospital has just passed her
ninetieth birthday.
Around the churchyard are some interesting ruins, which would be
much improved by clearing away the old sheds and outhouses erected
against them. These walls are massive portions of what was probably
the original buildings of Lanfranc. His disciple and biographer,
Eadmer, dignifies them with the name of palace. It is evident by
the external appearance of the chapel, that it was originally much larger
in size. Gostling makes complaint of the unnecessary demolition of
the ancient buildings, perpetrated about the middle of the last century —
"the bells having been sold, the steeple and north aisle taken down,
as were many of the old houses, and smaller and less convenient ones
erected in their room ; a stone wall was also taken away, which sheltered
the whole from the cold north-west wind blowing over the river and
meadow land, and, being pentised over-head, was called by the poor
people their cloisters, under which they used to walk or sit, and converse
with each other on the benches." Gostling adds satirically, "all this was
done by way of improvement about thirty years ago." (1747). We can
imagine with what indignant emphasis the genial and gossipping old
minor canon would have shaken his walking stick (which is now sus-
pended over his portrait in the City Museum) at such barbarism. The
old wall on the north-west side of the Chapel still contains some inter-
esting remains of the early Norman masonry, with round-headed doors,
and windows, having only slight and coarsely-cut moulding. Within the
Church, the west doorway of which is early Norman, the chief object of
interest remaining is the ancient font of stone, roughly circular in shape,
without ornament, and with two curiously-shaped handles. The east
window was still in the last century filled with painted glass, containing
figures of the twelve Apostles, but this has entirely disappeared, as have
48 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
also the pulpit and some other woodwork, said to have been good
examples of Tudor carving.
The " City Fathers" of the Tudor age had themselves some depre-
dations to answer for, as in 1507 a complaint was made to the Archdeacon
that the Mayor of Canterbury had carried off the ornaments of the
Chapel, such as a chalice, a paten of silver, a surplice, and a bell.
In the south-west corner of the enclosure is the old hall and kitchen,
believed to date from the 16th century. The hall, which is over the
kitchen, is entered by a narrow staircase. It still contains the old central
dining-table and benches, of rough-hewn oak, much more massive than
convenient, the space between the fixed seat and the table being evidently
designed to accommodate brethren of portly form and aldermanic
dimensions. Here, no doubt, for many ages the inmates of the hospital
have had their annual feast, as they do now, on St. John's Day. One
of the old registers gives the cost of the Midsummer feast in 1638, when
a sum of £3 6s. lOd. was expended. Some of the items are curious and
interesting. The bill of fare comprised 801bs. of beef, at 3d. per lb. A
calf cost 18s. Two lambs cost the same amount. Three "coople" of
chicken cost half-a-crown. To wash down these solid comforts, the
brethren and sisters appear to have required " halfe a barrel of beere,"
costing 3s. 2d., a gallon of " sacke," 3s. 4d., a "pottle of claritt and a
pottle of white wine," in all 2s. 8d. " Beere to make the serving men
drinke that brought meat to our feast," cost 2d. " Beere for the
kitchen" cost 4d., and the " cooke for drissing the dinner" was paid
handsomely, — 4s. The "woman that helped in the kitchen" got 6d.,
and the " two turnspets," 8d. The "spets" they turned are still to be
seen in the kitchen below. They are 8 or 10 feet long, and would have
served to roast a royal joint. There is a curious old fork, also of which
the "cooke" of 1638 might have made use.
The hall contains two fine old oak chests, in which are some things
of antiquarian interest. There is a large sword, having no doubt a
history, but about which we could get no information. An old pewter
drinking flagon, from which doubtless the brethren had, many time and
oft, quaffed a refreshing draught, bears a coat of arms, and the following
THE HOSPITAL OF ST. JOHN. 49
inscription : — " The gift of Robart Mascoll, Esq., to St. John's Hospitall,
the 24th day of June, 1659." There are several old pewter dishes also,
and three ancient wooden bowls with medallions ; one having the Tudor
rose, another the Virgin and Child, another the sacred monogram,
I.H.S. Besides these there are a very curious alms box, in shape much
like a Roman lamp, an old folio copy of Fox's Book of Martyrs, and
other articles of interest.
Lanfranc endowed St. John's Hospital and that of Harbledown
with £70 per annum, out of the manor of Reculver and Boughton-under-
Blean. His next successor increased the endowment to £80 for each
hospital. This would have been an ample income according to the
value of money at that time, and indeed the number of the brothers
and sisters appears to have been originally much larger and to have
gradually decreased. Thus in the latter part of the 14th century the
hospital had one hundred inmates, a century later eighty only, and when
another century had passed the number provided for, in Archbishop
Parker's statutes, was sixty (including out-brothers and sisters).
Anciently, a few weeks before and after the two festivals of St. John
and Christmas, the brethren sent out certain of their number to travel
up and down the country begging for alms. They bore with them a
latin letter of authorization, bearing the seal of the hospital. This
letter, after recounting the indulgences granted by the Archbishops to
benefactors of St. John's, made abundant promises of future rewards for
present charitable gifts of gold or silver.
It declared that there were in the hospital one hundred brothers and
sisters who, between them, daily said no fewer than thirty thousand
Paternosters and Ave Marias, the benefits of which, with innumerable
prayers, fasts, and penances, would be shared by all their benefactors.
(This curious letter is given in full by Duncombe.) The custom of
sending out begging brothers and sisters was certainly kept up as late
as 1585. Archbishop Parker in 1560 drew up statutes for the government
of the Hospital, and these are supposed to have remained in force until
our own time. Some of the orders and rules have ceased to be observed.
For instance, the brethren and sisters were "to diligently come to the
50 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
church twice in the day to offer up their common prayers unto Almighty
God, and attentively to hear God's Holy Scripture read." If any
absented themselves without permission, or being present, "jangled," or
slept during prayers, then " if after two admonitions given by the prior
to amend that fault, the party eftsoones commit the like offense that
brother or sister, whither it be, shall be punished in the stocks one half
day or more." If the offender still proved refractory there was the
penalty of expulsion to be looked forward to. For more heinous offences,
such as drunkenness, brawling, or blasphemous swearing, the punishment
on the first occasion was to sit in the stocks one day and a night, with
bread and water, the second time two days and two nights, the third
time three days and three nights ; if after that the offence was repeated
the sinner was "to be expulsed and driven out of the house for ever."
The ancient charters and records of St. John's and St. Nicholas'
Hospitals were carefully set in order and many of them transcribed by
the Rev. Henry Hall, M.A., who was appointed Librarian at Lambeth
by Archbishop Potter (1744), and subsequently became Rector of St.
Michael's, Harbledown. His work was completed by the Rev. Dr.
Beauvoir, whose MSS. "Liber Hospitalium Archiepiscopi" is at Lambeth.
Duncombe, the historian of the Hospitals, has quoted largely from these
records, which contain many things of interest to the antiquarian and
historian.
It is pleasant to see the care taken by the inmates of their plots of
garden ; to observe their happy and cheerful demeanour ; and to know
that this interesting and valuable institution is admirably administered
under the Wardenship of the Bishop of Dover, as Archdeacon of
Canterbury.
On the other side of Northgate Street, immediately opposite the
hospital, formerly stood the gateway leading to the ancient church of
St. Gregory, also a foundation of Archbishop Lanfranc, intended for
secular priests, whose duty it was to administer spiritual comfort to the
poor of the hospital, and to officiate at the burial of their dead. Leland
states that the church was converted into a priory for Black or regular
canons, in the time of Henry I. No vestige of the priory remains.
aSSHM 2 " 5 - P
to"'—"
^tisssd
CHAPTER IX.
%ty §a%phl of St Uit^olas, §mbltbabm.
UT of the city, but
intimately connected
with it, is the old
Hospital of St. Nicho-
las. Thither, on a
lovely summer after-
noon, we make our
way, past old Westgate
tower which, hoary as
it is, lacks three out
of the eight centuries
Old Alms-box, St. Nicholas' . to which St. Nicholas
can lay claim. We strike across the fields to the foot of the hill, where
the old Pilgrims' Way joins the high road. Few who enter this ancient
lane think that for at least two thousand years it has been a beaten
track, for it leads across the fields and hop gardens to the British camp
in Bigbury Wood. It was also the end of the Pilgrims' Way, which ran
across three counties, from the Hampshire port, over the Surrey downs,
the woods and vales of Kent, to the city of Becket. For many an age
that long thin line bore its continuous stream of life ; thousands and
tens of thousands of rich and poor, prince and peasant, gallant knight
and doughty burgher, natives and foreigners, horsemen and pedestrians
passed that way. We take our stand at the corner of the old lane, and
52 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
watch in imagination the motley stream empty itself into the main road,
crowded with its own incessant current of curious and pious pilgrims.
Tempting as the fancy is, however, we must not linger to indulge
in day dreams, but continue our way to Harbledown. From the hill we
get the finest distant view of the Cathedral. On such a summer's day
as this one can most fully appreciate the exquisite beauty and the
massive supremacy of the noble pile. It rises above the city like a
great rock in an open plain, and as the sun lights up every niche and
crevice in the towers, the giant seems clad in gems. How thankful one
ought to be that in days when the souls of the builders were full of
beauty, the work of their hands was made so strong and enduring.
We turn the brow of the hill and descend to the hollow in which
the old village lies nestled. Its position is extremely beautiful ; viewed
from the fields above the hill, and behind Harbledown church, a more
lovely landscape is not to be met with even in the garden of Kent.
At the foot of the hill we reach the ancient gateway of the Hospital,
beside which there still stands a fine old yew. A companion tree was
standing not many years since, but it has disappeared. The old gateway
bears signs of great antiquity, and probably its rough and massive
timbers have stood for centuries, though it is doubtful to what age
it actually belongs. Formerly the roadway was deeper, and a longer
flight of steps led to the entrance. At these steps the brethren used to
show to travellers their far famed relics of Thomas a Becket, and solicit
alms of the passers by.
But the foundation of St. Nicholas goes back to a more remote age
than that which brought pilgrims to Becket's shrine. It was founded
by Archbishop Lanfranc, as a Lazar House, or hospital for lepers, in or
about 1084. The necessity of providing, at that early date, refuges for
sufferers from leprosy shows that the dreadful disease was not, as very
often stated, first introduced into this country by returning Crusaders,
the first Crusade having taken place twelve years later than the foundation
of the Hospital. It might have been first imported into England by
returning pilgrims from the Holy Land at an earlier date ; it was in
any case to be found at Canterbury while the Conqueror reigned over
THE HOSPITAL OF ST. NICHOLAS, HARBLEDOWN.
53
England, and the learned Lanfranc ruled the Church. It would be
interesting to know when the last of the lepers disappeared from this
hospital in the Blean, and when a new order of inmates began to be
settled there, but we have no information on the point, the historical
memorials of St. Nicholas being meagre in the extreme.
Doonvay of St. Nicholas" .
The hospital of Harbledown was, as Somner called it, " the other
twin" of St. John. It had a like endowment and similar statutes.
Anciently St. Nicholas' appears to have been a rectory, but in 1342
Archbishop Stratford united it to East Bridge Hospital, obliging the
latter to provide a chaplain for it. A few years later a perpetual chantry
was founded, the priest of which lived at Clavering. The chantry was
64 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
abolished at the Reformation. The number of inmates at Harbledown
was much larger during the middle ages than it has been in modern
times. Its income from the Archiepiscopal funds was supplemented by
the alms of the faithful, and the brothers and sisters, like those of St.
John, went out at certain times on begging expeditions. The old deeds
of benefactions to the Hospital contain some curious grants. Thus, in
1379, one Wm. Yue gives an annual grant of two cercells (wild fowl),
one-third of a hen, one third of half a hen, and 15 eggs.
When the tide of devotion set in towards Becket's tomb, the
hospitallers of St. Nicholas must have flourished. Many a broad noble
and many a mark, no doubt, dropped into the alms-box, for plenty of
company passed that way, high and mighty travellers many of them.
There were few probably of the pre-Reformation monarchs who did not
visit Canterbury, and, as their way lay past St. Nicholas, we may feel
sure that they either visited the hospital, or gave alms at the gate.
Hither came Henry II. from Southampton, along the Pilgrims' Way
above alluded to. He alighted and entered the Church of St. Nicholas,
whence he walked barefooted to the Cathedral. " For the love of St.
Thomas" Henry gave in grant twenty marks of rent to the Hospital.
Here passed, twenty years later, his son Richard, who had landed at
Sandwich after his release from captivity. Though he had a vast deal
of work to do in a few brief weeks, Coeur-de-Lion would not have left
St. Nicholas unnoticed. Whether, a little later, John, on his way to
Dover, would stop to visit the Hospital is doubtful, but he was often in
the neighbourhood. Edward I. and the noble Queen Eleanor passed
on their return from Palestine, and tradition runs that the Black Prince,
returning from his victory of Poictiers with his royal prisoner (King
John of France), visited the church and Hospital. Close at hand there
still remains what is known as the Black Prince's well, a spring on the
hill side, behind the Hospital. A round arch has been built over it,
and it is surrounded with ferns and flowers, a few steps leading down to
the water. It is said that at this well the hero of Cressy and Poictiers
drank as he returned home to die. A little later his remains were carried
by the same spot to be buried in the Cathedral.
THE HOSPITAL OF ST. NICHOLAS, HARBLEDOWN. 56
The enclosure contains the dwellings of nine brothers and seven
sisters, comfortable cottages ranged on either side of a hall or frater-house.
Opposite them is the venerable old church of St. Nicholas, with its great
ivy tree clinging to the ancient tower. Most of the church is of later
date than the building of Lanfranc ; but some interesting portions of the
original are preserved in the present building ; these include the round
arch of the west door, a pillar and capital on the north side of the
nave, the circular arches of that side, and a small round headed
window. There is a trace of the ancient rood-loft ; here and there
a few fragments of old glass remain, and there are signs of frescoes
having formerly adorned the walls. In the floor are some very early
tiles, and in the chancel there is an ancient tomb-recess.
The churchyard of the Hospital, from which there is a lovely view
of wooded hill and valley, is studded with memorials of past brothers and
sisters, the ages recorded being most frequently beyond the fourscore
years.
The Hall is not of interest in itself, but contains articles of un-
questionable antiquity. There is a quaint old chest, the cover of which
appears to be a rough- hewn portion of an old tree trunk. In this no
doubt the treasures of the Hospital were formerly preserved, but they
are now kept in a more convenient place, and the Prior sets them
all before the visitor, with a list of the " Relics of St. Thomas a Becket."
While he produces them we read on the wall as follows : — " The ancient
building of this Hospital, being utterly ruined and decayed, it was
repaired A.D. 1674 in this form of a Frater House, and six houses on
each side, the charge of the whole building amounting to the sum of
£200, whereof £100 were given by Archbishop Sheldon and £50 by the
Dean and Chapter of Canterbury. Mr. John Somner gave £50 towards
the new dwellings of this Hospital." On the walls hangs the coat of
arms of the present Master of the Hospital, the Bishop of Dover, as
Archdeacon of Canterbury. In one of the windows is a stained glass
panel containing the arms of Archbishop Abbott.
The so-called relics of St. Thomas are mostly, we fear, apocryphal,
but one is possibly a genuine memento of the murdered Archbishop, and
56 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
the other articles are ancient and interesting. They include a curious
old alms-box with a chain attached. It was such a box as this, no
doubt, which long after Lanfranc's death the leper inmates of the
Hospital held out to wayfarers who passed through the Blean Forest.
We can imagine how gaunt and ghastly figures would, from the old
steps, proclaim their terrible misfortune, and solicit the charity of the
faithful. They dared not approach travellers, but they used to put out a
long pole with a box hanging from it, wherein a coin might be dropped-
The old alms-box which is still preserved at St. Nicholas' is certainly
centuries old, and was probably that in which the gentle Erasmus
dropped his offering after inspecting the relics. He was then travelling
from Canterbury to London with Dean Colet, the founder of St. Paul's
School. Erasmus himself gives an account of the visit. As the two
travellers approached the Hospital, on their way to London, an aged
almsman came down the steps, and having sprinkled the visitors with
holy water, proceeded to exhibit for their veneration that most choice
and sacred relic — the upper leather of the shoe of St. Thomas. When
this saintly treasure was offered them to kiss, Colet's indignation knew
no bounds, nor did he hesitate to express his contempt and disgust in
language more forcible than polite.
Of this incident, so significant of the disposition of the two
Reformers, Stanley characteristically says: — "In the meeting of that
old man with the two strangers in the lane at Harbledown, how
completely do we read in miniature the whole history of the coming
revolution of Europe."
Erasmus says that the shoe-leather of the Saint contained a crystal.
The shoe-leather has disappeared, but the crystal which is supposed to
have sparkled on the foot of Becket is possibly the same as that which
is still preserved at Harbledown, fixed in the bottom of an old maple
bowl. There is another maple bowl, belonging to the Hospital, which
has long been an object of great interest to antiquarians. It is a good
specimen of a 14th century mazer bowl, and was annually used on the
feast of St. Nicholas. Let into the bottom of it is a finely executed
silver-gilt medallion which bears, in basso relievo, a mounted figure of a
THE HOSPITAL OF ST. NICHOLAS, HARBLEDOWN.
57
knight in armour slaying a dragon, a lion lying near. The knight is the
Guy of Warwick, famed in mediaeval story. The inscription round the
medallion has been somewhat of a puzzle to archaeologists. It runs
thus — Gy De Warwyc : Adanovn : neci occis : le dragovn :
This ancient work of art is specially valuable and interesting,
because it connects the obscure legend of Guy and the dragon with an
episode in English history. The knight's shield bears the arms of
Beauchamp, whence it is inferred that the knight is intended for Guy
Beauchamp, and the dragon for the hated favourite of Edward II., Piers
Gaveston, who met his fate at the hands of the remorseless earl of
Warwick. There are other articles, ancient and interesting, among the
relics and curiosities of Harbledown, but undoubtedly the chief attrac-
tion of St. Nicholas' lies in the associations which cluster around it, and
which still draw pilgrims to the spot of which five hundred years ago
Chaucer wrote these lines : —
"Wete ye not wher stondeth a litel town
Which that ycleped is Bob-up-and-down
Under the Blee in Canterbury way?"
H
CHAPTER X.
(Bust §x\hQt Septal.
AST Bridge Hospital, or the Hospital of
St. Thomas, was founded for the accom-
modation of poor pilgrims, whom the
renown of the murdered Becket drew to
his shrine at Canterbury. The passion
for pilgrimages was not confined to the
nobler and wealthier orders ; there were
others who could neither hire horse nor
pay for hostelry, and who were content to
travel many a weary mile on foot along
the pilgrim ways, receiving the alms of
their more fortunate fellow-travellers, and
lodging as best they could at the various stages on their journey. There
were no workhouses or vagrant wards in those days ; but there was a
generally-recognised obligation to find a dole of food and a night's
shelter for any poor travellers, more especially for such as might be on
their way to visit some sacred spot or relics. Hospitals designed
to accommodate such wayfarers were commonly founded during the
middle ages. Such was the object and the use of the Hospital of St.
Thomas, in the High-street.
The date of the foundation is uncertain, but it must have been as
early as the beginning of the 13th century, for by a Bull of Innocent III.,
EAST BRIDGE HOSPITAL. 59
there was, in the year 1203, united with it the adjacent hospital
founded by William Cokyn or Cockyn. There appears to have been
some tradition apparently ascribing the foundation to Archbishop Becket,
but this probably originated from the fact that it was used by pilgrims
to Becket's shrine. As Battely puts it, if Becket had been the actual
founder, " it would not have been passed over in silence by those who
made it their chief work to recommend this saint to the highest esteem
and veneration of all men." As no mention of his founding this hospital
was made by his early eulogists, it is not likely that he was its originator.
It had certainly, however, been erected within a few years of his death.
The first benefactor to the hospital, of which record remains (1200),
was Archbishop Hubert Walter, who was contemporary with Richard I.
and King John. He endowed it with the tithes of Westgate mill and of
certain other mills. In his time lived the above-mentioned Wm. Cokyn,
a worthy citizen who founded his hospital in St. Peter's-street. This he
gave over to Archbishop Hubert, to be united with Eastbridge. The next
Archbishop (Stephen Langton) confirmed the gift of Blean Church and
parsonage, by Hamo de Crevequeur, to the Eastbridge Hospital, an
appanage which it still retains.
The fame of Becket as a saint, and the admirable advertising by the
monks of Christ Church of the miraculous cures wrought at his shrine,
proved an irresistible attraction to the countless numbers who, in that
superstitious age, sought either physical or spiritual benefit from pilgrim-
age or penance. They flocked in vast numbers to Canterbury, and the
hospital of St. Thomas was open day and night to receive, to welcome,
and to entertain poor pilgrims who could not afford to pass on to the
spacious halls of the "Chequers" — Chaucer's famous hostelry.
But in the history of all human institutions, the ebb succeeds the
flood ; and there came a time when the hospital of St. Thomas fell into
decay, for we find that no later than 1343, Archbishop Stratford (who
was the next of its great benefactors) put on record the fact that this
hospital, " founded for the receiving, lodging, and sustaining of poor
pilgrims, was but meanly endowed, and that the buildings belonging to it
were in a ruinous condition." It had by this time in fact fallen in the
GO RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
way of those who covet their neighbours' goods, as it is declared that
" lands in Heron, Reculvre, Swalclif, Chistelet, and Beaksborn," had
been alienated upon pretence of being chantry lands.
It appears that, although it had been granted charters, it had not
hitherto received rules for its proper government. The Archbishop
framed statutes and regulations, and established it, as he no doubt
imagined, on a permanent foundation, but the history of almost all
these old hospitals and charities shows that, even in the middle ages,
the wills and wishes of pious founders were set aside. Its revenues
arose from lands and tenements in Canterbury, Harbledown, and Birch-
ington, as well as at Blean, the Manor of Blean and Hoath Court
being settled upon it by Thomas de Roos, of Chilham. It was or-
dained that the master of the hospital should be in priest's orders, and
should keep a vicar under him. A grant, then no doubt held to be of
great importance was made to pilgrims dying within the hospital, that
they should have the right of burial in the cemetery of Christ Church.
The statutes contemplated no needless loitering on the part of
pilgrims, who were expressly to get but " one night's lodging and enter-
tainment," and then to make way for other comers. There were to be
twelve beds in the hospital, and an aged woman had to provide all
necessaries for the pilgrims, at the cost of not more than fourpence
a head.
A few years later, King Edward III. was among the benefactors to
the charity, on which he bestowed the "Chaunge" in Canterbury — a
Royal Exchange of unknown antiquity, the site of which was in All
Saints' parish, with an entrance from the High-street.
Stratford's statutes did not preserve the hospital from spoliation.
Somner tells us that " in the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, the
lands and tenements belonging to the hospital — yea, and the hospital
itself, were occupied and possessed by private persons." Archbishop
Parker recovered these properties, and refounded the hospital (1569)
" for the reception of poor and maimed soldiers that should pace back-
wards and forwards through Canterbury," and for the support of a school.
He restored the house, and laid down ordinances which, whilst suitable
THE HALL OF EAST BRIDGE HOSPITAL.
62 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
to the times in which he lived, were yet in unison with the intentions of
the former founders.
Archbishop Parker also founded out of the funds of the hospital
two " Canterbury Scholarships " at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge,
each of the yearly value of £3 6s. 8d. This arrangement was to endure
for 200 years, but within a single life-time ruin and robbery were again
at work. A commission under Sir James Hales, appointed by Elizabeth,
reported that "the hospital house stood ruinated, and that neither
Master nor brethren were resident or dwelling of long time, the house
let into tenements for yearly rent, the beds that were wont to lodge and
harbour poor people, resorting hither, were gone, and sold contrary to
the old order and foundation of the same, and the said hospital to be
relinquished and concealed from her Majesty." The Queen decided that
this robbery of the poor should be repaired. She carried out her decision
in true Tudor fashion, by giving the property to one of her gentlemen
pensioners, a certain John Farnham, who transferred it to one Hayes
for £550, and the balance of a debt. Later on, however, (1584) the
hospital found a friend in Archbishop Whitgift, who, after a troublesome
lawsuit, actually succeeded in recovering the property which had been
filched from the poor. He obtained an Act of Parliament for the more
permanent establishment of the charity, and framed the statutes under
which the hospital is still governed. In the same year the Dean and
Chapter gave the small bell for the chapel, called the Wackeral. Later
benefactors among the Archbishops were Juxon, Sheldon, and Sancroft.
It will be seen that East Bridge Hospital is of deep interest, not
only from the antiquity of its buildings, but as illustrating the peculiarities
of life and manners in the middle ages. It stands in the High Street,
at the spot where the chief branch of the divided Stour passes under
the old East bridge, or King's bridge, as it was sometimes called from
the King's mill which stood next to it, opposite the Hospital.
We enter the hospital by an ancient arched doorway, whence a few steps
lead into a vaulted hall, the floor of which is much below the present
level of the street. A flight of steps leads to the ancient refectory, in
which the pilgrims were received and entertained. The refectory is
EAST BRIDGE HOSPITAL. 63
separated from the passage to the dwelling rooms of the inmates by a
row of three octagonal pillars, with capitals of a transition character,
supporting early-pointed arches. The columns are much out of the
perpendicular, and it is evident that, owing to the nearness to the river,
and the frequency with which it was formerly flooded, the foundation
must have sunk at an early period. The most interesting- feature of the
hall at present remaining is a large fragment of an ancient wall painting;
the colours are still remarkably vivid, and much of the detail can be
readily distinguished, although the chief painting was probably executed
in the 14th century. This valuable relic of mediaeval art was discovered
during some alterations carried on in 1879. The workmen, in removing
the accumulation of whitewash, came upon traces of figures. Unfortu-
nately they did not recognise the importance of their discovery, and went
on scraping for some time until the prioress, happening to learn what
had been found, informed the Master of the hospital. Then the work
was stopped, and means taken to remove the rest of the whitewash with
great care. A huge fireplace and chimney built against the wall
being removed, the painting was gradually brought to view. In the
centre is a fine vesica, enclosing a picture of Our Saviour enthroned.
This part of the work is evidently the most ancient, and it was certainly
the finest in regard to art. The emblems of the four Evangelists surround
the central figure, and the whole is enclosed in a circle. Below is another
painting of Christ and the Apostles at the Last Supper, Jesus handing
the sop to Judas. On one side of the central design is a representation
(probably of later date, and more rudely executed) of the murder of
Becket. On the other side another picture, unfortunately for the most
part destroyed, apparently pourtrayed Henry the Second's penance at
Becket's Shrine. These treasures of early art were coated before the
time of James I. with a thick layer of whitewash, for upon this
barbarous covering had been painted the Royal arms, and the arms of
Archbishop Abbot. The utmost care and delicacy were required on the
part of the accomplished architect Mr. James Neale, F.S.A., who carried
out the restoration of these interesting buildings, in order to preserve
the ancient pictures. Standing in this Refectory, it requires no great
64
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
stretch of imagination to people it once more with dust stained and
foot-sore pilgrims gazing with reverent eyes on the picture of Christ,
and probably still more devoutly on that of Becket, for in the age we
speak of more reverence was paid to the Saint than to the Saviour.
From this hall we enter the chapel of the Hospital, a fine chamber
lighted by three traceried windows of the 14th century. This was till
recently used as a school, but has now been restored, to be used for
divine worship. It contains remains of an open timber roof. At
the East end is a Table of the Commandments, written in 1634, and
below this an old oak reading desk, which has been well scored over
with initials and dates — one cut in that fatal year for the monarchy, 1649.
The Hospital at present contains five brothers and five sisters, who
have comfortable rooms, and enjoy pensions amounting in value to a
little over £30 each. A similar number of out brothers and sisters enjoy
a pension of £25 each. Below the Refectory there is a fine crypt, which
is very interesting as an example of transition from Norman to Early
English. The round arches of the groined roof have the character of
the former, while the round abaci of the pillars correspond to the
latter style.
CHAPTER XI.
m. gpfadfr ttfriirrfr.
T. Mildred's lies out of the beaten track,
and is hidden away in an obscure part of
the city which has long ceased to be the
abode of the affluent ; it is probable
therefore that visitors to Canterbury often
miss seeing it, and that many who have lived all their
lives in the city have never entered this church, which
is one of the most interesting in Canterbury.
As we pass through Stour Street it is sad to see
the signs of squalid poverty which abound in the
densely packed courts and alleys which lie between
the street and the river. Here and there an old
timber-framed house stands sound and sightly yet, in
the midst of modern decay, though its foundations
were laid two hundred years or more ago. But St. Mildred's was old
St. Mildred's then, and although some part of its beauty has departed,
we may be glad that in our own days a new reverence has grown up for
the ancient fabrics which were reared in the dawn of our history, so that
they are cared for and religiously preserved.
At what epoch a Christian church was first built where St. Mildred's
now stands we know not, but the record of the stones antedates that of
the historian. The walls of the church bear witness to an antiquity
6". IV. quoin,
St. Mildred's.
66 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
beyond that which arch and window would imply, and we do not doubt
that here, as at St. Martin's, there has been a building of importance
since the Roman times. Not only do Roman tiles abound in the walls,
but there is strong reason to believe that the massive blocks of oolite
which are built into the quoins of the south wall of the nave, were also
taken from a Roman building. Mr. Hussey called attention to these
stones in Vol. I. of Archceologia Cantiana. Since then the late Sir Gilbert
Scott pointed out that the very peculiar coarse oolite of these blocks is
exactly that of the Roman pillars from Reculver, which are now on the
south side of Canterbury Cathedral. It is also of exactly the same kind
as the large blocks found in the most ancient part of the old Saxon
church at Dover Castle.
Gostling, writing a century ago, speaks of undoubted Reman remains
still visible at St. Mildred's, and states that, in the pulling down of part
of the city wall in 1769, the destroyers were stopped by a course of
Roman brick, quite through the wall. He also speaks of " a fair Roman
arch " over the window of the " west end of the south aisle." The
" fair Roman arch," however, is no more than a pointed arch in which
Roman bricks from an earlier building have been made use of. Gostling
supposes that the Christians of the Roman garrison may have had a
chapel at St. Mildred's. According to Stow, the church was destroyed
by fire in 1246. That part of it was burnt is probable, but portions of
the present fabric seem undoubtedly earlier than the date mentioned.
The Rectory was an appanage of St. Augustine's Monastery, until the
time of the dissolution, when it was taken by the King.
The church, at the present time, consists of a nave and chancel,
each with its north aisle. A south chancel of the Tudor period has
been converted into a south chapel by filling up its arch. A small north
chapel opens into the chancel aisle, and is now used as a vestry. A
tower formerly stood on the north side between the two north aisles, but
this was pulled down, the materials of the tower and the fine peal of
bells it contained being sold. The church is large and lofty, but its fine
chancel would appear to still greater advantage if the south chancel were
again opened, and the organ, which now blocks up the north aisle,
ST. MILDRED'S CHURCH. 67
placed therein. There is a remarkable variety in the pointed arches
dividing the nave and the chancel from the north aisles. The two
nearest the west end are alike, and very obtuse, the next is higher and
more acute, while the chancel arcade is more pointed still. Mediaeval
architects were never slaves to symmetrical monotony ; they adapted the
lines of their work to the necessities of the situation, and no doubt that
is sufficient explanation of the peculiar dissimilarity of these arches.
The pillars supporting the nave arches are octagonal, each face slightly
concaved, as are also the capitals and bases. On the westernmost pillar
is a bracket and niche, with a rectangular canopy, once probably occupied
by a statuette of the Madonna, or St. Mildred.
The windows are various in style ; the five-light east window of the
chancel has good rectilinear tracery ; it is to be hoped some munificent
churchman will one day give it its due adornment of painted glass.
The west window, in the same style, is of three lights, and the south
windows have elegant curvilinear tracery. In the aisle are five lancet
windows, two of which are filled with stained glass. One is a memorial
window " to James and Sarah Houlden, erected by their daughter, Mary
Ann, September, 1881." The second has a mournful interest, as being
the gift of the late Miss Pemell, who met with a tragical death in the
fire on the Dane John. In one of the south windows is the only frag-
ment of old glass in the church — a rude figure of St. Mildred.
The ceiling at the east end of the chancel is pannelled in wood ;
the carved oak bench heads of the stalls are interesting remnants of the
ancient miserere stalls. The carved bird is possibly a rebus on the
name of the ancient family of Cokyn. Another genuine relic of old
wood carving is the font-cover. The stone font is octagonal, each panel
bearing a quatrefoil.
The monuments are interesting, especially those to the Cranmers.
The first of these is an elegant marble monument, painted and gilded,
in memory of Thomas Cranmer, son of Edmund Cranmer. The latter
was Archdeacon of Canterbury, and Provost of Wingham, and held
various other preferments bestowed upon him by his brother, Archbishop
Cranmer, but in 1554 he had to escape into Germany to save his life,
' ' ' i ft
mm
iIi|I!;Mf#fi \
ST. MILDRED'S CHURCH.
being charged that he, a priest, had married. His preferments were
taken from him, and he was enjoined to abandon his wife, but he refused
to do so, and died many years after in Germany. His son, Thomas,
whose tomb is in St. Mildred's, lived in that parish, was a charitable and
worthy citizen, and died in
1604, aged 69.
Another monument is to
the memory of Sir William
Cranmer, Knt., a descendant
also of Edmund Cranmer. In
1691, he was chosen governor
of the Merchant Adventurers
Company, London. He died
in 1697, but was not buried
at St. Mildred's.
The numerous mural, and
other memorials of departed
worthies, once resident in St.
Mildred's, remind us that the
parish had its fair share, in
former days, of wealthy parish-
ioners. One tablet commem-
orates " Thomassine Hony-
wood, widowe, late ye wife of
Antiony Honywood of this
Pishe, Esq., and before ye
€^i. wife of John Adye, of Dodd-
ington, 9th July, 1626. One
of her sons married Elizabeth
Old Bench-head, St. Mildred's. Waller, eldest daughter of
Thos. Waller of Beckons field, in the county of Buck." In the chancel
aisle is a handsome marble monument to various members of the
Bridger family. Here also, concealed by the organ, is an altar tomb of
Sir Francis Head, Bart., who died 1716. Close by is a memorial tablet,
#/
70 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
dated 1844, to John Cooper, "Alderman and Magistrate of this city for
30 years, and during that time, three times elected to the important
office of Mayor."
The churchyard contains one monument, which the citizens ought,
out of gratitude, to take under their charge. It is the tomb of worthy
Alderman Simmons, who, at the beginning of the present century, con-
verted what was then known as the Dane John Field, into a beautiful
garden and recreation ground for the citizens. This he did at a cost of
£1,500. We read on his monument (which much needs some " Old
Mortality's" loving hand to set it in order) that — " The many services
which he rendered to his native city, added to the extraordinary ability
that he possessed, so raised him in the estimation of his fellow citizens,
that they, with one voice, conferred on him the honour of a seat in
Parliament, the important duties of which it pleased God he should but
a very short time fulfil. Death rendered the motto of his arms ' Vincit
qui patitur,' of no further avail." The Alderman died in 1807. Close
to his grave is that of Capon Weekes, the father of a distinguished son
— Henry Weekes, R.A., of whose memory, as a native genius, Canterbury
should feel proud. On other tombs around, we read the brief records
of many notable Canterbury families who formerly resided in this parish.
The exterior of St. Mildred's is worthy of attention and study, the
remarkable south wall of the nave especially, in which flint, Roman tiles
and oolitic stones are mingled. It is evidently the most ancient part of
the church. The south chancel is a curious example of the chequered
flint work so much fancied in the Tudor period. There is a rough cross,
shaped in flints, in the west wall. In the east wall of the chancel there
is another cross of elegant design, carved in low relief, on a stone
tablet. The south chancel was erected by Thomas Attwood, who lived
in Stour Street, in the time of Henry VIII., and was four times Mayor
of Canterbury. He and several of his family were buried in it, but their
monuments have disappeared.
We were anxious to ascertain some account of the tower, and the
Rector (Dr. Mangan) kindly sought among the archives of the church
the faculty obtained for its destruction. This informs us that, at a
ST. MILDRED'S CHURCH. 71
meeting of the vestry, on 25th June, 1832, it was resolved the tower
should be pulled down, to make room for additional sittings " for the
poor parishioners," and that four of the five bells should be sold, the
remaining one being " sufficient for the necessary uses of the said
parish." A sum of £101 6s. had been raised in the parish. This, with
the price obtained for the bells, was to be devoted to the necessary
alterations. Two bells were inscribed Richard Phelps, 1711, one
"Josephus Hatch mee fecit 1622." Another dated 1536 had a figure
of Christ, bound, and wearing the crown of thorns, and an inscription
in old English — " I.H.S. Have marce on the soules of Thomas Wood,
and Margaret his wyfe."
With the Rectory of St. Mildred's is united that of St. Mary de
Castro. This latter church has long since been destroyed. Somner,
speaking of " St. Mary Castle," says — " this Church hath lyen long
desolate ; and the chancel only is left standing of it. Time was, it was
as absolute a Parish Church as any about the city." The chancel ruins
have long since disappeared, and only the name of the Church survives
in St. Mary Street. St. Mary of the Castle had at an earlier period
absorbed the adjacent small parish of St. John the Poor. This church
stood at the end of St. John's Lane, and Somner speaks of its having
been " of a long time prophaned into a malt-house or the like."
--;>;. •V^llV- S^i.
CHAPTER XII.
»t. Iprgarri's, St. t&toxQt's, M. Iprg UJagfralnt's axtJtr
$i 1 awl's.
HE Church of St. Margaret is not architecturally note-
worthy. It formerly consisted of a nave and chancel, with
two aisles and two chancel-chapels. Somner says that the
south chapel was dedicated to St. John, and the other to
" Our Lady." The chapel of St. John was sliced off, and
the east end of the church deformed, in order to straighten the street.
The deformity was skilfully masked by the late Sir Gilbert Scott in the
restoration carried out during the incumbency of the Rev. E. H.Woodall.
The wall of the south chancel was set back and an apse erected. The
fine organ, which fills up the irregular space in the north aisle, was the
gift of Mr. Woodall, who contributed most generously to the cost of the
restoration, and devoted a very considerable sum to the adornment of
the church.
The three aisles are separated by arcades of pointed arches on
octagonal pillars. The small belfry-tower at the west end of the south
aisle contains three bells, one dated 1599, and two by Hatch dated 1625.
The Baptistery under the tower has been recently paved with tiles.
Reverent care has been devoted to the adornment of the church
throughout ; its decorations and fittings are in good taste, and several
of the windows have been filled with stained glass. The most imposing
ST. MARGARETS CHURCH. 73
monument is that of Sir George Newman, whose recumbent figure is
carved in marble. He was a Judge of the Cinque Ports, and Commissary
of Archbishops Whitgift, Bancroft, and Abbot. High up on the south
wall, almost out of sight, is a bust of John Watson, a worthy citizen of
Canterbury, who filled the several offices of Mayor, Chamberlain, and
Sheriff, and in 1633 left property to be applied to the purchase of "good
russett cloth gowns " to be given to the " most miserable, poorest, aged,
blind, impotent and decrepit." The bust was originally in the chancel.
The most notable of those whom we know to have had their last resting-
place in this church was William Somner, the learned author of the
"Antiquities of Canterbury," to whose memory there is a small brass
wall tablet. Somner wrote his great book during the reign of Charles I.,
and published it under the patronage of Archbishop Laud, in 1640. In
that same year, as Batteley tells us, "a dismal storm did arise, which did
shake and threaten with a final overthrow, the very foundation of the
Church. The madness of the people did rage, and prevailed beyond
resistance. The venerable Dean and Canons were turned out of their
stalls, * * * and whatsoever there was of beauty or decency in the
Holy Place, was despoiled by the outrages of Sacrilege and Prophane-
ness." At such a time the work of so thorough a churchman as Somner
was ill-timed, and "the best fate which the book or its author could at
that time expect, was to lie hid, and to be sheltered under the security
of being not regarded." Laud fell ; the King fell ; Cromwell passed
away ; the Commonwealth came to an end ; and the Restoration found
Somner still living, and his book unsold. In 1662 the publisher printed
a new title page, bearing that year's date, and the work was sold.
Somner thought of issuing a second edition, but died, in 1669, before
he could carry out his design.
Among the noted parishioners of St. Margaret's was a certain
John Winter, who, in 1470, left two tenements at the " Yren Cross," of
the value of sixteen shillings annually, to pay the cost of a lamp to burn
continually before the High Altar. The Iron Cross spoken of stood at
the junction of Watling Street and St. Margaret's Street. The two
houses left by John Winter were confiscated to the Crown when lamp
74 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
burning before altars came to be considered superstitious ; they were
purchased by Alderman Watson, above referred to, and were left by him
for the poor of the city. John Winter was buried in the chancel of the
church. Leonard Cotton, Mayor in 1579, the founder of Cotton's
Hospital, was also buried in St. Margaret's.
An Ecclesiastical Court, which was established in 1560, held its
sittings in the Chapel of the Virgin. There the Archbishop of Canter-
bury held his quadrennial visitation of the clergy of this part of the
diocese. In this church also till very recently, the Archdeacons of
Canterbury have held their annual visitations. The living is a rectory ;
it was one of the many benefices attached to the Abbey of St. Augustine;
but in 1271 it was transferred to the Poor Priests' Hospital. Since 1586,
however, it has been in the gift of the Archdeacons of Canterbury.
FEW years ago St. George's Church underwent extensive
alterations and enlargement, to accommodate the parish-
ioners of the united parishes of St. George and St. Mary
Magdalen. Some portion however of the ancient structure
remains. It was one of the churches attached to Christ
Church, and when the Monastery was dissolved, the rectory was trans-
ferred to the Dean and Chapter. The original church consisted of a
nave and south aisle. It had formerly a steeple extending into the
street, the footpath passing through an arch in the tower, but this was
taken down towards the end of the last century. There is in the north
wall a small closed-up doorway, which, no doubt, formerly gave access
to the steeple. The church, as it now stands, consists of a nave and
chancel, with north and south aisles. The chancel and the north aisle
are new, having been erected during the recent restoration of the
church, which was due to the energy and zeal of the late Rector (the
Rev. N. H. McGachen).
The nave and aisles are separated by arcades of five pointed arches
on octagonal pillars, with square abaci. Three of the pillars on the
ST. GEORGE'S CHURCH. 75
north side were brought from old Burgate Church. The others, which
are new, have been made to correspond in style. The tower is supported
on pointed arches. Access to the belfry and clock-chamber is obtained
from the gallery. In the south wall is a tomb recess, and a piscina of
early date. In the east end of this south aisle, is a three light window,
to the memory of Mrs. Kingsford, who died in 1841. The altar formerly
stood below this window. In the south wall, at this end, are two sedilia;
an ancient door, now blocked up, was probably a priest's door. In
the floor of the nave is a brass, with the figure of John Lovelle, priest,
rector of the church, who died 1438. A tombstone, partly broken, bears
an inscription to Villai Dole, minister of the French church, in 1686.
The north aisle contains a three light window to the memory of the
Hon. Mrs. Isaac, who died in St. George's parish in 1850.
The font is ancient and curious, octagonal, supported on a central
pedestal and seven surrounding pillars. There was formerly, at the east
end of the church, on a panel of wood, a painting representing Guy
Fawkes entering the Parliament House. It bore a latin inscription
showing that it had been placed there "to perpetuate the memory of
popish infamy." It was apparently painted during the reign of Charles I.
The Registers of the church, which date from 1574, contain a copy of
the entries of a previous Register, dating back to 1538.
HE living of St. Mary Magdalen, Burgate, was united to that
of St. George's in 1681, and the former church was pulled
down in 1871. The tower remains still standing. It is
recorded that Sir Harry Ramsey, of St. George's parish,
gave six seams of lime towards the rebuilding of it in 1503.
A few monuments are preserved under the tower, one being to an ex-
traordinary Canterbury character, Betty Bolaine, the miser, who was
buried in the church in 1805. The church contained incised brasses,
which "disappeared" during the process of demolition. Two of these,
the oldest figured brasses in Canterbury, were in memory of Christopher
76 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
Klook, and his wife Margareta. The earliest bore date 1494. The
church had a Norman font, which was sold, we believe, to a church near
Dover. The ancient bells were also sold. One is in St. George's
Church, and two went to Madagascar. In a house close to the church
"Tom Ingoldsby" (Rev. R. H. Barham) the author of the " Ingoldsby
Legends," was born. William Gray, a relative of Stephen Gray, the
first discoverer of electrical conduction, was buried in this church in
1714. He had been sixty years in the city Council.
ASTED speaks of St. Paul's as a small mean building, but
much has been done, since his day, to enlarge and beautify
the church. Its pointed arches and round pillars are Early
English, but the oldest windows belong to the late pointed
style. There are three piscinas in the chancel and the
north aisle ; the roof is pannelled ; the tower contains three bells. In
the reign of Henry' III. the Rectory of the parish belonged to Hamo
Doge, who endowed the Vicarage and founded the Chantry, of which the
name survives in Chantry Lane. The living was settled by Henry VIII.
on his new Dean and Chapter, and remained with them until its union
with St. Martin's in 1681. It was then arranged that the presentation
should alternately be made by the Archbishop and the Dean and Chapter.
The church had no burial ground of its own, and the parishioners used
that of St. Augustine's Abbey until 1591, when the ground in Longport
was purchased and consecrated. There is a brass tablet on the chancel
wall in memory of John Twyne, a worthy schoolmaster, who, in the
reign of Queen Elizabeth, taught the boys Latin, and ruled the city as
Mayor. He died in 1581. A tombstone in the north aisle bears an
inscription on a brass plate — " Sacred to the never dyeing memory of
the much bemoand and lamented patterne of all goodness, George
Fineux, Esq., gent, second sonne to Thomas Fineux, Esq., of Huttam,
who changed this mortall life the 24th October, A.D. 1653."
In this parish died in 1737 David Fferne, a noted dwarf. The
ST. PAUL'S CHURCH. 77
parish Register records that " David Fferne, the short man, born in the
shire of Ross, in the parish of Fferne, aged 27 years, was but 30 inches
from head to foot, and 36 inches about." A mural monument records
the loyalty and the reward thereof of Sir William Rooke — " After some
years' imprisonment, and other sufferings," during the Commonwealth,
he was, soon after the Restoration (1660), given a regiment of foot, and
the command of a troop of horse, with other proofs of Royal gratitude.
Sir William's seat was at St. Lawrence, Canterbury, at which he lived
and died. Here too lived his more distinguished son, Admiral Sir George
Rooke, who did good service in driving out the next Sovereign of that
Stuart line, to which his father had been so devoted. William III.
promoted him to the rank of rear admiral of the red, and his capture of
Gibraltar in 1704, won for him a deathless fame in English history.
Queen Ann received him with all honour, but he retired, still in the
prime of life, to spend a few years in his quiet home at Canterbury,
where he died in 1708, and was buried in St. Paul's church. Still
another Rooke is connected with the traditions of St. Paul's, having
fought a fatal duel in the North Holmes with Ensign Buckeridge. Both
were killed. A stone, on which the words "Rooke died here" are
barely legible, still marks the spot.
The enlargement of St. Paul's Church is due to the late Rev. W. J.
Chesshyre, M.A., for 17 years rector of St. Martin's with St. Paul's. To
his memory the handsome west window was erected by public subscrip-
tion in 1859. The south aisle was erected by him, and other extensive
improvements carried out. The chancel was enlarged and a new four-
light east window with good Decorated tracery and painted glass,
was erected to the memory of William Henry Furley, Esq. A handsome
new reredos has recently been placed below it. The north aisle also
contains a new three-light east window. The chancel has a memorial
window to the Rev. W. A. Newman, formerly Dean of Cape Town, and
in the new south aisle is a window to the late Mr. John Lancefield. The
font is new, and replaced an ancient one, the square basin of which
stood on four marble columns. Joseph Hatch, the celebrated founder
of bells, was married at St. Paul's in 1607.
CHAPTER XIII.
\t j$tej$m\% fadimcjt0u.
T. STEPHEN'S, Hackington, is situated
about a mile from the centre of the city,
on the north. It is a charming spot, with
the old church half hidden amidst sur-
rounding circles of limes, the quaint cluster
of cottages and almshouses, the fine man-
sion of Hales Place, the park with its
timbered background of hill, the village
school, the adjacent farm, and the 'Beverley,'
S=? whose ancient host has catered to his rustic
sapS- neighbours for three score years, and has
jr-Sg^" officiated as parish-clerk over three genera-
tions of them, from baptism to burial, ever
since George the Third was King.
We must go back to the days of Stephen
S*»s! Langton for the origin of the intimate
connection of the church with the Arch-
deacons of Canterbury. The great Arch-
bishop who had so large a share in the
struggle between King John and the Barons, attached the living of
Hackington to the Archdeaconry then held by his brother Simon. This
Simon Langton had taken a notable part against John ; he had been an
active partizan of the French Dauphin, who made him his Chancellor. It
ST. STEPHEN'S, HAC 'KINGTON. 79
is not surprising therefore that by the time John's son Henry had grown
to manhood, Simon had grown " not only out of means, but also out
of favour both with the King and Pope." It was then, however, that
Stephen Langton, remembering that " charity begins at home," provided
handsomely for his brother by making him Archdeacon of Canterbury,
and giving him the livings of St. Stephen's and Teynham. Simon
removed to the vicaiage of Hackington, which long continued to be
the residence of the Archdeacons, who had previously occupied a small
house in St. Gregory's. He founded the Poor Priests' Hospital at
Canterbury, and died in 1248, having held the archdeaconry for twenty-
one years. Matthew Paris, the monk, says of him that, having upset
the peace of two kingdoms, it was not wonderful that he became a
perturber and persecutor of his Church at Canterbury. Hackington, as
the residence of the Archdeacons of Canterbury during three centuries,
must have been the home of many distinguished men — whether of
Archdeacon Peter Roger, who became Pope Gregory XI., we know not.
It was there that Archbishops Arundel and Warham died. It narrowly
missed becoming a more important place. Archbishop Baldwin, who
went with Cceur de Lion to the Crusades, and died in the Holy Land,
began to build a college for secular canons at Hackington, but it was
never completed, for the monks of Christ Church, with their Prior
Alan, appealed to the Pope against the scheme, and a bull was issued
commanding the Archbishop to pull down what he had erected.
Hackington can boast of a connection with royalty. Edward III.
held a tilt there on his return from the French war. Henry VI. had a
house and park there ; these in the reign of Elizabeth were granted to
Sir Roger Manwood. This worthy barrister, who became Chief Baron
of the Exchequer, was a great benefactor to St. Stephen's, and founded
the almshouses which serve to perpetuate his memory in the village.
His mansion, which adjoined the churchyard, was no doubt the former
residence of the archdeacons ; it remained in the Manwood family till
1637, when the estate was sold to Colonel Colepepper. In 1675 Mr. E.
Hales became the owner of it ; he was knighted by James II., and it
was his great grandson, Sir Edward Hales, Bart., who pulled down the
ST. STEPHEN'S, HACKINGTON. 81
old mansion and built, on the slope of the hill, the fine house which
has recently been so greatly altered and enlarged for St. Mary's Jesuit
College.
The church is beautifully situated at the base of the hill, and is
surrounded by rows of splendid lindens. It is cruciform in shape, the
massively buttressed tower at the west end being equal in breadth to the
nave. The west door is a most valuable example of the transition
from the Norman, to which style its mouldings and capitals belong,
but the arch is pointed. Through this door we enter into the belfry,
from which a rather curious carved oak door leads into the nave.
Over it is the date, 1630, and the text, " Let all things be done
decently and in order." The tower contains eight bells, which are
sweet toned and melodious. The St. Stephen's ringers have a reputation
to maintain, and are not unmindful to place on record their efforts in
the delightful art of change-ringing. A tablet tells us that the two
trebles were added to the peal in 1845, when Holt's ten-part peal of
5040 grandsire triples was rung by the St. Stephen's Amateur Society in
three hours and one minute. Another tablet records that in 1847 there
was rung a true and complete peal of 6720 Bob-Major changes in four
hours and three minutes.
Within the south porch is a well preserved Norman doorway ; the
head of the arch is filled in with diapered squares, and the shafts have
cushion capitals. This doorway, a nave window near it, and the lower
parts of the tower are the only portions of the church which retain
Norman characteristics. The nave windows, with the one exception
mentioned, are pointed, some lancets. The chancel arch is pointed,
but the transept arches round. The chancel is large in proportion to
the nave. It is well lighted by a handsome east window of five lights,
the tracery perpendicular. The windows north and south of the chancel
are very elegant ; their tracery is apparently late Decorated merging into
Perpendicular. The north transept has a three light window which is
worthy of notice, but the other windows are without interest. The
chancel screen is carved oak. The stone font was presented by Sir
Roger Manwood in 1591.
K
82 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
The most noteworthy of the monuments is that of Sir Roger
Manwood in the south transept. It is of marble, and contains in a
central niche a fine bust of the knight in his costume as Chief Baron
of the Exchequer. In panels below are kneeling marble figures of his
first wife Dorothy and their five children ; on the other side kneels his
second wife Elizabeth, without offspring. On the slab of the tomb,
upon an admirably carved pallet of plaited rush, lies the effigy of Sir
Roger in grim and bony nakedness. The skeleton is a clever work
of wood-carving. Above the tomb are suspended a helmet, sword,
and gloves, presumably those of Sir Roger, though his weapons were
probably such as the arm of the law might wield. A Latin inscription
tells us that, amongst his other good works, he founded Sandwich
School. He died in 1592.
This monument of Sir Roger Manwood is of greater interest to the
archaeologist than a casual observer would expect. The bust of the
Chief Baron bears the famous ;< collar of SS," which has engaged the
pens of so many antiquarians. The collar is so named from certain
links shaped like the letter S. The interest arises as to what that letter
signifies and what was the origin of this particular collar, evidently a
badge of great distinction. Whether the S stands for the martyred
Simplicius ; or for the name of the Countess of Salisbury, whose garter
became historical ; for " Soverayne," the motto of Henry IV., or for
" Souvenez," a supposed motto of his noble father, " time-honoured
Lancaster," which are some of the many explanations given, it is not
for us to decide. It was undoubtedly worn by Henry IV. and by his
Queen. It has passed through stages of development ; and it is still a
collar of SS that is worn by the Lord Chief Justice. Sir Roger Manwood
was, it seems, the first of the Lord Chief Barons to receive the honoured
decoration, the use of which was limited by special statute in the reign
of Henry VIII. The Latin epitaph records the chief points in the
career of Sir Roger, who died in December, 1592. It is curious that
the thirteen lines, commencing —
" Inclines oculum me conspice marmore pressum "
are also quoted by Parsons as graven on a tombstone, dated 1436, in
ST. STEPHEN'S, HACKINGTON. 83
Graveney Church, to John Martyn, who was a Judge in the time of
Henry VI.
On the wall of the nave, near the south door, is a beautiful epitaph,
written by Sir John Manwood, in memory of his wife, 20th May, 1642.
It is a touching record of a true and noble woman. The first part of
the inscription is as follows :—" Glory be to God on High, our Most
Gracious Saviour! Within this Church (the temple of the everlasting
God) lies the body of Lievina, Lady Manwood, in the vault belonging
to my family. She was eldest daughter to Sir John Ogle, Knt., some-
time a Colonel in the Netherlands and Governor of Utrecht, where he
was in martial affairs and at home in England, both in his life and
death justly preclare. She was a most indulgent wife to me from the
very hour of our happy and blessed conjunction in marriage, which was
on the 11th December, 1627, till the 19th February, 1641, in the evening
of which day, between 9 and 10 o'clock, we were separated by her
dissolution and my recovery out of a dangerous sickness. In the ex-
tremity whereof grief so possessed and pierced through her most pious
heart that she instantly sickened, and died five days after, in the 36th
year of her age. Her life was most pious and full of charity ; her
conversation sweet, most sweetly discreet ; for she flattered none, yet
obliged all. Her love to me was most singularly true and eminent ; and
as God's priest united us sacredly in marriage, so God Himself did our
hearts and souls, for we had but one heart and one soul : death hath
separated our bodies, but can never our souls. For hers is praising God
in Heaven, and so doth mine, though my body is on the Earth. Death
and the Resurrection will unite again our souls and bodies eternally to
praise our God, the most Glorious Trinity — which God of His infinite
mercy grant."
The north transept contains the memorials of the Baker family,
long intimately associated with St. Stephen's, and on the wall of the
nave are monuments to other members of the same family, whose
present representative is W. de Chair Baker, Esq., of St. Stephen's.
One is to the memory of Colonel Charles Cyril Taylor, C.B., who was
killed at Sobraon. He was the eldest son of Lieut.-Col. Taylor (who
84
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
was killed at Vimiera) and Elizabeth, daughter of the late John Baker,
formerly M.P. for Canterbury.
The chancel east window is filled with stained glass, representing
our Saviour and the Four Evangelists. It was the gift of the late Rev.
John White, who was Vicar of the parish for 39 years. The chancel
contains a memorial of " Captain William Alcock, Esquire, who served
his country faithfully, both by sea and land, lived virtuously, and on
21st February, 1616, ended his life most Christianly in sure hope to rise
again." On the south side of the chancel is a painted window (Christ
and the Woman of Samaria) by Willement, which, with a handsome
brass, is " in memory of John Furley, of Canterbury, Banker, born 5th
April, 1773, died 7th November, 1854."
Close to the Church are the almshouses of Manwood's Hospital,
six single houses, the seventh (a double house) the abode of the parish
clerk. The present occupant (Edward Austen) has held the office for
63 years, and is one of the very few certificated parish clerks remaining
in the kingdom. He was one of the ringers of the two peals alluded to
above, and still takes his place in the octave with as much spirit, if not
as much strength, as he did half a century back. The patronage of the
almshouses is attached to the ownership of the Hales' Estate.
ftfefe^-
~y , lvi
535tf<r *■•"-" ^i
CHAPTER XIV.
3t §uwifcnt's CIntrrjr.
HE Church of St. Dunstan's is
one of the most interesting
of the parish churches of
Canterbury. It is outside the
ancient boundaries of the city,
but it has long been brought
practically within it. It was
one of the many foundations
of Archbishop Lanfranc (1070-
1089), who made it an appanage
of his Priory of St. Gregory in
Northgate.
A hundred years passed
away, and St. Dunstan's formed
a stage in the pilgrimage of
the King of England to the
shrine of Becket. Henry had
dismounted at Harbledown,
and walked with his attendants
to St. Dunstan's. Entering the
church, the king partly stripped,
put on the hair shirt and the cloak of the pilgrim, and walked barefooted
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
to the Cathedral. The little Norman Church became, no doubt, a place of
some note in connection with the king's penance. Other pilgrims would
be likely to follow Henry's example, and pause at St. Dunstan's before
passing on their way into the city. By whom the church of Lanfranc
was enlarged we cannot say, but the vicarage was established and en-
dowed by Archbishop Reynolds in 1322, and during the same century,
one Henry of Canterbury, a chaplain of the king, founded a chapel on
the north side of the church, dedicating it to the Holy Trinity. He
endowed there a perpetual chantry, which he gave in charge to the Poor
Priest's Hospital. This chantry was continued until the Reformation.
It was not the only one, however, attached to the church, for we read
that two chaplains were maintained by the Roper family to sing masses
at the altar of St. Nicholas, for the souls of their dead. This family,
during several centuries, lived in the parish, and were buried in the
church. It was a Roper who built the chancel aisle, known as the Roper
Chancel. The family residence was at Place House, or St. Dunstan's
Place, which stood opposite the churchyard, its site being at present
occupied by the brewery of Messrs. Flint and Sons. Only the old gate-
way of the mansion remains (see initial). One William Rosper, who
resided there in the reign of Henry III., was a great benefactor to St.
Martin's Priory, Dover. The Ropers continued to be buried in the
church till the elder male line became extinct, but their vault continued
to receive members of the family down to 1741. Lord Teynham, a Roper-
Curzon, is descended from a Christopher Roper, of the 16th century.
The chantries and masses, with their attendant friars, were swept
away at the Reformation, but that same period furnished to the church
a relic which is still preserved in it — the decapitated head of Sir Thomas
More. The sturdy Chancellor preferred to accept death rather than
acknowledge Henry VIII. to be the supreme head of the church. He
was executed on Tower Hill in 1535. His body was first buried in
the tower, and afterwards in Chelsea church. His head, as usual in
such cases, was set up on a pole on London Bridge. There it
remained for a fortnight, when his daughter Margaret obtained posses-
sion of it, and having encased the head in a leaden casket treasured it
ST. DUNSTAN'S CHURCH.
87
as a precious relic till her death. Margaret More married John Roper,
and spent her last days at St. Dunstan's. She was buried in the Roper
vault, where her leaden coffin was found intact a few years since. At
her earnest desire the head of her father was buried in the vault. It
was placed within a grated niche in the wall, and there remains to the
present day.
St. Dunstan's Church : North side.
St. Dunstan's, like most of our churches, shows the work of several
ages. During the recent restoration the plaster having been removed
from the exterior, some ancient "herring-bone"' flint work was laid
bare in the north wall ; this was probably a part of Lanfranc's original
structure. The present entrance to the church is by the north porch,
erected in the reign of the second James. From this a door opens into
the Trinity Chapel which is now used as a vestry. The original external
doorway of the chapel has been blocked up, but it can still be seen.
The chapel contains a well preserved piscina and a "squint," now closed,
through which when the " poor priests " chanted mass the altar of the
Trinity Chape! could be seen from the church.
The church consists of a nave, with a south aisle, and a chancel
which has a south aisle known as the Roper Chancel. Four pointed
arches, with elegant moulded piers and circular shafts, divide the nave
88 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
from the aisle. The nave and aisle windows have good tracery ; the
west window is later, but good. There is a trefoiled lancet in the
chancel, and a square-headed, two-light window filled with stained glass,
" in memory of Edward and Sarah Holttum, erected by their only
surviving son, Charles Holttum, F.R.C.S.E." The east window of three
lights with good tracery, contains small painted medallions. There
appears to be no old glass in the church. Two pointed arches with an
octagonal pillar, separate the chancel from the Roper chancel ; the
latter has a flat timber ceiling, panelled. It contains two ancient altar
tombs of Bethersden marble, monuments of the Ropers, once richly
carved, but now in a sad state of decay. Their brasses have been
stolen. Below this chancel is the Roper vault above referred to. A
monument to the son of Margaret Roper is now on the north wall ; it
was formerly in this chancel. There are no other monuments of any
note, but several quaint old tombstones cover the now filled up vaults.
One in the south aisle commemorates Claude Rondeau, a "marchant"
at Canterbury, " refugee in England for the Protestant religion." Several
of the Rondeau family were buried there. The father died in 1720.
One son died at St. Petersburg, after living there nine years as His
Majesty's Resident (1739).
Near this is a curious memorial of "Elizabeth Scranton, who,
having lived a vertuous and pious life, died ye sixth day of February,
in the 47th yeare of her virginity, and of man's salvation 1685." Other
old tombstones commemorate Christopher Browne, who died 1657, and
Daniel Hall, who was twice Mayor of Canterbury ; his first wife was
Leah Rigden, who died in 1703. The tower at the west end of the
south aisle contains a belfry with six bells. Below it is an octagonal
font, with an oak cover of elaborate tabernacle work.
In a field opposite to the church once stood a chapel, built by
Archbishop Baldwin in 1187, and dedicated to Thomas a Becket. A
fair used annually to be held in St. Dunstan's. The parish once also
enjoyed two privileges which it would scarcely desire to recover — a
prison and a gallows, the former in St. Dunstan's Street, the latter on
St. Thomas's Hill.
kO^
^Ss
CHAPTER XV.
f0ljr (to, Htafepte; m. |*ta's; <Ji ^{rcp;
OLY Cross, Westgate, was erected by Archbishop Sudbury
about 500 years ago. It replaced the church which stood
over the former Westgate, and which was pulled down
when the Archbishop rebuilt a part of the city wall and
erected the present Westgate. The church consists of a
nave, chancel, and two aisles ; it has a square tower at the south west
corner. Formerly a porch and chantry stood where the road now
intervenes between the church and the Westgate. Over the porch
anciently stood a sculptured representation of the Crucifixion— with
Mary and John at the foot of the Cross. In a will dated 1521, Richard
Marley instructed his executors " to see gilt well and workmanly the
Crucifix of our Lord." The Crucifix, however, had disappeared by
Somner's time, and had been replaced by the King's Arms. There was
anciently a priest's room over the porch, for the accommodation no
doubt of the priest of the "Jesus Masse," who was maintained by the
" Fraternity of the Jesus Masse, with the help and devotion of the
parishioners." This Chantry was supported by lands and tenements
in St. Dunstan's and Harbledown. The priest's stipend, including costs
of wax and wine, amounted to £7 a year, the parish clerk having 6s. 8d.
for ringing to the said mass, and helping to sing it. The Fraternity was
dissolved in the time of Edward VI. Holy Cross was frequently used
90 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
for the performance of the " Miracle Plays " so common in the middle
ages.
The church has probably undergone considerable alterations since
its erection ; the present tower dates only from a few years since, the
old structure having become unsafe ; it contains five bells. No trace
of the old chantry now remains, the site having been taken up in
making the new road. Close to the spot on which this chantry stood
there was buried the last criminal executed at Westgate. A few aged
citizens still remember seeing Nicholas Nolan hanged there for highway
robbery on the Sturry Road. The church is spacious but architecturally
of no great interest. The windows are either late Decorated or Perpen-
dicular. The chancel contains a three-light pointed east window and
two square headed windows on each side. It has a few old carved oak
miserere stalls, and there is a piscina in the south wall. It also con-
tains a mural monument to Deane John Parker, who died 1838, aged
72 years. Below this is a memorial to Robert Deane, " a man of meek
and humble manners and unostentatious piety." We are told that a
Sunday School which he founded in this parish, together with a gallery
and organ erected at his own expense, remain to perpetuate his memory.
But gallery and organ have already disappeared. Mr. Deane died in 1808
at the ripe age of 90. There is a monument to James Six, M.A., Fellow
of Trinity College, Cambridge, who died at Rome, 1786, aged 62,
Canterbury being his native place. The Six family were descended, we
believe, from a celebrated Burgomaster of Amsterdam. Into the tower
has been shifted the monumental bust of Abraham Colfe, a worthy
whose name and fame are all but forgotten in his native city. He died
in 1656, and left his estate to the Leather Sellers' Company, of which
he was a member, directing, by his will, that 27s. yearly should be paid
to the minister of " Rood Church," near the Westgate, to be spent in
distributing bread to the poor. The font is octagonal, on a shaft of
similar form ; the carved wood cover is an elaborate specimen of
tabernacle work.
Holy Cross originally belonged to the Priory of St. Gregory. The
vicarage was endowed by Archbishop Stratford in 1347. It was united
ST. PETER'S CHURCH.
91
with the rectory of St. Peter in 1681, by Archbishop Sancroft. The
patronage is alternately vested in the Archbishop and the Dean and
Chapter.
HE old Church of St. Peter in the High Street is rarely
entered, and has ceased to be used for Divine Service,
although an occasional marriage is solemnised there. It
is in a shocking state of disrepair and dirt, and owing to
many years of gross neglect is rapidly becoming a ruin.
It is a most singularly irregular building ; the nave has a decided curve,
and narrows from east to west ; the south aisle is very narrow, the north
aisle very broad. The nave is separated from the aisles by arcades of
pointed arches, which all vary in size and are not regular in position.
There is no chancel arch, but the piers of the arcades at the east end
are pierced on either side ; on the north by a low feathered ogee arch
within the side of which there is a small square recess, probably an
aumbry ; on the south by a splayed lancet opening. The arches of the
nave are pointed, without mouldings, mostly on square piers ; on the
north side there is one square pillar with square abacus. The arch and
pier edges are chamfered. The middle pier on the south side has a
pointed arch, high up. It is now filled up, but was evidently open to
both nave and aisle. It is clear that the west end of the church and
the north aisle have been much altered from the original building. It
appears as if there had been at one time a chapel or baptistery at
this end where is now the vestry ; a north door opens to a bay of the
aisle which is evidently much older than the curiously shaped extension
of the aisle at that end. In this bay the aisle arch is pointed, the nave
arch round. The tower at the south west corner has a small trefoiled
window in the lower part, and later pointed windows in the belfry. The
masonry of the tower indicates an early date, and then a reconstruction
from material of a previous building. In its quoins are some unusually
massive oolite stones not unlike those of St. Mildred's, and mixed with
92 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
the flints of the walls are many apparently Roman tiles. The south
door was originally handsomely arched, with shafts and carved capitals,
a fragment of which remains on one side. There was no lack of doors
to the church, for there are two more on the north side and one, hooded
and moulded, in the east wall of the north aisle. These doors can only
be properly seen from the churchyard outside, where it is not too safe
to venture, for a vault occasionally caves in, and the centre buttress of
the north aisle is ready to fall. The condition of the church on this side
is most dangerous. Some of the windows are pointed, with fairly good
tracery, others square and poor, and one "modern" pointed, hideous.
A square window in the north aisle has elegant tracery, containing some
fragments of good old glass. There is an old square font. The pulpit
has an elaborate sounding board carved with cherubs, flowers, fruit, &c.
Under the west window is a grand state pew with a painted back and
canopy.
T. Alphege, St. Alphage, or St. Elphege, for the name is
variously spelt by both ancient and modern writers, is one
of the oldest of the parish churches of Canterbury. It is
dedicated to the Saxon Archbishop whom the Danes in
their sack of the city in 1011 barbarously murdered. It is
the only city church which was not at some time in the patronage of
either St. Augustine's or Christ Church Abbeys. It has so long suffered
neglect both within and without that it is now in a like condition to
St. Peter's. It is doubtful if the fabric is safe ; the tower is cracked,
and not long since a part of its parapet fell into the churchyard. The
interior of the church has not for many years been in a fit or decent
state for Divine Worship ; but recently an effort has been made to
improve the condition of the church, and to infuse new life into the
services, so that a marked improvement has taken place. The church
has two aisles, the chancel being continuous with the south aisle. Five
pointed arches on octagonal pillars separate the aisles ; the roof has
ST. ALPHEGE CHURCH. 93
tie-beams and king-posts. The tower is square, plain and low, and
stands at the west end of the north aisle. It serves as a porch to the
church, the principal entrance being by a doorway of the Tudor period.
There is also a west door opening to the churchyard, and a south door
in the chancel. The windows, most of which are Perpendicular, are
but poor, with the exception of the two-light Decorated windows on the
south side. The font is octagonal, and of the Tudor period, the panels
bearing roses and shields. Fragments of old glass remain in some of
the windows. On the second pillar is an inscription " Laude Prude
Thoma per quern fit ista columptna." By his will, dated 1468, this
Thomas Prude left money to erect a pillar in St. Alphege church, and
from this the age of the greater part of the present building may be
inferred. The most noteworthy parishioner buried in the church was
John Caxton, a mercer, who died in 1483 ; he was brother of William
Caxton, the first English printer.
LD Northgate Church, or St. Mary Northgate, stood in part
over an archway which formed the north gate of the city.
It was removed and for the most part re-built. The north
side of the old Norman church, however, remains in the
present building, which is devoid of architectural interest.
It has a remarkable brass of one Ralph Brown, who was Mayor of
Canterbury in 1507 and during part of 1510. His epitaph is certainly a
remarkable sample of spelling : —
All ye that stand up on mi corse
Rembember but lat Raff Brown I was
All dyr man and Mayer of this cete
Jesus a pon mi sowll have pete.
It was at Northgate that the Recorder of the City, with the Mayor,
Aldermen, and other civic dignitaries, used to meet the King when
passing through the city on his journey from Margate to London. At
94
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
such times the ceremony of delivering up the keys of the city to the
Sovereign was carried out with various loyal and flattering speeches from
the Recorder, as the mouthpiece of the citizens.
Pp^^jtr;
S3h
ITTLE need be said of the remaining city churches, for
they contain scarcely anything to interest a visitor. St.
Mary Bredman was so called it is said from a bread market
which formerly stood next to it. The church is a plain
oblong building without arches or divisions whatever. The
adioining Church House has a somewhat curious window looking into
the church. The sister church, St. Andrew's, was only built in 1763-4,
and has now ceased to be used. Old St. Andrew's stood in the centre
of the street at what is now the Parade. In it was buried, in 1592, the
Rev. Thos. Swift, rector of the parish for 22 years, and in 1624 his son
Wm. Swift, rector for 33 years. The latter was also for 22 years rector
of Harbledown. He was the great-grandfather of the celebrated Dean
Swift. St. Mary Bredin's is an entirely new church, erected in 1866;
it replaced a small Norman church which was built by a grandson of a
certain Vitalis, who came into England with the Conqueror. In the old
church were buried several of the Chiches, of the Donjon Manor, and
members of the Hales family, who at a later date held that manor. All
Saints' Church is also a modern church without a single feature calling
for observation. It replaced an ancient church, the tower of which
projected into the street. A beam crossing from the steeple to the
opposite side of the road bore a large square clock in the centre.
CHAPTER XVI.
SDJf* telle, Cttjj WMb, jw& §vks.
Tower of the city wall, Dane John.
OMESDAY Book records
that Canterbury Castle was
given to the Conqueror by
the Archbishop and the
Abbot of St. Augustine's,
in exchange for twenty-one
burgenses. If the Castle,
which still in part remains,
was the one alluded to, it
must have been built within
the half century immedi-
ately preceding the Con-
quest, during which period
Norman influence was
manifest in English archi-
tecture. There is no earlier
mention of a castle at
Canterbury than that in
Domesday, and although
it has been supposed that
the present building re-
placed an older castle there seems to be no evidence of it whatever.
The castle is Norman in style, and very similar in general plan to
96 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
Rochester and other castles erected by the Conqueror. There only now
remains the central keep which is remarkable for its area and massive-
ness. The walls, which are of enormous thickness, are composed of
rubble ; the round headed windows of the grand stage, the loops of the
lower stages and the quoins of the walls were faced with ashlar stones.
The surrounding court and ditch have long disappeared, and the keep,
now a mere shell, has been turned into a coal store for the Gas Company.
The history of the castle has not been remarkably eventful. It was used
as a common prison as early as the time of Edward II., for in the
Crown-rolls of that reign is a record that two prisoners, who sat chained
to beg their bread at the barbican of the castle, escaped ; the one took
sanctuary in St. Mary de Castro, and the other, involuntarily drawn away
by his companion, returned to his prison. During the periodical perse-
cutions of the Jews in the middle ages many of that nation were
imprisoned in the castle ; it is recorded that centuries afterwards the
walls remained inscribed with verses of the Psalms which they had
carved in Hebrew characters on the stones.
Canterbury was surrounded by a wall of defence at a very early
date. It is mentioned in one of the Ethelbertine charters of St.
Augustine's, which is evidence at least of the supposed antiquity of the
wall at the time that those fictitious charters were concocted. Roger of
Hoveden, describing the siege of Canterbury by the Danes in 1011, says
that many of the unfortunate citizens were cast headlong from the wall
of the city. William of Malmesbury, writing in the reign of Stephen,
speaks of Canterbury as being much renowned for the walls whole and
undecayed enclosing it round about. It is not improbable that it was
surrounded by a rampart of some kind as early as the period of the
Roman occupation, although it is extremely doubtful if there was, as
Mr. Godfrey Faussett argues in " Canterbury Till Domesday," a Roman
wall around the city. The conical mound of the Dane John (as well as
the lesser mounds which were formerly around it) might have been an
early British work, which was afterwards included in the ramparts of a
later period. The strengthening of the embankment with a casing of
flint, the building of the towers, and the completion of the circuit of
THE CASTLE, CITY WALLS, AND GATES. 97
walls were carried out at various times subsequent to the conquest. In
the reign of Richard I. vassals of the Prior of Christ Church were
impressed to labour with other citizens at the fortification of the city
with " ditches, walls and other fortresses." By the time of Richard II.
the wall had ceased to be effective for defence, and was spoken of as
tottering and decayed. The king gave a grant towards its repair, and at
the same period Archbishop Sudbury built Westgate, and either erected
or rebuilt part of the wall to Northgate. At the beginning of the next
reign, however, the citizens were again labouring at the fortifications of
the city, for a Royal writ of Henry IV., in the year 1403, says "Our
well beloved, the citizens of our city of Canterbury, as we hear, have
begun to fortify and strengthen the same city as well with one wall of
stone as with a ditch." A survey of the city wall, taken in the previous
year by Alderman Thomas Ickham, showed the whole circuit of the
walls, with the seven gates and river to be 582^ perches.
The most ancient portion of the wall was undoubtedly that on the
southern side of the city. Commencing at the right bank of the river,
behind St. Mildred's Church it continued to the Worthgate, the site of
which was probably in Castle Street, adjacent to the castle. Thence it
bounded the Dane John, as it does at present, to the Riding Gate.
From the Riding Gate we trace it, in what is now St. George's Terrace,
to St. George's Gate or Newi?igate, which was the eastern part of the city ;
thence to Bargate (the present St. George's Lane is built upon the wall,
and the houses on the west side of Bridge Street were built in the ditch).
From Burgate it skirted Christ Church precincts to Queeningate, a small
gate nearly opposite the grand gate of St. Augustine's Abbey ; thence
it continued to Northgate, from Northgate round to Westgate, and thence
to the end of the circuit on the right bank of the river opposite St.
Mildred's. It will be seen that anciently the city had seven gates, of
which, thanks to the barbarism of the civic authorities in the early part
of the present century, but one remains. Even that, the noble Westgate,
was only spared from destruction, it is said, by the casting vote of the
Mayor. There was also a gate called Wincheap Gate, but this formed
no part of the ancient line of the city fortifications. It was rebuilt
M
during the last century by a Dr. Jacob. Besides the seven gates there
were a number of posterns or small gates for more convenient ingress
or egress. When the walls were complete they were furnished with
twenty-one watch towers, of which several still remain. On the Dane
John there are four, all round ; in the wall bounding the Cathedral
precincts, the towers are remarkably interesting. In the Deanery garden
the walk along the ramparts is still preserved, and the wall appears to
be from six to seven feet thick. Numerous Roman tiles have been built
into it, as well as a great many English bricks of a period previous to
the taxing. The Deanery wall contains two square towers ; the one
nearest to Northgate is a mere ruin ; the other is in a much better state of
preservation, and below it is an arched cave or magazine. The square
tower in Queeningate-lane, close to the Postern gate opposite St.
Augustine's, was evidently an important position. It has a side cell
with a look-out towards Northgate, and the remains of a fire-grate and
chimney. The next is a round tower in the part of the wall, bounding
the old Bowling-green. The whole internal surface of it has been
honeycombed with some hundreds of cells, and doubtless it was the
columbarium or dovecote of the monastery. There is a further round
tower in the next garden of the Precincts. Between Northgate and
Westgate some towers have been utilized as dwelling houses, and
one has also been included in the mansion beyond Westgate, known
as Tower House. The towers were arranged at such distances around
the walls that a cross fire could be directed from the turret loops
upon an enemy crossing the moat or attempting to scale the walls.
A great part of the moat has been filled up, built upon, or converted
into garden ground, but there is little difficulty in tracing it over a
considerable distance.
The ancient Worthgate, of which a picture and description were
given by Dr. Stukeley, was destroyed in 1791. It appears to have been
a semi-circular arch of tiles, resting on piers of massive stones, the
walls on either side showing several courses of tiles. Dr. Stukeley
speaks of the arch as of Roman or British construction, and Somner
describes it as " a perfect arch of British brick, not sampled of any
THE CASTLE, CITY WALLS, AND GATES. 99
other about the city." There has been a disposition to dispute that the
Worthgate had the remote origin which these observations and the draw-
ing of Dr. Stukeley would imply; there is little doubt, however, that the
arch was round, was built of Roman tiles, and rested on piers of such
large oolitic blocks as the Romans made use of in their buildings in
Kent. (See p. 66). This must be regarded as strong evidence of the
arch being as old as the Romano-British period.
Next to Worthgate was the Riding Gate, Radingate, or Roadgate,
through which passed the ancient Watling Street, one of the four great
ways crossing the country since the earliest times of British history. The
Riding Gate also appears to have had vestiges of Roman arches.
Somner speaks of Roman bricks still to be seen about it in his time,
and Dr. Stukeley has given a drawing of the gate which shows parts of
what were clearly round arches of tiles. One of the wall turrets stood
by the side of the arch. Close to this gate there once stood the church
of St. Edmund, King and Martyr ; this Norman church was united to
St. Mary Bredin's in 1349. It had formerly belonged to the Prioress
and nuns of St. Sepulchre's, under grant from the Abbot of St. Augus-
tine's. Every trace of the church has disappeared for centuries, but
some skeletons were dug up on its site when excavations were made for
the drainage works about fifteen years ago. The present Riding Gate
was erected in 1791.
St. George's Gate, Newingate, or Newgate was standing until 1801,
when the city authorities most needlessly went to great expense to
destroy what they ought to have been proud to preserve. The date of
its erection is not known, but it bore a marked resemblance to Westgate,
like which it had round towers, a portcullis, and machiolated apertures
above the drawbridge-port. It was probably erected about 1470, at
which date a certain Wm. Bigg bequeathed ten pounds to " the making
and performing of St. George's Gate." There had been a gate at that
place before the end of the twelfth century however, for Newingate is
named in a Bull of Alexander III. to the monks of Christ Church. We
have heard from an old citizen a curious story in explanation of the des-
truction of St. George's Gate. It seems that it was customary for the
THE CASTLE, CITY WALLS, AND GA-TES. I'Ol.
Commandant of the Garrison to place sentries at this gate, and frequent
complaints had been made of the rudeness of the men, especially to
ladies passing through the gate. The Mayor waited on the Commandant
and asked him to take away the sentries. He replied that he could not
remove them. "Then," said the Mayor, "we can remove the gate."
Forthwith a Burghmote was called, and the order was given for the
removal of the old structure. Such is the tale as we heard it some
years ago from one who was old enough to have remembered the act of
Vandalism.
Burgate or Borough Gate, sometimes called St. Michael's Gate,
stood in the street which now retains its name. There was certainly a
gate here in very early times, but the building, which was finally des-
troyed in 1822, was erected about 1475, as an inscription upon it
recorded. Through this gate lay the high road to Sandwich, which was
no doubt originally continued in a straight line to St. Martin's Hill,
but was subsequently diverted into Longport by the monks of St.
Augustine's, in order to enlarge the boundary of their cemetery. The
right of way through the cemetery gate to St. Martin's was, according
to Somner, the subject of a fierce dispute early in the reign of Henry VI.
between the city bailiffs and the monks. The latter resisted the bailiffs
in spite of their having the civic maces carried before them. The
citizens got the better of the encounter, and then the monks went to
law in the matter. Burgate, according to an old engraving of it, appears
to have been flanked by octagonal towers.
"Come we now to Queeningate," says Somner, "but where shall
we seek it ? There is none of the name at this day ; and few know
where it stood. I sought as narrowly for it as for ants-paths, and at
length having found it will show you where it was." The spot was a
little beyond the postern gate still remaining, opposite St. Augustine's.
Somner says a remnant of an arch of British bricks marked the site.
Scattered Roman bricks are to be seen in abundance hereabout in the
wall, but neither within nor without can any arch such as that spoken of
be found. The wall in Queeningate-lane, close to the Deanery garden,
shows a break in the ancient wall which has been filled up in recent
102 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
times, and which is not unlikely to have been the spot alluded to by
Somner. The Dean having kindly given us free access to the wall and
ramparts, we sought narrowly for a clue to the site of the gate, but
can only echo the old Rambler's question — " where shall we seek it ? "
The name Queeningate or Queen's Gate is suggestive of Queen Bertha,
and has usually been ascribed to her. If the city was walled in the
sixth century, and Ethelbert's palace was on the site of the Cathedral,
and not on that of St. Augustine's, we can imagine Bertha using this
gate on her way to St. Martin's. But the probabilities are greatly
against the surmises. Somewhere near this gate formerly stood a church
of St. Mary Queeningate.
Northgate stood under the church of St. Mary Northgate, and was
destroyed when the old church was rebuilt.
Westgate, which alone remains to us of the city's seven gates, was
erected in the reign of Richard II. by Archbishop Simon of Sudbury,
who was murdered by Wat Tyler's men. Leland, in his quaint descrip-
tion of ' Cantorbyri,' says — " Sudbury builded the Westgate and made
new and repaired to gither fro thens to the north gate, and wolde have
done lykewise about al the town yf he had lyved. The mayr of the
town and aldermen, ons a yere, cum solemply to his tumbe to pray for
his sowle, yn memory of his good deade." This gate replaced an older
one which had fallen into decay, and upon which stood Holy Cross
Church. Westgate is a splendid example of a fortified city gate. On
the east or inner side a large square tower stands over a fine pointed
archway, the roof of which is vaulted ; on the west side the square
central building is flanked by two circular towers, one on either side of the
gate, which was defended by a portcullis, and by the machiolated
apertures through which boiling water, molten metal, and other
means of a warm reception, could be showered on an enemy who had
gained possession of the drawbridge, or crossed the river which was
then open to the towers. The holes may still be seen through
which the chains of the bridge passed ; the grooves of the portcullis
also remain. The towers on the outer side have no windows, but
numerous loops through which the enemy could be aimed at. On the
THE CASTLE, CITY WALLS, AND GATES. 103
city side the great room which is over the archway has a fine pointed
window which commands a view of the main streets. In the opposite wall
is a recess, apparently for the portcullis when raised. From this room
access is obtained to the circular towers with their gloomy cells. Some
of these are lighted only by loops, trebly barred with iron gratings. The
cells which open to the roof have strong iron-grated doors through which
the prisoners could be seen by a warder on the outside. For several
centuries this old tower was used as the city prison, and here all kinds of
prisoners appear to have been cast indiscriminately. The place, within
the memory of persons still living, was a foul and horrible den, in which
the unfortunate debtor shared alike with the felon the filth and horrors
of the prison. The felons, however, were heavily manacled, and in one
of the cells we found but the other day quite a collection of their leg
chains — ponderous iron links, some of them weighing at least thirty
dounds. A strong iron ring in the floor of one of the towers was used no
doubt to chain up a refractory or desperate criminal. We could but
remember as we lingered in the dismal cells that among the prisoners
who have been enjailed and tortured, there were many poor men and
women whose only crime was loyalty to their God ; martyrs whose faith
enabled them to endure not only the cruelties of their prison, but the
subsequent death at the stake. In the brief but horrible epoch of the
Marian persecution, not less than forty-one men and women were burnt
to death in the martyr's field near Wincheap.
ffsg^
Steffi
k%* £Jj
CHAPTER XVII.
tones, IfeMmes, atttr Jta $0KSM in faferburg.
HE Black Friars or Dominicans were seen for the
first time in Canterbury in 1221 ; the first Grey Friars
or Franciscans arrived in 1224 ; and the White Friars or
Augustine Friars took up their abode here about a century
later. The rival orders soon established themselves in the
city, and were active agents in the religious life of the middle ages, but
only a few remains of their extensive monastic buildings are left in our
day. The Dominicans or Preaching Friars appear to have been first
welcomed to Canterbury by Archbishop Stephen Langton, but it
was not till the year 1236 that they returned to settle in the city.
This was in the part of St. Alphege parish which still retains the name
of Blackfriars. The chief of the three entrances to the monastery was
by a gateway in St. Peter's Street, nearly opposite Eastbridge Hospital.
It was built in the time of Edward III., and was of squared flints, with
a pointed arch, niches, and other ornaments. It was pulled down
towards the end of the last century. The church of the monastery has
entirely disappeared, but the Unitarian Chapel in the Black Friars is
part of the ancient refectory. It has been much altered, but contains
some of the original pointed windows, each of two-lights, with quatrefoil
head. A door in the gallery opens into a small square tower; this
contains a pointed arch which appears to have led to a staircase. On
the opposite side of the river, upon the island of Binnewith, were
some further buildings and grounds belonging to the monastery. The
THE GREY FRIARS.
N
106 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
extent of the enclosed land was rather more than five acres. The chief
royal patron of the preaching friars was Henry I., who not only granted
them land for their buildings, but mainly provided the funds for the
erection of their church. He also gave them a great part of the oak
timber required, while the Archbishop gave them allowance of firewood.
The position of the several buildings of the Priory is known from an
old drawing and plan of them made soon after the Dissolution. From
the St. Peter's gate a long road called the " Friars' Way" passed to the
river, which it crossed on a bridge of three pointed arches, and on the
opposite bank fell into another way leading from the St. Alphege gate
to the main group of buildings. These formed a Quadrangle, enclosing
the friars' cloisters ; the church was on the south side of it, the
churchyard being south of that ; the refectory, dormitories, kitchen and
other offices completed the Quadrangle. Within the Priory there was
anciently a Guild or Fraternity of the Parish Clerks of the city, called
the Brotherhood of St. Nicholas. The Priory fell with other monastic
houses in 1538, but three years earlier the Prior had been cited to
appear in Archbishop Cranmer's court. Cranmer had been preaching
in the Cathedral against the authority and supremacy of the Pope, and
the Prior had dared to publicly maintain the Pope's cause against the
Archbishop, whereby Cranmer, writing to the king, declared himself to
be " m'velously sclawndered in thies parties." The Priory became
private property, and passed from one to another until in 1658 it was
purchased by one Peter de la Pierre, a surgeon from Flanders, who
introduced the Anabaptists here. The sect established their meeting
house in the old refectory, and used a part of the Friars' cemetery
as their burial ground. The churchyard still contains some old
memorials of the Baptists of the last century, including one to a
Mrs. "Experience" Brown. Somner mentions that the churchyard
was in 1640 " the Artillery Ground for the young artillery of the
city." In the time of Edward I. it appears to have been the
rendezvous of the citizens in a plot they entered into against the
monks of Christ Church, who had refused to share in furnishing
twelve horsemen demanded by the King. The citizens engaged in an
PRIORIES AND NUNNERIES. 107
early case of boycotting. They forbade any man to " send or sell to
the monks any victuals," or to pay rent for any house belonging to
them; they threatened to stop all men fiom going into or coming out
of the monastery, and "to spoil of their garments any monks who
ventured forth ;" but the fractious citizens were appeased by the Arch-
bishop.
The Grey Friars first came to Canterbury in 1224. They were a
company of four clerics and five laymen, and were lodged their first
night in a small-room under the school-house of Christ Church, where,
in the evening, some of the scholars joined them, and " all made merry,
drinking from one pot." The new comers were next taken in by the
Provost of the Poor Priests' Hospital, who gave them "a plot of ground
set out with a convenient house and a decent chapel or oratory." In
1270 Alderman John Diggs, an ancestor of Sir Dudley Digges, of
Chilham Castle, bought and presented to them the island of Binnewith,
formed by the divided branches of the Stour. Here they established
their monastery, which had one entrance in Stour Street, and another in
St. Peter's, the latter by a gateway which stood over against that of the
rival order of Dominicans. The Franciscans in Canterbury certainly
did not observe their rule of poverty, but soon became possessed of
goodly property. They lost no opportunity of enriching themselves by
granting sepulture in their church to wealthy citizens as a reward for
benefactions to their monastery. They had not long been settled in
Binnewith before they began to seize on houses and lands belonging to
Christ Church, and in the disputes which arose out of this, the Friars,
who had vowed to possess no property whatever, held so firmly to their
ill-gotten estate that they ultimately secured it at about half its rental.
Of the buildings of the monastery there remains a very curious and
interesting old house, built on pointed arches over the river. There
are also a few portions of the old boundary walls still to be seen in the
surrounding gardens. This old house of the Grey Friars was for some
time the residence of members of the Lovelace family. Wm. Lovelace,
serjeant-at-law, was counsel for the city of Canterbury during a portion
of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and also sat for the city in Parliament.
108 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
He died, in 1677, in some remarkable way, the history of which is now
unknown, but it was the subject of various publications at the time. He
was buried in the Cathedral. He not only owned the Grey Friars, but
had bought the St. Lawrence estate, a purchase which involved him in a
costly law suit. His son seems to have suffered from the ungenerous ill
will of Sir Roger Manwood, the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, between
whom and the elder Lovelace there had been enmity. This son, who
was knighted in 1599, unsuccessfully contested Canterbury in 1624. Five
years later he died at the old house of the Grey Friars. His grandson
was the celebrated Cavalier, Richard Lovelace, who was declared to be
" the most amiable and beautiful person that eye ever beheld." He
was the most handsome man at the Court of Charles I., and was a
soldier, dramatist, and poet. He played a prominent part in the great
Rebellion, and was chosen at Maidstone to deliver the famous Kentish
Petition in 1642, for "the restoration of the King to his rights," a
petition which was burned by the common hangman. It was during
his imprisonment for his part in this transaction that he is said to have
written the lines : —
" Stone walls do not a prison make
Nor iron bars a cage ;
Mindes innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage ;
If I have freedom in my love,
And in my soule am free,
Angels alone that soare above
Enjoy such liberty."
The closing days of his life were in striking contrast to the brilliant
promise and favour of his early manhood. He is described as having
become melancholy, poor, ragged, an object of charity ; living in
obscure and wretched abodes. He died in London at the age of forty,
in a miserable lodging in Gunpowder Alley, Shoe Lane.
The White or Augustine Friars first came to Canterbury in the year
1325, and having established themselves in a house in St. George's
parish, built a chapel, and began to celebrate mass. This was regarded
as poaching on the preserves of the parish priest, and the Archbishop
PRIORIES AND NUNNERIES. 109
gave orders for an interdict to issue against the newly-arrived mendicants.
The affair was settled by a compromise, the Friars agreeing to pay the
parson of St. George's nine shillings yearly. Of the Priory of White
Friars scarcely a trace now remains. The principal entrance was by a
gateway in St. George's Street. The Middle Schools now occupy the
site of the ancient buildings.
The suppression of these three orders in Canterbury was carried out
by Ingworth, Bishop Suffragan of Dover, on December 14th, 1538, as
appears from a letter of his to Lord Cromwell, reporting his progress
in the affair: — "The xiij day of dece'ber I cam to ca't'bury wher y* I
fynde iij howseys, more in dett than all y* they have ys abull to pay,
& specyally y e austen fryers .... ye blacke and gray be abull
w* ther impleme'ts to pay ther detts and for ow r costs, and lytyll more
. . . . & so this sonday I woll make an ende in ca't'bury, and on
mu'day to sandwyche."
The Priory of St. Gregory in Northgate Street has already been
spoken of in connection with St. John's Hospital. It was originally
founded by Lanfranc for secular priests, but it was changed in the time
of Henry I. into a Priory of regular Canons. A small part of the ruined
buildings remained at the close of the last century, but now not a trace
of them can be seen.
The Poor Priests' Hospital, to which reference has been made, was
founded by Archdeacon Simon Langton, in or about 1240. Thorn says
that he founded it with the charity of others. Its name sufficiently
explains its purpose. The livings of Stodmarsh and St. Margaret's,
Canterbury, were granted to the Hospital within a few years of its
foundation. The Poor Priests were spared at the Dissolution of the
Monasteries, but in 1575 the Hospital and its estates were transferred to
the Mayor and citizens of Canterbury. Its use then became twofold —
a hospital school for poor children, and a bridewell or House of Correc-
tion. In 1728 it became the Workhouse, the property being passed over
to the Guardians of the Poor, who were to clothe, feed, and educate
sixteen poor boys, and to hand the surplus of the estate to the city
authorities to lessen the poor rates. A few years ago a scheme was passed
110 ' RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
by which the estates were transferred to the Governors of the Middle
Schools, who are at present the administrators of the largely increased
income of the ancient charity. The buildings ceased to be used as a
workhouse when the present Union-house was erected. Some portions
of the old Hospital remain ; not of the earliest building, however, as
it was " new-built of stone " in 1733.
The Hospital of St. Lawrence, the name of which survives in the
adjacent County Cricket Ground, was founded in 1137 by the Abbot of
St. Augustine, as a lazar-house for leprous monks and sisters. In the
time of Edward III. it ceased to be used for brothers ; in the reign of
Henry VIII. the Hospital was leased to Sir Christopher Hales, free of
rent for nine years, on condition of providing for the prioress and sisters
during their lives. By 1562 the number had dwindled down to two.
The estate subsequently became the seat of Sir George Rooke (see p. 77).
It afterwards passed to Viscount Dudley and Ward, and at the present
time it belongs to Earl Sondes. There was formerly on one of the piers
of the old gateway a figure of St. Lawrence on the gridiron, with a man
standing at his head and another at his feet. The sculptured stone
still remains in the old wall, but the figures upon it are almost wholly
obscured.
Somewhat nearer to the city than the Hospital of St. Lawrence was
the Nunnery of St. Sepulchre's of which but a small piece of wall
remains in the grounds of the Hoystings. It was a Benedictine
nunnery founded by Anselm in 1100, and is memorable in history as the
abode of the so called Holy Maid of Kent, Elizabeth Barton. The
story of this famous nun of St. Sepulchre's has been fully and graphically
told by Mr. Froude. Elizabeth Barton was an instrument in the hands
of those who regarded the divorce of Henry from Catherine of Aragon
with horror, and who still more disliked the severance of the English
church from Rome. The poor girl was one of those hysterical subjects
who are likely to fall into trances, and to see visions. She was quickly
tutored by the arts of those around her, and her ravings were declared
to be revelations of the Divine will. ". Her fame was spread abroad, and
many great people had interviews with the nun-prophetess. Archbishop
PRIORIES AND NUNNERIES. Ill
Warham introduced her by letter to Wolsey as " a very well disposed
and vertuouse woman as I am enformed by her susters." Sir Thomas
More saw and conversed with her. Her visions, unhappily for her, were
directed into the channel of treason ; she denounced the king's divorce,
and predicted his speedy death. Henry was not of the metal to be bent
by such means ; but the poor tool was broken. The nun and a number
of her confederates were tried in the Star Chamber. She and several
others, including the Warden of the Grey Friars, and the cellarer of
Christ Church, were executed in April, 1534. Fisher, Bishop of
Rochester, and Sir Thomas More narrowly escaped then, but their fate
was only postponed till the summer of the following year, when both
were beheaded.
The ground upon which the modern houses stand, on the side of
the old Dover Road opposite to the Hoystings, appears to have been
the cemetery of the nunnery, in which it seems probable that interments
were granted to others than the nuns of St. Sepulchre's. In the opening
up of the ground for the foundations of the new houses, skeletons were
found at a depth of about four feet, so thick together that Mr. Brent
describes them as lying shoulder to shoulder, presenting a ghastly
spectacle. These remains showed no trace of coffins, and we believe the
general impression at the time was that the densely crowded collection of
human remains indicated the hurried interment of a large number of
victims at some visitation of the plague. About two feet below this layer
of skeletons the excavators came upon a more ancient cemetery, evidently
Roman. It contained a great number of sepulchral urns, and such
objects as are usually found associated with them in Roman burial
places. Below this second deposit of human remains there were
evidences of a third still more ancient, the human bones unburnt, the
interments apparently belonging to the Celtic period. It is remarkable
that this spot at St. Sepulchre's should thus be stratified with the dead
of three several races.
At the farther end of Wincheap stood the Hospital of St. James,
or as it is more generally known St. Jacob's (Jacobus), founded during
the twelfth century for twenty-five leprous sisters, a prioress, and attend-
112
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
ant priests. It escaped the general fate of such establishments at the
Dissolution, but only to fall, very shortly after, into the hands of persons
who seized and divided the property. In 1557 there was but one sister
still alive.
Besides these ancient religious houses brief mention must be made
of a number of charitable foundations of later date. In Northgate
is Jesus Hospital, founded as an alms-house for eight poor men and four
women by Sir John Boys, the first Recorder of Canterbury, who died in
1612. Cogan's Hospital, founded in 1657, in St. Peter's Street, as an
alms-house for poor widows of clergymen, has of late years been
removed to new buildings in the London Road. Maynard's or Cotton's
Hospital is in St. Mildred's. The first founder was John Maynard,
called the Rich, who in 1312 left estates for the maintenance of four
brothers and three sisters. In 1604 Alderman Cotton left property to
maintain an additional brother and two sisters. The deeds of the
Hospital were destroyed in the Great Fire of London, 1666. There are
some other alms-houses in the city which do not fall within the scope of
the present work.
CHAPTER XVIII.
OamnQtan \mh ^anforb.
EW, perhaps, who visit Thanington
V are aware that it is one of the
country churchyards for which the
honor has been claimed of being
the churchyard of the Elegy. Many
years ago this claim was ably set forth
gfll&i'=^ ~ hi the columns of the Athenaum by the
lla^SsLf Rev. William Pearson, then vicar of the
cnurch. Whether Gray did actually
derive inspiration for his matchless
elegy in the little churchyard of Than-
ington we cannot say, but he must have
been familiar with the spot when resi-
Corbd, Tonford. dent at Canterbury. It was then much
more secluded than at present, the road which now passes it having
been made during the present century. It might certainly have
suggested not a few of the pictures in Gray's exquisite verses. We
can imagine the poet walking out across the meadows to Thanington
and resting for quiet meditation beneath its venerable " yew-tree's
shade," in view of those grand Cathedral towers beyond, whence still
" The curfew tolls the knell of parting day."
The church, dedicated to St. Nicholas, is mainly Early English,
114 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
but a portion of the walls is of Norman masonry, and the chancel has
two small round-headed Norman windows, The east window is a
double lancet. The church is now undergoing restoration, and the
architect, Mr. John Cowell, is carrying out the work with praiseworthy
care to preserve the ancient character of the building. The present
plan of the church consists of a nave and chancel which are continuous,
a south chancel, opening without arches to the nave, its roof most
inadequately supported by timber uprights. The cruciform plan is
completed by a north tower, opening to the nave by a pointed arch.
The works now in progress include the erection of a chancel arch and
an arcade of two arches to the south chapel. This chapel will be
greatly improved by the removal of an utterly incongruous square
window inserted in a previous restoration ; two lancet windows will be
substituted. The nave at present has but a single pointed window on
the south side and a late pointed two-light west window. The north
wall is being pierced for two additional windows. These and the
additions throughout will be in Early English style, to harmonize with
the genera] character of the ancient building. An interesting discovery
has been made that there was originally a south aisle with two Early
English arches. When these were filled in a window was inserted in
one arch, and the present south door in the other. The original door
was at the west end. The existence of this aisle was wholly unsuspected.
The tower was erected within the present century to replace the old one
which had fallen. Hasted speaks of several inscribed tombstones in
the chancel, but only a single one remains ; it has a very perfect brass,
the armoured figure being that of Thomas Halle, Esquire, 1485. The
stolen brasses included two to the memory of Sir Charles Hales (1623)
and his lady, Anne (1617). In the south wall of the chancel is what
Hasted terms a tomb, but it has more the appearance of one of those
ancient confessionals in which the priest sat within, while the penitent
knelt outside the church, so that he might be shriven without being seen.
The east windows were filled with painted glass by the late Miss Hetty
Betty Sankey, and some other windows by Mrs. Powell, of St. Dunstan's.
The only bit of old glass remaining is in the east window of the
THANINGTON AND TONFORD.
115
chapel — a head of Our Lord. The churchyard contains a fine old yew,
probably as old as the church. The lych gate was erected as a memorial
of the Rev. William Pearson, for many years vicar of the parish. There
is a curious circumstance connected with the vicarage of Thanington.
It anciently consisted of two rooms under the roof of the old Cockering
Farm-house, the quaint old place still standing on the upper road to
Ashford. A large field adjoining it is known as the vicarage field,
but when this and the modest vicarage were alienated from the living
we have failed to discover. The living- of Thanington at one time
Thanington Church.
pertained to St. Gregory's Priory. The Registers are in complete and
excellent preservation, dating from the "ye begininge of ye Queene's
Maiestie's raigne, viz., ye 17 daye of Nov., 1558."
The ford beside Thanington and the road which leads to it, carry
us back two thousand years, to the time when these were the way between
the two British camps or towns at Iffin and Bigbury. Each of these
camps will well repay a visit ; for, although overgrown with wood, there
is not the slightest difficulty in making out the ancient mounds, ramparts,
and trenches. The most remarkable feature at Iffin is a tumulus, 150
116
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
^\l
feet in circumference and nearly six feet high ; it stands a little distance
west of the entrenchments. This tumulus was opened some years ago by
Mr. Bell, of Bourne Park, and five urns were discovered in it. They were
rudely formed of half-baked clay, containing particles of flint ; but one
was of a very unusual size for urns of the Celtic age, its height being
25 inches, its diameter 22 inches. The urns contained ashes and frag-
ments of bones ; they were all found with the mouths downwards, and
were closed with clay. The tumulus is formed of brick earth, almost
entirely free from pebbles. The camp at Bigbury and Howfield woods
lies just behind Tonford, its length being, in the direction from east to
west, about three furlongs ; its breadth, from north to south, two furlongs.
A double bank with trench forms the outer line of defence, a single bank
and trench the inner line. The shape is irregular, and evidently resulted
from the natural formation of the ground.
Thanington and Toniford manors are not mentioned in the Domes-
day survey ; in the time of the Conqueror the former, under the name
of Tenitune, is mentioned as included in the Archbishop's manor of
Westgate. It was early held by the Valoyns family, and in the reign
of Edward III. by Sir William de Septvans ; in the time of Richard II.
it belonged to Sir William Waleys; in that of Richard III. to the
above-mentioned Thomas Halle; from the reign of Henry VIII. to
that of Elizabeth it was the residence of the Hales family. The
manor of Toniford, Tonford, or Tunford stood on the north bank
of the river opposite Thanington. In the reign of Henry III. it was
the residence of John de Toniford ; it subsequently became the seat
of the Fogges, and by the reign of Henry VI. had passed to Sir Thomas
Browne, to whom the right was granted to " embattle and impark within
his manor of Tonford."
The melancholy fate of Sir James Hales attaches a sombre interest
to Thanington and Tonford. He was the eldest son of Sir John Hales,
of the Dungeon, and was a Justice of the Common Pleas at the time
when the dying young king, ffenry VI., had been induced to set
aside his sister Mary, and name Lady Jane Grey as his successor.
Nine Judges signed a deed of assent to this ; but Sir James Hales,
THANINGTON AND TONFORD. 117
though an earnest Protestant, refused to do so, declaring it to be
unjust and unlawful. When Mary had established herself on the throne,
the loyalty of the upright judge did not save him. He was disgraced,
dismissed, imprisoned, and persecuted until he yielded to the pressure,
and recanted. He went down to his nephew's house at Thanington
crushed in mind by remorse at his weakness. " Melancholy marked him
for her own," and shortly after he was drowned in the Stour at Tonford.
Harris says he probably fell in, being aged and weak; other historians
accept the recorded verdict oi felo de se, as a proof that he committed
suicide. It is supposed that the curious pleadings offered in a lawsuit
arising out of this verdict, suggested to Shakespeare the argument of the
gravediggers in Hamlet : —
1 Clown. Here lies the water; good : here stands the man ; good : If the man
go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will he, nil he, he goes ; mark you that :
But if the water come to him, and drown him, he drowns not himself: Argal, he that
is not guilty of his own death, shortens not his own life.
2 Clown. But is this law ?
i Clown. Ay, marry is't ; crowner's-quest law.
In tracing out the connection of the Hales family with Thanington,
we were led to examine the curious monument of another Sir James
Hales in the nave of Canterbury Cathedral. This Sir James died and
was buried at sea, on his return from a Portuguese expedition, and in
his monument he is represented being dropped into the sea. Almost
hidden behind the kneeling figure of his lady, there is a marble slab on
which there is a very old painting of a landscape. We made a close
inspection of this picture, and found it to be a representation of Thaning-
ton Church ; while, across the river, and in the background, there is a
castellated edifice with lofty walls and round towers — the ancient Toniford
manor undoubtedly. Why should this view of Thanington have been
painted on the monument of Sir James Hales ? In the picture there are
four men, with poles in their hands, apparently hastening to the river.
Are the sculptures and the painting meant to be memorials of two family
disasters — Sir James drowned at Tonford in 1555, and another Sir
James buried at sea in 1589 ? It is interesting, in any case, to have a
THANINGTON AND TONFORD. 119
16th century picture of the manor. The remains at Tunford confirm the
general accuracy of the view. On the north side of the present farm-
house are two round towers at the angles, similar in character to those
of the painting. That these are remains of the ancient building we
cannot doubt, and indeed this part of the house contains more extensive
relics of the castellated mansion than is generally known.
By the courtesy of Mr. Bing, the tenant, we have been able to go
into all parts of the building, and to explore it thoroughly, the result
being singularly interesting. The doorway shown in the accom-
panying sketch (p. 118) opens to the ancient kitchen, a spacious
apartment lighted by a fine three-light window. The great fireplace is
evidently as old as the Tudor building, and so also is the apartment
adjoining. We were wholly unprepared, however, to find the ancient
roof still preserved. In the range of bed-rooms, our attention was
directed to some pendant-posts, which, though covered by papering,
and partly hidden in the ceiling, evidently belonged to a timber roof.
Mr. Bing kindly permitted us to get into the gabled roof through a
small aperture, and, lights having been passed in, there was at once
revealed a very handsome timber roof, the wood, oak or chestnut, so
remarkably preserved that it might have dated from a few years
instead of centuries. The rafters and cross-bars of the panelling are
moulded or chamfered, and the collar-braces form three elegant pointed
arches, with moulded edges. We should imagine this fine open roof,
which extends the whole length of the building, to have belonged to
the chapel of the manor. It is singular that, hidden away so long in
the dark roof of the old farm-house, this most interesting and perfect
relic of old Tonford manor should have remained unnoticed ; we have
sought in vain the slightest allusion to it. In one of the external walls
beyond the house, are two corbels and niches, which might also have
belonged to the chapel. They are nearly alike, the brackets being sup-
ported by winged female figures, bearing shields. The figures have
curiously-waved hair, and wear collars of ecclesiastical cut. There is a
very similar corbel in Boughton Aluph Church. The carving is very
delicate, and, in spite of long exposure to the weather, well preserved.
TUDOR GATEWAY, TONFORD.
TIIANINGTON AND TONFORD.
121
The wing-marking is remarkably clear. The wall in which these corbels
have been inserted, contains a round tower, not shown in the sketch of
the main building ; it has a very small pointed window. At the
foot of this wall and all round the circuit of the house was a moat, which
was only filled up a generation back. The drawbridge was in use until
the moat was done away with ; it was at the fine Tudor gate, of which
a sketch is given. It will be admitted, we think, that Tonford is a place
of remarkable interest ; we are glad to add that the present tenant
appreciates its value as an ancient relic, and is careful to preserve it from
injury.
There is one further point of interest to mention in relation to
Thanington. Opposite the church is a large field long known as
Up-and-Down Field. Mr. J. M. Cowper maintains that this is Chaucer's
"Bob-up-and-down," of the Manciple's Tale. It is usually supposed that
Chaucer meant Harbledown, but there has always been some doubt
about it, and Mr. Cowper argues very ably against the accepted theory.
(See The Athentzum, Dec. 26, 1868, and Mr. Furnivall's "Temporary
Preface to Chaucer's Canterbury Tales," published for the Chaucer
Society).
kCili&iKfflljr 5 ^f
SSSS&feJra^
CHAPTER XIX.
iiltau, §oxtoxi f mh Clrartlmm.
ITHERTO our rambles have been within the city, or to the
parishes next beyond it. In the following pages we propose
to describe much more briefly the points of interest in the
villages immediately encircling Canterbury. In a walk to
Chartham, the upper road (which is the ancient way) affords
the most charming views of the Stour valley, with its characteristic
Kentish landscape. As we ascend the hill from Wincheap, we see below
us the charming little church of Thanington, the old ford, and the ruined
walls of Tonford manor ; while over marsh and lea the eye ranges to
Bigbury with its British camp, to Harbledown on the crest of the hill,
and old St. Nicholas' Hospital on the slope below it ; to the city with
the Cathedral towering above it, or still farther to the pale outline of the
distant Thanet shore. We cross the old British path from Iffin to the
ford, trodden by ancient Celts ages before Roman legions or Jutish im-
migrants came this way ; and presently we come to old Cockering Farm,
the nearest corner of which was once the vicarage of Thanington.
Thence, passing Cockering Wood with its primrose glades and nightin-
gale groves, we arrive at Milton, one of the smallest of English parishes,
for it has only two houses and less than a dozen parishioners. Milton
manor was granted to Christ Church before the Conquest. In Domesday
it is entered as held by Hamo de Crevequer. At a later date it belonged
to the Septvans and other noble families. The tiny parish church is
MILTON, HORTON, AND CHARTHAM. 123
prettily situated on the hillside : it is dedicated to St. Nicholas, like its
neighbour Thanington, and Lanfranc's church at Harbledown. It con-
sists of a nave and chancel, in the Early English style, but the present
structure is mainly the work of the restorer.
Next we reach Chartham Downs, and pass the spot which " Master
Tom Ingoldsby" has celebrated in his legend of "Nell Cook and the
Dark Entry," as that whereon "Charles Storey, too, his friend who slew,"
was "gibbeted on Chartham Downs." (Bentley's edition says Chatham,
a palpable misprint). We traced in the Register of Chartham the entry
of the burial of Storey's friend, a papermaker at the mill : — " Henry
Perkins, who was most inhumanly murdered by Charles Storey, was buried
May 25th, 1782." Storey was hung on Oaten-hill, and was gibbeted in
chains on " Chartham Downs." It was to his gibbet the Mayor of Can-
terbury alluded when, as Barham tells us, he begged Archbishop Moore
to allow him to have the honour of attending his Grace as far as the
gallows T
On the south bank of the river below the Downs stands Horton
Chapel, and the site of Horton manor. The manor was one of the
estates granted by the Conqueror to his turbulent half-brother Odo. No
remains of the manor are now to be seen, but considerable foundations
are met with adjacent to the present buildings. The old chapel of the
manor, which has given the farm its name, ceased to be used for reli-
gious purposes when the mansion fell into disrepair ; it is at present used
as a hop-oast.
Where the Kent County Asylum now stands on Chartham, or
Kenville, Down, there was formerly a considerable Saxon cemetery.
The numerous barrows, some eighty in all, were long supposed to be
connected with Caesar's advance into Britain, and to mark the site of a
battle between the Romans and the Britons. The Rev. Bryan Faussett,
in 1773, opened up the graves, and carefully described, in his "Invento-
rium Sepulchrale," the remains found in them. The graves were from
two to six feet deep ; the bodies had, in many cases, been buried in
wooden' coffins, which had been charred to make them more durable.
The skeletons were those of men, women, and children ; a verv few
124 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
darts and javelins were found, but many articles of ordinary use, knife-
blades, buckles, pins, beads, and trinkets of various kinds. One of the
objects was a cross of silver with a centre boss of silver in a socket of
gold. This Christian emblem was on the neck of a female skeleton.
The whole surface of the Chartham and neighbouring Downs formerly
showed remains of trenches, embankments, and tumuli, but many have
been levelled by the plough, or obscured by overgrowth of wood.
We descend the hill into Chartham, a village of respectable antiquity,
and of considerable importance in early times. " Certeham" is named
in Domesday as one of the pre-Norman manors belonging to Christ
Church. It remained in the possession of that monastery until the
Dissolution, and was a rural retreat for the Abbot. In it Archbishop
Winchelsea found an asylum when, having fallen under the displeasure
of Edward I., his estates were seized by the King.
On the dissolution of Christ Church monastery, the manor of
Chartham was settled on the newly-established Dean and Chapter, and
the mansion-house became a residence of the Deans of Canterbury. It
was the favourite abode of Dean Bargrave, who was also rector of
Chartham. A few remains of the ancient manor-house are included in
the present "Chartham Deanery." The paper-mill at Chartham, though
not the oldest in the county, has been long established. It was originally
a fulling-mill, and was converted by Peter Archer (who died in 1737) into
a paper-mill. There formerly stood by the village-green a large
mansion, the residence of the Kingsford family ; it was destroyed by
fire, and was long known as the " Burnt House." There is still
remaining, though much modernised, the house built by Dr. De L' Angle,
a Canon of Canterbury, and Rector of Chartham, who died in 1729.
In front of De L' Angle House is a fine marble bust of Charles II.
The Church, dedicated to St. Mary, is cruciform, the transepts being
extremely shallow. There are no aisles ; the west tower is bold and
massive ; the nave is plain but lofty ; while the chancel is large and
handsome. There is a good south porch with trefoiled windows and
timber roof. The tower, which is 70 feet to the vane, is of much later
date than the church ; it has a square stair turret on the north. Like the
MILTON, HORTON, AND CHARTHAM. 125
rest of the structure, it is built of flint, the buttresses being chequered
with squared stone. The tower was evidently a work of the Tudor period ;
the nave and transepts are probably due to the earliest portion of
the Decorated period, the chancel being somewhat later work. The
absence of aisles increases the effect of length and height. There is a
lofty, unbroken Perpendicular tower-arch opening to the nave ; the latter
is sparsely lighted in comparison with the splendid chancel ; its windows
are short double lancets, trefoiled, under splayed arches. The piers at
the junction of the nave and transepts are each pierced with a ' Squint,'
There is a very fine timber roof. The chancel is strikingly light
and spacious ; it has an east window of four lights, containing beautiful
tracery. In each of the side walls there are four two-light windows,
all with elegant star tracery ; they have recently been filled with stained
glass, but in some of them there still remain some relics of the
beautiful original glass. The roof is panelled, the ribs having carved
bosses. The hoods of the chancel windows are all connected by small
trefoils. In the north wall is an arched tomb, said to contain a leaden
coffin ; the stonework is a restoration from the original pattern. The
Chartham brasses have often been described and figured ; the oldest
and finest — that of Sir Robert de Septvans — is one of the earliest of
the incised brasses still extant in this country; it is of special interest
as the memorial of a notable member of that famous Kentish family.
This Sir Robert was born in 1250, and served with Edward I. in Scot-
land, being knighted at the siege of Carlaveroch. He sat in Parliament
as Knight of the Shire, his residence being at that manor of Milton, to
which we have already alluded. The brass has the figure of a cross-
legged knight, in coat of mail, the surcoat and ailettes.. as well as the
shield, bearing the heraldic winnowing fans of the Septvans. Sir Robert
was buried in the chancel of Chartham Church in 1306, which there is
good reason to think is about the date of the chancel, although it has
usually been described as later.
The next oldest of the brasses bears the figure of a priest, wearing
a cope : it is that of Robert London, 1416, a rector of Chartham. There
are also brasses of two other rectors — Robert Arthur, 1454, and Robert
126 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
Sheffelde, 1508. There is besides these, a small brass bearing the figure
of a lady, and this inscription — " Off your charyte pray for the soul of
Jane Dowther of Lewys Clefforht, obt. 1530" — i.e. Jane, daughter of
Lewis Clifford.
On the east wall of the chancel is a small monument, in the Eliza-
bethan style, to the memory of " Mr. John Bungeye, Clerke, one of
y e Prebendaries of Christ Church in Cant., and Parson of
this Parishe," * * * "which John bylded Mystole, and there
died Y E 20 Noveb., a.o. 1596. Among other monuments is one by
Rysbrach, to Sir Wm. and Lady Young, the latter a daughter of Charles
Fagge, Esq., of Mystole.
The Registers of Chartham commence in 1558, but are not com-
plete. We sought in vain for the autograph of " Blue Dick," as the
notorious Richard Culmer was called. On the death of Dean Bargrave,
in 1642, Culmer got himself appointed to the rectory of Chartham,
Archbishop Laud being then in the Tower. He was the ringleader of
the attacks upon the Cathedral, and the chief agent in smashing the
painted glass of the beautiful window given by Edward IV. He himself
describes the exploit thus : — " Whilst judgment was executing on the
Idols in that window, the Cathedralists cryed out againe for their great
Diana — ' Hold your hands, holt, holt, heers Sir,' etc. A Minister being
then on the top of the Citie ladder, neer 60 steps high, with a whole pike
in his hand rattling down proud Becket's glassy bones (others then present
would not adventer so high), to him it was said, ' 'Tis a shame for a
Minister to be seen there.' The Minister replied, ' Sir, I count it no
shame, but an honour. My M r - whipt the living buyers and sellers out
of the Temple ; these are dead Idolls, which defile the worship of God
here, being the fruits and occasions of Idolatry.' Some wished it might
breake his neck ; others said it should cost bloud. But he finished the
worke, and came downe well, and was in very good health when this was
written."
Culmer was called " Blue Dick " from his habit of wearing blue
instead of the clerical black. He was born in Thanet and was educated
at Canterbury ; he is said to have held the livings of Chartham,
MILTON, NORTON, AND CHARTHAM. 127
Goodnestone, Harbledown, and St. Stephen's. He was buried at last at
Monkton. His hold over Chartham was but short : we could find no
trace of him in the Register, which is almost a blank during the period
of the great Civil War. There are no entries at all from 1638 to 1645,
and only twelve during the next four years. The Register contains
numerous entries of money paid for killing foxes and "grays" (badgers).
The price seems to have been a shilling a head.
On the upper road between Chartham and Chilham is Mystole Park
and the mansion, which Parson John Bungeye 'bylded.' It is most
pleasantly situated above the Stour valley, with Penny Pot Wood at its
back. How long-lived are names ! This "Penny Pot" is but the cor-
ruption of the Celtic name, Pen-y-pwth, the " crown of the hill." On
Pen-y-pwth, the grave mounds of some of the British people who called
it by that name are still to be seen.
Our way now leads us down the hill through the straggling hamlet
of Shalmsford Street. Here at the bridge across the Stour below, there
stood an important manor, owned at the time of the Conquest by a
noble Saxon named Alret, who fought at Hastings. It was subsequently
divided into two separate manors — Shalmsford Street and Shalmsford
Bridge, the latter being the most important. In the reign of Edward II.,
the daughter and heiress of William de Shamelesford married one John
Petit, and various members of the Petit family possessed the manor down
to the end of James I.
CHAPTER XX.
CHIIram.
HILHAM CASTLE is one of the least known of our
ancient fortresses ; it is rarely visited, and still less often
described. Few appear to appreciate its singular interest
and antiquity. By the kind permission of C. S. Hardy, Esq.,
we have been able to repeatedly visit and examine it.
Hasted says the keep is plainly Norman ; but it differs in several
respects from the castles of Norman builders, and we have little doubt
that part of the structure is much earlier than the Conquest. Its
octagonal keep most closely resembles the simple tower-fortresses
of an earlier and ruder age, the strongholds of petty kings or
tribal chiefs. It is notable for its huge thickness of wall and
small-contained area ; the external diameter of the octagon is
but 39 feet, while the walls have an irregular thickness of from
8 to 10 feet, leaving but a small clear space within. The extension of
a square wing on one side of the octagon seems to have been made
subsequent to the main tower. The court around the keep is of made
ground, and is surrounded by a very high wall, except on the side on
which the extended part coincides with the line of that wall. On this
side the depth from the parapet of the keep to the present level of the
ground is about 60 feet. Such a plan is quite unlike the regular Norman
castle of the period to which this has been ascribed. The rude character
of the masonry, the small dimensions of the apartments, the singular
CIIILHAM. 129
height of the court, the disproportionate thickness of the walls all tend
to confirm the old tradition that Chilham Castle was standing before
the Normans entered the country. Traces of Caen stone, or Norman
mouldings in the windows, are no proof of its being a Norman structure
as a whole. The present entrances are manifestly not the original, but
later piercings of the walls. The spiral staircase also is a recent renewal
of the old one. The dungeon below the keep had been filled up for
centuries, but a few years ago Mr. Hardy had it excavated. Its
shape is the same as the keep ; its walls are of enormous thickness, and
are pierced by three slants, originally with very small loops in the outer
walls. Mr. Hardy caused a tunnel to be driven under the castle,
commencing in the slope of the mound below the north west wall of
the Court. Here the skeletons of two tall men were found, lying
close together in the earth. The passage was made eighty to ninety feet
in length, under the wall, the court, and the castle ; first through earth,
then loose chalk, then singularly regular layers of chalk, 4 to 6 in. thick,
alternating with thinner bands of flint and chalky gravel ; and at last
the workmen came to a wall barring their passage. This, with much
labour, they forced, and found on the other side of it a room filled with
earth, chalk, and rubble. When wholly cleared out, the space was found
to be rectangular, about 17 feet by 14 feet, the height over 20 feet. It
was immediately below the square-shaped extension of the keep, and
its floor lower than the present level of the ground. We were furnished
with lights and a ladder, in order to be able to thoroughly examine the
walls of this long buried chamber. We found them to be of flint and
rubble concrete, except on the south-east, where the wall seemed to
consist of squared blocks of hard chalk. On closer scrutiny we found
that the chalk wall was but the filling up of a large round archway, the
opening of which is 16 ft. 8 in. We traced the arch to the keystone at
a height of 19 ft. 6 in. It is turned in slabs of thin stone, which, in the
upper part, are alternate with red tiles, very like Roman. Where did
this arch lead to ? Clearly to the perpendicular face of the tower.
Going out once more we found the external wall covered with dense and
deep growth of ivy, but there, with some difficulty, the arch could be
130 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
traced. We returned, and examined the interior with additional interest.
We could no longer regard it as being originally a room ; its walls were
without window or loop, but the wall opposite to the great arch was
pierced by two smaller arches. One of these opens to a low and narrow
passage leading into a small spiral staircase, which had also been filled
up entirely with earth and rubble. Its walls, steps, and even the newel
around which they ascend are built of a very hard flint concrete. This
staircase had been abandoned at some period, and was then domed over
and blocked up. In it is a very rudely shaped loop, over which a single
slab of stone was originally inserted into the concrete. The exterior of
this loop must at present lie several feet below the surface of the earth
in the court outside. This ancient disused staircase ascended not far
from what we have termed the grand staircase. The wall pierced by the
two passages is massive, but terminates at a height of about 20 feet, the
wall of the tower above crossing it at an angle. The north-east wall of
the extension of the keep rests partly on the corresponding wall of this
lowest portion, but projects over it considerably. In the floor of this
buried place a well was discovered. Its pipe had been continued
through the earth into the room above. It would thus appear that the
supposed room, which the excavators found in so singular a manner, was
probably a court, having a large round arch at its entrance, which gave
access to the keep tower.
Returning to the staircase now in use, we pass first into a fine
octagon room, which is, in fact, two stories in one. The large window
openings of this room have evidently been at some time roughly
enlarged, the original openings being probably mere loops. On one
side of the room is a fragment of a round column, one of two which
flanked a doorway, long since blocked up. A passage has been forced
into the square wing of the tower, through a wall 12ft. 6in. thick. The
topmost room of the octagonal tower was evidently the chief room, It
is well lighted by large round windows, and forms at present a very
handsome billiard-room, the prospect from its windows over the
surrounding country being magnificent. When and by whom this
remarkable keep was built we will not venture to guess. Whether the
CHILHAM. 131
traditions which have ascribed to the earliest fortress of Chilham a
British, a Roman, or a Saxon origin be fact or fable, it is almost certain
that a stronghold of some kind was here before Norman barons
supplanted Saxon earls as lords of the land.
Camden says that in his time (1586) it was the confirmed opinion
of the inhabitants that the Romans had on this spot one of their
permanent camps. He believed it to be the site of the battle in which
Cassar lost his tribune Quintus Laberius Durus. Long before Camden
visited Chilham, the great barrow, still to be seen on the slope of the
hill behind the old French Mill, was called Julaber's or Julaberry's
grave. It would, indeed, be a remarkable instance of the persistence of
ancient names, strangely corrupted, if the name of this grave mound be,
as some have conjectured, derived from Julius and Laberius. The
barrow is situated on the south bank of the river opposite the Castle-
hill. Its length is about 150ft. and its width 45ft. ; the depth increases
as the hill slopes, so that the central line of the top is nearly horizontal ;
it is roughly round in section, and the earth of which it is composed
seems to be fine and free from pebbles. The barrow was opened in the
last century by the Earl of Winchilsey, a cutting having been made
across the centre, but no remains were discovered. They would more
probably be found in the deepest part at the north end. One of the
most interesting of the many ancient earthworks in this district is the
earth-circle half-a-mile south east of Chilham, which Mr. Petrie, in his
" Notes on Kentish Earthworks," speaks of as " one of the most perfect,
regular, and delicately executed works in existence; nearly equalling the
very best of the Wiltshire remains, as it has an average error of under
four inches from a true circle, on a diameter of about one hundred and
thirty feet."
Chilham Castle was the scene of a memorable meeting between
King John and Archbishop Stephen Langton, the Castle being then held
by Roesia de Dover, whose second husband was a natural son of the
king. Their daughter Isabel married first the Earl of Athol, and subse-
quently Alexander Baliol, brother of King Baliol, the " Toom Tabard."
Isabel de Chilham died at the Castle in 1292, and was buried in the
132 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
Crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, where her altar-tomb is one of the most
ancient monuments remaining ; it bears a recumbent figure of the
Countess. Her son John was concerned with Robert Bruce in the
murder of the treacherous Red Comyn. Edward I. caused him to be
hanged at Canterbury on a gallows fifty feet high, and in order to "make
siccar," as Sir Roger Kirkpatrick said, the Earl was beheaded after he
was hanged, and his body burnt after that. The Lords of Chilham in
those days indulged somewhat freely in treason, for the next one, the
rich Lord Badlesmere, was also executed on that charge. Henry VIII.
granted the Castle to Sir Thomas Cheney, who added greatly, it is said,
to the strength and beauty of the buildings. Sir Thomas must have been
a man of changeable humour, however ; for, according to Leland, who
visited the place in 1552, he soon after pulled down most of the mag-
nificent mansion he had erected, and carried off the materials to build
his house at Shurland, in Sheppy. It is to Sir Dudley Digges that we
owe the present beautiful mansion. Philipot says he was "A great
asserter of his country's liberties in the worst of times," and his epitaph
in the church records that "His noble soul could not stoop to ambition."
It may be taken as an illustration of what was possible in the "worst of
times" that the office of Master of the Rolls was conferred on the knight
in spite of the fact that he was entirely ignorant of the law. Sir Dudley's
life was an active and varied one. He had sat in Parliament ; had been
a voyager in the Arctic Seas in search of the north-west passage ; had
been sent as Ambassador to the barbaric Court of Muscovy ; and had
been a prisoner in the Fleet Prison before he was raised to the Bench.
When he became master of Chilham, he pulled down what was left of
the old house, and built on the site of it the beautiful Jacobean mansion
which still remains.
Chilham Church, dedicated to St. Mary, consists of a nave and two
aisles, a west tower, north and south transepts, and a chancel with side
chapels. The nave arcades are each of four pointed arches on octagonal
pillars. The tower, erected about 1534, is square, with a beacon turret:
it opens by a fine arch to the nave. The ceiling of the nave is flat, some
of the original timber spandrels remaining. The aisle and clerestory
CHILHAM. 133
windows are Perpendicular. The north chapel contains an early piscina.
The south transept has a timber roof with king-posts. The transept
windows are of the Decorated period, but in no way remarkable. The
present spacious chancel is due to the munificence of the late Mr.
Charles Hardy, who enlarged and restored this portion of the church.
The south pier of the chancel arch contains the door of the Rood screen ;
it is at present blocked up, but might easily be opened. On the
north side of the chancel there was formerly a circular, domed Mauso-
leum of the Colebrooke family : it was Italian in style, and was removed
during the extension of the chancel. Formerly an old chantry stood on
the north side of the chancel ; it was dissolved in the reign of Edward VI.
The Digges chapel on the south side contains the monuments of that
family. In the chancel is an exquisite monument, by Chantrey, to the
late Mr. James Wildman, of Chilham Castle.
The Digges monument is a " Jacob's pillar" which Sir Dudley set
up over the grave of his lady. Its square pedestal has epitaphs on the
knight and his lady, in the exaggerated style of eulogy which prevailed
in the seventeenth century. Around the black marble pillar are figures
representing the cardinal virtues. A later inscription traces back the
Digges family to "John Digge" who gave the island of " Bynwith " to
the Grey Friars. Sir Dudley died in 1638. At the west end of the
church is a monument of Bethersden marble, the surface beautifully
ornamented with flat scroll-work. It is to the memory of Lady Palmer,
sister of Sir Dudley Digges. A similarly decorated monument in the
Digges Chancel, to one of the Fagge family, has a very quaint epitaph.
There are several other monuments of interest in this church.
CHAPTER XXI.
$l%tli\\Qtaxi t §*&#*, ^xshognboxxxxxt.
BOUT a mile south-east from Canterbury, and standing
apart from the high road, is the little church of St. Mary,
Nackington. It consists of a nave, chancel, and south
chapel, with a small square tower at the north-west corner
of the nave ; it has a south door and a north porch. The
roof is timbered, the old tie-beams and king-posts remaining in sound
condition.
Some of the windows are early Norman, small, without mould-
ing, and deeply splayed internally ; others are Early English lancets ; the
east window is a modern double lancet, filled with stained glass,
and dedicated to the memory of Richard and Hannah Mount. The
south chapel, which is divided from the chancel by a low, wide,
unbroken, pointed arch, has a two-light window, containing some
fragments of old glass. The north wall of the chancel has two pointed
recesses, one evidently an aumbry. In the east pier of the chapel
arch there is another recess, in which was, no doubt, a piscina, and be-
side it what was probably another aumbry. There are no brasses, but
the chapel contains several mural monuments of the Milles family, and
there are in the floor of the church tomb-stones which date back to the
17th century. Several members of the Godfrey-Faussett family are
buried in the church and churchyard, amongst them the learned author
of " Inventorium Sepulchrale," the Rev. Bryan Faussett, of Heppington.
Here also lies his descendant, the late Mr. Godfrey-Faussett, a genial and
accomplished antiquary, author of " Canterbury till Domesday," We
NACKINGTON, BRIDGE, BISHOPSBOURNE. 135
recognised in the memorial cross which stands above his grave, a copy
of that interesting cross found near St. Martin's churchyard, of the
discovery of which Bryan Faussett wrote a century before. Even the
style of the ancient inscription has been followed. Close to the church
is a farm-house, which was originally the court lodge of the manor of
Sextries, the name a corruption of Sacristy, the manor having been
appropriated to the use of the Sacrist of St. Augustine's Monastery.
Heppington is another manor in this parish. Among its ancient owners
were the Chiche's, the Fagge's, and the Hales's ; subsequently it was
possessed by the Godfrey's, from the last of whom it passed to his son-
in-law, the Bryan Faussett above mentioned. Nackington house,
another old mansion in this parish, was, during the Stuart period, the
residence of the Nutt family, of whom several are buried at Nackington.
It was at a later date the residence of the Milles family.
Next to Nackington in our circuit around the city, we come to
Bridge, on the main road to Dover — the old Roman road or Watling
Street. It is about two-and-a-half miles from Canterbury, and is the
largest of a series of villages within the valley of the Lesser Stour or
Bourne. Several of these, situated in the midst of sylvan and pastoral
scenery of great beauty, and having churches which possess features of
interest, lie within easy access from Canterbury.
Bridge Church, dedicated to St. Peter, has always been regarded as
a chapel to Patrixbourne, although Bridge gives its name to the deanery
and to the hundred. The ancient manor of Bridge or Blackmansbury
belonged, like Nackington, to the Sacristy of St. Augustine's Abbey.
Some time after its alienation it was held, in 1638, by Sir Arnold Braems,
a descendant of an old Flemish family. He built there the splendid
mansion of Bridge Place, the greater part of which was in the early part
of the seventeenth century pulled down by John Taylor, the first of that
name who was squire of Bifrons. The manor of Beracre, or Baracre, in
Bridge parish is supposed to have given a name to the family of Bargar,
or Bargrave, long resident in the village. The Register of Bridge
records the baptism, in 1580, of "Isaacke Bargar," to which a note has
been added, "Afterwards Deane of Canterbury."
136 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
Bridge Church (St. Peter's), though it has undergone extensive
restoration, still retains many signs of its antiquity. It has a nave,
two aisles, chancel, north transept, and south-west tower with spire.
The most ancient portions of the church are — the plain round headed
and deeply splayed windows of the tower and of the chancel, and those
of the east end of the south aisle ; the west door which has a bold
round moulding, square capitals with billet ornament and circular shafts,
and hood-moulding with tooth-ornament and head terminals ; the small
round headed door with chevron mouldings on the east of the north
transept, and which is certainly not in its original position — all these are
Norman. Other portions of the church are Early English, including the
lancet windows of the north aisle and the north transept. The rest of the
church has been so much altered as to make it difficult to ascertain what
it was before it passed under the restorer's hands. The chancel arch
was probably Early English ; the plain pointed arches of the north aisle
arcade are of that period, but their piers have been removed and double
round pillars substituted. The windows other than those mentioned are
various in style, and call for no comment. The north wall of the chancel
contains a very curious piece of ancient sculpture, within the tympanum
of a round arch. The upper part, which is very much defaced, appa-
rently represented Our Lord seated on clouds of glory. Below this is a
band of five panels, illustrative of the Fall, and of the first murder. The
2nd represents the Temptation by the Serpent; the 1st the Expulsion
from Eden ; the 3rd and 4th the offerings of Cain and Abel, the 5th the
murder of Abel. There is in the same wall of the chancel an interest-
ing painting of Richard Bargrave, of Bridge, gent. obt. 1649. Within
the altar rails, on the same side, there is a recess containing the life-sized
figure of a man, most singularly divided into two halves by a central
pier. Above this there is a brass plate commemorative of the two wives
of the builder of Bridge Place. It says : — " Joane, second daughter of
Walter Harriet of Beakesbourne, lieth buried in the parish church of
Dover: Elizabeth, second daughter of Sir Dudley Diggs, Master of the
Rolls, second wife of Sir Arnold Braems, lieth buried in the middle of
this chancel." In the same wall there are two shields, one with armorial
NACKINGTON, BRIDGE, BISHOPSBOURNE. 137
bearings, the other with the emblems of mortality, the skull, cross bones,
pick and spade, nicely carved in marble. The south wall contains some
very singular memorial devices, with scrolls bearing inscriptions in Latin,
the lettering Old English. Hasted says one of these is in memory of
" Macobus Kasey," Vicar of Patricksbourne during 21 years. We could
not see to decipher the inscription, but Canon Scott Robertson, in his
account of the Vicars of Patricksbourne, says it is a memorial to Malcolm
Ramsey, M.A., who died in 1538, having held the living for forty- four
years. The church has an open timbered roof. The lower part of the
tower forms a Baptistery.
Bourne Park is just beyond Bridge. The miniature river flows
through it and expands into a small lake in front of the mansion, behind
which a mass of fine timber connects the park with Gorsley Wood.
Although it lies beyond the first circle of villages from Canterbury, we
cannot resist the temptation to cross the park to the little village of
Bishopsbourne, the peaceful home in which Hooker lived his gentle,
learned, pious life, planting those grand yew hedges which still enclose
his garden, and writing the great work on Ecclesiastical Polity which
will outlive the yews.
Bishopsbourne church has a nave and chancel, without chancel
arch ; a chapel south of the chancel ; a north chapel divided from the
nave by two pointed arches, with an octagonal pillar, the abacus of
which is square ; a south transept, also with two pointed arches, has a
round pillar, the capital of which is square. The chancel has an east
window, of five lights, which contains the arms of Hooker, and of
Archbishop Howley. The two-light side windows, with Decorated
tracery, contain modern stained glass. The chancel walls have
recently been faced with beautiful glass tiles, and a handsome reredos
in three panels of mosaic, contains the representation of the Trans-
figuration. In the south wall is a piscina, the back of which is
diapered with a pattern of quatrefoils. The chancel contains the
monument of Richard Hooker. There is a rood door in a pier on the
south side. There anciently stood, within a recess in the church, an
image of the Virgin, the pedestal of which was a famous relic, for it is
R
138
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
recorded that, in 1462, one William Hawte bequeathed to the church
this stone as a piece of that on which the Archangel Gabriel descended
when he saluted the Virgin. The north doorway is Early English and
has outside, on the left hand of it, a pointed stoup ; the tower at the
west end is in the Perpendicular style, with three stages, and an
octagonal staircase-turret. The church contains several monuments and
memorial windows of interest.
The Rector (the Rev. T. Hirst), very kindly showed us the ancient
rooms of the Rectory, the study of the " Judicious Hooker," which was
also the room in which the great scholar died in 1600. This room has a
fine ceiling, richly panelled in oak. We were able also, to inspect the
old parchment register containing his signatures. Some unscrupulous
hunter after autographs deliberately cut out one of them a few years
back. The yew-tree hedges which Hooker planted nearly three
hundred years ago are flourishing still, and have grown to an immense
size ; they are looked after with the greatest care.
CHAPTER XXII.
latrirhlwunte, ^tktxbtmxnt, mh Sittleternt.
SHORT walk from Bridge along the bank of the Bourne,
by Bifrons Park, brings us to Patricksbourne, one of the most
picturesque of Kentish villages. It was originally called
Bourne only, the prefix Patrick's being probably derived
from one of the owners of the manor in the 13th or 14th
century. The church is mentioned in Domesday, but much of the pre-
sent building was probably erected in the next century. It consisted,
before its enlargement, of a nave and chancel, with a south aisle bisected
by a tower forming a porch, a very rare arrangement. The porch has
one of the finest Norman doorways known. It was the opinion of the
late Sir Gilbert Scott that it was considered to be too beautiful to be
removed, and the later tower was built over it. The round arch of the
door has three tiers of moulding, with carved capitals on round shafts.
The tympanum contains a sculptured representation of Our Lord with
attendant angels. The enrichment of the mouldings is remarkably varied
and elaborate. It consists of foliage, human and animal heads, gro-
tesque birds and beasts, and smaller ornaments very delicately carved.
Above the tympanum is a tall canopy, which contains a semi-circular
niche, within which is the Agnus Dei. The tower has three bells ; the
oldest bears the inscription, "Ave Maria gracia plena." The other two
were cast by Palmer, of Canterbury, in 1674.
The tower has one round arch opening to the west part of the aisle,
its other two arches being pointed. The Chancel arch is somewhat of
horse-shoe shape, and rests on slender shafts. The east end has a fine
140 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
wheel-window of eight lights, the mouldings chevroned. Below this is a
triplet of narrow round-headed windows, the middle one higher than the
others. On each side wall of the Chancel are two small and plain
Norman windows. The Chancel contains two aumbries, and an early
piscina with a crocheted canopy. There is also a squint from the south
aisle. The Priest's door in the south of the chancel has a rich carving
of early Norman work, with handsome capitals and shafts. On the north
side of the church there is another Norman doorway, which was moved
to its present position when the north aisle was built in 1824. The
chancel window contains some Flemish glass of the 16th century,
collected by the first Marchioness Conyngham.
The mansion of Bifrons, the Kent seat of the Marquis Conyngham,
was erected by John Bargrave, brother of Dean Bargrave. The Latin
epitaph of John Bargrave in Patricksbourne Church states that the family
stood and fell with the cause of the King in the Civil Wars. The grand-
son of the first builder of Bifrons was obliged to part with the estate,
almost immediately after the Restoration, to Sir Arthur Slingsby. In 1694
it was sold to Mr. John Taylor, in whose family it remained until the
beginning of the present century. In 1767, the Rev. Edward Taylor
succeeded to the estate, and was also vicar of the parish. He pulled
down the old mansion, and built the present one close to the old site.
Bifrons Park contains the site of one of the most extensive Saxon
cemeteries in this part of Kent. In 1866 some workmen, digging for a
new plantation on Patricksbourne Hill, found a few Saxon graves, and in
the autumn of 1867, Mr. T. G. Godfrey-Faussett, having obtained per-
mission from the Marquis to excavate, discovered the principal cemetery,
half way up the slope of the hill, on the south-eastern side of the valley,
and about 200 yards from the Dover road ; more than a hundred graves
were opened, and a very valuable and interesting collection of Saxon
antiquities was formed ; this is now preserved at Bifrons. During the
present year, the Rev. F. T. Vine, vicar of Patricksbourne, has opened
up some additional barrows in Gorsley Wood.
Bekesbourne, which is next Patricksbourne, is a small parish con-
taining less than a square mile. It is remarkable, as having been since
PATRICKSBOURNE AND BEKESBOURNE. 141
a very early period, an outlying limb of the Cinque Port of Hastings,
and a court of Shepway, for the Cinque Port Jurisdiction has been held
here. Hasted says that the Mayor of Hastings formerly appointed one
of the principal inhabitants of Bekesbourne to act as his deputy, but
that the custom having been discontinued, " the natives are in
consequence necessitated to journey upwards of fifty miles in order to
obtain redress in cases of emergency, so that the district, from that
inconvenience, has become an ungovernable and lawless tract of
country." Happily all that has changed, and a better order prevails. The
parish takes its name from the family of Beke, who held the manor some
time after the Conquest. In earlier times it was called Living or Livings-
bourne. The parish is less than a square mile in extent. Its church,
dedicated to St. Peter, is prettily situated on the slope of the hill which
rises towards Adisham downs. It has a nave, chancel, and south transept,
with small west tower, the latter a specimen of the " Churchwarden
Gothic" of 1814. The north door is Norman. Its outer arch has
courses of chevrons, the recessed arch mouldings being a round and
hollow. The capitals are all different in style of ornament, two of them
having rudely formed heads with other carvings. The hood-moulding has
tooth-ornament, and terminates in masks. Two small Norman windows
on either side of the chancel can be seen externally, but they have long
been filled up. The chancel contains several lancet windows ; its east
window is a double lancet, deeply splayed, and with three exceedingly
fine Early English brackets on the piers. Below the string course, and
immediately behind the altar, are two niches, now concealed by the dorsal
hangings. One has apparently been an aumbry ; the other is smaller, and
has an early trefoiled moulding. In the south wall is an interesting double
piscina, within a deep rectangular recess, divided by an octagonal pillar.
Close to the north door is a pointed stoup. The south transept is used
as a vestry. Its walls contain some monuments of interest ; one is to Sir
Thomas Pym Hales, Bart., "A Representative of the Borough of Dover,
and a true friend to Liberty and the laws of his country." He died in
1773. Another has this inscription, " Here lyeth y e body of Richard
Fogg, Esq., descended of y e ancient family of y e Foggs of this county :
142 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
he sarved King Charles y e First as Captaine at Sea. Afterwards he
retired himselfe to a private life in this parish and attained unto y e 81st
yeare of his age." He died in 1681. In the tower, removed from the
chancel, is a fine marble monument of Sir Henry Palmer, who died in
1611. The knight is clad in armour, and is kneeling in the act of prayer.
In the floor of the church is a stone, with a brass plate bearing a Latin
epitaph on Henry Porredge, 1593, written by himself. Here also is the
grave of Nicholas Battely, Vicar of Bekesbourne and Rector of Ivy-
church, the learned editor of Somner. He died in 1704. Several of
the family were buried here.
The church has recently been restored. It anciently appertained
to the Priory of St. Gregory, but since the Dissolution it has been in the
patronage of the Archbishop. In 1314 a chantry was founded in it by
James de Bourne, then lord of the manor. The Registers of Bekes-
bourne are well preserved. They commence in 1558, when the name is
spelt Beakesboorne. At the end of the book is a list of vicars, appa-
rently copied from an older record. The first name is thus given : —
"William de St. Edmundo, Rector de Living, 1250." The church plate
includes an ancient chalice of silver, engraved. The body appears to
have been restored, but the lid contains an inscription — " Beksborn
in AN - D mi 1578."
Opposite the church is an old mansion known as Beke House. This
was the site of an archiepiscopal palace. The manor of Bekesbourne
becoming the property of Archbishop Chicheley, was transferred by him
to Christ Church. Prior Goldstone, in the reign of Henry VII., enlarged
the mansion, and erected a chapel, hall, and other buildings there. On
the fall of the monastery, the manor and the prior's mansion passed into
lay hands ; but Archbishop Cranmer soon after obtained it by exchange
for the manor of Bishopsbourne, and made it one of his palaces. It is
said to have been the favourite residence of Archbishop Parker. Very
little trace remains of the old palace, which was sacked by the round-
heads in the Civil War. A memorial of Cranmer's connection with it
is left in a wall of the present buildings, viz., his arms, with his initials
and motto : " T. C. 1552. Nosce te ipsum et Deum."
LITTLEBOURNE. 143
Between Bekesbourne and Littlebourne we pass Howlets or Owlets,
the seat to which, in 1620, Sir Charles Hales removed from Thanington.
The mansion had been previously the residence of the Sir Henry
Palmer, whose effigy is in Bekesbourne church. While the Hales's lived
there the old house fell down, and the estate was sold to Isaac Baugh,
Esq., who built a new house near the site of the former one. There are
some very fine beeches in the grounds.
Littlebourne is distant about two miles from Bekesbourne and five
from Canterbury. It is a long straggling village, with the church lying
at the outskirt. The manor of Littlebourne anciently belonged to St.
Augustine's Monastery, its vineyards being planted there, while some-
what nearer to the city, at the place now known as Fishpool-bottom,
the monks had their fish-ponds. The church, which is dedicated to St.
Vincent, is mainly Early English. It consists of a nave, two aisles, and
chancel, with a west tower. The exterior has a singular outline, the
chancel roof being considerably higher than that of the nave. There is
a south doorway with slender round pillars and capitals, the mouldings of
the first pointed period. No one could suppose from the outside that this
door is blocked up inside with masonry. The west door in the tower is
also pointed, but plain. The chief feature of the church is its lofty
Early English chancel. The east window is a beautiful triple lancet
deeply splayed, with the hood-moulding springing from slender round
columns. Each side has four splayed lancet windows, and in the whole
chancel nothing is incongruous. The eleven lancets have all been filled
with stained glass memorial windows. The east triplet, which represents
the Nativity, Crucifixion, and Burial of our Lord, is in memory of the
late Henry Kingsford, Esq., obt. 1866, set. 73. The south windows con-
tain the Evangelists ; two windows were dedicated by the late Vicar
(The Rev. F. Rouch) ; two were given by Denne Denne, Esq., in
memory of his wife and third daughter. The northern windows have
the Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. They are memorial
windows to Mary and Richard Pembrook, Mary Gardener, and Frederic
Swaine. In the south wall is an early-pointed piscina with two basins.
Above the string course on the north side is a square aumbry with an
144
RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
old oaken door. The chancel arch is early pointed ; its pillars are
curiously encased in wood. The nave arcade on the south side has five
Early English arches resting on wall piers. There was probably a
corresponding arcade on the north side, one of the original arches of
which may be seen on the outside wall of the nave, where a two-light
window has been inserted. When the present north aisle was erected,
the arcade on that side was formed of two large and disproportioned
round arches, quite out of style with the general building. In the east
wall of this aisle is a two-light pointed window which is probably older
than the aisle itself. There is a memorial window to Captain James and
his wife. The south aisle has one lancet, and a later two-light window
which is filled with stained glass ; one light in memory of Henry Denne,
1822, and the other of the Ven. John Denne, Archdeacon of Rochester,
born at Littlebourne, 1693, buried at Rochester, 1707, The tower has a
lancet which is also filled with stained glass. In the chancel is a flat
stone bearing the arms of De L' Angle, in a widow's lozenge, and the
inscription Elizabeth De L' Angle, died June vn., 1750. In the east
respond of the south aisle arcade the Rood door is still seen.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Jwfofoirfr mb M\xxx$.
OLLOWING the circle of parishes which join those of the
city, we next come to Fordwich, a very ancient place,
which, with the population of a small village, still enjoys the
dignity of a corporate borough. In Domesday it is named
Forewic. It is a limb of the Cinque Port of Sandwich.
The town was, no doubt, an important place in the remote times when
there was a broad estuary between the mainland and Thanet, and the
tidal way was open to Reculver. The Corporation of Fordwich consists
of a Mayor, Jurats, and Freemen. The Mayor is also Coroner, and the
jurats are justices. There is a Town Hall, in which the magistrates hold
sessions, and administer justice. They are not wholly without the means
of executing judgment, for below the Court-hall is the lock-up.
There was, until the last century, a gallows by the quay ; and there is
still preserved — though no longer used — the ancient ducking-stool for
termagant wives. The Corporation has its insignia ; the mace is a fine
specimen, silver gilt and richly ornamented. It was a present from
Admiral Graydon, who served with Sir George Rooke in the storming of
Vigo. Both of these veterans retired to spend their last days near
Canterbury. The Graydons had long been resident at Fordwich, and
in the old mansion there the gallant Admiral died in 1727. Among
the ancient privileges of the jurats was the right to take each a
night-turn at netting the delicious trout for which the Stour was so
renowned.
146 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
Fordwich gave a territorial title to two peerages. Sir John
Finch, recorder of Canterbury, and member for that city, was chosen
Speaker in the Parliament of 1628. It was he who was kept in the
Chair by force while the House passed the resolutions against the
King's oppressive demands. During the long interval in which Charles I.
dispensed with a Parliament Sir John Finch was made Chief Justice of
the Common Pleas, being a zealous supporter of the King in his
exactions. He was created Lord Finch, Baron Fordwich. Being
impeached by the Long Parliament he was obliged to escape to Holland.
He returned at the Restoration, and took part in the trial of the
Regicides, but soon after died, and was buried at St. Martin's, Canter-
bury. Lord Cowper, on elevation to an earldom in 1718, was created
Viscount Fordwich.
The Church of St. Mary is an ancient structure, with a nave, north
aisle, and chancel. Three early-pointed arches divide the nave from the
aisle; the chancel aisle and the tower arch are also pointed. The windows
are later. There are some curious inscriptions on the ancient grave-stones
in the floor of the church. One dated 1605 is in memory of Aphra, wife
of Henry Hawkins, " who scarcely having arrived to 21 years of age yet
fully attayned perfection in many vertues " ere she " departed this frayle
life." The epitaph of Catherine, wife of Valentine Norton of Fordwich,
gent, also records an early death. She died in 1610, in her 21st year.
The following lines are upon her tombstone : —
Fame soundes so shrill over this tender coarse,
The dead growne deafe and Fame herselfe growne hoarse.
Malicious Envye cannot carpe at Fame ;
For what she soundes the dead deserv'd the same.
All speake her worth that knewe her mayde or wife :
Let all speake, all too little to her life.
Fate is excus'd : it robs not her of bliss,
But us that such a lively mirrour miss.
One onely sonne she bore, at whose deare byrth
She changed her earthlye joyes to Heavenlye mirth.
There is in the church an ancient stone shrine, ark shaped, the roof
carved with overlapping scallops, and one side with a series of small
FORDWICH AND STURRY. 147
interlacing round arches, springing from round columns. This shrine
has been for some years exposed to the weather, on the outside of the
church. Hasted says it was originally inside, but was cast out into the
churchyard, where it was likely to be destroyed. It was purchased by
someone who removed it to the Precincts of Canterbury Cathedral.
From there it was brought back, some years since, to Fordwich church-
yard, and has now, quite recently, been once again taken within the
church — its proper place. Its original history is not known.
On the opposite side of the Stour, close to Fordwich, is the village
of Sturry (the Stour isle). At the time of the Domesday survey there
was a much greater extent of river area in the parish. "Esturai," as it
was then called, had only 28 acres of meadow land, but it had no
less than ten mills and seven fisheries on the Stour. Sturry Court,
now a farm, is an old mansion house of the time of James I, The
present building contains part of the original, but has been much
altered. The entrance has still the ancient gate archway. The manor
of Sturry was, in the reign of Elizabeth, sold by John Tufton to Thomas
Smythe, of Westenhanger, who was also owner of the manor of Barton,
at Canterbury. He was the Mr. "Customer" Smythe, named in the
curious deposition of the Aldermen of Canterbury, concerning the
breaking up of a part of Babb's Hill, Canterbury, by one Robert Young.
The Customer's grandson, Sir Thomas Smythe, was created, in 1628,
Viscount Strangford. The Strangfords appear to have resided at Sturry
Court, but in 1700, on the death of the Viscount Strangford of that time,
the estate passed to his son-in-law, Henry Roper, Lord Teynham.
Sturry Church (St. Nicholas), is large and interesting. It has a
nave, chancel, two aisles, and west tower. It has passed through many
changes since its earliest walls were built. Above the four Early English,
plain-pointed arches, on square piers, forming the nave arcade on either
side, circular arches can be seen, apparently the remains of clerestory
windows of a Norman building. The chancel was probably built during
the transition to the first pointed style. Its east window has two lancets,
trefoiled. There is an aumbry in the north, and a piscina in the south
wall. The present windows of the church are mostly of second or third
148 RAMBLES ROUND OLD CANTERBURY.
pointed style. The roof has tie-beams and king-posts. The chancel
arch is pointed. There is a new oak screen. One of the pillars of the
south aisle has a pointed niche ; the same aisle has an early-pointed
piscina. On the west wall of this aisle is a stone tablet with inscription
recording the burial, in 1544, of Katherine, wife of Johne Churche.
In the floor is a flat stone with a brass, the Latin inscription on
which commemorates Thomas Childmel, of Sturry, and his two wives,
Joan and Katherine. He gave lead for the roofing of the church to the
value of £40, and in other ways proved a benefactor to the parish ; he
died in 1496. The north aisle has a square aumbry enlarged internally.
The north porch, with a good timber-framed roof, apparently dates
from the Tudor period. The west tower is square and opens to the
nave by a pointed arch.
Note to Chapter II. — Since this chapter was printed, further discoveries have been
made at St. Martin's, in connection with the two ancient arches illustrated on page 8-
The internal wall has been laid bare, and the round arch exposed on the inside,
corresponding exactly to that on the exterior. The flat headed arch, which has
been a subject of so much speculation, was found to contain a squint, the slope of
which was inclined to the west, as though directed to a side altar.
INDEX.
Abbot, Arcbbisbop, 55
"Bob-up-and-down," Chaucer's, 121
Albinus, Abbot of St. Augustine's, 23
Bolaine, Betty, Burgate Church, 75
Alcock, Capt. "William, St. Stephen's, 84
Bourne, Abbot de, 23
Alford, Dean, St. Martin's, 14
Bourne, James de, Bekesbourne, 142
All Saints', 94
Bourne Park, 137
Alms-box, ancient, Harbledown, 56
Boys, Sir John, Jesus Hospital, 112
Altar, ancient, at St. Pancras, 18
Braems, Sir Arnold, Bridge, 135
Anabaptists, 106
Brasses— St. Martin's, 13 ; St. George's,
Archer, Peter, Charthara, 124
75 ; Burgate, 75 ; St. Paul's, 76 ;
Arundel, Archbishop, 79
St. Dunstan's, 86 ; St. Alphage, 93 ;
Athol, Countess of, Chilham, 131
Northgate, 93; Thanington, 114;
Athol, Earl of, 132
Chartham, 125 ; Bridge, 136 ; Bekes-
Attwood, Thos., St. Mildred's, 70
bourne, 142 ; Sturry, 148
Augustine Friars, 108
Bridewell, the old, 109
Augustine, his landing in Kent, 5 ; his
Bridge, The Church, 135 ; Manor, 135
settlement at Canterbury, 6 ; his
Bridger family, St. Mildred's, 69
simple life, 21 ; his remains trans-
British camps, near Canterbury, 115
lated to the Abbey Church, 25
Brock, Mr. Loftus, on St" Martin's
Badlesmere, Lord, Chilham, 132
font, 13
Baldwin, Archbishop, 79, 88
Brown, Ralph, Northgate Church, 93
Bargrave (Bargar) family, 135, 124
Bungeye, Rev. John, Chartham, 126
Barham, Rev. R. H., 76
Burgate, or Borough Gate, 101
Barrows, Chartham Downs, 123 ; Chil-
Burgate Church, 75
ham, 131 ; Iffin, 115
Burnt House, The, Chartham, 124
Barton, Elizabeth, St. Sepulchre's, 110
Canute's gifts to St. Augustine's, 27
Batteley, Nicholas, Bekesbourne, 142
Canterbury, in Saxon times, 2 ; sacked
Beauvoir, Dr., " Liber Hospitalium," 50
by the Danes, 24 ; Scholarships at
Becket, "'relics" at Harbledown, 56
Cambridge, 62
Bede, his account of St. Martin's, 3
Castle, The, 95
Beke House, 142
Caxton, John, St. Alphage, 93
Bekesbourne, a limb of Hastings, 141 ;
Cemeteries, ancient, St. Sepulchre's, 111
The Church, 140
Change ringers, St. Stephen's, 81
Beresford-Hope, Mr., 29, 31
Chantries — Harbledown, 54 ; St. Paul's,
Bertha, Queen, her Oratory at St.
76 ; St. Dunstan's, 86 ; Holy Cross,
Martin's, 3 ; her so-called tomb, 11 ;
89; Chilham, 133; Bekesbourne, 142
buried at St. Augustine's, 12, 22
Charles I. at St. Augustine's, 40
Bifrons Park, 140
Charters of St. Augustine's, 26
Bigbury Wood, ancient camp, 115
Chartham — The Church, 124 ; Deanery,
Bigg William, St. George's Gate, 99
124; Saxon Cemetery, 123
Binnewith Island, 107
Chaucer's " Bob-up-and-down," 57, 121
Bishopsbourne, 137
Cheney, Sir Thomas, Chilham, 132
Black Eriars, The, 104
Chequers, Chaucer's Inn, 59
Black Prince, at Harbledown, 54
Chesshyre, Rev. W. J., 11, 77
Blue Dick (Culmer), 126
Chiches family, 94, 135
INDEX.
Childmel, Thomas, 148
Chilham, The Castle, 128 ; Romans at,
131 ; The Church, 132
Chrismatory found at St. Martin's. 14
Churche, John, Sturry, 148
Cogan's Hospital, 112
Cokyn (Cockyn), William, 59, 67
Colebrooke family, Chilham, 133
Colepepper, Colonel, Hackington, 79
Coleridge, Bishop, St. Augustine's, 41
Coleridge, Rev. Ed., St. Augustine's, 40
Colet, Dean, at Harbledown, 56
Colfe, Abraham, Westgate, 90
Conyngham family, Bifrons, 140
Cotton, Leonard, 74 ; his Hospital, 112
Cranmer family, St. Mildred's, 67
Cranmer, Archbishop, and the Black-
friars, 106 ; his palace at Bekes-
bourne. 142
Cross, ancient, found at St. Martin's, 13,
135 ; The Iron, 73
Culmer (Blue Dick), 126
Dane John, The, 96
De L' Angle, Rector of Chartham, 124
Denne, Archdeacon, Littlebourne, 144
Diggs, John, Greyfriars, 107
Digges, Sir Dudley, Chilham, 132
Doge, Hamo, St. Paul, 76
Dole, Villai, St. George's, 75
Dominican Friars, 104
Ducking stool, Fordwich, 145
Dunstan, St. Augustine's, 22
Eadbald, his apostacy, 22
Earth -circle at Chilham, 131
Eastbridge Hospital, 58
Elizabeth, Queen, at St. Augustine's, 43
Elmar, Abbot, and the Danes, 24
Erasmus, at Harbledown, 56
Essex, Jobn, Abbot, St. Augustine's, 26
Ethelbert, his palace, 2 ; buried at St.
Augustine, 12 ; his temple, 15, 18 ;
his second marriage, 22
Ethelbert's Tower, 31," 34
Exchange, ancient, in Canterbury, 60
Fagge family, Chilham, 133, 135
Farnham, John, Eastbridge Hospital, 62
Faussett, Bryan Rev., on the cross at
St. Martin's, 13 ; his " Inventorium
Sepulchrale," 123 ; Nackington, 134
Fferne, David, dwarf, St. Paul's, 77
Finch, Sir John, 146
Fineux, George, St. Paul's, 76
Fishpool-bottom, 143
Flints, squared, 42
Fogg, Richard, Bekesbourne, 141
Font— ancient, St. Martin's, 13 ; St.
Pancras, 16 ; St. John's, 47 ; St.
George's, 75
Ford, at Thanington, 115
Fordwich, 27, 145
Fraternity of Jesus Masse, 89
,, Parish Clerks, 106
Fulks, Stephen and Alice, 13
Furley, John, St. Stephen's, 84
Furley, William Henry, 77
Fyndon, Abbot, St. Augustine's, 37
Gallows— St. Dunstan' s, 88 ; Westgate,
90; Fordwich, 145
Gates, City, 97
Gibbons, Orlando, at Canterbury, 40
Gilbert Canon, a choir boy, 40
Gray, William, Burgate Church, 76
Gray, The poet, at Canterbury, 113
Graydon, Admiral, 145
Gregory, Pope, and Augustine, 5
Grey Friars (Franciscans), 107
Guy, of Warwick, Harbledown, 57
Hackington, Tournament at, 79
Hales family, St. Augustine's, 26 ; St.
Stephen's, 79 ; Thanington, 116 ;
Bekesbourne, 141, 143
Hales, Sir James, Tonford, 116
Hales' Place, 81
Hales, Sir Thomas Pym, Bekesbourne, 141
Hall, Rev. H., St. John's, 50
Halle, Thomas, brass at Thanington, 114
Harbledown, 52
Harriet, Walter, 136
Hatch, Joseph, married at St. Paul's, 77
Hawte, William, Bishopsbourne, 137
Head, Sir Francis, St. Mildred's, 69
Henry II., at Harbledown, 54
,, St. Dunstan's, 85
Henry of Canterbury, St. Dunstan's, 86
Heppington, 135
Holy Cross Church, Westgate, 89
Holy Maid of Kent, 110
Honywood family, St. Mildred's, 69
Hooker, Richard, Bishopsbourne, 137
Horton Manor, 123
Hospitals— St. John's, 45 ; St. Nicholas
(Harbledown), 51 ; East Bridge, 58 ;
Poor Priest's, 109 ; St. Lawrence,
110; St. James', 111; Jesus, 112;
Cogan's, 112; Cotton's, 112; May-
nard's, 112
Howlets, near Bekesbourne, 143
Hussey, Mr., on St. Mildred's, 66
INDEX.
Iffin, British camp at, 115
"Ingoldsby" (Rev.R.H.Barham), 76,123
Ing worth, Bishop of Dover, 109
Iron Cross, 73
Jacob, Dr., Wincheap Gate, 98
Jesus Hospital, Northgate, 112
Jesus Masse, Fraternity of, 89
Jews, imprisoned in the Castle, 96
John, King, at Chilham, 131
Julaber's grave, Chilham, 131
Kent, Kings of, St. Augustine's, 24
Kingsford family, Chartham, 124
Klook, Christopher, 76
Lady Wootton's Green, 28
Lanfranc, Archbishop, 45, 49, 50, 52, 85
Langton, Simon, 79, 109
Langton, Stephen, Archbishop, 58, 78, 104
Laurentius, St. Augustine's, 22
Leper Hospitals 45, 52, 110, 112
Leprosy in England, 52
Littlebourne, 143
Living, Livingsbourne, Bekesbourne. 142
Longport, 76, 101
Lovelace family, Greyfriars, 107
Lovelle, John, Priest, St. George's, 75
Luidhard, Chaplain to Queen Bertha, 3
Manwood, Sir Roger, 79, 82, 108
Martyn, John, Graveney Church, 83
Martyr's Field, Wincheap, 103
Mascoll, Robert, St. John's, 49
Maynard's Hospital, 112
Mazer-bowl, ancient, at Harbledown, 56
Mellitus, St. Augustine's, 23
Milles family, 134
Milton Manor, 122
Miracle Plays, Holy Cross Church, 90
Monastery, the first English, 21
More, Sir Thomas, St. Dunstan's, 86
My stole Park, 127
Naekington, 134
Newingate (St. George's), 99
Newman, Sir George, St. Margaret's, 73
Nolan, Nicholas, Westgate, 90
Norman piscina, St. Martin's, 10
Northgate, 93, 102
Nun of St. Sepulchre's, 110
Nunneries, 104
Nutt family, Nackiugton, 135
Paintings, ancient, Eastbiidsre, 63 ; of
Thanington. 116; Bridge"", 136
Palmer, Lady, Chilham, 133
Palmer, Sir Henry, Bekesbourne, 142
Paper Mill, Chartham, 124
Parker, Archbishop, 49, 60, 62, 142
Patricksbourne (Patrixbourne), 139
Penny Pot Wood, 127
Petit family, 127
Pierre, Peter de La, 106
Pilgrims' Hall, Eastbridge, 58
Pilgrims' Way, The, 51
Pole, Cardinal, St. Augustine's, 26
Poor Priests' Hospital, 107, 109
Porredge, Henry, Bekesbourne, 142
Priories, 104
Prison at St. Dunstan's, 88; The Castle,
96 ; Westgate, 103
Prude, Thomas, St. Alphage, 93
Queeningate, 101
Ramsay, Sir Harry, Burgate Church, 75
Ramsey, Malcolm, Patricksbourne, 137
Riding Gate, 99
Roman remains — St. Martin's, 10 ; St.
Pancras, 18 ; St. Mildred's, 66 ; Rid-
ing Gate, 99
Rondeau family, St. Dunstan's, 81
Rooke'sduel, 77
Rooke, Sir George, St. Paul's, 77
Rooke, Sir William, St. Paul's, 77
Roos, Thos. de, Chilham, 60
Roper family, St. Dunstan's, 86, 147
Routledge, Canon, St. Martin's, 10
St. Alphege, 92
St. Andrew's, 94
St. Augustine's, Foundation of the Mon-
astery, 21 ; rededication byDunstan,
22 ; Kings of Kent buried at, 24 ;
Spared by the Danes, 24 ; Partly
destroyed by fire, 25 ; Occasional
distress, 26 ; Dissolution of the
Monastery, 26 ; The Grand Gate, 28 ;
The ruins of the Abbey, 33 ; A
palace of Henry VIII., 26, 34; A
local Vauxhall, 38 ; Royal visitors to.
40 ; College, foundation of, 29 ;
College, Dr. Neale's poem on, 30
St. Dunstan's Church, 85
,, Place (Roper House), 86
,, Edmund, Ridingate, 99
,, George's Church, 74
,, Gate 99
,, Gregory's Priory, 50, 109
,, James's (St. Jacob's), Hospital, 111
,, John's Hospital, 45
,, John the Poor, 71
,, Lawrence, Hospital of, 110
,, Margaret's Church, 72
,, Martin's Church, 9
,, Porch, St. Augustine's, 31
— . — _
INDEX.
St. Mary, Bishopsbourne, 137
Smythe, Mr. Customer, 147
,, Bredman, 94
Somner, John, Harbledown, 55
„ Bredin, 94
Somner, William, St. Margaret's, 73
,, de Castro, 71, 96
SS, Collar of, St. Stephen's, 82
,, Chartham, 124
Storey, Charles, Chartham, 123
,, Chilham, 132
Stoughton, Thomas, St. Martin's, 13
,, Fordwich, 14G
Stratford, Archbishop, 53, 59, 90
,, Magdalen, Burgate, 75
Strangford, Viscount, 147
,, Nackington, 134
Stukeley, Dr., 99
,, North gate, 93
Sturry, 147
,, Patricksbourne, 140
Sudbury, Archbishop, Westgate, 89, 97
,, Queeningate, 102
Suppression of the Priories, 109
St. Michael's Gate (Burgate), 101
Swift, Dean, his ancestors rectors of St.
St. Mildred, her relics removed to St.
Andrew's, 94
Augustine's, 27
Taylor, Rev. Edward, Bifrons, 140
St. Mildred's Church, 65
Teynham Lord, a descendant of the
,, Porch at St. Augustine's, 31
Ropers, 86, 147
St. Nicholas, Brotherhood of, 106
Thanington, 113
,, Harbledown, 57
Thorn, a monk of St. Augustine, 6, 17
,, Sturry, 147
Tonford Manor, remains of, 119
,. Thanington, 113
Tournament, at St. Stephen's, 79
St. Pancras, 6, 15
Towers of the City Walls, 98
St. Paul's Church, 76
Trinity Chapel, St. Dunstan's, 87
St. Peter, Bekesbourne, 141
Tumulus, aclffin, 116; Chilham, 131
,, Bridge, 135
Twyne, John, St. Paul's, 76
,, Canterbury, 91
Valoyns family, 116
St. Sepulchre's Nunnery, 99, 110
Vicarage of Thanington, the ancient, 114
St. Stephen's, Hackington, 78
Waleys, Sir William, 116
St. Vincent, Littlebourne, 143
Walls of the City, 96
Saxon Cemetery, Chartham Downs, 123
Warham, Archbishop, 79, 111
BifronsPark, 140
Watson, John, St. Margaret's, 73
Saxon Masonry at St. Martin's, 10
Weekes, Henry, R.A., of Canterbury, 70
Scotland, Abbot of St. Augustine's, 25
Westgate, 102
Septvans, Sir Robert de, Chatham, 125 ;
Whitefriars, 104
Sir William de, 116
Whitgift, Archbishop, Eastbridge, 62
Sertivoli, Michael Francis, 13
Wido, Abbot, St. Augustine's, 25
Sextries, manor of, Nackington, 135
Winter, John, St. Margaret's, 73
Shalmsford Street, manor of, 127
Wincheap Gate, 98
Sheldon, Archbishop, 55
Woodall, Rev. E. H., St. Margaret's, 72
Shrine, ancient, Fordwich, 146
Workhouse, The old, 109
Simmons, Alderman, 7o
Worthgate, The, 98
Six, James, M.A., Westgate Church, 90
Wotton, Lord, St. Augustine's, 20
JPI&
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