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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44684 ***
+
+                           THE PILGRIMS' WAY
+
+                     FROM WINCHESTER TO CANTERBURY
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+                           THE PILGRIMS' WAY
+                            FROM WINCHESTER
+                             TO CANTERBURY
+
+                          BY JULIA CARTWRIGHT
+
+                            [Illustration]
+
+                            ILLUSTRATED BY
+                          A. H. HALLAM MURRAY
+
+                               NEW YORK
+                       E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY
+                                 1911
+
+          "From every shire's ende
+    Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
+    The holy blissful martyr for to seeke,
+    That them hath holpen when that they were sicke."
+
+                         ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
+
+[Illustration: THE APPROACH TO WINCHESTER FROM THE SOUTH]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+This account of the Way trodden by the pilgrims of the Middle Ages
+through the South of England to the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury
+originally appeared in the _Art Journal_ for 1892, with illustrations by
+Mr. A. Quinton. It was published in the following year as a separate
+volume, and reprinted in 1895 and 1901. Now by the courtesy of Messrs.
+Virtue's representatives, and in response to a continued demand, it
+appears again in a new and revised form, with the additional attraction
+of illustrations from original drawings by Mr. Hallam Murray.
+
+During the twenty years which have elapsed since these pages were first
+written, a whole literature has grown up round the Pilgrims' Way. Not
+only have scholarly papers on separate sections of the road appeared in
+the Journals of Archæological Societies, but several valuable works on
+the subject have been issued by writers of authority. Mr. H.
+Snowden-Ward has written a book on "The Canterbury Pilgrimages," in
+Messrs. A. & C. Black's Pilgrimage Series, in which he deals at length
+with the life and death, the cult and miracles of St. Thomas, and the
+different routes taken by pilgrims to his shrine. Mr. Palmer has
+described a considerable portion of the Way in his treatise on "Three
+Surrey Churches," and only last autumn Mr. Elliston-Erwood published an
+excellent little guide-book called "The Pilgrims' Road," for the use of
+cyclists and pedestrians, in Messrs. Warne's Homeland Pocket-book
+Series. But the most thorough and systematic attempt to reconstruct the
+route taken by pilgrims from Winchester to Canterbury has been made by
+Mr. Belloc in his admirable work, "The Old Road." The author himself
+walked along the ancient track, and succeeded in filling up many gaps
+where the road had been lost, and in recovering almost the whole of the
+Way, "yard by yard from the capital of Hampshire to the capital of
+Kent." This intimate knowledge of the road and its characteristics have
+led him to make several alterations in the line of the Way marked on the
+Ordnance Map, which had hitherto served as the basis of most
+descriptions. But as Mr. Belloc himself recognises, it is clear that
+pilgrims often left the original road to visit churches and shrines in
+the neighbourhood. Thus, in several places, new tracks sprang up along
+the downs to which local tradition has given the name of the Pilgrims'
+Way, and which it is not always easy to distinguish from the main road.
+Like Bunyan's pilgrims, when they came to the foot of the hill
+Difficulty, "one turned to the left hand, and the other to the right,
+but the narrow way lay right up the hill."
+
+In this edition of my book some obvious errors have been corrected, and
+certain doubtful points have been cleared up with the help of experience
+gained by other workers in the same field. But, as a rule, my object has
+been not so much to draw attention to the actual road as to describe the
+antiquities and objects of interest which arrest the traveller's notice
+on his journey. From whatever side we approach it, the subject is a
+fascinating one. All of these different studies, varied in aims and
+scope as they may be, bear witness to the perennial interest which the
+Pilgrims' Way inspires. The beauty of the country through which the old
+road runs, its historic associations and famous memories, the ancient
+churches and houses which lie on its course, will always attract those
+who love and reverence the past, and will lead many to follow in the
+footsteps of the mediæval pilgrims along the Way to Canterbury.
+
+                                             JULIA CARTWRIGHT.
+
+OCKHAM, _Nov. 1, 1911_.
+
+[Illustration: THE RIVER ITCHEN WHERE IT LEAVES THE TOWN.]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+CHAPTER      PAGE
+
+I. THE PILGRIMS' WAY                                                   1
+
+II. WINCHESTER TO ALTON                                               20
+
+III. ALTON TO COMPTON                                                 44
+
+IV. COMPTON TO SHALFORD                                               63
+
+V. SHALFORD TO ALBURY                                                 75
+
+VI. SHERE TO REIGATE                                                  87
+
+VII. REIGATE TO CHEVENING                                            103
+
+VIII. OTFORD TO WROTHAM                                              125
+
+IX. WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE                                         137
+
+X. HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM                                           153
+
+XI. CHARING TO GODMERSHAM                                            167
+
+XII. CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN                                           182
+
+XIII. HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY                                       193
+
+XIV. THE MARTYR'S SHRINE                                             203
+
+INDEX                                                                217
+
+
+NOTE ON THE BINDING
+
+The "Canterbury Bell" and the Badges, represented on the cover of the
+book, were worn by the Pilgrims on their return from the Shrine of St.
+Thomas. The Badges were made of lead.
+
+[Illustration: NEAR WROTHAM WATER.]
+
+
+
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+     COLOURED PLATES
+
+THE NORMAN TOWER AND SOUTH TRANSEPT, WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL  _Frontispiece_
+
+FACING PAGE
+
+WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH                                   32
+
+CHAWTON HOUSE                                                         50
+
+THE MOTE, IGHTHAM                                                    136
+
+AYLESFORD BRIDGE                                                     146
+
+COTTAGE AT BOARLEY, NEAR BOXLEY                                      152
+
+CHARING                                                              170
+
+CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH-WEST                             192
+
+     HALF-TONES
+
+                                                             FACING PAGE
+
+WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL, SOUTH AISLE OF CHOIR                            25
+
+KING'S GATE, WINCHESTER, FROM THE CLOSE                               28
+
+LOSELEY                                                               67
+
+THE HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD                                               72
+
+OLD YEWS AND OAK IN EASTWELL PARK                                    176
+
+THE WEST GATE, CANTERBURY                                            194
+
+MERCERY LANE, CANTERBURY                                             199
+
+THE MARTYRDOM, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL                                  205
+
+     LINE BLOCKS
+
+ON "THE WAY" BETWEEN KEMSING AND OTFORD                      _Title-page_
+
+THE APPROACH TO WINCHESTER FROM THE SOUTH                              v
+
+THE RIVER ITCHEN WHERE IT LEAVES THE TOWN                             ix
+
+NEAR WROTHAM WATER                                                    xi
+
+ST. CROSS AND ST. KATHERINE'S HILL                                     1
+
+DOORWAY IN CANTERBURY CLOISTERS THROUGH WHICH BECKET
+PASSED ON HIS WAY TO VESPERS                                           8
+
+ST. CROSS FROM THE MEADOWS                                            13
+
+THE ENTRANCE TO ST. CROSS HOSPITAL                                    15
+
+BOX HILL                                                              18
+
+THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH                                          20
+
+ROOF OF STRANGERS' HALL, WINCHESTER                                   21
+
+THE WEST GATE, WINCHESTER                                             23
+
+ON THE RIVER ITCHEN, WINCHESTER                                       27
+
+THATCHED COTTAGE, MARTYR WORTHY                                       34
+
+CHILLAND FARM, NEAR ITCHEN ABBAS                                      36
+
+NEW ALRESFORD                                                         40
+
+THE HOG'S BACK                                                        44
+
+JANE AUSTEN'S HOUSE, CHAWTON                                          47
+
+FARNHAM CASTLE                                                        53
+
+CROOKSBURY FROM NEWLANDS CORNER                                       55
+
+COMPTON VILLAGE                                                       63
+
+COMPTON CHURCH                                                        65
+
+ST. KATHERINE'S, GUILDFORD                                            70
+
+ST. MARTHA'S CHAPEL                                                   71
+
+THE HOG'S BACK                                                        73
+
+ST. MARTHA'S FROM THE HOG'S BACK                                      75
+
+ST. MARTHA'S FROM CHILWORTH                                           81
+
+ALBURY OLD CHURCH                                                     85
+
+THE MILL, GOMSHALL                                                    87
+
+SHERE                                                                 89
+
+CROSSWAYS FARM, NEAR WOTTON                                           91
+
+WOTTON                                                                93
+
+BOX HILL AND DORKING CHURCH SPIRE                                     95
+
+THE WHITE HORSE, DORKING                                              96
+
+BETWEEN DORKING AND BETCHWORTH LOOKING WEST                           97
+
+ON "THE WAY" ABOVE BETCHWORTH                                        100
+
+WINDMILL ON REIGATE COMMON                                           103
+
+REIGATE COMMON                                                       105
+
+LOOKING EAST FROM GATTON PARK                                        108
+
+GATTON TOWN HALL                                                     110
+
+MERSTHAM CHURCH                                                      113
+
+THE WHITE HART, GODSTONE                                             115
+
+OLD HOUSE IN OXTED                                                   116
+
+OXTED CHURCH                                                         117
+
+BRASTED                                                              120
+
+CHEVENING CHURCH                                                     123
+
+OTFORD CHURCH                                                        125
+
+THE PORCH, KEMSING CHURCH                                            133
+
+WROTHAM CHURCH                                                       135
+
+WROTHAM, LOOKING SOUTH                                               137
+
+THE BULL, WROTHAM                                                    139
+
+TROTTESCLIFFE                                                        140
+
+FORD PLACE, NEAR WROTHAM                                             141
+
+THE FRIARY, AYLESFORD                                                144
+
+KITS COTY HOUSE                                                      147
+
+LOOKING WEST FROM ABOVE BOXLEY ABBEY                                 149
+
+HOLLINGBOURNE HOUSE                                                  155
+
+MARKET-PLACE, LENHAM                                                 163
+
+IN CHARING VILLAGE                                                   167
+
+THE PALACE, WROTHAM                                                  181
+
+CHILHAM                                                              182
+
+ON THE VILLAGE GREEN, CHARTHAM                                       187
+
+ST. NICHOLAS', HARBLEDOWN                                            193
+
+SITE OF THE SHRINE OF ST. THOMAS, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL               209
+
+[Illustration: ST. CROSS AND ST. KATHERINE'S HILL.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE PILGRIMS' WAY
+
+
+Three hundred and seventy years have passed since the shrine of St.
+Thomas at Canterbury was swept away, and the martyr's ashes were
+scattered to the winds. The age of pilgrimages has gone by, the
+conditions of life have changed, and the influences which drew such vast
+multitudes of men and women to worship at the murdered Archbishop's tomb
+have long ago ceased to work on the popular mind. No longer does the
+merry cavalcade of Chaucer's lay ride forth in the freshness of the
+spring morning, knight and merchant, scholar and lawyer, Prioress and
+Wife of Bath, yeoman and priest and friars, a motley company from all
+parts of the realm, "ready to wenden on their pilgrimage with full
+devout courage" to Canterbury. The days of pilgrimages are over, their
+fashion has passed away, but still some part of the route which the
+travellers took can be traced, and the road they trod still bears the
+name of the Pilgrims' Way. Over the Surrey hills and through her stately
+parks the dark yews which lined the path may yet be seen. By many a
+quiet Kentish homestead the grassy track still winds its way along the
+lonely hill-side overlooking the blue Weald, and, if you ask its name,
+the labourer who guides the plough, or the waggoner driving his team,
+will tell you that it is the Pilgrims' Road to Canterbury. So the old
+name lives, and the memory of that famous pilgrimage which Chaucer sang
+has not yet died out of the people's heart. And although strangers
+journey no longer from afar to the martyrs shrine, it is still a
+pleasant thing to ride out on a spring or summer morning and follow the
+Pilgrims' Way. For the scenes through which it leads are fair, and the
+memories that it wakes belong to the noblest pages of England's story.
+
+In those old days the pilgrims who came to Canterbury approached the
+holy city by one of the three following routes. There was first of all
+the road taken by Chaucer's pilgrims from London, through Deptford,
+Greenwich, Rochester, and Sittingbourne; the way trodden by all who came
+from the North, the Midlands, and the Eastern Counties, and by those
+foreigners who, like Erasmus, had first visited London. But the greater
+number of the foreign pilgrims from France, Germany, and Italy landed at
+Sandwich Haven or Dover, and approached Canterbury from the south; while
+others, especially those who came from Normandy and Brittany, landed at
+Southampton and travelled through the southern counties of Hampshire,
+Surrey, and Kent. Many of these doubtless stopped at Winchester,
+attracted by the fame of St. Swithun, the great healing Bishop; and
+either here or else at Guildford, they would be joined by the pilgrims
+from the West of England on their way to the Shrine of Canterbury. This
+was the route taken by Henry II. when, landing at Southampton on his
+return from France, he made his first memorable pilgrimage to the tomb
+of the murdered Archbishop, in the month of July, 1174. And this route
+it is, which, trodden by thousands of pilgrims during the next three
+centuries, may still be clearly defined through the greater part of its
+course, and which in Surrey and Kent bears the historic name of the
+Pilgrims' Way. A very ancient path it is, older far than the days of
+Plantagenets and Normans, of shrines and pilgrimages. For antiquarian
+researches have abundantly proved this road to be an old British track,
+which was in use even before the coming of the Romans. It may even have
+been, as some writers suppose, the road along which caravans of
+merchants brought their ingots of tin from Cornwall to be shipped at
+what was then the great harbour of Britain, the Rutupine Port,
+afterwards Sandwich Haven, and then borne overland to Massilia and the
+Mediterranean shores. Ingots of tin, buried it may be in haste by
+merchants attacked on their journey by robbers, have, it is said, been
+dug up at various places along this route, and British earthworks have
+been found in its immediate neighbourhood.
+
+The road was, there can be no doubt, used by the Romans; and all along
+its course remains of Roman villas, baths, and pavements have been
+brought to light, together with large quantities of Roman coins,
+cinerary urns, and pottery of the most varied description. In mediæval
+days this "tin road," as Mr. Grant Allen calls it, still remained the
+principal thoroughfare from the West to the East of England. It followed
+the long line of hills which runs through the north of Hampshire, and
+across Surrey and Kent, that famous chalk ridge which has for us so many
+different associations, with whose scenery William Cobbett, for
+instance, has made us all familiar in the story of his rides to and from
+the Wen. And it lay outside the great trackless and impassable forest of
+Anderida, which in those days still covered a great part of the
+south-east counties of England. Dean Stanley, in his eloquent account
+of the Canterbury pilgrimage, describes this road as a byway, and
+remarks that the pilgrims avoided the regular roads, "probably for the
+same reason as in the days of Shamgar, the son of Anath, the highways
+were unoccupied, and the traveller walked through byways." But the
+statement is misleading, and there can be little doubt that in the
+twelfth and thirteenth centuries this road was, if not the only means of
+communication between West and East, at least the principal thoroughfare
+across this part of England, and was as such the route naturally chosen
+by pilgrims to Canterbury.
+
+Certain peculiarities, it is interesting to notice, mark its course from
+beginning to end. It clings to the hills, and, wherever it is possible,
+avoids the marshy ground of the valleys. It runs, not on the summit of
+the downs, but about half-way down the hill-side, where there is shelter
+from the wind, as well as sunshine to be had under the crest of the
+ridge. And its course is marked by rows of yew trees, often remarkable
+for their size and antiquity. Some of these are at least seven or eight
+hundred years old, and must have reared their ancient boughs on the
+hill-side before the feet of pilgrims ever trod these paths. So striking
+is this feature of the road, and so fixed is the idea that some
+connection exists between these yew trees and the Pilgrims' Way, that
+they are often said to have been planted with the express object of
+guiding travellers along the road to Canterbury. This, however, we need
+hardly say, is a fallacy. Yews are by no means peculiar to the Pilgrims'
+Way, but are to be found along every road in chalk districts. They
+spring up in every old hedgerow on this soil, and are for the most part
+sown by the birds. But the presence of these venerable and picturesque
+forms does lend an undeniable charm to the ancient track. And in some
+places where the line of cultivation gradually spreading upwards has
+blotted out every other trace of the road, where the ploughshare has
+upturned the sod, and the hedgerows have disappeared, three or four of
+these grand old trees may still be seen standing by themselves in the
+midst of a ploughed field, the last relics of a bygone age.
+
+[Illustration: DOORWAY IN CANTERBURY CLOISTERS THROUGH WHICH BECKET
+PASSED ON HIS WAY TO VESPERS.]
+
+The murder of Becket took place on the 29th of December, 1170. At five
+o'clock on that winter evening, as the Archbishop was on his way to
+vespers, the King's men, Reginald Fitz Urse and three knights who had
+accompanied him from Saltwood Castle, rushed upon him with their swords
+and murdered him in the north transept of his own Cathedral. The tragic
+circumstance of Becket's end made a profound impression on the people of
+England, and universal horror was excited by this act of sacrilege.
+Whatever his faults may have been, the murdered Archbishop had dared to
+stand up against the Crown for the rights of the Church, and had died
+rather than yield to the Kings demands. "For the name of Jesus and the
+defence of the Church I am ready to die," were his last words, as he
+fell under the assassins' blows. When he landed at Sandwich, on his
+return from France, the country folk crowded to meet him and hailed him
+as the father of orphans and deliverer of the oppressed, crying,
+"Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord." His journey to
+Canterbury was one long triumphal procession.[1] The poor looked to him
+as their champion and defender, who had laid down his life in the cause
+of freedom and righteousness. Henceforth Thomas became a national hero,
+and was everywhere honoured as the Martyr of the English.
+
+The popular belief in his holiness was confirmed by the miracles that
+were wrought in his name from the moment of his death. A violent storm
+broke over the Cathedral when the fatal deed was done, and was followed
+by a red glow, which illuminated the choir where the dead man's body was
+laid before the altar. The next day the monks buried the corpse in a
+marble tomb behind Our Lady's altar in the under-croft. For nearly a
+year no mass was said in the Cathedral, no music was heard, no bells
+were rung; the altars were stripped of their ornaments, and the
+crucifixes and images were covered over. Meanwhile, reports reached
+Canterbury of the wonderful cures performed by the martyred Archbishop.
+On the third day after the murder, the wife of a Sussex knight, who
+suffered from blindness, invoked the blessed martyr's help, and was
+restored to sight. And on the very night of the burial the paralytic
+wife of a citizen of Canterbury was cured by a garment which her
+husband had dipped in the murdered saint's blood.
+
+These marvels were followed by a stream of devout pilgrims who came to
+seek healing at the martyr's tomb or to pay their vows for the mercies
+which they had received. A monk was stationed at the grave to receive
+offerings and report the miracles that were wrought to the Chapter. At
+first these wonders were kept secret, for fear of the King, and of
+Becket's enemies, the De Brocs, whose men guarded the roads to
+Canterbury. The doors of the crypt were kept bolted and barred, and only
+the poor in the town and the neighbouring villages crept to the tomb.[2]
+But on Easter Day, 1171, the crowds rushed in to see a dumb man who was
+said to have recovered his speech; and on the following Friday the crypt
+was thrown open to the public. From that time, writes Benedict, the monk
+of Canterbury, "the scene of the Pool of Bethesda was daily renewed in
+the Cathedral, and numbers of sick and helpless persons were to be seen
+lying on the pavement of the great church."[3] "These great miracles
+are wrought," wrote John of Salisbury, an intimate friend of Becket, who
+became Bishop of Chartres in 1176, and was an able statesman and
+scholar, "in the place of his passion and in the place where he lay
+before the great altar before his burial, and in the tomb where he was
+laid at last, the blind see, the deaf hear, the dumb speak, the lame
+walk, lepers are cleansed, and, a thing unheard of since the days of our
+fathers, the dead are raised to life."[4]
+
+From all parts of England the sick and suffering now crowded to
+Canterbury, telling the same marvellous tale, how Thomas had appeared to
+them robed in white, with the thin red streak of blood across his face,
+bringing healing and peace. "In towns and villages, in castles and
+cottages, throughout the kingdom," writes another contemporary
+chronicler, "every one from the highest to the lowest wishes to visit
+and honour his tomb. Clerks and laymen, rich and poor, nobles and
+common people, fathers and mothers with their children, masters with
+their servants, all come hither, moved by the same spirit of devotion.
+They travel by day and night in winter and summer, however cold the
+weather may be, and the inns and hostelries on the road to Canterbury
+are as crowded with people as great cities are on market days."[5]
+
+[Illustration: ST. CROSS FROM THE MEADOWS.]
+
+On the 21st of February, 1173, Pope Alexander III. pronounced the decree
+of canonisation, and fixed the Feast of St. Thomas of Canterbury on the
+day of the Archbishop's martyrdom. In July, 1174, King Henry II., moved
+by the reports which reached him in Normandy of the popular enthusiasm
+for Becket, and fearing the effects of the divine wrath, came himself to
+do penance at the martyr's tomb. Three months after the King of the
+English had given this public proof of his penitence and obtained
+release from the Church's censures, "the glorious choir of Conrad" was
+destroyed by fire, on the night of September 5, 1174. The rebuilding of
+the church, which was largely assisted by offerings at Becket's tomb,
+was not finished until 1220, when the Saint's body was removed to its
+final resting-place in the new apse at the East end of the Chapel of the
+Blessed Trinity, where the Archbishop had said his first mass.
+
+[Illustration: THE ENTRANCE TO ST. CROSS HOSPITAL.]
+
+On Tuesday, July 7, an immense concourse of people of all ranks and ages
+assembled at Canterbury. "The city and villages round," writes an
+eye-witness, "were so filled with folk that many had to abide in tents
+or under the open sky."[6] Free hospitality was given to all, and the
+streets of Canterbury literally flowed with wine. A stately procession,
+led by the young King Henry III. and the patriot Archbishop Stephen
+Langton, entered the crypt, and bore the Saint's remains with solemn
+ceremonial to their new resting-place. Here a sumptuous shrine, adorned
+with gold plates and precious gems, wrought "by the greatest master of
+the craft" that could be found in England, received the martyr's relics,
+and the new apse became known as "Becket's Crown."
+
+The fame of St. Thomas now spread into all parts of the world during the
+next two centuries, and the Canterbury pilgrimage was the most popular
+in Christendom. The 7th of July was solemnly set apart as the Feast of
+the Translation of St. Thomas, and henceforth the splendour of this
+festival threw the anniversary of the actual martyrdom into the shade.
+The very fact that it took place in summer and not in winter naturally
+attracted greater numbers of pilgrims from a distance. And on the
+jubilees or fiftieth anniversaries of the Translation, the concourse of
+people assembled at Canterbury was enormous.
+
+Besides the crowds attracted by these two chief festivals, pilgrims came
+to Canterbury in smaller parties at all seasons of the year, but more
+especially in the spring and summer months. Each year, as Chaucer sings,
+when the spring-time comes round,
+
+    "When that Aprille with his showers sweete
+     The drought of Marche had pierced to the roote....
+     When Zephyrus eke with his sweete breathe
+     Inspired hath in every holt and heathe
+     The tender croppes ...
+     And small fowlës maken melodie,
+     That sleepen all the night with open eye,
+     Then longen folk to go on pilgrimages,
+     And palmers for to seeken strange 'strandës' ...
+     And specially, from every shire's ende
+     Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
+     The holy blissful martyr for to seeke
+     That them hath holpen when that they were sicke."
+
+[Illustration: BOX HILL.]
+
+The passage of these caravans of pilgrims could not fail to leave its
+mark on the places and the people along their path. The sight of these
+strange faces, the news they brought, and the tales they told must have
+impressed the dwellers in these quiet woodlands and lonely hills. And
+traces of their presence remain to this day on the Surrey downs and in
+the lanes of Kent. They may, or may not, have been responsible for the
+edible variety of large white snails, _Helix pomatia_, commonly called
+Roman snails, which are found in such abundance at Albury in Surrey, and
+at Charing in Kent, as well as at other places along the road, and
+which the Norman French pilgrims are traditionally said to have brought
+over with them. But the memory of their pilgrimage survives in the
+wayside chapels and shrines which sprung up along the track, in the
+churches which were built for their benefit, or restored and decorated
+by their devotion, above all in the local names still in common use
+along the countryside. Pilgrims' Lodge and Pilgrims' Ferry, Palmers'
+Wood, Paternoster Lane--these, and similar terms, still speak of the
+custom which had taken such fast hold of the popular mind during the
+three hundred and fifty years after the death of Becket, and recall the
+long processions of pilgrims which once wound over these lonely hills
+and through these green lanes on their way to the martyr's shrine.
+
+[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+WINCHESTER TO ALTON
+
+
+[Illustration: ROOF OF STRANGERS' HALL, WINCHESTER.]
+
+Few traces of the Pilgrims' Way are now to be found in Hampshire. But
+early writers speak of an old road which led to Canterbury from
+Winchester, and the travellers' course would in all probability take
+them through this ancient city. Here the foreign pilgrims who landed at
+Southampton, and those who came from the West of England, would find
+friendly shelter in one or other of the religious houses, and enjoy a
+brief resting-time before they faced the perils of the road. The old
+capital of Wessex, the home of Alfred, and favourite residence of Saxon
+and Norman kings, had many attractions to offer to the devout pilgrim.
+Here was the splendid golden shrine of St. Swithun, the gentle Bishop
+who had watched over the boyhood of Alfred. In A.D. 971, a hundred years
+after the Saint's death, his bones had been solemnly removed from their
+resting-place on the north side of the Minster, where he had humbly
+begged to be buried" so that the sun might not shine upon him," and laid
+by Edgar and Dunstan behind the altar of the new Cathedral which Bishop
+Ethelwold had raised on the site of the ancient church of Birinus. This
+was done, says the chronicler Wulfstan, although the Saint himself
+"protested weeping that his body ought not to be set in God's holy
+church amidst the splendid memorials of the ancient fathers," a legend
+which may have given rise to the popular tradition of the forty days'
+rain, and the supposed delay in the Saint's funeral. From that time
+countless miracles were wrought at the shrine of St. Swithun, and
+multitudes from all parts of England flocked to seek blessing and
+healing at the great church which henceforth bore his name.
+
+[Illustration: THE WEST GATE, WINCHESTER.]
+
+Under the rule of Norman and Angevin kings, the venerable city had
+attained the height of wealth and prosperity. In those days the
+population numbered some 20,000, and there are said to have been as many
+as 173 churches and chapels within its wall. In spite of the horrors
+of civil war, which twice desolated the streets, in the time of Stephen
+and Henry III., the frequent presence of the court and the energy of her
+prince-bishops had made Winchester a centre of religious and literary
+activity. And, although after the death of Henry III., who throughout
+his long life remained faithful to his native city, royal visits became
+few and far between, and the old capital lost something of its
+brilliancy, there was still much to attract strangers and strike the
+imagination of the wayfarer who entered her gates in the fifteenth
+century. Few mediæval cities could boast foundations of equal size and
+splendour. There was the strong castle of Wolvesey, where the bishops
+reigned in state, and the royal palace by the West gate, built by King
+Henry III., with the fair Gothic hall which he had decorated so
+lavishly. There was the Hospital of St. Cross, founded by the
+warrior-bishop, Henry de Blois, and the new College of St. Mary, which
+William of Wykeham, the great master-builder, had reared in the meadows
+known as the Greenery, or promenade of the monks of St. Swithun.
+Another venerable hospital, that of St. John's, claimed to have been
+founded by Birinus, and on Morne Hill, just outside the East gate, stood
+a hospital for lepers, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. There,
+conspicuous among a crowd of religious houses by their wealth and
+antiquity, were the two great Benedictine communities of St. Swithun and
+Hyde. And there, too, was the grand Norman church which the Conqueror's
+kinsman, Bishop Walkelin, had raised on the ruins of Ethelwold's
+Minster, with its low massive tower and noble transepts, and the long
+nave roofed in with solid trees of oak cut down in Hempage Wood. Three
+centuries later, William of Wykeham transformed the nave after the
+latest fashion of architecture, cut through the old Norman work, carried
+up the piers to a lofty height, and replaced the flat wooden roof by
+fine stone groining. But the Norman tower and transepts of Bishop
+Walkelin's church still remain to-day almost unchanged.
+
+[Illustration: WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL, SOUTH AISLE OF CHOIR.]
+
+So great was the concourse of pilgrims to St. Swithun's shrine in the
+early part of the fourteenth century, that Bishop Godfrey Lucy enlarged
+the eastward portion of the church, and built, as it were, another
+church, with nave, aisles, and Lady Chapel of its own, under the same
+roof. The monks had no great love for the lower class of pilgrims who
+thronged their doors, and took good care to keep them out of the
+conventual precincts. They were only allowed to enter the Minster by a
+doorway in the north transept, and, once they had visited the shrine and
+duly made their offerings, they were jealously excluded from the rest of
+the church by those fine ironwork gates still preserved in the
+Cathedral, and said to be the oldest specimen of the kind in England.
+
+[Illustration: ON THE RIVER ITCHEN, WINCHESTER.]
+
+Towards the close of the century, in the reign of Edward I., the fine
+old building still known as the Strangers' Hall was built by the monks
+of St. Swithun at their convent gate, for the reception of the poorer
+pilgrims. Here they found food and shelter for the night. They slept,
+ate their meals, and drank their ale, and made merry round one big
+central fire. The hall is now divided, and is partly used as the Dean's
+stable, partly enclosed in a Canon's house, but traces of rudely carved
+heads, a bearded king, and a nun's face are still visible on the
+massive timbers of the vaulted roof, blackened with the smoke of bygone
+ages. In the morning the same pilgrims would wend their way to the doors
+of the Prior's lodging, and standing under the three beautiful pointed
+arches which form the entrance to the present Deanery, would there
+receive alms in money and fragments of bread and meat to help them on
+their journey.
+
+[Illustration: KING'S GATE, WINCHESTER, FROM THE CLOSE.]
+
+The route which they took on leaving Winchester is uncertain. It is not
+till we approach Alton that we find the first traces of the Pilgrims'
+Way, but in all probability they followed the Roman road which still
+leads to Silchester and London along the valley of the river Itchen.
+Immediately outside the city gates they would find themselves before
+another stately pile of conventual buildings, the great Abbey of Hyde.
+This famous Benedictine house, founded by Alfred, and long known as the
+New Minster, was first removed from its original site near the Cathedral
+in the twelfth century. Finding their house damp and unhealthy, and
+feeling themselves cramped in the narrow space close to the rival
+monastery of St. Swithun, the monks obtained a charter from Henry I.
+giving them leave to settle outside the North gate. In the year 1110,
+they moved to their new home, bearing with them the wonder-working
+shrine of St. Josse, the great silver cross given to the New Minster by
+Cnut, and a yet more precious relic, the bones of Alfred the Great. Here
+in the green meadows on the banks of the Itchen they reared the walls of
+their new convent and the magnificent church which, after being in the
+next reign burnt to the ground by fire-balls from Henry of Blois' Castle
+at Wolvesey, rose again from the flames fairer and richer than before.
+Here it stood till the Dissolution, when Thomas Wriothesley, Cromwell's
+Commissioner, stripped the shrine of its treasures, carried off the gold
+and jewels, and pulled down the abbey walls to use the stone in the
+building of his own great house at Stratton. "We intend," he wrote to
+his master, after describing the riches of gold and silver plate, the
+crosses studded with pearls, chalices, and emeralds on which he had lain
+sacrilegious hands, "both at Hyde and St. Mary to sweep away all the
+rotten bones that be called relics; which we may not omit, lest it be
+thought we came more for the treasure than for the avoiding of the
+abomination of idolatry." Considerable fragments of the building still
+remained. In Milner's time the ruins covered the whole meadow, but
+towards the end of the last century the city authorities fixed on the
+spot as the site of a new bridewell, and all that was left of the once
+famous Abbey was then destroyed. The tombs of the dead were rifled. At
+every stroke of the spade some ancient sepulchre was violated, stone
+coffins containing chalices, croziers, rings, were broken open and bones
+scattered abroad. Then the ashes of the noblest of our kings were blown
+to the winds, and the resting-place of Ælfred remains to this day
+unknown. A stone marked with the words, Ælfred Rex, DCCCLXXXI., was
+carried off by a passing stranger, and is now to be seen at Corby
+Castle, in Cumberland. To-day an old gateway near the church of St.
+Bartholomew and some fragments of the monastery wall are the only
+remains of Alfred's new Minster.
+
+From this spot an ancient causeway, now commonly known as the Nuns'
+Walk, but which in the last century bore the more correct title of the
+Monks' Walk, leads alongside of a stream which supplied Hyde Abbey with
+water, for a mile and a half up the valley to Headbourne[7] Worthy. The
+path is cool and shady, planted with a double row of tall elms, and as
+we look back we have beautiful views of the venerable city and the great
+Cathedral sleeping in the quiet hollow, dreaming of all its mighty past.
+Above, scarred with the marks of a deep railway cutting, and built over
+with new houses, is St. Giles' Hill, where during many centuries the
+famous fair was held each September. Foreign pilgrims would gaze with
+interest on the scene of that yearly event, which had attained a
+world-wide fame, and attracted merchants from all parts of France,
+Flanders, and Italy. The green hill-side from which we look down on the
+streets and towers of Winchester presented a lively spectacle during
+that fortnight. The stalls were arranged in long rows and called after
+the nationality of the vendors of the goods they sold. There was the
+Street of Caen, of Limoges, of the Flemings, of the Genoese, the
+Drapery, the Goldsmiths' Stall, the Spicery, held by the monks of St.
+Swithun, who drove a brisk trade in furs and groceries on these
+occasions. All shops in the city and for seven leagues round were closed
+during the fair, and local trade was entirely suspended. The mayor
+handed over the keys of the city for the time being to the bishop, who
+had large profits from the tolls and had stalls at the fair himself,
+while smaller portions went to the abbeys, and thirty marks a year were
+paid to St. Swithun's for the repair of the great church. The Red King
+first granted his kinsman, Bishop Walkelin, the tolls of this three
+days' fair at St. Giles' feast, which privilege was afterwards extended
+to a period of sixteen days by Henry III. The great fair lasted until
+modern times, but in due course was removed from St. Giles' Hill into
+the city itself. "As the city grew stronger and the fair weaker," writes
+Dean Kitchin, "it slid down St. Giles' Hill and entered the town, where
+its noisy ghost still holds revel once a year."
+
+[Illustration: WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH]
+
+Leaving these historic memories behind us we follow the Monks' Walk
+until we reach Headbourne Worthy, the first of a group of villages
+granted by Egbert, in 825, to St. Swithun's Priory, and bearing this
+quaint name, derived from the Saxon _woerth_--a homestead. The church
+here dates from Saxon times, and claims to have been founded by St.
+Wilfred. The rude west doorway and chancel arch are said to belong to
+Edward the Confessor's time. Over the west archway, which now leads into
+a fifteenth-century chapel, is a fine sculptured bas-relief larger than
+life, representing the Crucifixion and the Maries, which probably
+originally adorned the exterior of the church. But the most interesting
+thing in the church is the brass to John Kent, a Winchester scholar, who
+died in 1434. The boy wears his college gown and his hair is closely
+cut, while a scroll comes out of his lips bearing the words:
+"Misericordiam Dni inetum cantabo." Next we reach Kingsworthy, so called
+because it was once Crown property, a pretty little village with low
+square ivy-grown church-tower and lych-gate, and a charming
+old-fashioned inn standing a little back from the road.
+
+[Illustration: THATCHED COTTAGE, MARTYR WORTHY.]
+
+The third of the Worthys, Abbotsworthy, is now united to Kingsworthy.
+Passing through its little street of houses, a mile farther on we reach
+Martyrsworthy, a still smaller village with another old Norman church
+and low thatched cottages, picturesquely placed near the banks of the
+river, which is here crossed by a wooden foot-bridge. But all this part
+of the Itchen valley has the same charm. Everywhere we find the same old
+farmhouses with mullioned windows and sundials and yew trees, the same
+straggling roofs brilliant with yellow lichen, and the same cottages and
+gardens gay with lilies and phloxes, the same green lanes shaded with
+tall elms and poplars, the same low chalk hills and wooded distances
+closing in the valley, and below the bright river winding its way
+through the cool meadows. "The Itchen--the beautiful Itchen valley,"
+exclaims Cobbett, as he rides along this vale of meadows. "There are few
+spots in England more fertile, or more pleasant, none, I believe, more
+healthy. The fertility of this vale and of the surrounding country is
+best proved by the fact that, besides the town of Alresford and that of
+Southampton, there are seventeen villages, each having its parish
+church, upon its borders. When we consider these things, we are not
+surprised that a spot situated about half-way down this vale should have
+been chosen for the building of a city, or that that city should have
+been for a great number of years the place of residence for the kings of
+England."
+
+[Illustration: CHILLAND FARM, NEAR ITCHEN ABBAS.]
+
+Towards Itchen Abbas--of the Abbot--the valley opens, and we see the
+noble avenues and spreading beeches of Avington Park, long the property
+of the Dukes of Chandos, and often visited by Charles II. while Wren was
+building his red-brick palace at Winchester. Here the Merry Monarch
+feasted his friends in a banqueting-hall that is now a greenhouse, and a
+room in the old house bore the name of Nell Gwynne's closet. In those
+days it was the residence of the notorious Lady Shrewsbury, afterwards
+the wife of George Brydges, a member of the Chandos family, the lady
+whose first husband, Francis, Earl of Shrewsbury, was slain fighting in
+a duel with George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, while the Countess
+herself, disguised as a page, held her lover's horse.
+
+The river winds through the park, and between the over-arching boughs of
+the forest trees we catch lovely glimpses of wood and water. In the
+opposite direction, but also close to Itchen Abbas, is another
+well-known seat, Lord Ashburton's famous Grange, often visited by
+Carlyle. Here the dark tints of yew and fir mingle with the bright hues
+of lime and beech and silver birch on the banks of a clear lake, and
+long grassy glades lead up to wild gorse-grown slopes of open down.
+Still following the river banks we reach Itchen Stoke, another
+picturesque village with timbered cottages and mossy roofs. A little
+modern church, with high-pitched roof and lancet windows having a
+curiously foreign air, stands among the tall pines on a steep bank above
+the stream. But here our pleasant journey along the fair Itchen valley
+comes to an end, and, leaving the river-side, we climb the hilly road
+which leads us into Alresford.
+
+New Alresford, a clean, bright little town, with broad street, planted
+with rows of trees, boasts an antiquity which belies its name, and has
+been a market-town and borough from time immemorial. Like its yet more
+venerable neighbour, Old Alresford, it was given by a king of the West
+Saxons to the prior and monks of St. Swithun at Winchester, and formed
+part of the vast possessions of the monastery at the Conquest. Both
+places took their name from their situation on a ford of the Arle or
+Alre river, a considerable stream which joins the Itchen below Avington,
+and is called by Leland the Alresford river. In the eleventh century New
+Alresford had fallen into decay, and probably owes its present existence
+to Bishop Godfrey Lucy, who rebuilt the town, and obtained a charter
+from King John restoring the market, which had fallen into disuse. At
+the same time he gave the town the name of New Market, but the older one
+survived, and the Bishop's new title was never generally adopted. The
+same energetic prelate bestowed a great deal of care and considerable
+attention on the water supply of Winchester, and made the Itchen
+navigable all the way from Southampton to Alresford.
+
+In recognition of this important service, Bishop Lucy received from King
+John the right of levying toll on all leather, hides, and other goods
+which entered Winchester by the river Itchen through this canal, a right
+which descended to his successors in the see. South-west of the town is
+the large pond or reservoir which he made to supply the waters of the
+Itchen. This lake, which still covers about sixty acres, is a well-known
+haunt of moor-hens and other waterfowl, and the flags and bulrushes
+which fringe its banks make it a favourable resort of artists. Old
+Alresford itself, with its gay flower-gardens, tall elms, pretty old
+thatched cottages grouped round the village green, may well supply them
+with more than one subject for pen and pencil.
+
+[Illustration: NEW ALRESFORD.]
+
+New Alresford was at one time a flourishing centre of the cloth trade,
+in which the Winchester merchants drove so brisk a trade at St. Giles'
+Fair. The manufacture of woollen cloth was carried on till quite recent
+times, and Dean Kitchin tells us that there are old men still living who
+remember driving with their fathers to the fair at Winchester on St.
+Giles' day, to buy a roll of blue cloth to provide the family suits for
+the year. But New Alresford shared the decline as it had shared the
+prosperity of its more important neighbour, and suffered even more
+severely than Winchester in the Civil Wars, when the town was almost
+entirely burnt down by Lord Hopton's troops after their defeat in
+Cheriton fight. The scene of that hard-fought battle, which gave
+Winchester into Waller's hands and ruined the King's cause in the West
+of England, lies a few miles to the south of Alresford. Half-way between
+the two is Tichborne Park, the seat of a family which has owned this
+estate from the days of Harold, and which took its name from the stream
+flowing through the parish, and called the Ticceborne in Anglo-Saxon
+records. In modern times a well-known case has given the name of
+Tichborne an unenviable notoriety, but members of this ancient house
+have been illustrious at all periods of our history, and the legend of
+the Tichborne Dole so long associated with the spot deserves to be
+remembered. In the reign of Henry I., Isabella, the wife of Sir Roger
+Tichborne, a lady whose long life had been spent in deeds of mercy,
+prayed her husband as she lay dying to grant her as much land as would
+enable her to leave a dole of bread for all who asked alms at the gates
+of Tichborne on each succeeding Lady Day. Sir Roger was a knight of
+sterner stuff, and seizing a flaming brand from the hearth he told his
+wife jestingly that she might have as much land as she could herself
+walk over before the burning torch went out. Upon which the sick lady
+caused herself to be borne from her bed to a piece of ground within the
+manor, and crawled on her knees and hands until she had encircled
+twenty-three acres. The actual plot of ground still bears the name of
+Lady Tichborne's Crawles, and there was an old prophecy which said that
+the house of Tichborne would only last as long as the dying bequest of
+Isabella was carried out. During the next six centuries, nineteen
+hundred small loaves were regularly distributed to the poor at the gates
+on Lady Day, and a miraculous virtue was supposed to belong to bread
+thus bestowed. The custom was only abandoned a hundred years ago, owing
+to the number of idlers and bad characters which it brought into the
+neighbourhood, and a sum of money equal in amount to the Dole is given
+to the poor of the parish in its stead.
+
+Whether any of our Canterbury pilgrims stopped in their course to avail
+themselves of the Tichborne Dole we cannot say, but there was a
+manor-house of the Bishops of Winchester at Bishop Sutton, near
+Alresford, where they would no doubt find food and shelter. Nothing now
+remains of the episcopal palace, and no trace of its precincts is
+preserved but the site of the bishop's kennels.
+
+After crossing the river at Alresford the pilgrims turned north-east,
+and according to an old tradition their road led them through the parish
+of Ropley, a neighbouring village where Roman remains have been
+discovered. A little further on the same track, close to Rotherfield
+Park, where the modern mansion of Pelham now stands, was an ancient
+house which bore the name of Pilgrims' Place, and is indicated as such
+in old maps.
+
+[Illustration: THE HOG'S BACK.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+ALTON TO COMPTON
+
+
+A few miles to the right of the road is a place which no pilgrim of
+modern times can leave unvisited--Selborne, White's Selborne, the home
+of the gentle naturalist whose memory haunts these rural scenes. Here he
+lived in the picturesque house overgrown with creepers, with the sunny
+garden and dial at the back, and the great spreading oak where he loved
+to study the ways of the owls, and the juniper tree, which, to his joy,
+survived the Siberian winter of 1776. And here he died, and lies buried
+in the quiet churchyard in the shade of the old yew tree where he so
+often stood to watch his favourite birds. Not a stone but what speaks of
+him, not a turn in the village street but has its tale to tell. The
+play-stow, or village green, which Adam de Gurdon granted to the
+Augustinian Canons of Selborne in the thirteenth century, where the
+prior held his market of old, and where young and old met on summer
+evenings under the big oak, and "sat in quiet debate" or "frolicked and
+danced" before him; the farmhouse which now marks the site of the
+ancient Priory itself, founded by Peter de Rupibus, Bishop of
+Winchester, in 1232--he has described them all. How the good Canons grew
+lazy and secular in their ways after a time, how William of Wykeham
+found certain of them professed hunters and sportsmen, and tried in vain
+to reform them, and how the estates were finally handed over to the new
+college of St. Mary Magdalene at Oxford, by its founder, William of
+Waynflete--Gilbert White has already told us. The Hanger, with its
+wooded slopes, rising from the back of his garden, and that "noble
+chalk promontory" of Nore Hill, planted with the beeches which he
+called the most lovely of all forest trees, how familiar they seem to
+us! Still the swifts wheel to and fro round the low church-tower, and
+the crickets chirp in the long grass, and the white owl is heard at
+night, just as when he used to linger under the old walls and watch
+their manners with infinite care and love.
+
+[Illustration: JANE AUSTEN'S HOUSE, CHAWTON.]
+
+One of the "rocky hollow lanes" which lead towards Alton will take us
+back into the road, and bring us to Chawton, a village about a mile from
+that town. The fine Elizabethan manor-house at the foot of the green
+knoll, and the grey church peeping out of the trees close by, have been
+for centuries the home and burial-place of the Knights. On the south
+side of the chancel a black and white marble monument records the memory
+of that gallant cavalier, Sir Richard Knight, who risked life and
+fortune in the Royal cause, and was invested with the Order of the Royal
+Oak by Charles II. after the Restoration. But it is as the place where
+Jane Austen, in George Eliot's opinion, "the greatest artist that has
+ever written," composed her novels, that Chawton is memorable. The
+cottage where she lived is still standing a few hundred yards from the
+"great house," which was the home of the brother and nieces to whom she
+was so fondly attached. She and her sister, Cassandra, settled there in
+1809, and remained there until May, 1817, when they moved to the corner
+house of College Street, Winchester, where three months afterwards she
+died. During the eight years spent in this quiet home, Jane Austen
+attained the height of her powers and wrote her most famous novels,
+those works which she herself said cost her so little, and which in
+Tennyson's words have given her a place in English literature "next to
+Shakespeare." "Sense and Sensibility," her first novel, was published
+two years after the move to Chawton. "Persuasion," the last and most
+finished of the immortal series, was only written in 1816, a year before
+her death. Seldom, indeed, has so great a novelist led so retired an
+existence. The life at Chawton, so smooth in its even flow, with the
+daily round of small excitements and quiet pleasures, the visits to the
+"great house," and walks with her nieces in the woods, the shopping
+expeditions to Alton, the talk about new bonnets and gowns, and the
+latest news as to the births, deaths, and marriages of the numerous
+relatives in Kent and Hampshire, are faithfully reflected in those
+pleasant letters of Jane Austen, which her great-nephew, Lord Brabourne,
+gave to the world. There is a good deal about her flowers, her chickens,
+her niece's love affairs, the fancy work on which she is engaged, the
+improvements in the house and garden--"You cannot imagine," she writes
+on one occasion, "it is not in human nature to imagine, what a nice walk
+we have round the orchard!"--but very little indeed about her books.
+Almost the only allusion we find to one of her characters is in 1816,
+when she writes to Fanny Knight of Anne Elliot in "Persuasion." "_You_
+may perhaps like the heroine, as she is almost too good for me!"
+Anything like fame or publicity was positively distasteful to her. She
+owns to feeling absolutely terrified when a lady in town asked to be
+introduced to her, and then adds laughingly, "If I am a wild beast I
+cannot help it, it is not my fault!"
+
+Curiously enough, the Pilgrims' Way, in the later course of its path,
+brings us to Godmersham, that other and finer home of the Knights on the
+Kentish Downs, a place also associated with Jane Austen's life and
+letters, where she spent many pleasant hours in the midst of her family,
+enjoying the beauty of the spot and its cheerful surroundings. But
+Chawton retains the supremacy as her own home, and as the scene of those
+literary labours that were cut short, alas! too soon. "What a pity," Sir
+Walter Scott exclaimed, after reading a book of hers, "what a pity such
+a gifted creature died so early!"
+
+[Illustration: CHAWTON HOUSE]
+
+From Chawton it is a short mile to Alton, famous for its breweries and
+hop gardens, and its church door, riddled with the bullets of the
+Roundheads. Our way now leads us through the woods of Alice
+Holt--Aisholt--the Ash wood; like Woolmer, a royal forest from Saxon
+times. Alice Holt was renowned for the abundance of its fallow deer,
+which made it a favourite hunting ground with the Plantagenet kings, and
+on one occasion Edward II., it is said, gave one of his scullions,
+Morris Ken, the sum of twenty shillings because he fell from his horse
+so often out hunting, "which made the king laugh exceedingly."
+Here, too, after the battle of Evesham, Edward, Prince of Wales,
+defeated Adam de Gurdon, one of Simon de Montfort's chief followers. He
+is said to have challenged the rebel baron to a single combat, in which
+Gurdon was wounded and made prisoner, but the victor spared his life and
+afterwards obtained a royal pardon for his vanquished foe. A wild rugged
+tract of country, Alice Holt was a chosen haunt of robbers and outlaws,
+the terror of the wealthy London merchants who journeyed to St. Giles'
+Fair at Winchester, and in the fourteenth century the wardens of the
+fair kept five mounted serjeants-at-arms in the forest near Alton, for
+their protection at that season.
+
+Soon after leaving Alton the pilgrims would catch their first sight of
+the river Wey, which rises close to the town. Along the banks of this
+stream, flowing as it does through some of the loveliest Surrey scenery,
+their road was now to lie, and not until they crossed St. Katherine's
+ferry, at Guildford, were they finally to lose sight of its waters. The
+river itself, more than one writer has suggested, may owe its name to
+this circumstance, and have been originally called the Way river from
+the ancient road which followed the early part of its course.
+
+[Illustration: FARNHAM CASTLE.]
+
+Leaving Froyle Park, Sir Hubert Miller's fine Jacobean house, on our
+left, we pass Bentley Station, and, still following the river, join the
+Portsmouth road just before entering Farnham. This town, which takes its
+name from the commons overgrown with fern and heather still to be seen
+in the neighbourhood on the Surrey side, is now surrounded with hop
+gardens. It was among the earliest possessions of the Bishops of
+Winchester, and formed part of the land granted to St. Swithun, in 860,
+by Alfred's elder brother, Ethelbald, King of Wessex. The Castle-palace,
+which still looks proudly down on the streets of the little town, was
+first built by that magnificent prelate, Henry of Blois, but little of
+the original building now remains except the offices, where some round
+Norman pillars may still be seen. Farnham Castle was partly destroyed by
+Henry III. during his wars with the barons, and suffered greatly at the
+hands of the rebels in the time of Charles I., but was afterwards
+rebuilt by Bishop Morley. Queen Elizabeth paid frequent visits here, and
+on one occasion, while dining in the great hall with the Duke of
+Norfolk, who was suspected of planning a marriage with Mary Queen of
+Scots, pleasantly advised the Duke to be careful on what pillow he laid
+his head. The lawn, with its stately cedars and grass-grown moat,
+deserves a visit, but the most interesting part of the building is the
+fine old keep with its massive buttresses and thirteenth-century arches,
+commanding a wide view over the elm avenues of the park, and the commons
+which stretch eastward on the Surrey side. Prominent in the foreground
+are the picturesque heights of Crooksbury, crowned with those tall pines
+which Cobbett climbed when he was a boy, to take the nests of crows and
+magpies.
+
+Farnham, it must be remembered, was the birthplace of this remarkable
+man, and it was at Ash, a small town at the foot of the Hog's Back, that
+he died in 1835. All his life long he retained the fondest affection for
+these scenes of his youth. In 1825 he brought his son Richard, then a
+boy of eleven, to see the little old house in the street where he had
+lived with his grandmother, and showed him the garden at Waverley where
+he worked as a lad, the tree near the Abbey from which he fell into the
+river in a perilous attempt to take a crow's nest, and the strawberry
+beds where he gathered strawberries for Sir Robert Rich's table, taking
+care to eat the finest! Among these hills and commons, where he followed
+the hounds on foot at ten years old, and rode across country at
+seventy, we forget the political aspect of his life, his bitter
+invectives against the Poor-laws and Paper-money, the National Debt and
+the System, and think rather of his keen love of nature and delight in
+the heaths, the sandy coppices, and forests of Surrey and Hampshire. And
+now he sleeps in the church of Farnham, where he desired to be buried,
+in the heart of the wild scenery which he loved so well.
+
+[Illustration: CROOKSBURY FROM NEWLANDS CORNER.]
+
+Just under Crooksbury, that "grand scene" of Cobbett's "exploits," lies
+Moor Park, the retreat of Sir William Temple in his old age, which
+seemed to him, to quote his own words, "the sweetest place, I think,
+that I have ever seen in my life, either before or since, at home or
+abroad." There we may still see the gardens which the statesman of the
+Triple Alliance laid out after the fashion of those which he remembered
+in Holland, where he enjoyed the companionship of his beloved sister,
+Lady Giffard, and where his heart lies buried under the sundial. Here
+Swift lived as his secretary, and learnt from King William III. how to
+cut asparagus; here he wrote the "Tale of a Tub," and made love to Mrs.
+Hester Johnson, Lady Giffard's pretty black-eyed waiting-maid. The
+memory of that immortal love-story has not yet perished, and the house
+where she lived is still known as Stella's Cottage. Here, too, just
+beyond Moor Park, on the banks of the Wey, are the ruins of Waverley
+Abbey, the first Cistercian house ever founded in England, often
+described as "le petit Cîteaux," and the mother of many other abbeys.
+
+The more distinguished pilgrims who stopped at Farnham would taste the
+hospitality of the monks of Waverley, and Henry III. was on one
+occasion their guest. The Abbot of Waverley, too, was a great personage
+in these parts, and his influence extended over several parishes through
+which the pilgrims had to pass, although the privileges which he claimed
+were often disputed by the Prior of Newark, the other ecclesiastical
+magnate who reigned in this part of Surrey. Pilgrims of humbler rank
+would find ample accommodation in the ancient hostelries of Farnham,
+which was at that time a place of considerable importance, and returned
+two members to Edward II.'s Parliament.
+
+Their onward course now lay along the banks of the Wey until they
+reached the foot of the narrow, curiously shaped chalk ridge known as
+the Hog's Back. Here, at a place called Whiteway End, the end of the
+white chalk road, two roads divide. Both lead to Guildford, the one
+keeping on the crest of the ridge, the other along its southern slope.
+
+The upper road has become an important thoroughfare in modern times, and
+is now the main road from Farnham to Guildford; the lower is a grassy
+lane, not always easy to follow, and little used in places, which leads
+through the parishes of Seale, Puttenham, and Compton, the bright little
+villages which stud the sides of the Hog's Back. This green woodland
+path under the downs was the ancient British and Roman track along which
+the Canterbury pilgrims journeyed, and which is still in some places
+spoken of by the inhabitants as the Way. Other names in local use bear
+the same witness. Beggar's Corner and Robber's or Roamer's Moor are
+supposed to owe their appellations to the pilgrims: while the ivy-grown
+manor-house of Shoelands, bearing the date of 1616 on its porch, is said
+to take its name from the word "to shool," which in some dialects has
+the same meaning as "to beg."
+
+Another trace of the Pilgrimage is to be found in the local fairs which
+are still held in the towns and villages along the road, and which were
+fixed at those periods of the year when the pilgrims would be either
+going to Canterbury or returning from there. Thus we find that at
+Guildford the chief fair took place at Christmas, when the pilgrims
+would be on their way to the winter festival of St. Thomas, and was
+only altered to September in 1312, by which time the original day of the
+Saint's martyrdom had ceased to be as popular as the summer feast. Again
+the great fair at Shalford was fixed for the Feast of the Assumption,
+the 15th of August, so as to catch the stream of pilgrims which flowed
+back from Canterbury after the Feast of the Translation in July, and the
+seven days' fair there, that went by the name of Becket's fair. Fairs
+soon came to be held not only at towns such as Farnham, Guildford, and
+Shalford, but at the small villages along the Pilgrims' Road. There was
+one in the churchyard at Puttenham, and another at Wanborough, a church
+on the northern side of the hill, which belonged to Waverley Abbey,
+where the offerings made by the pilgrims formed part of the payments
+yearly received by the Abbot, while a third was held on St. Katharine's
+Hill during five days in September.
+
+Even the churches along the road often owed their existence to the
+Pilgrimage. The church of Seale was built early in the thirteenth
+century by the Abbots of Waverley, and that of Wanborough was rebuilt
+by the same Abbots, and was again allowed to fall into decay when the
+days of pilgrimages were over. Both the sister chapels of St. Katharine
+and St. Martha, we shall see, owed their restoration to the pilgrims'
+passage, and many more along the Way were either raised in honour of St.
+Thomas, or else adorned with frescoes and altar-pieces of the Martyrdom.
+
+Along this pleasant Surrey hill-side the old Canterbury pilgrims
+journeyed, going from church to church, from shrine to shrine, and more
+especially if their pilgrimage took place in summer, enjoying the sweet
+country air and leafy shades of this quiet woodland region. They
+lingered, we may well believe, at the village fairs, and stopped at
+every town to see the sights and hear the news; for the pilgrim of
+mediæval days was, as Dean Stanley reminds us, a traveller with the same
+adventures, stories, pleasures, pains, as the traveller of our own
+times, and men of every type and class set out on pilgrimages much as
+tourists to-day start on a foreign trip. Some, no doubt, undertook the
+journey from devotion, and more in a vague hope of reaping some profit,
+both material and spiritual, from a visit to the shrine of the
+all-powerful Saint, while a thousand other motives--curiosity, love of
+change and adventure, the pleasure of a journey--prompted the crowds who
+thronged the road at certain seasons of the year. Chaucer's company of
+pilgrims we know was a motley crew, and included men and women whose
+characters were as varied as their rank and trade. With them came a
+throng of jugglers and story-tellers and minstrels, who beguiled the way
+with music and laughter as they rode or walked along, so that "every
+town they came through, what with the noise of their singing, and with
+the sound of their piping, and with the jangling of their Canterbury
+bells, and with the barking of the dogs after them, they made more noise
+than if the king came there with all his clarions." In their train, too,
+a crowd of idle folk, of roving pedlars and begging friars and lazy
+tramps, who were glad of any excuse to beg a crust or coin.
+
+The presence of these last was by no means always welcome at the inns
+and religious houses on the road, where doubtful characters often
+craved admittance, knowing that if the hand of justice overtook them
+they could always find refuge in one of those churches where the rights
+of sanctuary were so resolutely claimed and so jealously defended by the
+Abbot of Waverley or the Prior of Newark.
+
+[Illustration: COMPTON VILLAGE.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+COMPTON TO SHALFORD
+
+
+Following the Pilgrims' Way along the southern slopes of the Hog's Back,
+we cross Puttenham Heath, and reach the pretty little village of
+Compton. Here, nestling under the downs, a few hundred yards from the
+track, is a beautiful old twelfth-century church, which was there before
+the days of St. Thomas. This ancient structure, dedicated to St.
+Nicholas, still retains some good stained glass and boasts a unique
+feature in the shape of a double-storied chancel. The east end of the
+church is crossed by a low semicircular arch enriched with Norman
+zigzag moulding, and surmounted by a rude screen, which is said to be
+the oldest piece of wood-work in England. Both the upper and the lower
+sanctuaries have piscinas, and there is an Early English one in the
+south aisle. The massive bases of the chalk pillars, the altar-tomb
+north of the chancel--probably an Eastern sepulchre--and a hagioscope
+now blocked up, all deserve attention, as well as the fine Jacobean
+pulpit and chancel screen, which is now placed under the tower arch.
+
+[Illustration: COMPTON CHURCH.]
+
+[Illustration: LOSELEY.]
+
+A mile to the west of this singularly interesting church is Loseley, the
+historic mansion of the More and Molyneux family. This manor was Crown
+property in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and is described in
+Domesday Book as the property of the Norman Roger de Montgomery, Earl of
+Shrewsbury, on whom it was bestowed by the Conqueror. After passing
+through many hands it was finally bought from the Earl of Gloucester,
+early in the sixteenth century, by Sir Christopher More, whose son, Sir
+William, built the present mansion. The grand old house with its
+grey-stone gables and mullioned windows is a perfect specimen of
+Elizabethan architecture. The broad grass terrace along the edge of the
+moat, the yew hedges with their glossy hues of green and purple, the
+old-fashioned borders full of bright flowers, and the low pigeon-houses
+standing at each angle, all remain as they were in the reign of James
+I., and agree well with Lord Bacon's idea of what a pleasance ought to
+be. Within, the walls are wainscoted with oak panelling throughout, and
+the ceilings and mantelpieces are richly decorated. The cross and
+mulberry tree of the Mores, with their mottoes, may still be seen in the
+stained-glass oriel of the great hall, and on the cornices of the
+drawing-room. Here too is a fine mantelpiece, carved in white chalk,
+which is said to have been designed by Hans Holbein. Many are the royal
+visitors who have left memorials of their presence at Loseley. Queen
+Elizabeth had an especial affection for the place, and was here three
+times. The cushioned seats of two gilt chairs were worked by her needle,
+and there is a painted panel bearing the quaint device of a flower-pot
+with the red and white roses of York and Lancaster, and the
+fleur-de-lis, with the words _Rosa Electa_ and _Felicior Phoenice_, a
+pretty conceit which would not fail to find favour in the eyes of the
+Virgin Queen. The hall contains portraits of James I. and his wife Anne
+of Denmark, painted by Mytens in honour of a visit which they paid to
+Loseley in the first year of this monarch's reign; and the ceiling of
+his Majesty's bedroom is elaborately patterned over with stucco reliefs
+of Tudor roses and lilies and thistles. A likeness of Anne Boleyn, and
+several fine portraits of members of the More family, also adorn the
+walls, and there is a beautiful little picture of the boy-king, Edward
+VI., wearing an embroidered crimson doublet and jewelled cap and
+feather, painted by some clever pupil of Holbein in 1547. This portrait
+was sent in 1890 to the Tudor Exhibition, which also contained many
+historical documents relating to different personages of this royal
+line, preserved among the Loseley manuscripts. There are warrants signed
+by Edward VI., the Lord Protector, by Queen Elizabeth and the Lord of
+her Council, including Hatton the Lord Chancellor, Cecil, Lord Burghley,
+Lord Effingham, and Lord Derby. There is one of 1540, signed by Henry
+VIII., commanding Christopher More, Sheriff of the County of Sussex, to
+deliver certain goods forfeited to the crown to "Katheryn Howarde, one
+of our quene's maidens," and another, signed by Elizabeth in the first
+year of her reign, commanding William More to raise and equip one
+hundred able men, for the defence of England against foreign invasion.
+There is also a curious sumptuary proclamation by Queen Elizabeth
+respecting the dress and ornaments of women, and, what is still more
+rare and interesting, a warrant from Lady Jane Grey, dated July 19, I.
+Jane, and signed "Jane the Quene." Among the more private and personal
+papers is an amusing letter from Robert Horne, Bishop of Winchester,
+giving Mr. More, of Loseley, advice as to stocking the new pond with the
+best kind of carp, "thes be of a little heade, broade side and not long;
+soche as be great headed and longe, made after the fashion of an
+herring, are not good, neither will ever be." Another from Bishop Day
+informs Sir William More, in 1596, that he intends to fish the little
+pond at Frensham; while one to the same gentleman from Alexander Nowell,
+Dean of St. Paul's, thanks him for his exertions to recover a stolen nag
+on his behalf. The treasures of Loseley, in fact, are as inexhaustible
+as its beauty.
+
+A pleasant walk through the forest trees and grassy glades of the park
+leads us back to Compton village and the green lanes through which the
+Pilgrims' Way now wanders. Skirting the grounds of Monk's Hatch, with
+their pine-groves and rose-gardens lying under the chalk hanger, the old
+road passes close to Limnerslease, the Surrey home of George Frederic
+Watts. To-day thousands of pilgrims from all parts of the world seek out
+this sylvan retreat where the great master spent his last years, and
+visit the treasures of art which adorn its galleries, and the fair
+chapel and cloister that mark the painter's grave.
+
+[Illustration: ST. KATHERINE'S, GUILDFORD.]
+
+[Illustration: ST. MARTHA'S CHAPEL.]
+
+From Compton a path known as "Sandy Lane" leads over the hill past
+Braboeuf Manor, and the site of the old roadside shrine of Littleton
+Cross, and comes out on the open down, close to the chapel of St.
+Katherine. This now ruined shrine, which stands on a steep bank near the
+road, was rebuilt on the site of a still older one in 1317, by Richard
+de Wauncey, Rector of St. Nicholas, Guildford, and was much frequented
+by pilgrims to Canterbury. So valuable were the revenues derived by the
+parson from their offerings that the original grant made to Richard de
+Wauncey was disputed, and for some years the Rector of St. Mary stepped
+into his rights. But in 1329 the Rector of St. Nicholas succeeded in
+ousting his rival, and the chapel was re-consecrated and attached to the
+parish of St. Nicholas. An old legend ascribes the building of this
+shrine and of the chapel on St. Martha's Hill to two giant sisters of
+primæval days, who raised the walls with their own hands and flung
+their enormous hammer backwards and forwards from one hill to the
+other. Unlike its more fortunate sister-shrine, St. Katherine's chapel
+has long been roofless and dismantled, but it still forms a very
+picturesque object in the landscape, and the pointed arches of its
+broken windows frame in lovely views of the green meadows of the
+winding Wey, with the castle and churches of Guildford at our feet, and
+the hills and commons stretching far away, to the blue ridge of
+Hindhead.
+
+[Illustration: THE HOSPITAL, GUILDFORD. p. 72]
+
+The ancient city of Guildford owes its name and much of its historic
+renown to its situation on the chief ford of the river Wey, which here
+makes a break in the ridge of chalk downs running across Surrey.
+Guildford is mentioned in his will by King Alfred, who left it to his
+nephew Ethelwold, and became memorable as the spot where another Alfred,
+the son of Knut and Emma, was treacherously seized and murdered by Earl
+Godwin, who, standing on the eastern slope of the Hog's Back above the
+city, bade the young prince look back and see how large a kingdom would
+be his. For seven centuries, from the days of the Saxon kings to those
+of the Stuarts, Guildford remained Crown property, and the Norman keep
+which still towers grandly above the city was long a royal palace. The
+strength of the castle and importance of the position made it famous in
+the wars of the barons, and the Waverley annalist records its surrender
+to Louis VIII. of France, when he marched against King John from
+Sandwich Haven to Winchester. To-day the picturesqueness of the streets,
+the gabled roofs and panelled houses, and even more the situation of the
+town in the heart of this fair district, attract many artists, and make
+it a favourite centre for tourists.
+
+[Illustration: THE HOG'S BACK.]
+
+In mediæval times Guildford was a convenient halting-place for pilgrims
+on their way from the south and west of England to the shrine of St.
+Thomas. Many of these, however, as the shrewd parson of St. Nicholas
+saw, when he thought it worth his while to buy the freehold of the site
+on which St. Katherine's chapel stood, would push on and cross the river
+by the ferry at the foot of the hill, which still bears the name of the
+Pilgrims' Ferry. On landing they found themselves in the parish of
+Shalford, in the meadows where the great fair was held each year in
+August. When the original charter was granted by King John, the fair
+took place in the churchyard, but soon the concourse of people became so
+great that it spread into the fields along the river, and covered as
+much as one hundred and forty acres of ground. Shalford Fair seems, in
+fact, to have been the most important one in this part of Surrey, and no
+doubt owed its existence to the passage of the Canterbury pilgrims.
+
+[Illustration: ST. MARTHA'S FROM THE HOG'S BACK.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+SHALFORD TO ALBURY
+
+
+The line of the Pilgrims' Way may be clearly followed from the banks of
+the Wey up the hill. It goes through Shalford Park, up Ciderhouse Lane,
+where the ancient Pesthouse or refuge for sick pilgrims and travellers,
+now called Ciderhouse Cottage, is still standing, and leads through the
+Chantrey Woods straight to St. Martha's Chapel.
+
+The district through which it takes us is one of the wildest and
+loveliest parts of Surrey. "Very few prettier rides in England," remarks
+Cobbett, who repeatedly travelled along this track, and the beauty of
+the views all along its course will more than repay the traveller who
+makes his way on foot over the hills from Guildford to Dorking. One of
+the most extensive is to be had from St. Martha's Hill, where the
+prospect ranges in one direction over South Leith Hill and the South
+Downs far away to the Weald of Sussex and the well-known clump of
+Chanctonbury Ring; and on the other over the commons and moors to the
+crests of Hindhead and the Hog's Back; while looking northward we have a
+wide view over the Surrey plains and the valley of the Thames, and
+Windsor Castle and the dome of St. Paul's may be distinguished on clear
+days.
+
+The ancient chapel on the summit, which gives its name to St. Martha's
+Hill, was originally built in memory of certain Christians who suffered
+martyrdom on the spot, and was formerly dedicated to all holy martyrs,
+while the hill itself was known as the Martyrs' Hill, of which, as
+Grose remarks,[8] "the present name is supposed to be a corruption." In
+the twelfth century it became peculiarly associated with the Canterbury
+pilgrims, and a new chancel was built for their use, and consecrated to
+St. Thomas à Becket in the year 1186. In 1262 this chapel was attached
+to the Priory of Newark, an Augustinian convent near Ripley, dedicated
+to St. Thomas of Canterbury by Ruald de Calva in the reign of Richard
+Coeur de Lion. The Prior already owned most of the hill-side, and the
+names of Farthing Copse and Halfpenny Lane, through which the pilgrims
+passed on their way to St. Martha's Chapel, remind us of the tolls which
+he levied from all who travelled along the road. We have already seen
+how in the earlier portions of the Way the Prior of Newark disputed the
+rights of the Abbot of Waverley. Here he reigned supreme. A priest from
+Newark Priory served St. Martha's Chapel, and is said to have lived at
+Tyting's Farm, an old gabled house with the remains of a small oratory
+close to the Pilgrims' Way. In latter days a colony of monks from
+Newark settled at Chilworth, where the present manor-house contains
+fragments of monastic building, and the fishponds of the friars may
+still be seen near the terraced gardens. During the troubled times of
+the Wars of the Roses the Chapel of St. Martha fell into ruins, and owed
+its restoration to Bishop William of Waynflete, who in 1463 granted
+forty days' indulgence to all pilgrims who should visit the shrine and
+there repeat a Pater Noster, an Ave, and a Credo, or contribute to its
+repair. After the dissolution of the monasteries both Newark Priory and
+St. Martha's shrine fell into ruins, and the chapel was only restored of
+late years. At Chilworth, south of St. Martha's Hill, lies the once fair
+valley which has been defaced by the powder-mills, first established
+there three centuries ago by an ancestor of John Evelyn, and now worked
+by steam. This is the place which Cobbett denounces in his "Rural Rides"
+with a vigour and eloquence worthy of Mr. Ruskin himself:
+
+"This valley, which seems to have been created by a bountiful Providence
+as one of the choicest retreats of man, which seems formed for a scene
+of innocence and happiness, has been by ungrateful man so perverted as
+to make it instrumental in effecting two of the most damnable of
+purposes, in carrying into execution two of the most damnable inventions
+that ever sprang from the mind of man under the influence of the devil!
+namely, the making of gunpowder and of bank-notes! Here, in this
+tranquil spot, where the nightingales are to be heard earlier and later
+in the year than in any other part of England; where the first budding
+of the buds is seen in spring; where no rigour of season can ever be
+felt; where everything seems formed for precluding the very thought of
+wickedness; here has the devil fixed on as one of the seats of this
+grand manufactory; and perverse and ungrateful man not only lends his
+aid, but lends it cheerfully. To think that the springs which God has
+commanded to flow from the sides of these happy hills for the comfort
+and delight of man--to think that these springs should be perverted into
+means of spreading misery over a whole nation!"
+
+One of these "inventions of the devil" has been removed. The paper-mills
+which made the bank-notes in Cobbett's time are silent now, but the
+powder-mills are in full activity, and Chilworth, with its coal-stores
+and railway-crossing, has a blackened and desolate look which not all
+the natural beauties of its surroundings can dispel.
+
+[Illustration: ST. MARTHA'S FROM CHILWORTH.]
+
+Once more upon the hills, we can follow the line of yews which are seen
+at intervals along the ridge from St. Martha's Chapel by Weston Wood and
+the back of Albury Park, turning a few steps out of our path to visit
+Newland's Corner, the highest point of Albury Downs, and one of the most
+beautiful spots in the whole of Surrey. The view is as extensive as that
+from St. Martha's Hill, and is even more varied and picturesque. Over
+broken ridges of heathery down and gently swelling slopes, clad with
+beech and oak woods, we look across to Ewhurst Mill, a conspicuous
+landmark in all this country, and farther westward to the towers of
+Charterhouse and the distant heights of Hindhead and Blackdown; while
+immediately in front, across the wooded valley, rises St. Martha's Hill,
+crowned by its ancient chapel. Here we can watch the changes of sun
+and shower over the wide expanse of level country, and see the long
+range of far hills veiled in the thin blue mists of morning, or turning
+purple under the gold of the evening sky. Some of the oldest and finest
+yew trees in all Surrey are close to Newland's Corner--the ancient yew
+grove there is mentioned in Domesday--and their dark foliage offers a
+fine contrast to the bright tints of the neighbouring woods and to the
+snowy masses of blossom which in early summer clothe the gnarled old
+hawthorn trees that are studded over the hill-side. We can follow the
+track over the springy turf of the open downs and up glades thick with
+bracken, till it becomes choked with bushes and brambles, and finally
+loses itself in the woods of Albury.
+
+Here, in the middle of the Duke of Northumberland's park, is the deep
+glen, surrounded by wooded heights, known as the Silent Pool. A dark
+tale, which Martin Tupper has made the subject of his "Stephen Langton,"
+belongs to this lonely spot. King John, tradition says, loved a fair
+woodman's daughter who lived here, and surprised her in the act of
+bathing in the pool. The frightened girl let loose the branch by which
+she held, and was drowned in the water; and her brother, a goat-herd,
+who at the sound of her scream had rushed in after her, shared the same
+fate. And still, the legend goes, at midnight you may see a black-haired
+maiden clasping her arms round her brother in his cowhide tunic under
+the clear rippling surface of the Silent Pool.
+
+A little farther on is the old church of Albury--Eldeburie, mentioned in
+Domesday, and supposed to be the most ancient in Surrey. The low tower,
+with its narrow two-light windows, probably dates back to very early
+Norman times, but the rest of the church is considerably later. The
+south chapel was richly decorated by Mr. Drummond, who bought the place
+in 1819, and is now used as a mortuary chapel for his family. Albury
+formerly belonged to the Dukes of Norfolk. The gardens were originally
+laid out by Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, the accomplished collector
+of the Arundel marbles, and whose fine portrait by Vandyck was
+exhibited at Burlington House in the winter of 1891. His friend and
+neighbour, Mr. Evelyn, helped him with his advice and taste, and
+designed the grotto under the hill, which still remains. "Such a
+Pausilippe," remarks the author of "The Sylva," "is nowhere in England
+besides." But the great ornament of Albury is the famous yew hedge,
+about ten feet high and a quarter of a mile long, probably the finest of
+its kind in England. So thick are the upper branches of the yew trees
+that, as William Cobbett writes, when he visited Albury in Mr.
+Drummond's time, they kept out both the rain and sun, and alike in
+summer and winter afford "a most delightful walk." The grand terrace
+under the hill, "thirty or forty feet wide, and a quarter of a mile
+long, of the finest green-sward, and as level as a die," particularly
+delighted him; and the careful way in which the fruit trees were
+protected from the wind, and the springs along the hill-side collected
+to water the garden, gratified his practical mind. "Take it altogether,"
+he goes on, "this certainly is the prettiest garden that I ever beheld.
+There was taste and sound judgment at every step in the laying out of
+this place. Everywhere utility and convenience is combined with beauty.
+The terrace is by far the finest thing of the sort that I ever saw, and
+the whole thing altogether is a great compliment to the taste of the
+times in which it was formed." The honest old reformer's satisfaction in
+these gardens was increased by the reflection that the owner was worthy
+of his estate, seeing that he was famed for his justice and kindness
+towards the labouring classes--"who, God knows, have very few friends
+amongst the rich;" and adds, that he for one has no sympathy with "the
+fools" who want a revolution for the purpose of getting hold of other
+people's property. "There are others who like pretty gardens as well as
+I, and if the question were to be decided according to the laws of the
+strongest, or, as the French call it, _droit du plus fort_, my chance
+would be but a very poor one."
+
+[Illustration: ALBURY OLD CHURCH.]
+
+[Illustration: THE MILL, GOMSHALL.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+SHERE TO REIGATE
+
+
+The Pilgrims' Way ran through Albury Park, passing close to the old
+church and under the famous yew hedge, and crossed the clear trout
+stream of the Tillingbourne by a ford still known as "Chantry Ford."
+Here a noble avenue of lime trees brings us to Shere church, a building
+as remarkable for the beauty of its situation as for its architectural
+interest. The lovely Early English doorway, the heavy transitional
+arches of the nave and the fourteenth-century chancel are still unhurt,
+and among the fragments of old glass we recognise the flax-breaker,
+which was the crest of the Brays, one of the oldest families in the
+county, who are, we rejoice to think, still represented here. Shere
+itself is one of the most charming villages in all this lovely
+neighbourhood. For many years now it has been a favourite resort of
+artistic and literary men, who find endless delight in the quiet beauty
+of the surrounding country. Subjects for pen and pencil abound in all
+directions; quaint old timbered houses, picturesque water-mills and
+barns, deep ferny lanes shaded by overhanging trees, and exquisite
+glimpses of heather-clad downs meet us at every turn. Fair as the scene
+is, travellers are seldom seen in these hilly regions; and so complete
+is the stillness, so pure the mountain air, that we might almost fancy
+ourselves in the heart of the Highlands, instead of thirty miles from
+town. Here it was, in the midst of the wild scenery of these Surrey
+Hills, that a sudden end closed the life of a great prelate of our own
+days, Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Winchester. A granite cross at
+Evershed's Rough, just below Lord Farrer's house at Abinger Hall, now
+marks the spot where his horse stumbled and fell as he rode down the
+hill towards Holmbury on that summer afternoon.
+
+[Illustration: SHERE.]
+
+[Illustration: CROSSWAYS FARM, NEAR WOTTON.[9]]
+
+About a mile beyond Abinger we reach the home of John Evelyn, and see
+the grey tower of the church where he is buried. This is Wotton--the
+town of the woods, as he loved to call it--"sweetly environed" with
+"venerable woods and delicious streams;" Wotton where, after all his
+wanderings and all the turmoil of those troublous times, Evelyn found a
+peaceful haven wherein to end his days. There are the terraces, the
+"fountains and groves," in which he took delight; there, too, are the
+pine-woods which he planted, not only for ornament, and because they
+"create a perpetual spring," but because he held the air to be improved
+by their "odoriferous and balsamical emissions." Not only these trees,
+but the oak and ash, and all the different species which he studied so
+closely and has written about so well, were dear to him as his own
+children, and he speaks in pathetic language of the violent storm which
+blew down two thousand of his finest trees in a single night, and almost
+within sight of his dwelling, and left Wotton, "now no more Woodtonn,
+stripped and naked, and almost ashamed to own its name. Methinks that I
+still hear, and I am sure that I feel, the dismal groans of our
+forests, when that late dreadful hurricane, happening on the 26th of
+November, 1703, subverted so many thousands of goodly oaks, prostrating
+the trees, laying them in ghastly postures, like whole regiments fallen
+in battle by the sword of the conqueror, and crushing all that grew
+beneath them." Evelyn's descendants have bestowed the same care on the
+woods and plantations, and in spite of the havoc wrought by wind and
+tempest, Wotton is still remarkable for the beauty of its forest-trees
+and masses of flowering rhododendrons.
+
+[Illustration: WOTTON.]
+
+The red-brick house has been a good deal altered during the present
+century, but is still full of memorials of Evelyn. His portrait, and
+that of his wife and father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne, are there, and
+that of his "angelic friend," Mistress Blagge, the wife of Godolphin,
+whose beautiful memory he has enshrined in the pages of the little
+volume that bears her name. The drawings which he made on his foreign
+travels are there too; and better still, the books in which he took such
+pride and pleasure, carefully bound, bearing on their backs a device and
+motto which he chose, a spray of oak, palm, and olive entwined
+together, with the words, "Omnia explorate; meliora retinete." But the
+most precious relic of all is the Prayer Book used by Charles I. on the
+morning of his execution. It was saved from destruction by a devoted
+loyalist, Isaac Herault, brother of a Walloon minister in London, and
+afterwards given by him to Evelyn's father-in-law, Sir Richard Browne.
+The fly-leaf bears a Latin inscription with this note:--This is the
+Booke which Charles the First, _Martyr beatus_, did use upon the
+Scaffold, XXX Jan., 1649, being the Day of his glorious martyrdom."
+
+The exact course of the Pilgrims' Way here is uncertain. After leaving
+Shere church it disappears, and we must climb a steep lane past Gomshall
+station, to find the track again on Hackhurst Downs. The line of yews is
+to be seen at intervals all along these downs, and as we descend into
+the valley of the Mole, opposite the heights of Box Hill, we pass four
+venerable yew trees standing in a field by themselves. One of the group
+was struck by lightning many years ago, but still stretches its gaunt,
+withered arms against the sky, like some weather-beaten sign-post
+marking the way to Canterbury.
+
+[Illustration: BOX HILL AND DORKING CHURCH SPIRE.]
+
+The town of Dorking lies in the break here made in the chalk hills by
+the passage of the river Mole; Milton's "sullen Mole that windeth
+underground," or, as Spenser sings in his "Faërie Queen,"--
+
+    "Mole, that like a mousling mole doth make
+     His way still underground, till Thames he overtake."
+
+[Illustration: THE WHITE HORSE, DORKING.]
+
+The Mole owes its fame to the fact that it is so seldom seen, and
+several of the swallows or gullies into which it disappears at intervals
+along its chalky bed are at Burford, close to Dorking. The ponds which
+supplied the perch for that _water-sousie_ which Dutch merchants came to
+eat at Dorking, are still to be seen in the fields under Redhill, and
+near them many an old timbered house and mill-wheel well worth
+painting.
+
+[Illustration: BETWEEN DORKING AND BETCHWORTH LOOKING WEST.]
+
+To-day Dorking is a quiet, sleepy little place, but its situation on the
+Stane Street, the great Roman road from Chichester to London, formerly
+made it a centre of considerable importance, and the size and excellence
+of the old-fashioned inns still bear witness to its departed grandeur.
+Whether, as seems most probable, the old road ran under the wall of
+Denbies Park, and across the gap now made by the Dorking lime works, or
+whether, as the Ordnance map indicates, it crossed the breezy heights
+of Ranmore Common, pilgrims to Canterbury certainly crossed the Mole at
+Burford Bridge about half a mile from the town. The remains of an
+ancient shrine known as the Pilgrims' Chapel are still shown in
+Westhumble Lane. The path itself bears the name of Paternoster Lane, and
+the fields on either side are called the Pray Meadows. From this point
+the path runs along under Boxhill, the steep down that rises abruptly on
+the eastern side of Dorking, and takes its name from the box-trees which
+here spring up so plentifully in the smooth green turf above the chalk.
+Boxhill is, we all know, one of the chief attractions which Dorking
+offers to Londoners. The other is to be found in the fine parks of
+Deepdene and Betchworth, immediately adjoining the town. The famous
+gardens and art collections of Deepdene, and the noble lime avenue of
+Betchworth, which now forms part of the same estate, have often been
+visited and described. The house at Deepdene is now closed to the
+public, but the traveller can still stroll under the grand old trees on
+the river bank, and enjoy a wealthy variety of forest scenery almost
+unrivalled in England. A picturesque bridge over the Mole leads back to
+the downs on the opposite side of the valley, where the old track
+pursues its way along the lower slope of the hills, often wending its
+course through ploughed fields and tangled thickets and disappearing
+altogether in places where chalk quarries and lime works have cut away
+the face of the down. But on the whole the line of yews which mark the
+road is more regular between Dorking and Reigate than in its earlier
+course, and at Buckland, a village two miles west of Reigate, a whole
+procession of these trees descends into the valley.
+
+[Illustration: ON "THE WAY" ABOVE BETCHWORTH.]
+
+All this part of the road is rich in Roman remains. Of these one of the
+most interesting was the building discovered in 1875, at Colley Farm, in
+the parish of Reigate, just south of the Way. Not only were several
+cinerary urns and fragments of Roman pottery dug up, but the walls of a
+Roman building were found under those of the present farmhouse. Some
+twenty years ago a similar building was discovered at Abinger, also in
+the immediate vicinity of the track, but unfortunately it was
+completely destroyed in the absence of the owner, Sir Thomas Farrer.
+Another Roman house came to light in 1813, at Bletchingley, and one
+chamber, which appeared to be a hypocaust, was excavated at the time.
+Lastly, considerable Roman remains have been discovered and carefully
+excavated by Mr. Leveson-Gower in the park at Titsey. Of these the most
+important are a Roman villa, which was thoroughly excavated in 1864,
+together with a group of larger buildings, apparently the farm belonging
+to the ancient house. These are only a few of the principal links in the
+chain of Roman buildings which lie along the course of this ancient
+trackway, and which all help to prove its importance as a thoroughfare
+at the time of the Roman occupation.
+
+Another point of interest regarding this part of the Pilgrims' Way is
+its connection with John Bunyan. When his peculiar opinions and open-air
+preachings had brought him into trouble with the authorities, he came to
+hide in these Surrey hills, and earned his living for some time as a
+travelling tinker. Two houses, one at Horn Hatch, on Shalford Common,
+the other at Quarry Hill, in Guildford, are still pointed out as having
+been inhabited by him at this time; and a recent writer[10] has
+suggested that in all probability the recollections of Pilgrimage days,
+then fresh in the minds of the people, first gave him the idea of his
+"Pilgrim's Progress." Certainly more than one incident in the history of
+the road bears a close resemblance to the tale of Christian's
+adventures. Thus, for instance, the swampy marshes at Shalford may have
+been the Slough of Despond, the blue Surrey hills seen from the distance
+may well have seemed to him the Delectable Mountains, and the name of
+Doubting Castle actually exists at a point of the road near Box Hill.
+Lastly, the great fair at Shalford corresponds exactly with Bunyan's
+description of Vanity Fair, no newly erected business, but "a thing of
+ancient standing," where "the ware of Rome and her merchandise is
+greatly promoted ... only our English nation have taken a dislike
+thereat." In the days when Bunyan wrote, the annual fair had degenerated
+into a lawless and noisy assembly, where little trade was done, and much
+drinking and fighting and rude horseplay went on, as he may have found
+to his cost. The wares of Rome, in fact, were commodities no longer in
+fashion, and soon the fair itself came to an end and passed away, like
+so many other things that had been called into being by the Canterbury
+Pilgrimage.
+
+[Illustration: WINDMILL ON REIGATE COMMON.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+REIGATE TO CHEVENING
+
+
+Although the town of Reigate lies in the valley, it certainly takes its
+name from the Pilgrims' Road to Canterbury. In Domesday it is called
+Cherchfelle, and it is not till the latter part of the twelfth century
+that the comparatively modern name of Rigegate, the Ridge Road, was
+applied, first of all to the upper part of the parish, and eventually to
+the whole town. In those days a chapel dedicated to the memory of the
+blessed martyr, St. Thomas, stood at the east end of the long street,
+on a site now occupied by a market-house, built early in the last
+century, and part of the ancient foundations of this pilgrimage shrine
+were brought to light when the adjoining prison was enlarged some eighty
+or ninety years back. Another chapel, dedicated to St. Laurence the
+Martyr, stood farther down the street; and a third, the Chapel of Holy
+Cross, belonged to the Augustine Canons of the Priory founded by William
+of Warrenne, Earl of Surrey, in the thirteenth century. In Saxon days
+Reigate, or Holm Castle, as it was then termed, from its situation at
+the head of the valley of Holmesdale, was an important stronghold, and
+the vigour and persistence with which the incursions of the Danes were
+repelled by the inhabitants of this district gave rise to the rhyme
+quoted by Camden--
+
+    "The Vale of Holmesdale
+     Never wonne, ne never shall."
+
+[Illustration: REIGATE COMMON.]
+
+At the Conquest the manor was granted to William of Warrenne, and from
+that time the castle became the most powerful fortress of the mighty
+Earls of Surrey. In the days of John it shared the fate of Guildford
+Castle, and was one of the strongholds which opened its gates to Louis
+VIII., King of France, on his march from the Kentish Coast to
+Winchester. The Fitzalans succeeded the Warrennes in the possession of
+Reigate, and in the reign of Edward VI., both the castle and the Priory
+were granted to the Howards of Effingham. Queen Elizabeth's Lord High
+Admiral, the victor of the Invincible Armada, lies buried in the vault
+under the chancel of Reigate Church. In Stuart times the castle
+gradually fell into decay, until it was finally destroyed by order of
+Parliament, during the Civil War, lest it should fall into the King's
+hands. Now only the mound of the ancient keep remains, and some spacious
+subterranean chambers which may have served as cellars or dungeons in
+Norman times. The Priory has also been replaced by a modern house, and
+is the property of Lady Henry Somerset, the representative of the Earl
+Somers, to whom William III. granted Reigate in 1697.
+
+Reigate is frequently mentioned in Cobbett's "Rural Rides," and it was
+the sight of the Priory that set him moralising over monasteries and
+asking himself if, instead of being, as we take it for granted, _bad
+things_, they were not, after all, better than _poor-rates_, and if the
+monks and nuns, who _fed the poor_, were not more to be commended than
+the rich pensioners of the State, who _feed upon the poor_.
+
+Close to this ancient foundation is the hilly common known as Reigate
+Park, a favourite haunt with artists, who find endless subjects in the
+fern-grown dells and romantic hollows, the clumps of thorn-trees with
+their gnarled stems and spreading boughs, their wealth of wild flowers
+and berries. The views over Reigate itself and the Priory grounds on one
+side, and over the Sussex Weald on the other, are very charming; but a
+still finer prospect awaits us on the North Downs on the opposite side
+of the valley, where the Pilgrims' Road goes on its course. The best way
+is to climb Reigate Hill as far as the suspension bridge, and follow a
+path cut in the chalk to the summit of the ridge. It leads through a
+beechwood on to the open downs, where, if the day is clear, one of the
+finest views in the whole of England--in the whole world, says
+Cobbett--breaks upon us. The Weald of Surrey and of Sussex, from the
+borders of Hampshire to the ridge of East Grinstead, and Crowborough
+Beacon, near Tunbridge Wells, lies spread out at our feet. Eastward, the
+eye ranges over the Weald of Kent and the heights above Sevenoaks;
+westward the purple ridge of Leith Hill and the familiar crest of
+Hindhead meet us; and far away to the south are the Brighton downs and
+Chanctonbury Ring.
+
+[Illustration: LOOKING EAST FROM GATTON PARK.]
+
+The line of yew trees appears again here, and after keeping along the
+top of the ridge for about a mile, the Pilgrims' Way enters Gatton Park,
+and passing through the woods near Lord Oxenbridge's house, joins the
+avenue that leads to Merstham. Gatton itself, which, like Reigate, takes
+its name from the Pilgrims' Road--Saxon, Gatetun, the town of the
+road--was chiefly famous for the electoral privileges which it so long
+enjoyed. From the time of Henry VI. until the Reform Bill of 1832, this
+very small borough returned two members to Parliament. In the reign of
+Henry VIII. Sir Roger Copley is described as the burgess and sole
+inhabitant of the borough and town of Gatton, and for many years the
+constituency consisted of one person, the lord of the manor.
+
+At the beginning of the present century there were only eight houses in
+the whole parish, a fact which naturally roused the ire of William
+Cobbett. "Before you descend the hill to go into Reigate," he writes in
+one of his Rural Rides, "you pass Gatton, which is a very rascally spot
+of earth." And when rainy weather detained him a whole day at Reigate,
+he moralises in this vein--"_In_ one rotten borough, one the most rotten
+too, and with another still more rotten _up upon the hill_, in Reigate
+and close by Gatton, how can I help reflecting, how can my mind be
+otherwise than filled with reflections on the marvellous deeds of the
+collective wisdom of the nation?" These privileges doubled the value of
+the property, and when Lord Monson bought Gatton Park in 1830, he paid
+a hundred thousand pounds for the place; but the days of close boroughs
+were already numbered, and less than two years afterwards the Reform
+Bill deprived Gatton of both its members. The little town hall of
+Gatton, where the important ceremony of electing two representatives to
+serve in Parliament was performed, is still standing, an interesting
+relic of bygone days, on a mound in the park, almost hidden by large
+chestnut trees.
+
+[Illustration: GATTON TOWN HALL.]
+
+Gatton House is chiefly remarkable for the marble hall built by the same
+Lord Monson in imitation of the Orsini Chapel at Rome, and adorned with
+rich marbles which he had brought from Italy. The collection of
+pictures, formed by the same nobleman, contains several good Dutch and
+Italian pictures, including the "Vierge au bas-relief," a graceful Holy
+Family, which takes its name from a small carved tablet in the
+background. It was long held to be an early work by the great Leonardo
+da Vinci, and was purchased by Lord Monson of Mr. Woodburn for £4,000,
+but is now generally attributed to his pupil, Cesare da Sesto.
+
+Like so many of the churches we have already mentioned, like Seale and
+Wanborough, and the chapels of St. Katherine and St. Martha, like the
+old church at Titsey and the present one at Chevening, Gatton was
+originally a Pilgrims' church. Now it has little that is old to show,
+for it was restored by Lord Monson in 1831, and adorned with a variety
+of treasures from all parts of the Continent. The stained glass comes
+from the monastery of Aerschot, near Louvain, the altar-rails from
+Tongres, the finely carved choir-stalls and canopies from Ghent, and the
+altar and pulpit from Nuremberg. Like most of the mediæval wood-work and
+glass which has come to England from that "Quaint old town of toil and
+traffic, Quaint old town of art and song," these last are said to have
+been designed by the great master of the Franconian city, Albert Dürer.
+
+[Illustration: MERSTHAM CHURCH.]
+
+The Pilgrims' Way, as has been already said, runs through Gatton Park,
+and brings us out close to Merstham, and through lanes shaded with fine
+oaks and beeches we reach the pretty little village, with its old
+timbered cottages and still older church buried in the woods. Local
+writers of the last century frequently allude to the Pilgrims' Road as
+passing through this parish, although its exact course is not easy to
+trace. It seems, however, certain that the track passed near Lord
+Hylton's house, and south of the church, which stands close by. In
+mediæval times, Merstham formed part of the vast estates held by the
+monks of Christ Church, Canterbury, and was bestowed upon them by
+Athelstan, a son of Ethelred the Unready, in the tenth century. There
+was a church here at the time of the Norman Conquest, but the only
+portion of the present building dating from that period is a fine old
+square Norman font which, like several others in the neighbourhood, is
+of Sussex marble. Of later date, there is much that is extremely
+interesting. The tower and the west door are Early English, and the
+chancel arch is adorned with curious acanthus-leaf mouldings, while the
+porch and chancel are Late Perpendicular.
+
+After passing Merstham Church the track is lost in a medley of roads and
+railway cuttings, but soon the line of yews appears again, climbing the
+crest of the hill, and can be followed for some distance along White
+Hill, or Quarry Hangers, as these downs are commonly called. The next
+object of interest which it passes is the War Camp, or Cardinal's Cap,
+as it is sometimes termed, an old British earthwork on the face of the
+chalk escarpment. Then the path turns into a wood, and we leave it to
+descend on Godstone. This is a fascinating spot for artists. The low
+irregular houses are grouped round a spacious green and goose-pond,
+shaded by fine horse-chestnuts, and there is a charming inn, the White
+Hart or Clayton Arms, with gabled front and large bay-windows of the
+good old-fashioned type. "A beautiful village," wrote Cobbett, ninety
+years ago, "chiefly of one street, with a fine large green before it,
+and with a pond in the green;" and he goes on to speak of the neatness
+of the gardens and of the double violets, "as large as small pinks,"
+which grew in the garden of this same inn, and of which the landlady was
+good enough to give some roots. Happily for his peace of mind, he adds,
+"The vile rotten borough of Bletchingley, which lies under the downs
+close by, is out of sight."
+
+[Illustration: THE WHITE HART, GODSTONE.]
+
+[Illustration: OLD HOUSE IN OXTED.]
+
+From Godstone it is a pleasant walk over the open commons, along the top
+of the ridge, looking over the Weald of Sussex and across the valleys
+of Sevenoaks and Tunbridge to the Kentish hills. Once more we track the
+line of the Pilgrims' Way as it emerges from the woods above the
+Godstone quarries and, passing under Winder's Hill and by Marden Park,
+reaches a wood called Palmers Wood. The name is significant, more
+especially since there is no record of any owner who bore that name.
+Here its course is very clearly defined, and when, in the autumn of
+1890, pipes for carrying water out of the hill were laid down, a section
+of the old paved road was cut across. A little farther on, at
+Limpsfield Lodge Farm, just on the edge of Titsey park, it formed the
+farm road till 1875. At this point the path was ten feet wide, and the
+original hedges remained. Before entering the park of Titsey, the way
+runs through part of Oxted parish, where a spring still bears the name
+of St. Thomas's Well, and then reaches Titsey Place.
+
+[Illustration: OXTED CHURCH.]
+
+Few places in this part of Surrey are more attractive than this old home
+of the Greshams. The purity of the air, praised by Aubrey long ago for
+its sweet, delicate, and wholesome virtues, the health-giving breezes of
+the surrounding downs and commons, the natural loveliness of the place,
+and the taste with which the park and gardens have been laid out, all
+help to make Titsey a most delightful spot. Its beautiful woods stretch
+along the grassy slopes of Botley Hill, and the clump of trees on the
+heights known as Cold-harbour Green is 881 feet above the sea, and marks
+the loftiest point in the whole range of the North Downs. Wherever the
+eye rests, one ridge of wooded hill after the other seems to rise and
+melt away into the soft blue haze. Nor is there any lack of other
+attractions to invite the attention of scholar and antiquary. The place
+is full of historic associations. A whole wealth of antiquities, coins,
+urns, and pottery, have been dug up in the park, and some remains of
+Roman buildings were discovered there a few years ago, close to the
+Pilgrims' Way. After the conquest Titsey was given to the great Earls of
+Clare, who owned the property at the time of the Domesday Survey. In the
+fourteenth century it belonged to the Uvedale family, and two hundred
+years later was sold to Sir John Gresham, an uncle of Sir Thomas
+Gresham, the illustrious merchant of Queen Elizabeth's court, and the
+founder of the Royal Exchange. A fine portrait of Sir Thomas himself, by
+Antonio More, now hangs in the library of Titsey Place. Unfortunately
+the Greshams suffered for their loyalty to Charles I., and after the
+death of the second Sir Marmaduke Gresham in 1742, a large part of the
+property was sold. His son, Sir John, succeeded in partly retrieving the
+fortunes of the family, and rebuilt and enlarged the old manor-house,
+which had been allowed to fall into a ruinous state. But the Tudor
+arches of the east wing still remain, as well as much of the fine oak
+panelling which adorned its walls; and the crest of the Greshams, a
+grasshopper, may still be seen in the hall chimney-piece. The present
+owner, Mr. Leveson-Gower, is a lineal descendant of the last baronet,
+and inherited Titsey from his great-grandmother Katherine, the heiress
+of the Greshams. The fourteenth-century church was unluckily pulled down
+a hundred years ago, because Sir John Gresham thought it stood too near
+his own house, but an old yew in the garden and some tombstones of early
+Norman date still mark its site. The course of the Pilgrims' Way through
+the Park is clearly marked by a double row of fine ash trees, and the
+flint stones with which the road itself is paved may still be seen under
+the turf. Further along the road is a very old farmhouse, which was
+formerly a hostelry, and still bears the name of the Pilgrims' Lodge.
+From Titsey the Way runs along the side of the hills, under Tatsfield
+Church, which stands on the summit of the ridge, and about a mile above
+the pretty little towns of Westerham and Brasted. Here the boundary of
+the counties is crossed, and the traveller enters Kent. Soon we reach
+the gates of Chevening Park, where, as at Titsey, the Pilgrims' Way
+formerly passed very near the house, until it was closed by Act of
+Parliament in 1780.
+
+[Illustration: BRASTED.]
+
+The manor of Chevening, originally the property of the See of
+Canterbury, was held in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries by the
+family of Chevening, from whence it passed to the Lennards, who became
+Barons Dacre and Earls of Sussex. In the last century it was bought by
+General Stanhope, the distinguished soldier and statesman, who, after
+reducing the island of Minorca, served King George I. successively as
+Secretary of State and First Lord of the Treasury. Inigo Jones built the
+house for Richard Lennard, Lord Dacre, early in the seventeenth century,
+but since then it has undergone such extensive alterations that little
+of the original structure remains, and the chief interest lies in a
+valuable collection of historical portraits, including those of the
+Chesterfields, Stanhopes, and the great Lord Chatham. The last-named
+statesman, whose daughter Hester married Charles, Lord Stanhope, in
+1774, was a frequent visitor at Chevening, and is said to have planned
+the beautiful drive which leads through the woods north of the house to
+the top of the downs. The little village of Chevening lies on the other
+side of the park, just outside Lord Stanhope's gates and close to the
+old church of St. Botolph, which was one of the shrines frequented by
+the pilgrims on their way to Canterbury. There are some good Early
+English arches in the nave and chancel, and a western tower of
+Perpendicular date. The south chapel contains many imposing sepulchral
+monuments to the different lords of the manor. Amongst them are those of
+John Lennard, who was sheriff of the county and held several offices
+under the crown in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, and of his
+son Sampson, who with his wife Margaret, Lady Dacre in her own right,
+reposes under a sumptuous canopy of alabaster surrounded by kneeling
+effigies of their children. There is also a fine black marble monument
+to the memory of James, Earl of Stanhope, the prime minister of George
+I., who was buried here with great pomp in 1721. He was actually in
+office at the time of his death, and was taken ill in the House of
+Lords, and breathed his last the next day. But the most beautiful tomb
+here is Chantrey's effigy of Lady Frederica Stanhope sleeping with her
+babe in her arms, and an expression of deep content and peace upon her
+quiet face.
+
+[Illustration: CHEVENING CHURCH.]
+
+    "Storms may rush in, and crimes and woes
+      Deform the quiet bower;
+     They may not mar the deep repose
+      Of that immortal flower."
+
+[Illustration: OTFORD CHURCH.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+OTFORD TO WROTHAM
+
+
+We have followed the Pilgrims' Way over Hampshire Downs and Surrey hills
+and commons, through the woods which Evelyn planted, and along the ridge
+where Cobbett rode. We have seen the track become overgrown with tangled
+shrubs and underwood, and disappear altogether in places. We have lost
+the road at one point in the fields, to find it again half a mile
+further; we have noted the regular lines of yews climbing up the
+hill-side, and the lonely survivors which are left standing bare and
+desolate in the middle of the corn-fields. The part of the ancient road
+on which we are now entering differs in several important respects from
+its earlier course. From the time the Pilgrims' Way enters Kent its
+track is clearly marked. Already we have followed its line through
+Titsey and along the downs as far as Chevening, where the path, now
+closed, may be traced through Lord Stanhope's Park. A group of
+magnificent old yew trees arrests our attention just beyond Chevening,
+before the road from Sevenoaks to Bromley is crossed. Then the Way
+descends into the valley of the Darent, an excellent trout-stream which
+flows north through this chalk district to join the Thames near
+Dartford, and after crossing the ford over that river, regains the hills
+at Otford. From this place it runs along under the hill in one unbroken
+line all the way to Eastwell Park, between Ashford and Canterbury. It is
+a good bridle-way, somewhat grass-grown in places, in others enclosed by
+hedges, and still used by farmers for their carts. Before toll-bars
+were abolished there was a good deal of traffic along this part of the
+Pilgrims' Road, which, running as it does parallel with the turnpike
+road along the valley to Ashford, was much used as a means of evading
+the payment of toll. This cause is now removed, and excepting for an
+occasional hunting-man who makes use of the soft track along the
+hill-side, or a camp of gipsies sitting round their fire, waggoners and
+ploughmen are the only wayfarers to be met with along the Pilgrims'
+Road. But the old name still clings to the track, and as long as the
+squires of Kent have any respect for the traditions of the past, any
+particle of historic sense remaining, they will not allow the Pilgrims'
+Way to be wiped out.
+
+In actual beauty of scenery this portion of the Way may not equal the
+former part. We miss the wild loveliness of Surrey commons, the rare
+picturesqueness of the rolling downs round Guildford and Dorking, but
+this Kentish land has a charm of its own, which grows upon you the
+longer you know it. These steep slopes and wooded hollows, these grand
+old church towers and quaint village streets, these homesteads with
+their vast barns of massive timber and tall chimney-stacks overshadowed
+with oaks and beeches, cannot fail to delight the eyes of all who find
+pleasure in rural scenes. And all along our way we have that noble
+prospect over the wide plains of the dim blue Weald, which is seldom
+absent from our eyes, as we follow this narrow track up and down the
+rugged hill-side. In historic interest and precious memorials of the
+past, this part of the Pilgrims' Way, we need hardly say, is
+surpassingly rich. Endless are the great names and stirring events which
+these scenes recall: battlefields where memorable fights were fought in
+days long ago, churches and lands that were granted to the Archbishops
+or Abbots of Canterbury before the Conquest, manor-houses which our
+kings and queens have honoured with their presence in the days of yore.
+All these things, and many more of equal interest and renown, will the
+traveller find as he follows the Pilgrims' Way along the chalk hills
+which form the backbone of Kent.
+
+The first resting-place which the pilgrims would find on this part of
+their route would be the Archbishop's manor-house at Otford. There were
+no less than fifteen of these episcopal residences in different parts of
+Kent, Surrey, and Sussex, and of these, three lay along the Kentish
+portion of the Pilgrims' Way. The palace at Otford possessed an especial
+sanctity in the eyes of wayfarers journeying to the shrine of St.
+Thomas, as having been a favourite residence of the martyred Archbishop
+himself. The manor was originally granted to the See of Canterbury in
+791, by Offa, king of Mercia, who defeated Aldric, king of Kent, at
+Otford in 773, and conquered almost the whole province.
+
+More than two hundred years later, Otford was the scene of another
+battle, in which Edmund Ironside defeated the Danes under Knut, and to
+this day bones are dug up in the meadow which bears the name of
+Danefield. From the tenth century the Archbishops had a house here, and
+Otford is described in the Domesday Survey as _Terra Archiepi
+Cantuariensis_. So it remained until Cranmer surrendered the palace,
+with many other of his possessions, to Henry VIII. The mediæval
+Archbishops seem to have had an especial affection for Otford, and
+spent much of their time at this pleasant country seat. Archbishop
+Winchelsea entertained Edward I. in 1300, and was living here at the
+time of his death thirteen years later, when his remains were borne by
+the King's command to Canterbury, and buried there with great state.
+Simon Islip enclosed the park, and Archbishop Deane repaired the walls;
+but the whole was rebuilt on a grander scale by Warham, who spent
+upwards of thirty thousand pounds upon the house, and received Henry
+VIII. here several times in the first years of his reign.
+
+After Otford had become Crown property, the Archbishop's manor-house
+passed into the hands of the Sydneys and Smyths, who dismantled the
+castle, as it was then commonly called, and allowed the walls to fall
+into ruin. Two massive octagonal towers of three stories, with double
+square-headed windows, and a fragment of a cloister, now used as farm
+stables, are the only portions remaining. These evidently formed part of
+the outer court, and are good specimens of fifteenth-century brickwork.
+The tower was considerably higher a hundred years ago, and Hasted
+describes the ruins as covering nearly an acre of ground. The stones of
+the structure were largely used in the neighbouring buildings, and the
+Bull Inn contains a good deal of fine oak wainscoting, and several
+handsome carved mantelpieces, which originally belonged to the castle.
+Two heads in profile, carved in oak over one of the fireplaces, are said
+to represent Henry VIII. and Katherine of Aragon. A bath, or chamber,
+paved and lined with stone, about thirty feet long, and ten or twelve
+feet deep, not far from the ruins, still bears the name of Becket's
+Well. Tradition ascribes the birth of the spring which supplies it to
+St. Thomas, who, finding no water at Otford, struck the hill-side with
+his staff, and at once brought forth a clear stream, which since then
+has never been known to fail. Another legend tells how the Saint one
+day, being "busie at his prayers in the garden at Otford, was much
+disturbed by the sweete note and melodie of a nightingale that sang in a
+bush beside him, and in the might of his holinesse commanded all birds
+of this kind to be henceforth silent," after which the nightingale was
+never heard at Otford. But with the decay of the palace and the
+departure of the Archbishops, the spell was broken; and the Protestant
+Lambarde, when he was at Otford, takes pleasure in recording how many
+nightingales he heard singing thereabouts.
+
+[Illustration: THE PORCH, KEMSING CHURCH.]
+
+From Otford the Pilgrims' Way runs along the edge of the hills about
+half a mile above the villages of Kemsing and Wrotham, and passes close
+to St. Clere, a mansion built by Inigo Jones, where Mrs. Boscawen, the
+witty correspondent of Mrs. Delany and the friend of Johnson and
+Boswell, was born. Kemsing still retains its old church and well, both
+consecrated to the memory of the Saxon Princess, St. Edith, whose image
+in the churchyard was, during centuries, the object of the peasants'
+devout veneration. "Some seelie bodie," writes Lambarde, who visited
+these shrines in Queen Elizabeth's reign, and delights in pouring
+contempt on the old traditions of these country shrines, "brought a
+peche or two, or a bushelle of corne, to the churche after praiers made,
+offered it to the image of the saint. Of this offering the priest used
+to toll the greatest portion, and then to take one handful or little
+more of the residue (for you must consider he woulde bee sure to gaine
+by the bargaine), the which, after aspersion of holy water and the
+mumbling of a fewe words of conjuration, he first dedicated to the image
+of Saint Edith, and then delivered it backe to the partie that brought
+it; who departed with full persuasion that if he mingled that hallowed
+handfull with his seede corne, it would preserve from harme and prosper
+in growthe the whole heape that he should sowe, were it never so great a
+stacke."
+
+[Illustration: WROTHAM CHURCH.]
+
+Wrotham was the site of another of the Archbishops' manor-houses, and
+rivalled Otford in antiquity, having been granted to the See of
+Canterbury by Athelstan in 964. Wrotham was never as favourite a
+residence with the Archbishops as Otford, but they stopped here
+frequently on their progresses through Kent, until, in the fourteenth
+century, Simon Islip pulled down the house to supply materials for the
+building of his new palace at Maidstone. A terrace and some scanty
+remains of the offices are the only fragments now to be seen at Wrotham,
+but the charming situation of the village in the midst of luxuriant
+woods, and the beauty of the view over the Weald from Wrotham Hill,
+attract many visitors. The church has several features of architectural
+interest, including a handsome rood-screen of the fourteenth century,
+and a watching-chamber over the chancel, as well as a curious archway
+under the tower, which was probably used as a passage for processions
+from the Palace. It contains many tombs and brasses, chiefly of the
+Peckham family, who held the manor of Yaldham in this parish for upwards
+of five hundred years. Below the church is Wrotham Place, a fine old
+Tudor house with a corridor and rooms of the fifteenth century, and a
+charming garden front bearing the date 1560. Fairlawn, the ancestral
+home of the Vanes, also lies in a corner of Wrotham parish, and a
+terrace, bordered with close-clipped yew hedges, and surrounded by sunny
+lawns, where peacocks spread their tails over the grass, is still
+pointed out as a favourite walk of that stout old regicide, Sir Harry
+Vane. Ightham, with its famous Mote, so perfect a picture of an old
+English house, is close by, within a walk of Wrotham station, but lies,
+unluckily, on the opposite side from the line of hills along which our
+path takes us.
+
+[Illustration: THE MOTE, IGHTHAM]
+
+[Illustration: WROTHAM, LOOKING SOUTH.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+WROTHAM TO HOLLINGBOURNE
+
+
+The Pilgrims' Way continues its course over Wrotham Hill and along the
+side of the chalk downs. This part of the track is a good bridle road,
+with low grass banks or else hedges on either side, and commands fine
+views over the rich Kentish plains, the broad valley of the Medway, and
+the hills on the opposite shore. The river itself glitters in the sun,
+but as we draw nearer the beauty of the prospect is sorely marred by the
+ugly chimneys and dense smoke of the Snodland limestone works.
+
+At one point on the downs, close to the Vigo Inn, a few hundred yards
+above our road, there is a very extensive view over the valley of the
+Thames, ranging from Shooters' Hill to Gravesend, and far away out to
+sea. In the daytime the masts of the shipping in the river are clearly
+seen. At night the Nore lights twinkle like stars in the distance. The
+height of these downs is close on 700 feet, that of Knockholt is 783
+feet. On the other side of the Medway the chalk range is considerably
+lower, and the highest points are above Detling, 657 feet,
+Hollingbourne, 606 feet, and Charing, 640 feet.
+
+[Illustration: THE BULL, WROTHAM.]
+
+The Way now runs past Pilgrims' house, formerly the Kentish Drovers'
+Inn, above the old church and village of Trottescliffe (Trosley) and the
+megalithic stones known as Coldrum circle, one of the best preserved
+cromlechs along the road. Further on a short lane leads south to Birling
+Place, the ancient home of the Nevills, who have owned the estate since
+the middle of the fifteenth century, while in a group of old farm
+buildings at Paddlesworth (formerly Paulsford) we find the remains of a
+Norman Pilgrims' Chapel, with a fine Early English arch. The track now
+crosses a large field and enters Snodland, an old town containing many
+Roman remains, and an interesting church, but sadly disfigured by cement
+works and paper factories.
+
+[Illustration: TROTTESCLIFFE.]
+
+Here the pilgrims left the hills to descend into the valley below. Twice
+before, at Shalford and Dorking, they had crossed the rivers which make
+their way through the chalk range; now they had reached the third great
+break in the downs, and the broad stream of the Medway lay at their
+feet. They might, if they pleased, go on to Rochester, three miles
+higher up, and join the road taken by the London pilgrims along the
+Watling Street to Canterbury--the route of Chaucer's pilgrimage. But
+most of them, it appears, preferred to follow the hills to which they
+had clung so long.
+
+[Illustration: FORD PLACE, NEAR WROTHAM.]
+
+The exact point where they crossed the river has been often disputed.
+According to the old maps it was by the ford at Cuxton, where the river
+was shallow enough to allow of their passage. From Bunker's Farm,
+immediately above Birling, a road diverges northwards to Cuxton and
+Rochester, and was certainly used by many of the pilgrims. At Upper
+Halling, on this track, we may still see the lancet windows of a
+pilgrims' shrine formerly dedicated to St. Laurence, which have been
+built into some cottages known as Chapel houses. The Bishops of
+Rochester, who held this manor from Egbert's days, had "a right fair
+house" at Lower Halling, on the banks of the Medway, with a vineyard
+which produced grapes for King Henry III.'s table. This pleasant
+manor-house on the river was the favourite summer residence of Bishop
+Hamo de Hethe, who built a new hall and chapel in the reign of Edward
+I., and placed his own statue on a gateway which was still standing in
+the eighteenth century. Another interesting house, Whorne Place, lies a
+little higher up, on the banks of the Medway, where the grass-grown
+track leading from Bunker's Farm joins the main road to Cuxton and
+Rochester. This fine brick mansion formerly belonged to the Levesons,
+and the quarterings of Sir John Leveson and his two wives are to be seen
+above the central porch.
+
+[Illustration: THE FRIARY, AYLESFORD.]
+
+In the thirteenth century a great number of pilgrims seem to have
+stopped at Maidstone, where, in 1261, Archbishop Boniface built a
+hospital for their reception on the banks of the Medway. The funds which
+supported this hospital, the Newark--New-work, Novi operis, as it was
+called--were diverted by Archbishop Courtenay, a hundred and forty years
+later, to the maintenance of his new college of All Saints, on the
+opposite side of the river, but a remnant of the older foundation is
+still preserved in the beautiful Early English Chancel of St. Peter's
+Church, which was originally attached to Boniface's hospital, and is
+still known as the Pilgrims' Chapel. By the time that Archbishop
+Courtenay founded his college, the stream of pilgrims had greatly
+diminished, and the hostel which had been intended for their
+resting-place was rapidly sinking into a common almshouse. Maidstone,
+too, no doubt, lay considerably out of the pilgrims' course, and the
+great majority naturally preferred to cross the Medway by the ferry at
+Snodland. Others again might choose Aylesford, which lay a mile or two
+below. At this ancient town, the Eglesford of the Saxon Chronicle, there
+was a stone bridge across the river, and a Carmelite Priory founded in
+1240 by Richard de Grey, on his return from the Crusades, where the
+pilgrims would be sure to find shelter. But even if they did not cross
+the Medway at this place, where the old church stands so picturesquely
+on its high bank overhanging river and red roofs, the pilgrims certainly
+passed through the parish of Aylesford. For on the opposite banks of the
+ferry at Snodland the familiar line of yew trees appears again,
+ascending the hill by Burham church, and runs through the upper part of
+Aylesford parish, close to the famous dolmen of Kits Coty House. This
+most interesting sepulchral monument, Kêd-coit--Celtic for the Tomb in
+the Wood--consists of three upright blocks of sandstone about eight feet
+high and eight feet broad, with a covering stone of eleven feet which
+forms the roof, and is one of a group of similar remains which lie
+scattered over the hill-side and are locally known as the Countless
+Stones. We have here, in fact, a great cemetery of the Druids which once
+extended for many miles on both sides of the river. Deep pits dug out in
+the chalk, filled with flints and covered with slabs of stone, have
+been discovered on Aylesford Common, and a whole avenue of stones
+formerly connected this burial place with the cromlechs at Addington,
+six miles off. Here, if the old legend be true, was fought the great
+battle which decided the fate of Britain, and gave England into the
+hands of the English. For at this place, the old chroniclers say, about
+the year 455, the Saxon invaders stopped on their march to the Castle of
+Rochester, and turning southwards met the Britons in that deadly fray,
+when both Kentigern and Horsa were left dead on the field of battle.
+Ancient military entrenchments are still visible on the hill-side near
+Kits Coty House, and a boulder on the top was long pointed out as the
+stone on which Hengist was proclaimed the first king of Kent.
+
+About a mile from this memorable spot, in the plains at the foot of the
+downs, was a shrine which no pilgrim of mediæval days would leave
+unvisited, the Cistercian Abbey of Boxley, then generally known as the
+Abbatia S. Crucis de Gracias, the Abbey of the Holy Rood of Grace.
+
+[Illustration: AYLESFORD BRIDGE]
+
+[Illustration: KITS COTY HOUSE.]
+
+Not only was Boxley, next to Waverley Abbey, the oldest Cistercian house
+founded on this side of the Channel, the _filia propria_ of the great
+house of Clairvaux, but the convent church rejoiced in the possession of
+two of the most celebrated wonder-working relics in all England. There
+was the image of St. Rumbold, that infant child of a Saxon prince who
+proclaimed himself a Christian the moment of his birth, and after three
+days spent in edifying his pagan hearers, departed this life. This
+image could only be lifted by the pure and good, and having a hidden
+spring, which could be worked by the hands or feet of the monks, was
+chiefly influenced by the amount of the coin that was paid into their
+hands. And there was that still greater marvel, the miraculous Rood, or
+winking image, a wooden crucifix which rolled its eyes and moved its
+lips in response to the devotees who crowded from all parts of England
+to see the wondrous sight. The clever mechanism of this image, said to
+have been invented by an English prisoner during his captivity in
+France, was exposed by Henry VIII.'s commissioners in 1538, who
+discovered "certayn ingyns of old wyer with olde roten stykkes in the
+back of the same," and showed them to the people of Maidstone on
+market-day, after which the Rood of Grace was taken to London and
+solemnly broken in pieces at Paul's Cross. The Abbey of Boxley owned
+vast lands, and the Abbots were frequently summoned to Parliament, and
+lived in great state. Among the royal guests whom they entertained was
+King Edward II., whose visit was made memorable by the letter which he
+addressed from Boxley Abbey to the Aldermen of the City of London,
+granting them the right of electing a Lord Mayor. At one time their
+extravagance brought them to the verge of ruin, as we learn from a
+letter which Archbishop Warham addressed to Cardinal Wolsey; but at the
+dissolution the Commissioners could find no cause of complaint against
+the monks, excepting the profusion of flowers in the convent garden,
+which made them comment on the waste of turning "the rents of the
+monastery into gillyflowers and roses." The foundations of the church
+where the Cistercians showed off their "sotelties" may still be traced
+in the gardens of the house built by Sir Thomas Wyatt on the site of the
+abbey. Here some precious fragments of the ruins are still preserved.
+The chapel of St. Andrew, which stood near the great gateway, has been
+turned into cottages, and the noble "guesten-house," where strangers
+were lodged, is now a barn. The old wall remains to show the once vast
+extent of the Abbey precincts. Now these grey stones are mantled with
+thick bushes of ivy, and a fine clump of elm trees overshadows the
+red-tiled roof of the ancient guest-house in the meadows, but we look in
+vain for poor Abbot John's gillyflowers and roses.
+
+[Illustration: LOOKING WEST FROM ABOVE BOXLEY ABBEY.]
+
+Between Boxley Abbey and Maidstone stretches the wide common of Penenden
+Heath, famous from time immemorial as the place where all great county
+meetings were held. Here the Saxons held their "gemotes," and here in
+1076, was that memorable assembly before which Lanfranc pleaded the
+cause of the Church of Canterbury against Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, Earl
+of Kent, the Conqueror's half-brother, who had defrauded Christ Church
+of her rights, and laid violent hands on many of her manors and lands.
+Not only were the Kentish nobles and bishops summoned to try the cause,
+but barons and distinguished ecclesiastics, and many men "of great and
+good account," from all parts of England and Normandy, were present that
+day. Godfrey, Bishop of Coutances, represented the King, and Agelric,
+the aged Bishop of Chester, "an ancient man well versed in the laws and
+customs of the realm," was brought there in a chariot by the King's
+express command. Three days the trial lasted, during which Lanfranc
+pleaded his cause so well against the rapacious Norman that the see of
+Canterbury recovered its former possessions, and saw its liberties
+firmly established.
+
+The village and church of Boxley (Bose-leu in Domesday), so called from
+the box trees that grow freely along the downs, as at Box Hill, are
+about a mile and a half beyond the Abbey, and lie on the sloping ground
+at the foot of the hills, close to the Pilgrims' Way. Old houses and
+timbered barns, with lofty gables and irregular roofs, are grouped
+round the church, which is itself as picturesque an object as any, with
+its massive towers and curious old red-tiled Galilee porch. Next we
+reach Detling, a small village, prettily situated on the slope of the
+hills, with a church containing a rare specimen of mediæval wood-work in
+the shape of a carved oak reading-desk, enriched with pierced tracery of
+the Decorated period. We pass Thurnham, with the foundations of its
+Saxon castle high up on the downs, and then enter Hollingbourne. As
+Boxley reminds us of the box trees on the hill-side, and Thurnham of the
+thorn trees in the wood, so Hollingbourne owes its name to the hollies
+on the burn or stream which runs through the parish. William Cobbett,
+whose memory has followed us all the way from the Itchen valley,
+describes how he rode over Hollingbourne Hill on his return from Dover
+to the Wen, and from the summit of that down, one of the highest in this
+neighbourhood, looked down over the fair Kentish land, which in its
+richness and beauty seemed to him another Garden of Eden.
+
+[Illustration: COTTAGE AT BOARLEY, NEAR BOXLEY]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+HOLLINGBOURNE TO LENHAM
+
+
+The village of Hollingbourne lies at the foot of the hill, and an old
+inn at the corner of the Pilgrims' Road, now called the King's Head, was
+formerly known by the name of the Pilgrims' Rest. The history of
+Hollingbourne is full of interest. The manor was granted to the church
+at Canterbury, "for the support of the monks," by young Athelstan, the
+son of Æthelred II., in the year 980, and was retained by the monastery
+when Lanfranc divided the lands belonging to Christ Church between the
+priory and the see. It is described in Domesday as _Terra Monachorum
+Archiepi_, the land of the monk and the Archbishop; in later records as
+_Manorium Monachorum et de cibo eorum_, a manor of the monks and for
+their food. The Priors of Christ Church held their courts here, and the
+convent records tell us that Prior William Sellyng greatly improved the
+Priory rooms at Hollingbourne. Their residence probably occupied the
+site of the present manor-house. This handsome red-brick building, rich
+in gables and mullions, in oak panelling and secret hiding-places, was
+built in Queen Elizabeth's reign by the great Kentish family of the
+Culpepers, who at that time owned most of the parish. More than one
+fragment of the earlier house, encased in the Elizabethan building, has
+been brought to light, and a pointed stone archway of the thirteenth
+century, and an old fireplace with herring-bone brickwork, have lately
+been discovered. Many are the interesting traditions which belong to
+this delightful old manor-house. The yews in the garden are said to have
+been planted by Queen Elizabeth on one of her royal progresses through
+Kent, when she stayed at Leeds Castle, and was the guest of Sir Henry
+Wotton at Boughton Malherbe. According to another very old local
+tradition, Katherine Howard, whose mother was a Culpeper, spent some
+years here as a girl, and the ghost of that unhappy queen is said to
+haunt one of the upper chambers of the house. Another room, called the
+Needle-Room, was occupied during the Commonwealth by the daughters of
+that faithful loyalist, John Lord Culpeper, Frances, Judith, and
+Philippa, who employed the weary years of their father's exile in
+embroidering a gorgeous altar-cloth and hangings, which they presented
+to the parish church on the happy day when the king came back to enjoy
+his own again. The tapestries, worked by the same deft fingers, which
+once adorned the chambers of the manor-house, are gone, and the hangings
+of the reading-desk in the church have been cut up into a frontal, but
+the altar-cloth remains absolutely intact, and is one of the finest
+pieces of embroidery of the kind in England. Both design and colouring
+are of the highest beauty. On a ground of violet velvet, bordered with a
+frieze of cherub heads, we see the twelve mystic fruits of the Tree of
+Life--the grape, orange, cherry, apple, plum, pear, mulberry, acorn,
+peach, medlar, quince, and pomegranate. The richest hues of rose and
+green are delicately blended together, and their effect is heightened
+by the gold thread in which the shading is worked. The lapse of two
+centuries and a half has not dimmed the brightness of their colours,
+which are as fresh as if the work had been finished yesterday. A needle
+which had been left in a corner of the altar-cloth all those long years
+ago was still to be seen sticking in the velvet early in the last
+century, but has now disappeared.
+
+[Illustration: HOLLINGBOURNE HOUSE.]
+
+This goodly manor-house was only one of several seats belonging to the
+Culpepers in this neighbourhood. They had a mansion at Greenway Court,
+which was burnt down in the last century, and another of imposing
+dimensions where Grove Court now stands. In the seventeenth century the
+Lords Culpeper also owned Leeds Castle, that noble moated house, a mile
+to the south, which was once a royal park, and is still one of the
+finest places in Kent. But the second Lord Culpeper died without a male
+heir in 1688, and this famous house passed by marriage into the Fairfax
+family. The Hollingbourne branch of the Culpepers died out in the course
+of the last century, and at the present time no member of this
+illustrious family is known to exist in England, although persons
+bearing this ancient name are still to be found in America. The church
+at Hollingbourne contains a whole series of Culpeper monuments. The most
+remarkable is the white marble altar-tomb, which bears the recumbent
+effigy of Elizabeth Lady Culpeper, who died in 1638, and is described in
+the inscription on her monument as _Optima Foemina, Optima Conjux, et
+Optima Mater_. This lady was the heiress of the Cheney family, whose
+arms, the ox's hide and horns, appear on the shield at the foot of the
+tomb, and are repeated in the stained glass of the chapel window.
+Tradition says that Sir John Cheney had his helmet struck off, when he
+fought by the victor's side on Bosworth Field, and fixed a bull's horns
+on his head in its place. Afterwards Henry VII. gave him this crest,
+when he made him a Baron and a Knight of the Garter, in reward for his
+valour on that hard-fought field. A monument on the north wall of the
+chancel records the memory of John Lord Culpeper, who was successively
+Chancellor of the Exchequer, Master of the Rolls, and Privy Councillor
+to Charles I. and Charles II. "For equal fidelity to the king and
+kingdome," says the epitaph on his tomb, "he was most exemplary." He
+followed the last-named king into exile and remained there until the
+Restoration, when "with him he returned tryumphant into England on the
+29th of May, 1660," only to die six weeks afterwards, "to the
+irreparable losse of his family." Another descendant of the Culpepers is
+buried under the altar in this church, Dame Grace Gethin, a great
+grand-daughter of Sir Thomas Culpeper, and wife of Sir Richard Gethin,
+of Gethinge Grott, in Ireland, whose learning and virtues were so
+renowned that monuments were erected in her honour both at Bath and in
+Westminster Abbey. This youthful prodigy, who died at the age of
+twenty-one, is here represented kneeling between two angels, and holding
+in her hand the commonplace book which she filled with extracts from her
+favourite authors, and which was afterwards published under the title of
+"Reliquiæ Gethinianæ." Her piety was as great as her personal charms,
+and the inscription on her monument records how, "being adorned with all
+the Graces and Perfections of mind and body, crowned them all with
+exemplary Patience and Humility, and having the day before her death
+most devoutly received the Holy Communion, which she said she would not
+have omitted for Ten Thousand Worlds, she was vouchsafed in a miraculous
+manner an immediate prospect of her future Blisse, for the space of two
+hours, to the astonishment of all about her, and being, like St. Paul,
+in an unexpressible Transport of joy, thereby fully evincing her
+foresight of the Heavenly Glory, in unconceivable Raptures triumphing
+over Death, and continuing sensible to the last, she resigned her pious
+soul to God, and victoriously entered into rest, Oct. 11th, anno ætatis
+21, D'ni: 1697. Her dear and affectionate Mother, whom God in mercy
+supported by seeing her glorious end, erected this monument, she being
+her last surviving issue."
+
+Soon after leaving Hollingbourne, the Pilgrims' Way enters the grounds
+of Stede Hill, and passes through the beech-woods that spread down the
+grassy slopes to the village and church of Harrietsham--Heriard's Home
+in Domesday--in the valley below. An altar-tomb, to the memory of Sir
+William Stede, who died in 1574, and several other monuments to members
+of the same family, may be seen in the south chapel of the church, a
+fine building of Early English and Perpendicular work, with a good
+rood-screen, standing in an open space at the foot of the Stede Hill
+grounds. The rectory of Harrietsham was formerly attached to the
+neighbouring Priory of Leeds, but was granted by Henry VI. to Archbishop
+Chichele's newly founded College of All Souls, Oxford, which still
+retains the patronage of this living. The manor was one of many in this
+neighbourhood given to Odo of Bayeux after the battle of Hastings, and
+afterwards formed part of the vast estates owned by Juliana de Leyborne,
+called the Infanta of Kent, who was married three times, but died
+without children, leaving her lands to become crown property.
+
+A mile farther the Pilgrims' Way enters the town of Lenham. This parish
+contains both the sources of the river Len--the _Aqua lena_ of the
+Romans--which flows through Harrietsham and by Leeds Castle into the
+Medway, and that of the Stour, which runs in the opposite direction
+towards Canterbury. Lenham has held a charter, and enjoyed the
+privileges of a town from mediæval times. The bright little
+market-square, full of old houses with massive oak beams, and quaint
+corners jutting out in all directions, hardly agrees with Hasted's
+description of Lenham as a dull, unfrequented place, where nothing
+thrives in the barren soil, and the inhabitants, when asked by
+travellers if this is Lenham, invariably reply, "Ah, sir, poor Lenham!"
+The picturesqueness of its buildings is undeniable, and its traditions
+are of the highest antiquity. The manor of Lenham was granted to the
+Abbey of St. Augustine at Canterbury by Cenulf, king of Mercia, more
+than a thousand years ago, and in the twelfth century the church was
+appropriated to the Refectory of St. Augustine; that is to say, the
+rectorial tithes were made to supply the monks' dinners. Some fragments
+of the original Norman church still exist, but the greater part of the
+present structure, the arcade of bays, the fine traceried windows of the
+aisle, and most of the chancel, belong to the Decorated period, and were
+rebuilt after the great fire in 1297, when not only the church, but
+the Abbot's barns and farm buildings were burnt to the ground by an
+incendiary. So great was the sensation produced by this act of wanton
+mischief, that Archbishop Winchelsea himself came to Lenham to see the
+ravages wrought by the fire, and fulminated a severe excommunication
+against the perpetrators of the wicked deed. The sixteen oak stalls for
+the monks, and an arched stone sedilia, of the fourteenth century, which
+served the Abbot for his throne when he visited his Lenham estates, are
+still to be seen in the chancel. Here, too, is a sepulchral effigy let
+into the north wall in a curious sideways position, representing a
+priest in his robes, supposed to be that of Thomas de Apulderfelde, who
+lived at Lenham in the reign of Edward II., and died in 1327. Both the
+western tower and the north chancel, dedicated to St. Edmund, and
+containing tombs of successive lords of East Lenham manor, are
+Perpendicular in style, and belong to the fourteenth or early part of
+the fifteenth century. Fragments of the fourteenth-century paintings,
+with which the walls of the whole church were once adorned, may still
+be distinguished in places. Among them are the figures of a bishop,
+probably St. Augustine, and of St. Michael weighing souls, with devils
+trying to turn the balance in their favour, on one side, and on the
+other the crowned Virgin throwing her rosary into the scale which holds
+the souls of the just. The church was dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin,
+and her image formerly occupied the niche in the timbered porch which,
+with the old lych-gate, are such fine specimens of fifteenth-century
+wood-work. The beautiful Jacobean pulpit was given by Anthony Honywood
+in 1622, and is charmingly carved with festoons of grapes and
+vine-leaves. The Honywoods also built the almshouses, with carved
+bargeboards and door-posts, in the street at Lenham, and an inscription
+in the chancel floor records the memory of that long-lived Dame, Mary
+Honywood, who before her death in 1620 saw no less than three hundred
+and sixty-seven of her descendants!
+
+[Illustration: MARKET-PLACE, LENHAM.]
+
+Close to the church are the great tithe barns, built after the fire in
+the fourteenth century by the Abbots of St. Augustine. The largest
+measures 157 feet long by 40 feet wide, and, saving the low stone walls,
+is built entirely of oak from the forests of the Weald. The enormous
+timbers are as sound and strong to-day as they were six hundred years
+ago, and for solidity of material and beauty of construction, this
+Kentish barn deserves to rank among the grandest architectural works of
+the age. The monks are gone, and the proud Abbey itself has long been
+laid in ruins, but these buildings give us some idea of the wealth and
+resources of the great community who were the lords of Lenham during so
+many centuries. They could afford to lend a kindly ear to the prayer of
+the poor vicar when he humbly showed the poverty with which he had to
+contend, and the load of the burden that he had to bear. The Abbot, we
+are glad to learn, granted his request, and agreed to give him a roof
+over his head and to allow his two cows to feed with the monks' own
+herds in the pastures at Lenham, during the months between the feast of
+St. Philip and St. James and Michaelmas.
+
+[Illustration: IN CHARING VILLAGE.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+CHARING TO GODMERSHAM
+
+
+From Lenham the Pilgrims' Road threads its lonely way along the
+hill-side, past one or two decayed farmhouses still bearing the name of
+the great families who once owned these manors--the Selves and the
+Cobhams; and the view over the level country grows wider, and extends
+farther to the south and east, until we reach Charing Hill, one of the
+highest points along this range of downs. The windmill, a few hundred
+yards above the track, commands a far-spreading view over the valley,
+stretching from the foot of the ridge to the Quarry Hills, where the
+towers of Egerton Church stand out on its steep mound above the hazy
+plains of the Weald. We look down upon Calehill, the home of the Darells
+for the last five centuries, and across the woods and park of Surrenden
+Dering, which has been held by the Dering family ever since the days of
+Earl Godwin, to the churches and villages of the Weald. Beyond a
+foreground of swelling hill and dale we see the flat expanse of Romney
+Marsh and Dungeness; and then for the first time we catch a glimpse of a
+pale blue line of sea--that sea across which Roman and Saxon and Norman
+all sailed in turn to land upon the Kentish shore. On clear days you can
+see the Sussex downs in the far horizon beyond the Weald, and near
+Hastings, the hill of Fairlight rising sharply from the sea. Down in the
+valley below, the tall tower of Charing Church lifts its head out of a
+confused mass of red roofs and green trees, with the ivy-grown ruins of
+the old palace at its feet.
+
+Many are the venerable traditions attached to the churches and villages
+which we have seen along our road through this pleasant land of Kent,
+but here is one older and more illustrious than them all. Here we have a
+record which goes back far beyond the days of Lanfranc and of Athelstan,
+and even that king of Mercia who gave Lenham to the Abbey of St.
+Augustine. For Charing, if not actually given, as the old legend says,
+by Vortigern to the ancient British Church, was at all events among the
+first lands bestowed on Augustine and his companions by Ethelbert, king
+of Kent. Saxon historians tell us how that this most ancient possession
+of the church of Canterbury was seized by Offa, king of Mercia, in 757,
+but restored again by his successor, Cenulph, in the year 788.
+
+[Illustration: CHARING]
+
+Long before the Conqueror's time, the Archbishops had a house here. In
+Domesday Book, Charing is styled "proprium manorium archiepiscopi,"
+being reserved by those prelates for their private use, and from those
+days until the manor was surrendered by Cranmer to Henry VIII. it
+remained a favourite residence of the Archbishops. In the thirteenth
+century the Franciscan Archbishop John Peckham dates many letters from
+his house at Charing, and Stratford, as Dean Hook tells us, was often
+there, and found consolation in this quiet retreat for the troubles of
+those stormy days. Chichele, Kemp, and Bourchier were also frequently
+here. Stratford first obtained the grant of a three days' fair to be
+held at Charing twice a year, on the festivals of St. George and St.
+Luke. Leland tells us that Cardinal Morton made great buildings at
+Charing, and the red and black brickwork still to be seen under the ivy
+of the farmhouse walls may be ascribed to him, but the great gateway
+with the chamber and hooded fireplace above, belongs to an earlier
+period, and was probably the work of Stratford in the fourteenth
+century. Some of the older stonework is to be found in the stables and
+cottages now occupying the site of the offices on the west of the court.
+The chapel, with its pointed arches and large windows, which in Hasted's
+time stood behind the modern dwelling-house, was taken down eighty
+years ago, but the great dining-hall, with its massive walls and fine
+decorated window, still remains standing. This hall, where archbishops
+sat in state, and kingly guests were feasted; where Henry VII. was
+royally entertained by Archbishop Warham, on the 24th of March, 1507,
+and where Henry VIII. stayed with all his train on his way to the Field
+of Cloth of Gold, is now used as a barn. But in its decay, it must be
+owned, the old palace is singularly picturesque. The wallflowers grow in
+golden clusters high up the roofless gables and along the arches of the
+central gateway; masses of apple-blossom hang over the grey stone walls,
+and ring-necked doves bask in the sunshine on the richly coloured tiles
+of the old banqueting-hall.
+
+Close by is the church of Charing, famous in the eyes of mediæval
+pilgrims for the possession of one hallowed relic, the block on which
+St. John the Baptist was beheaded, brought back, an old tradition says,
+by Richard Coeur de Lion from the Holy Land, and given by him to
+Archbishop Baldwin, when the King paid his devotions at the shrine of
+St. Thomas. This precious relic went the way of all relics in the
+sixteenth century, and is not mentioned in the long list of costly
+vestments and frontals recorded in an inventory of Church property taken
+at Charing in 1552. But Charing Church is still, in the words of the old
+chronicler, "a goodly pile." It is cruciform in shape, and contains some
+traces of Early English work, but it is mostly of later date. The
+windows are interesting on account of their great variety. There are
+three narrow lancets, several of Transitional and Perpendicular style,
+and one large and very remarkable square-headed Decorated window. The
+chapel of Our Lady, on the south side of the chancel, was built, towards
+the close of the fifteenth century, by Amy Brent, whose family owned the
+charming old manor-house of Wickens in this parish. The porch and fine
+tower, which forms so marked a feature in the landscape, was also
+chiefly built by the Brents, whose crest, a wyvern, is carved on the
+doorway, together with a rose encircled with sun-rays, the badge of
+Edward IV., in whose reign the work was completed. Through this handsome
+doorway the Archbishop, attended by his cross-bearers and chaplains,
+would enter from the palace-gate hard by, and many must have been the
+stately processions which passed under the western arch and wound up the
+long nave in the days of Morton and of Warham. A hundred years later
+Charing Church narrowly escaped entire destruction. On the 4th of
+August, 1590, a farmer, one Mr. Dios, discharged a birding-piece at a
+pigeon roosting, as the pigeons do to this day, in the church tower, and
+"the day being extreme hot and the shingle very dry," a fire broke out
+in the night, and by morning nothing was left but the bare walls of the
+church, even the bells being melted by the heat of the fire. Happily the
+parishioners applied themselves with patriotic zeal to the restoration,
+and within two years the fine timber roof of the nave was completed. The
+date 1592, E.R. 34, is inscribed on the rafter above the chancel arch,
+while that of the chancel roof Ann. Dom. 1622, Anno Regni Jacobi xviii.,
+appears on the beam immediately over the altar.
+
+The Pilgrims' Way winds on through Charing past the noble church tower
+and the ancient palace wall, with its thick clusters of ivy and trailing
+wreaths of travellers' joy, through the lovely woods of Pett Place, the
+home of Honywoods and Sayers for some hundreds of years. The track
+crosses the long avenue of stately limes which leads up to its gates,
+and through the meeting boughs we see the red gables and tall chimneys
+of the old Tudor house. In the fourteenth century the owners of Pett had
+a chapel of their own, served by a priest whose name appears in the
+Lambeth Register and other records as holding the living of
+Pette-juxta-Charing; and Geoffery de Newcourt, who owned this manor,
+together with the adjoining one of Newcourt, paid the king an aid on his
+lands of Pett, when the Black Prince was knighted. A pleasant part of
+the track this is dear to botanists for the wealth of ferns, flowers,
+and rare orchises which grow along the shady path; pleasant alike in
+May, when cowslips and violets grow thick in the grass and the
+nightingales are in full song, and in June, when the ripe red fruit of
+the wild strawberries peep out from under the moss and the hawthorns
+are in bloom, but perhaps best of all in autumn, when the beeches are
+crimson and the maples in the hedges are one fire of gold.
+
+For the next three miles, the way lies through the lower part of the
+great woods of Long Beech, which stretch all over these hills, and which
+from very early times belonged to the see of Canterbury. It brings us
+out at Westwell, close to another extremely interesting church, dating
+from the middle of the thirteenth century, and almost entirely of one
+period. The graceful steeple, nave, chancel, and aisles, are all Early
+English, but the most striking feature is the high open colonnade which
+forms the rood-screen. The effect of the chancel, with its side arcade,
+its groined roof, and beautiful lancet window filled with
+richly-coloured old glass, seen through these three lofty arches, is
+very imposing. There is another curious fragment of stained glass,
+bearing the arms of Queen Anne of Bohemia and of Edward the Confessor
+and his wife, in the north aisle, and the chancel contains six stone
+walls and a stone seat with a pointed arch, which were formerly used by
+the monks and prior of Christ Church, Canterbury. For the manor of
+Westwell, like so many others in this neighbourhood, belonged to the see
+of Canterbury before the Conquest, and at the division of property
+effected by Lanfranc was retained by the Priory. Its revenues were
+allotted to the supply of the monks' refectory, _ad cibum eorum_, just
+as the tithes of Lenham were used to provide meals for St. Augustine's
+Abbey.
+
+[Illustration: OLD YEWS AND OAK IN EASTWELL PARK.]
+
+Half a mile above Westwell Church the Pilgrims' Way reaches the gates of
+Eastwell. Here the track disappears for a time, but old maps show the
+line which it took across the southern slopes of the park, which extends
+for many miles, and is famous for the wild beauty of its scenery. The
+hills we have followed so long run through the upper part of the park,
+and magnificent are the views of the sea and Sussex downs which meet us
+in these forest glades, where stately avenues of beech and oak and
+chestnut throw long shadows over the grass, and antlered deer start up
+from the bracken at our feet. But the lower slopes are pleasant too,
+with the venerable yews and thorns and hornbeams dotted over the
+hill-side, and the heights above clad with a wealth of mingled foliage
+which is reflected in the bright waters of the still, clear lake. The
+old ivy-grown church stands close to the water's edge, and contains some
+fine tombs of the Earls of Winchelsea, and of their ancestors, the
+Finches. But the traveller will look with more interest on the
+sepulchral arch which is said to cover the ashes of the last of the
+Plantagenets. The burial registers indeed record that Richard
+Plantagenet, the illegitimate son of Richard III., died at Eastwell on
+the 22nd of December, 1550, and a well, which goes by the name of
+Plantagenet's Well, marks the site of the cottage where he lived in
+confinement after the defeat of his father on Bosworth Field. Eastwell
+House, for some years the residence of H.R.H. the Duke of Edinburgh, was
+originally built by Sir Thomas Moyle, Speaker of the House of Commons in
+the reign of Henry VIII., but has been completely altered and modernised
+since it passed into the Winchelsea family. Leaving it on our left, we
+come out of the Park at Boughton Lees, a group of houses on a
+three-cornered green, and follow in the steps of the old track to
+Boughton Aluph church, a large cruciform building with a spacious north
+aisle and massive central tower, standing in a very lonely situation.
+
+Boughton, called Bocton or Boltune in former times, belonged to Earl
+Godwin and his son Harold, before the Conquest, after which it was given
+to Eustace, Earl of Boulogne, and formed part of Juliana de Leybourne's
+vast inheritance. It took the name of Aluph from a Norman knight,
+Aluphus de Bocton, who held the manor in the reign of King John, and
+became thus distinguished from the other parishes of Boughton in the
+neighbourhood. From the church a grassy lane, shaded by trees, ascends
+the hill to Challock on the borders of Eastwell Park, and is probably
+the old track of the Pilgrims' Way which passed between these woods and
+the park of Godmersham. This was formerly the property of Jane Austen's
+brother, who took the name of Knight on succeeding to the estate, but it
+has now passed into the hands of another family. Until the Dissolution
+the manor and church of Godmersham belonged to Christ Church, and here,
+in mediæval days, the priors of the convent had a fine manor-house,
+where they frequently resided during the summer months. The hall was
+pulled down in 1810, and nothing of the old house is now left except a
+gable and doorway, adorned with a figure of a Prior wearing his mitre
+and holding his crozier in his hand, probably intended for Henry de
+Estria, the Prior who rebuilt the manor-house in 1290. The church of
+Godmersham is remarkable for its early tower and curious semicircular
+apse with small Norman lights, which are evidently remains of an older
+building, and in the churchyard are some very ancient yews, one of which
+is said to have been planted before the Conquest.
+
+Under the shadow of these venerable trees there sleeps a remarkable
+woman, Mary Sybilla Holland, whose father was at one time Vicar of
+Godmersham, and afterwards moved to Harbledown, a larger parish near
+Canterbury, a few miles further along the Pilgrims' Way. Both Mrs.
+Holland and her distinguished brother, the lamented Sir Alfred Lyall,
+retained a lifelong affection for this corner of East Kent. When Lyall
+was far away in India, ruling over millions of British subjects, in the
+north-west provinces, his verses tell us how passionately he yearned for
+his old Kentish home.
+
+    "Ah! that hamlet in Saxon Kent,
+       Shall I find it when I come home?
+     With toil and travelling well-nigh spent,
+     Tired with life in jungle and tent,
+       Eastward never again to roam.
+     Pleasantest corner the world can show
+       In a vale which slopes to the English sea--
+     Where strawberries wild in the woodland grow,
+     And the cherry-tree branches are bending low,
+       No such fruit in the South countree."
+
+Sir Alfred died on the 10th of April, 1911, at Lord Tennyson's house at
+Farringford, in the Isle of Wight, and was buried in the churchyard of
+St. Michael's, Harbledown. Now brother and sister are both sleeping
+under the grassy sod of the Kentish land which they loved so well,
+"where the nightingales sing heart-piercing notes in the silence of the
+early summer night."
+
+    "Shelter for me and for you, my friend,
+       There let us settle when both are old,
+     And whenever I come to my journey's end,
+     There you shall see me laid, and blend
+       Just one tear with the falling mould."
+
+[Illustration: THE PLACE, WROTHAM.]
+
+[Illustration: CHILHAM.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN
+
+
+The Pilgrims' Way skirted the wooded slopes of Godmersham Park for about
+a mile, and then entered Chilham Park. The park is now closed, but the
+old track lay right across the park, and in front of Chilham Castle. The
+position of this fortress, overlooking the valley of the Stour, has made
+it memorable in English history. Chilham has been in turn a Roman camp,
+a Saxon castle, and a Norman keep, and has played an eventful part in
+some of the fiercest struggles of those days. According to a generally
+received tradition recorded by Camden, Chilham was the scene of the
+battle on the river in Cæsar's second expedition; and the British barrow
+near the Stour, popularly known as Julaber's Grave, was believed to be
+the tomb of the Roman tribune, Julius Laberius, although, as a matter of
+fact, it contains no sepulchral remains. In the second century Chilham
+is said to have been the home of that traditional personage, the
+Christian King Lucius, and in Saxon days of the chief Cilla. The castle
+was strongly fortified to resist the invasion of the Danes, by whom it
+was repeatedly attacked. After the Norman Conquest it belonged to
+Fulbert de Dover, whose last descendant, Isabel, Countess of Atholl,
+died here in 1292, and is buried in the under-croft at Canterbury. Then
+it passed into the hands of the great Lord Badlesmere, of Leeds, who on
+one occasion gave Queen Isabel, the wife of Edward II., a splendid
+reception here, and afterwards astonished the peaceful citizens and
+monks of Canterbury by appearing at their gates, followed by nineteen
+armed knights, each with a drawn sword in his hand, to pay his
+devotions at the shrine of St. Thomas. As late as the sixteenth century
+Leland describes Chilham Castle as beautiful for pleasure, commodious
+for use, and strong for defence; but soon after he wrote these words,
+the greater part of the old house was pulled down by its owner, Sir
+Thomas Cheney, Warden of the Cinque Ports under Edward VI., to complete
+his new mansion in the Isle of Sheppey. The Norman keep, an octagonal
+fortress three stories high, is the only part of the mediæval structure
+that now remains, and can still be seen in the gardens of the new house
+built in 1616 by Sir Dudley Digges, Master of the Rolls in the reign of
+James I. This fine Jacobean manor-house stands well on the rising ground
+above the river, and both the garden terrace and the top of the old keep
+afford beautiful views of the vale of Ashford and the downs beyond the
+Wye. Still more picturesque is the market-place of Chilham itself. On
+one side we have the red brick walls and white stone doorway of the
+castle, seen at the end of its short avenue of tall lime trees on the
+other the quaint red roofs and timbered houses of the charming old
+square, with the grey church tower surrounded by the brilliant green of
+sycamores and beeches. On a bright spring morning, when the leaves are
+young and the meadows along the river-side are golden with buttercups,
+there can be no prettier picture than this of the old market square of
+Cilla's home.
+
+From the heights of Chilham the Pilgrims' Way descends into the valley
+of the Stour, and after following the course of the river for a short
+time, climbs the opposite hill and strikes into Bigberry Wood. Here we
+come suddenly upon the most ancient earthwork along the whole line of
+the road, an entrenchment which Professor Boyd Dawkins, who explored it
+thoroughly some years ago, has ascribed to the prehistoric Iron Age. For
+most of us, perhaps, Bigberry Camp has a still greater interest as the
+fort which the Britons held against the assault of the Roman invaders,
+and which was stormed and carried by Cæsar's legions. The memory of that
+desperate fight, which sealed the fate of Britain and her conquest by
+the great Proconsul, still lingers in the popular mind, and the shepherd
+who follows his flock and the waggoner who drives his team along the
+road, still talk of the famous battle that was fought here two thousand
+years ago.
+
+After this the path crosses the valley and runs through the hop-gardens
+to join Watling Street--the road by which Chaucer's pilgrims came to
+Canterbury--at Harbledown. This is the little village on the edge of the
+forest of Blean, which has been immortalised by Chaucer's lines--
+
+    "Wist ye not where standeth a little toun
+     Which that ycleped is Bob-up-and-down,
+     Under the Blee in Canterbury way."
+
+[Illustration: ON THE VILLAGE GREEN, CHARTHAM]
+
+And Bob-up-and-down is to this day a true and characteristic description
+of the rolling ground by which we approach Harbledown. Here the
+Pilgrims' Road, along which we have journeyed over hill and dale, fails
+to rise again. We climb the last hill, and on the summit of the rising
+ground we find ourselves close to the lazar-house founded at Harbledown
+by Lanfranc in 1084. The wooden houses built by the Norman Archbishop
+for the reception of ten brothers and seven sisters have been replaced
+by a row of modern almshouses; but the chapel still preserves its old
+Norman doorway, and the round arches and pillars of an arcade to the
+north of the nave, which formed part of the hospital church dedicated by
+Lanfranc to St. Nicholas. The devout pilgrim to St. Thomas's shrine
+never failed to visit this ancient leper-house. Not only did the
+antiquity of the charitable foundation and its nearness to the road
+attract him, but in the common hall of the hospital a precious relic was
+preserved in the shape of a crystal which had once adorned the leather
+of St. Thomas's shoe. Many were the royal personages and distinguished
+strangers who paused before these old walls and dropped their alms into
+the poor leper's outstretched hand. Here, we read in contemporary
+records, Henry II. came on his first memorable pilgrimage to the tomb of
+the martyred Archbishop, and Richard Coeur de Lion after his release
+from his long captivity. Edward I. stopped at Harbledown with his brave
+Queen, Eleanor of Castille, on their return from the Holy Land, and the
+Black Prince, accompanied by his royal captive, King John of France, and
+that monarch's young son Philip, also visited the leper-house. And when
+the French king visited Canterbury for the second time, on his return to
+his own kingdom, he did not forget to stop at Lanfranc's old lazar-house
+and leave ten gold crowns "pour les nonnains de Harbledoun." But it is a
+later and more sceptical traveller, Erasmus, who has left us the most
+vivid description of Harbledown and of the feelings which the sight of
+the relic aroused in the heart of his companion, Dean Colet. "Not far
+from Canterbury, at the left-hand side of the road," he writes, in the
+record of his pilgrimage, "there is a small almshouse for old people,
+one of whom ran out, seeming to hear the steps of the horses. He first
+sprinkled us with holy water, and then offered us the upper leather of a
+shoe bound in a brass rim, with a crystal set in its centre like a
+jewel. Gration (Dean Colet) rode on my left hand, nearer to the beggar
+man, and was duly sprinkled, bearing it with a tolerable amount of
+equanimity. But when the shoe was handed up, he asked the old man what
+he wanted. 'It is the shoe of St. Thomas,' was the answer. Upon this he
+fired up, and turning to me, exclaimed indignantly, 'What! do these
+cattle mean we should kiss the shoes of every good man?'" Erasmus, sorry
+for the old man's feelings, dropped a small coin into his hand, which
+made him quite happy, and the two pilgrims rode on to London, discussing
+the question of the worship of relics as they went. To this day a maple
+bowl, bound with a brass rim, containing a piece of crystal, is
+preserved in the hospital at Harbledown, the self-same relic, it may be,
+which was shown to Erasmus and Colet, and which Lambarde, writing half
+a century later, describes as "faire set in copper and chrystall"; while
+an old wooden box, with a slit in the lid for money, and a chain
+attached to it, is said to be the one into which Erasmus dropped his
+coin.
+
+Behind the ivy-mantled tower of Lanfranc's chapel is a clear spring
+which was supposed to possess healing virtues, and is still believed by
+the country folks to be of great benefit to the eyes. This spring still
+goes by the name of the Black Prince's Well, from an old tradition that
+the warrior of Crecy and Poitiers drank of its waters when he visited
+the hospital at Harbledown in 1357. Many, we know, are the memorials of
+this popular hero at Canterbury. Only three days after he landed at
+Sandwich he came, accompanied by his royal captive, to return thanks at
+St. Thomas's shrine for his victories, and six years afterwards he
+founded and decorated the beautiful chantry in the Cathedral crypt,
+which still bears his name, on the occasion of his marriage with his
+cousin Joan, the Fair Maid of Kent. The old legend of the Black
+Prince's Well goes on to tell how, when he lay dying of the wasting
+disease which carried him off in the flower of his life, he thought of
+the wonder-working spring near Canterbury, and sent to Harbledown for a
+draught of its pure waters. But even that could not save him, and on the
+29th of September, 1376, a stately funeral procession wound its way down
+the hill-side at Harbledown, bearing the Black Prince to the grave which
+he had chosen for himself in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Undercroft at
+Canterbury.
+
+At Harbledown the pilgrims caught their first sight of the Cathedral;
+here they fell on their knees when they saw the golden angel on the top
+of the central tower, and knew that the goal of their pilgrimage was
+almost reached. Here Chaucer's goodly company made their last halt, and
+for the moment the noise of singing and piping and jingling of bells
+gave place to a graver and more solemn mood as the motley crowd of
+pilgrims pressed around, to hear this time not a Canterbury tale, but a
+sermon. Deep was the impression which that first sight of Canterbury
+made upon Erasmus. The cold, critical scholar becomes eloquent as he
+describes the great church of St. Thomas rearing itself up into the sky
+with a majesty that strikes awe into every heart, and the clanging of
+bells which, thrilling through the air, salute the pilgrims from afar.
+To-day the great cross is gone from the Westgate, the shining archangel
+no longer blesses the kneeling pilgrim from the topmost steeple, but the
+same glorious vision of the great Cathedral rising with all its towers
+into the sky meets the eyes of the traveller who looks down on
+Canterbury from the hill of Harbledown.
+
+[Illustration: CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH-WEST]
+
+[Illustration: ST. NICHOLAS', HARBLEDOWN.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+HARBLEDOWN TO CANTERBURY
+
+
+From Harbledown it is all downhill to Canterbury, and a short mile
+brings us to the massive round tower of Simon of Sudbury's noble
+Westgate, the only one remaining of the seven fortified gateways which
+once guarded the ancient city. Many are the pilgrims who have entered
+Canterbury by this gate: kings and queens of all ages, foreign emperors
+and princes, armed knights and humble scholars, good Queen Philippa and
+Edward Plantagenet, Henry of Agincourt, Margaret of Anjou, Chaucer and
+Erasmus. Many, too, are the long processions which have wound down this
+hill-side: newly created archbishops followed by a brilliant train of
+bishops and courtiers on their way to be enthroned in the chair of St.
+Augustine; solemn funerals, attended with all the pomp and circumstance,
+the funeral plumes and sable trappings, with which men honour the mighty
+dead. Through the Westgate went forth that gay company of monks and
+friars, of merchants and citizens crowned with garlands of flowers, and
+making joyous minstrelsy, as they rode out to welcome Archbishop
+Winchelsea, who, once a poor student in the school at Canterbury, now
+came to be enthroned in state in the presence of King Edward I. and all
+his court. And this way, too, they bore him with much state and pomp,
+eighteen years later, from the manor-house at Otford, where he died, to
+sleep in his own Cathedral after all the labours and struggles, the
+storms and changes of his troublous reign.
+
+[Illustration: THE WEST GATE, CANTERBURY.]
+
+Since these mediæval days Canterbury has seen many changes. The
+splendours of which Camden and Leland wrote have passed away, the
+countless number of its churches has been reduced, and their
+magnificence no longer strikes the eye of the stranger. The lofty walls
+and their twenty-one watch-towers, which encircled the city in a
+complete ring when Chaucer's knight, after paying his devotion at the
+shrine of St. Thomas, went out to see their strength, and "pointed to
+his son both the perill and the doubt," are all gone, and the
+Conqueror's mighty castle is turned into a coal-pit. But the old city is
+still full of quaint corners and picturesque buildings, timbered houses
+with carved corbels and oriel windows, hostelries with overhanging eaves
+and fantastic sign-boards of wrought-iron work, hospitals whose charters
+date from Norman times, and whose records give us many a curious peep
+into the byways of mediæval life.
+
+As we draw near the Martyr's shrine, memories of St. Thomas crowd upon
+us. The hill outside the Westgate, now occupied by the Clergy Orphan
+School, is still called St. Thomas's Hill, and was formerly the site of
+a chapel founded by Becket himself. A little way up the High Street we
+reach a bridge over the Stour, which winds its way through the heart of
+the city, and a low pointed doorway on our right leads into St. Thomas's
+Hospital. This ancient Spittle of East Bridge was founded, as a
+fourteenth-century charter records, by the "glorious St. Thomas the
+Martyr, to receive poor wayfaring men." Archbishop Hubert Walter
+increased its endowments in the twelfth century, and Stratford repaired
+the walls in the fourteenth, and drew up statutes for its government.
+From that time it was especially devoted to the use of poor pilgrims,
+for whom twelve beds were provided, and whose wants were supplied at the
+rate of fourpence a day. During those days, when the enthusiasm for St.
+Thomas was at its height, alms and legacies were lavished upon
+Eastbridge Hospital, and Edward III. bequeathed money to support a
+chaplain, whose duty it was to say daily masses for the founders of the
+hospital. After the days of pilgrimages were over, this hospital was
+applied to various uses until Archbishop Whitgift recovered the
+property and drew up fresh statutes for its management. Ten poor
+brothers and sisters still enjoy the fruit of St. Thomas's benevolence,
+and dwell in the old house built on arches across the bed of the river.
+The low level of the floor, which has sunk far below that of the street,
+and the vaulted roof and time-worn pillars, bear witness to its great
+antiquity. There can be little doubt that the round arches of the Norman
+crypt belong to St. Thomas's original foundation, while the pointed
+windows of the chapel and Early English arches of the refectory form
+part of Archbishop Stratford's improvements. In this hall some portions
+of frescoes, representing on the one hand the Last Supper, on the other
+the Martyrdom of the Saint, the penance of Henry II. at his tomb, with
+the central figure of Christ in Glory, have been lately recovered from
+under the coat of whitewash which had concealed them for more than two
+centuries.
+
+Twice a year, we know, at the summer festival of the Translation of St.
+Thomas, on the 7th of July, and at the winter festival of the Martyrdom,
+on the 29th of December, Canterbury was crowded with pilgrims, and a
+notice was placed in the High Street ordering the due provision of beds
+and entertainment for strangers. The concourse was still greater on the
+jubilees of the Translation, when indulgences were showered freely on
+all who visited the shrine, and the festival lasted for a whole
+fortnight. At the jubilee of the year 1420, just after the victory of
+Agincourt, no less than a hundred thousand pilgrims are said to have
+been present. On such occasions every available corner was occupied; the
+inns, which were exceedingly numerous, the hospitals, and, above all,
+the religious houses, were thronged with strangers. The most favourite,
+the most renowned, of all the hostelries was the Chequers of the Hope,
+the inn where Chaucer's twenty-nine pilgrims took up their quarters.
+
+    "At Chekers of the Hope that every man doth know."
+
+This ancient inn, which Prior Chillenden rebuilt about 1400, stood at
+the corner of High Street and Mercery Lane, the old Merceria, which was
+formerly lined with rows of booths and stalls for the sale of pilgrimage
+tokens, such as are to be found in the neighbourhood of all famous
+shrines. Both ampullas, small leaden bottles containing a drop of the
+martyr's blood, which flowed perennially from a well in the precincts,
+and Caput Thomæ, or brooches bearing the saint's mitred head, were
+eagerly sought after by all Canterbury pilgrims. So too were the small
+metal bells which are said to have given their name to the favourite
+Kentish flower, the Canterbury bell. And we read that the French king,
+John, stopped at the Mercery stalls to buy a knife for the Count of
+Auxerre. The position of the inn close to the great gate of Christ
+Church naturally attracted many visitors, and the spacious cellars with
+vaulted roofs, which once belonged to the inn, may still be seen,
+although the inner courtyard and the great chamber upstairs occupied by
+the pilgrims, and known as the Dormitory of Hundred Beds, were burnt
+down forty years ago. But the old street front, with its broad eaves
+overhanging the narrow lane leading up to the great gateway at the other
+end, still remains, and renders Mercery Lane the most picturesque and
+interesting corner of the Cathedral city.
+
+The religious houses were open to all comers, and while royal visitors
+were lodged in St. Augustine's Abbey, the convents of the Mendicant
+orders were largely frequented by the poorer classes. There was also the
+house of the Whitefriars or Augustinians in the eastern part of the
+town, close to St. George's Gate, and the hospital of St. John in the
+populous Northgate, "that faire and large house of stone," built and
+endowed by Lanfranc in the eleventh century, besides that of Eastbridge,
+which has been already mentioned, and many other smaller foundations.
+
+But it was in the great Priory of Christ Church that by far the largest
+number of pilgrims found hospitable welcome. A considerable part of the
+convent buildings was set aside for their reception. The Prior himself
+entertained distinguished strangers, and lodged them in the splendid
+suite of rooms overlooking the convent garden, known as the Omers or
+Homers--Les Ormeaux--from a neighbouring grove of elms. This range of
+buildings, including the banqueting-hall, generally known as "Meister
+Omers," was broken up into prebendal houses after the Dissolution, and
+supplied three separate residences for members of the new Chapter, which
+gives us some idea of the size of these lodgings. For ordinary strangers
+there was the Guest Hall, near the kitchen, on the west side of the
+Prior's Court, which was under the especial charge of a cellarer
+appointed to provide for the needs of the guests. Prior Chillenden, whom
+Leland describes as "the greatest builder of a Prior that ever was in
+Christ Church," repaired and enlarged this Strangers' Hall early in the
+fifteenth century, and added a new chamber for hospitality, which bore
+the name of Chillenden's Guest Chamber, and now forms part of the Bishop
+of Dover's house. Finally, without the convent precincts, close to the
+court gateway, where the beautiful Norman stairway leads up to the Great
+Hall, or Aula Nova, was the Almonry. Here the statutes of Archbishop
+Winchelsea--he who had known what it was to hunger and thirst in his
+boyhood, and who remained all through his greatness the friend of the
+poor--provided that poor pilgrims and beggars should be fed daily with
+the fragments of bread and meat, "which were many and great," left on
+the monks' tables, and brought here by the wooden pentise or covered
+passage leading from the kitchen. This Almonry became richly endowed by
+wealthy pilgrims in course of years, and early in the fourteenth century
+Prior Henry of Estria built a chapel close by, which was dedicated to
+St. Thomas the Martyr, and much frequented by pilgrims. The Almony was
+turned into a mint-yard at the Dissolution, and the chapel and priests'
+lodgings attached to it, now belong to the King's School. Another
+privilege freely conceded by the prior and monks of this great community
+to pilgrims of all ranks and nationality who might die at Canterbury,
+was that of burial within the precincts of Christ Church, close to the
+blessed martyr's shrine, and under the shadow of the Cathedral walls.
+
+[Illustration: MERCERY LANE, CANTERBURY.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE MARTYR'S SHRINE
+
+
+Erasmus has described the imposing effect of the great Cathedral church
+on the stranger who entered its doors for the first time, and saw the
+nave "in all its spacious majesty." The vision which broke upon the eyes
+of those pilgrims who, like himself and Dean Colet, visited Canterbury
+in the early years of the sixteenth century, may well have filled all
+hearts with wonder. For then the work was well-nigh perfected. The long
+roll of master-builders, from Prior Wibert and De Estria to Chillenden
+and Sellyng, had faithfully accomplished their task. Prior Goldstone,
+the last but one who reigned before the Dissolution, had just completed
+the central tower, the great labour of his predecessor Prior Sellyng's
+life, and was in the act of building the noble Perpendicular gateway
+which forms a fitting entrance to the precincts.
+
+And now the great church stood complete. Without, "a very goodly,
+strong, and beautiful structure": the traceries and mouldings of the
+windows, the stone canopies and sculptured images of the portal, all
+perfect; the glorious towers in their might; Bell Harry Steeple, as we
+see it to-day, matchless in its strength and beauty; and beside it,
+rivalling its grace and majesty, the ancient Norman tower, which bore
+the name of Ethelbert, crowned with the Arundel spire. Within, a
+richness and splendour to which our eyes are wholly unaccustomed:
+chapels and chantries lining the great nave, fresh from Prior
+Chillenden's work; altars glittering with lighted tapers and gold and
+silver ornaments; roof and walls bright with painting and gilding, or
+decked with silken tapestry hangings; carved images covered with pearls
+and gems; stained windows throwing their hues of ruby and sapphire
+across the floor, and lighting up the clouds of incense as they rose
+heavenward. All this, and much more, met the pilgrims' wondering eyes.
+No wonder they stood "half amazed," as the Supplementary Tale to
+Chaucer's Pilgrimage describes "the gardener and the miller and the
+other lewd sets," gazing up at the painted windows, and forgetting to
+move on with the crowd.
+
+[Illustration: THE MARTYRDOM, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.]
+
+Then the show began. First of all the pilgrims were led up a vaulted
+passage and "many steps" to the Transept of the Martyrdom, where the
+wooden altar, at the foot of which the saint fell, remained to show the
+actual place of the murder, and its guardian priest--the _Custos
+Martyrum_--displayed the rusty sword of Richard le Breton. Next,
+descending the flight of steps on the right, they were led into the dark
+crypt, where more priests received them, and presented the saint's
+skull, encased in silver, to be kissed, and other relics, including the
+famous girdle and hair-shirt. This _Caput Thomæ_ was one of the chief
+stations at which offerings were made, and the altar on which it lay,
+mentioned in the Black Prince's will as "the altar where the head is,"
+marked the site of the original grave where the saint was buried by the
+frightened monks on the day after the murder. The tomb stood in the
+eastern chapel of Ernulf's crypt, under the beautiful Pointed arches
+afterwards raised by that great architect, William the Englishman, whom
+Gervase describes as "small in body, but in workmanship skilled and
+honest." Soon it acquired a miraculous virtue, and the fame of the cures
+and wonders wrought there rang throughout the world. It was the scene of
+Henry II.'s penance, and during the next fifty years it remained the
+central object of interest to the crowds of pilgrims who came from all
+parts of Christendom. Coeur de Lion, accompanied by William, King of
+Scotland, knelt here on his way to the Crusades, to implore the martyr's
+blessing on his arms. Many were the Crusaders from all parts of France
+and England who came thither on the same errand. King John and his wife
+Isabella, who were crowned at Canterbury Cathedral by Archbishop Hubert
+Walter, at Easter, 1201, offered their coronation canopies at this tomb
+and vast sums of money were yearly offered here until 1220, when the
+body of St. Thomas was translated, in the presence of the young King
+Henry III., to the new Shrine in Trinity Chapel, immediately above the
+tomb in the crypt. In that year the offerings at the tomb, at the Altar
+of the Sword's Point, and at the new Shrine, reached the enormous amount
+of £1,071, a sum equal to more than £20,000 of money at the present
+time. After this, the offerings at the original tomb in the crypt
+diminished in number and value, but the altar and relics of the _Caput
+Thomæ_ remained an object of deep reverence until the Reformation.
+
+From the dark vaults of the subterranean church the pilgrims were led up
+the steps to the north aisle of the choir. Here the great mass of
+relics, including St. George's arm and no less than four hundred skulls,
+jaws, teeth, hands, and other bones, were displayed in gold, silver, or
+ivory caskets, and pilgrims were allowed a glimpse of the magnificent
+vessels and ornaments stored up under the high altar. "All the gold of
+Midas and Croesus," exclaims Erasmus, "would have been nothing by the
+side of these treasures!" and he confesses that he sighed to think he
+kept no such relics at home, and had to beg the saint's pardon for this
+very unholy emotion. The golden candlesticks and silken vestments of
+the sacristy in St. Andrew's tower, and the saint's pallium, which no
+ordinary pilgrims might see, were also shown to Erasmus and Colet, who
+brought with them a letter of introduction from Archbishop Warham.
+
+After duly inspecting these precious objects, they mounted the long
+flight of steps behind the high altar leading into Trinity Chapel; a
+continual ascent, "church, as it were, piled upon church," which seems
+to have greatly heightened the impression produced upon the awe-struck
+pilgrims. Now at last they stood within the holiest of holies. There,
+before their eyes, was the goal of all their journeyings, the object of
+their deepest devotion, the Shrine which held the body of the blessed
+martyr.
+
+[Illustration: SITE OF THE SHRINE OF ST. THOMAS, CANTERBURY CATHEDRAL.]
+
+The Shrine itself, covered by a painted canopy of wood, rested on stone
+arches in the centre of the floor, exactly under the gilded crescent
+which is still to be seen in the Cathedral roof. On the right was the
+richly carved and canopied monument of Henry IV. and his Queen, Joan of
+Navarre, with its elaborate effigies of the royal pair wearing their
+crowns and robes of state; on the left the tomb of Edward the Black
+Prince. He had willed to sleep before the altar of Our Lady of the
+Under-croft, in the chapel adorned by his own gifts, but the people who
+had loved him so well would not allow their hero to remain buried out of
+sight in the dark crypt. So they brought him to rest by the great
+saint's Shrine, where all men could see his effigy of gilded bronze as
+he lay there, clad in armour, his sword by his side, his hands clasped
+in prayer, and read the pathetic lines which tell of his departed
+glories, and bid the passing stranger pray for his soul:
+
+    "Pur Dieu, priez au Celestien Roy,
+     Que mercy ait de l'âme de moy."
+
+His was the first tomb that was ever raised in the sacred precincts
+devoted to the martyr's Shrine, and to this day it remains there, unhurt
+by the hand of time or the more cruel violence of man.
+
+Up the worn stone steps which still bear the marks left by thousands of
+feet and knees, the pilgrims climbed, murmuring words of prayer or
+chanting the popular Latin hymns to St. Thomas:
+
+    "Tu, per Thomæ sanguinem,
+     Quem pro te impendit,
+     Fac nos, Christe, scandere
+     Quo Thomas ascendit."
+
+Here the Prior himself received them, and showed them first the corona
+or crown of Becket's head, preserved in a golden likeness of St.
+Thomas's face, ornamented with pearls and precious gems, which had been
+presented by Henry V. Then, at a given sign, the wooden canopy was drawn
+up by ropes, and the Shrine itself, embossed with gold and glittering
+with countless jewels that flashed and sparkled with light, was revealed
+to the eyes of the pilgrims. They all fell upon their knees and
+worshipped, while the Prior with his white wand pointed out the
+balass-rubies and diamonds, the sapphires and emeralds, which adorned
+the Shrine, and told the names of the royal persons by whom these gifts
+had been presented. There were rings and brooches and chains without
+end, golden and silver statues offered by kings and queens, the crown of
+Scotland brought back by Edward I. after his victory over John Baliol,
+and the _regale_ of France, that superb ruby presented at the tomb in
+the crypt by Louis VII., which shone like fire, and was as costly as a
+king's ransom. Full of awe and wonder the spectators gazed with admiring
+eyes on these treasures, which for beauty and splendour were beyond all
+they had ever dreamt, until the canopy slowly descended, and the Shrine
+was once more hidden from their sight.
+
+Then they went their way, some to visit the convent buildings, the noble
+chapter-house with its gabled roof and stained windows, and the glazed
+walk of the cloisters, glowing with bright colours and decorated with
+heraldic devices of benefactors to Christ Church painted on the bosses
+of the vaulting. Others made themselves fresh and gay, and went out to
+see the city, the Knight and his son to look at the walls, the Prioress
+and the Wife of Bath to walk in the herbary of the inn.
+
+But for Erasmus and his rather inconvenient companion there was still a
+sight in store, only reserved for very exalted personages, or such as
+had friends at court. Prior Goldstone, a gentle and well-bred man, not
+altogether ignorant, as Erasmus found, of the Scotian theology, himself
+took them back into the crypt, and lanterns were brought to illumine the
+dark vaults. By their light the Prior led the way into the church of Our
+Lady of the Undercroft, which was divided from the rest of the crypt by
+strong iron railings. Here the two friends saw what Erasmus might well
+call "a display of more than royal splendour." For here, surrounded by
+exquisitely carved stonework screens and a beautiful reredos with
+delicate traceries and mouldings, richly coloured and gilt, was the
+altar of Our Lady, adorned with precious ornaments and twinkling with
+hundreds of silver lamps. There in the central niche, under a crocketed
+and pinnacled canopy, stood the famous silver image of the Blessed
+Virgin herself. And there was the jewelled tabernacle and frontal, with
+its picture of the Assumption worked in gold, and the chalice and cruets
+in the form of angels, and the great silver candelabra with which the
+Black Prince had enriched his favourite shrine. There too were the
+costly gifts and jewels presented by his son, Richard II., the gold
+brooches offered yearly by Edward I., the white silk vestments, diapered
+with a vine pattern of blue, bequeathed by the Black Prince, and
+countless other rare and precious things, which filled Erasmus with envy
+and wonder. But then, as ill luck would have it, the Prior conducted his
+guests into the sacristy, where on bended knees he opened a black
+leathern chest, out of which he produced a parcel of ragged
+handkerchiefs with which St. Thomas used to wipe his face. This was too
+much for Dean Colet's patience, already sorely tried as it had been by
+what he had seen and heard. When the gentle Prior offered him one of the
+filthy rags as a present, he shrank back in evident disgust, and turned
+up his nose with an expression of contempt which filled Erasmus with
+shame and terror. Fortunately the Prior was a man of sense and courtesy,
+so he appeared to take no notice, and after giving his guests a cup of
+wine, politely bade them farewell.
+
+Before this Colet had alarmed his more timid friend by the bold way in
+which he had dared to question the priest who guarded the gilded head.
+He had even gone so far as to remark aloud that the saint who was so
+charitable in his lifetime, would surely be better pleased if some
+trifling part of these riches were spent in relieving the poor and
+destitute. Upon which the monk had glared at him with Gorgon eyes, and,
+Erasmus felt sure, would have turned them out of the church forthwith,
+had it not been for Archbishop Warham's letter.
+
+But in these words of the honest Dean we see a foreboding of the new and
+critical spirit that was fast undermining the old beliefs. Already the
+days of pilgrimages were numbered, and the glories of St. Thomas were on
+the wane. A few more years and the monks who guarded his treasures were
+rudely disturbed. The glorious Shrine was stripped of its priceless
+gems. The wrought gold and precious jewels were borne away in two
+enormous chests, such as six or seven men could barely lift. The
+wonderful ruby which flashed fire in the darkness was set in a ring and
+worn by King Harry himself on his thumb. Finally, to complete the
+sacrilege, the relics of the Saint were publicly burnt and his ashes
+scattered to the winds. Only the broken pavement and the marks of the
+pilgrims' knees in the stone floor were left to show future generations
+this spot, hallowed by the prayers and the worship of past ages.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Abbotsworthy, 34
+
+Abbott, E., "St. Thomas of Canterbury," 11 _note_
+
+Abinger, 90;
+  discovery of Roman remains at, 99
+
+Addington, cromlechs at, 146
+
+Æthelred II., 153
+
+Agincourt, battle of, 198
+
+Albury, 18, 82;
+  yew hedge, 84;
+  church, 83;
+  Downs, 80;
+  view from, 80;
+  Park, 80, 87
+
+Alexander III., Pope, 14
+
+Alfred, King, 21, 72;
+  founds the Abbey of Hyde, 28
+
+Alice Holt forest, 50
+
+Allen, Mr. Grant, 5
+
+Alresford, 35, 38;
+  New, cloth trade at, 39;
+  result of the Civil Wars, 40;
+  Old, 38
+
+Alton, 28, 50
+
+Anderida, forest of, 5
+
+Apulderfelde, Thomas de, effigy of, 164
+
+Aragon, Katherine of, portrait of, 131
+
+Arle, ford of the, 38
+
+Arundel, Thomas Howard, Earl of, 83;
+  collector of the Arundel marbles, 83;
+  portrait of, 83
+
+Ash, 54
+
+Ashburton, Lord, his famous Grange, 37
+
+Ashford, 127;
+  vale of, 184
+
+Athelstan, 112, 134, 153, 169
+
+Atholl, Isabel, Countess of, 183
+
+Austen, Cassandra, 48
+
+Austen, Jane, 46;
+  her cottage at Chawton, 48;
+  novels, 48;
+  mode of life, 48;
+  letters, 49
+
+Avington Park, 36
+
+Aylesford, 144;
+  Common, 146
+
+
+Badlesmere, Lord, of Leeds, 183
+
+Baldwin, Archbishop, 172
+
+Baliol, John, 212
+
+Becket, St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, his murder, 7-9;
+  championship for the rights of the Church, 9;
+  journey to Canterbury, 9;
+  miracles and cures wrought by, 10-12, 206;
+  canonisation, 14;
+  removal of his body, 15, 206;
+  shrine, 16, 208-212;
+  fame, 16;
+  his house at Otford, 129;
+  legends, 131;
+  relics, 205, 207
+
+Beggars' Corner, 58
+
+Belloc, Hilaire, "The Old Road," vii
+
+Bentley Station, 52
+
+Betchworth Park, 98
+
+Bigberry Camp, 185;
+  wood, 185
+
+Birinus, church of, 22
+
+Birling, 142;
+  Place, 138
+
+Bishop Sutton, 43
+
+Black Prince, at Harbledown, 188;
+  memorials of, 190;
+  death, 191;
+  tomb, 210
+
+Black Prince's Well, 190
+
+Blackdown, 80
+
+Blagge, Mistress, portrait of, 92
+
+Blean, forest of, 186
+
+Bletchingley, discovery of Roman remains at, 100
+
+Blois, Henry of, 24, 52
+
+Bocton, Aluphus de, 178
+
+Bohemia, Queen Anne of, the arms of, 175
+
+Boleyn, Anne, portrait of, 67
+
+Boniface, Archbishop, 143
+
+Boscawen, Mrs., her birthplace, 132
+
+Botley Hill, 118
+
+Botolph, St., church of, 122;
+  monuments, 122
+
+Boughton Aluph church, 178
+
+Boughton, Bocton or Boltune, 178
+
+Boughton Lees, 178
+
+Boughton Malherbe, 154
+
+Boulogne, Eustace, Count of, 178
+
+Box Hill, 94, 98
+
+Boxley, the Cistercian Abbey of, 146;
+  relics, 147
+
+Boxley, 151;
+  church, 152
+
+Braboeuf Manor, 69
+
+Brabourne, Lord, 49
+
+Brent, Amy, 172
+
+Brighton Downs, 107
+
+Browne, Sir Richard, portrait of, 92
+
+Brydges, George, 36
+
+Buckingham, George Villiers, Duke of, 37
+
+Buckland, 99
+
+Bunker's Farm, 142
+
+Bunyan, John, 101
+
+Burford, 96
+
+Burham church, 145
+
+
+Calehill, 168
+
+Calva, Ruald de, 77
+
+Camden, W., 104, 195
+
+Canterbury, routes taken by pilgrims, 3-6, 20, 28;
+  number of, 16-18, 193, 198;
+  characteristics, 195;
+  the Chequers of the Hope Inn, 198;
+  religious houses, 200;
+  Priory of Christ Church, 200;
+  the Omers or Homers, 200;
+  Guest Hall, 201;
+  the Almonry, 201
+
+Canterbury Cathedral, the murder of Becket in, 9;
+  "the choir of Conrad" destroyed by fire, 14;
+  rebuilt, 14;
+  number of pilgrims, 16-18, 193, 198;
+  master-builders, 203;
+  completion, 204;
+  Transept of the Martyrdom, 205;
+  relics, 205, 207;
+  miracles and cures, 206;
+  number of crusaders, 206;
+  amount of offerings, 207;
+  the Shrine, 208-212;
+  the Church of Our Lady of the Undercroft, 213
+
+Challock, 178
+
+Chanctonbury Ring, 76, 107
+
+Chantrey, Sir F. L., his effigy of Lady Frederica Stanhope, 124
+
+Chantry Woods, 75
+
+Chantry Ford, 87
+
+Charing, 18;
+  height of, 138;
+  chapel, 170;
+  church, 168, 171-173;
+  traditions, 169;
+  relic in, 171;
+  destroyed by fire, 173;
+  rebuilt, 173;
+  fair at, 170;
+  Hill, 168;
+  manor, the residence of Archbishops, 170
+
+Charles I., King, 53;
+  Prayer Book used by, 94
+
+Charles II., King, 36
+
+Charterhouse 80
+
+Chatham, Lord, his visits to Chevening, 122
+
+Chaucer, G., lines from, 17, 186;
+  his pilgrims, 61, 191
+
+Chawton, 46
+
+Cheney, Sir John, 158
+
+Cheney, Sir Thomas, 184
+
+Chequers of the Hope Inn, 198
+
+Cheriton battle, 41
+
+Chevening church, 122;
+  monuments in, 122;
+  manor, 121;
+  Park, 121;
+  village, 122
+
+Chilham Castle, 182-184;
+  manor-house, 184;
+  Park, 182
+
+Chillenden Prior, 198, 201
+
+Chilworth, 78;
+  powder-mills, 78-80
+
+Ciderhouse Cottage, 75;
+  Lane, 75
+
+Clere, St., mansion, 132
+
+Cobbett, Richard, 54
+
+Cobbett, William, his "Rural Rides," 5, 35, 76, 78, 106, 109, 152;
+  his birthplace, 54;
+  at Albury, 84;
+  Godstone, 114
+
+Cold-harbour Green, 118
+
+Colet, Dean, at Harbledown, 188-190;
+  his visit to Canterbury Cathedral, 208;
+  in the Church of Our Lady of the Undercroft, 213-215;
+  treatment of the relics, 214
+
+Colley Farm, 99;
+  discovery of Roman remains at, 99
+
+Compton, 58, 63, 69;
+  church, 63
+
+Copley, Sir Roger, 109
+
+Corby Castle, 30
+
+Courtenay, Archbishop, 143
+
+Crooksbury, heights of, 54
+
+St. Cross, Hospital of, 24
+
+Crowborough Beacon, 107
+
+Culpeper, Elizabeth, Lady, monument to, 158
+
+Culpeper, John, Lord, the tapestries
+and altar-cloth worked by his daughters, 156;
+  monument to, 158
+
+Culpeper, Sir Thomas, 159
+
+Cuxton ford, 141
+
+
+Dacre, Lord, 121. _See_ Lennard
+
+Danefield, 129
+
+Darent valley, 126
+
+Dartford, 126
+
+Dawkins, Prof. Boyd, 185
+
+Day, Bishop, letter from, 68
+
+Deane, Archbishop, 130
+
+Deepdene Park, 98
+
+Denbies Park, 97
+
+Denmark, Anne of, 66;
+  portrait of, 66
+
+Deptford, 3
+
+Detling, 152;
+  height of, 138
+
+Digges, Sir Dudley, 184
+
+Dios, Mr., 173
+
+Dorking, 95, 97
+
+Dover, 3
+
+Dover, Fulbert de, 183
+
+Drummond, Mr., 83
+
+Dungeness, 168
+
+Dürer, Albert, 112
+
+
+East Grinstead, 107
+
+Eastbridge Hospital, 196
+
+Eastwell, 176;
+  church, 177;
+  House, 177;
+  Park, 126
+
+Edinburgh, H.R.H. the Duke of, his residence Eastwell House, 177
+
+Edward I., King, 26, 130, 142, 212;
+  at Harbledown, 188
+
+Edward II., King, 50;
+  his visit to Boxley Abbey, 148
+
+Edward III., King, 196
+
+Edward IV., King, 173
+
+Edward VI., King, 105;
+  portrait of, 67
+
+Edward, the Black Prince, at Harbledown, 188;
+  memorials of, 190;
+  death, 191;
+  tomb, 210
+
+Effingham, Lady Howard of, 105
+
+Egbert, King, 33
+
+Egerton Church, 168
+
+Eleanor of Castille, Queen, 188
+
+Elizabeth, Queen, 53;
+  her visits to Loseley, 66;
+  to Leeds Castle, 154
+
+Elliston-Erwood, Mr., "The Pilgrims' Road," vi
+
+Erasmus, at Harbledown, 188-190;
+  his impressions of Canterbury Cathedral, 192, 203;
+  on the relics, 207;
+  in the Church of Our Lady of the Undercroft, 213-215
+
+Estria, Prior Henry of, 179, 202
+
+Ethelbald, King of Wessex, 52
+
+Ethelred the Unready, 113
+
+Ethelwold, Bishop, 22
+
+Evelyn, John, 78, 84;
+  his home at Wotton, 90;
+  portrait, 92
+
+Evershed's Rough, 90
+
+Ewhurst Mill, 80
+
+
+Fairlawn House, 136
+
+Fairlight hill, 168
+
+Farnham, 52;
+  Castle, 52
+
+Farrer, Sir Thomas, 100
+
+Farringford, 180
+
+Farthing copse, 77
+
+Fitz Urse, Reginald, 9
+
+Froyle Park, 52
+
+
+Gatton church, 111;
+  House, 111;
+  park, 108, 112;
+  town hall, 110
+
+George I., King, 121
+
+Gethin, Dame Grace, inscription on her monument, 159
+
+Gethin, Sir Richard, 159
+
+Giffard, Lady, 56
+
+St. Giles' Hill, fair at, 31
+
+Godmersham, 50;
+  church, 179;
+  manor, 179;
+  park, 178, 182
+
+Godstone, 114;
+ The White Hart or Clayton Arms, 114
+
+Godwin, Earl, 168, 178
+
+Goldstone, Prior, 203, 213
+
+Gomshall station, 94
+
+Gravesend, 138
+
+Greenway Court, 157
+
+Greenwich, 3
+
+Gresham, Sir John, 119
+
+Gresham, Sir Marmaduke, 119
+
+Gresham, Sir Thomas, 119;
+  founder of the Royal Exchange, 119;
+  portrait, 119
+
+Grey, Richard de, founds a Carmelite Priory, 145
+
+Grose, F., "Antiquities of England and Wales," 77 _note_
+
+Grove Court, 157
+
+Guildford, 3, 51, 57, 72;
+  fair at, 58
+
+Gurdon, Adam de, 45, 51
+
+
+Hackhurst Downs, 94
+
+Halfpenny Lane, 77
+
+Halling, Lower, 142;
+  Upper, 142
+
+Hampshire, 20
+
+Harbledown, 179, 186;
+  leper-house, 186;
+  relic in, 187;
+  royal visitors, 198;
+  first sight of Canterbury Cathedral from, 191
+
+Harrietsham, 160;
+  church, monuments in, 161
+
+Hastings, 168;
+  Battle of, 161
+
+Headbourne Worthy, 31;
+  derivation of the name, 33;
+  church, 33
+
+_Helix pomatia_, 18
+
+Hengist, proclaimed the first king of Kent, 146
+
+Henry I., King, 29, 41
+
+Henry II., King, his penance at Becket's tomb, 4, 14, 206;
+  visit to the leper-house at Harbledown, 188
+
+Henry III., King, 16, 24, 52, 57, 206
+
+Henry IV., King, monument of, 208
+
+Henry V., King, 211
+
+Henry VI., King, 109, 161
+
+Henry VII., King, 158;
+  his visit to Charing, 171
+
+Henry VIII., King, 109, 129, 130;
+  portrait of, 131;
+  visit to Charing, 171
+
+Herault, Isaac, 94
+
+Hethe, Bishop Hamo de, 142
+
+Hindhead, 72, 76, 80, 107
+
+Hog's Back, 54, 57, 63, 76
+
+Holbein, Hans, 66
+
+Holland, Mary Sybilla, 179
+
+Hollingbourne, 152, 153;
+  height of, 138;
+  history, 153;
+  church, monuments in the, 158;
+  manor-house, 154;
+  traditions, 154
+
+Holm Castle, 104. _See_ Reigate
+
+Holmbury, 90
+
+Holmesdale, valley of, 104
+
+Honywood, Anthony, 165
+
+Honywood, Dame Mary, 165
+
+Horn Hatch, 101
+
+Horne, Robert, Bishop of Winchester, letter from, 68
+
+Hutton, W. H., "Thomas Becket," 9 _note_
+
+Hyde, Abbey of, 28;
+  history, 29;
+  ruins, 30;
+  desecration of tombs, 30
+
+
+Ightham House, 136
+
+Isabel, Queen, her reception at Chilham, 183
+
+Islip, Simon, 130, 134
+
+Itchen Abbas, 35, 37
+
+Itchen river, 28, 29, 39;
+  valley, 35
+
+Itchen Stoke, 37
+
+
+James I., King, 65;
+  his visit to Loseley, 66;
+  portrait, 66
+
+James, Capt. E. Renouard, "Notes on the Pilgrims'
+   Way in West Surrey," 101 _note_
+
+John, King, 38, 73, 178;
+  legend of, 82;
+  coronation, 206
+
+John, King of France, 188
+
+Johnson, Mrs. Hester, 56
+
+Jones, Sir Inigo, 121, 132
+
+Josse, St., shrine of, 29
+
+Julaber's grave, 183
+
+
+Katherine's, St., Chapel, 69, 71;
+  Hill, fair at, 59
+
+Kemsing, 132;
+  church and well, 132
+
+Ken, Morris, 50
+
+Kent, Aldric, king of, 129
+
+Kent, John, brass to, 33
+
+Kent, Pilgrims' Way through, 126
+
+Kingsworthy, 33
+
+Kitchin, Dean, on the fair at St. Giles' Hill, 32, 40
+
+Kits Coty House, 145
+
+Knight, Sir Richard, his monument in Chawton Church, 46
+
+Knockholt down, height of, 138
+
+
+Laberius, Julius, 183
+
+Lambarde, W., 190;
+  at Otford, 132
+
+Lanfranc, Archbishop, 153, 169, 176;
+  founds a lazar-house at Harbledown, 186
+
+Langton, Stephen, Archbishop, 16
+
+Leeds Castle, 154, 157
+
+Leith Hill, 107
+
+Leland, J., 170, 184, 195, 201
+
+Len river, 161
+
+Lenham, 161;
+  church, 162-165;
+  tithe barns, 165
+
+Lennard, John, his monument, 122
+
+Lennard, Richard, Lord Dacre, 121
+
+Leveson, Sir John, quarterings of, 143
+
+Leveson-Gower, Mr., 100, 119
+
+Leyborne, Juliana de, 161, 178
+
+Limnerslease, 69
+
+Limpsfield Lodge Farm, 117
+
+Littleton Cross, shrine of, 69
+
+Long Beech Woods, 175
+
+Loseley manor, 64;
+  royal visitors, 66;
+  portraits, 67;
+  royal warrants, 67;
+  letters, 68
+
+Louis VII., King of France, 212
+
+Louis VIII., King of France, 72, 105
+
+Lucy, Bishop Godfrey, 25;
+  rebuilds the town of Alresford, 38
+
+Lyall, Sir Alfred, 180;
+  his verses, 180;
+  death, 180
+
+
+Maidstone, 143
+
+Marden Park, 116
+
+Martha's, St., Hill, 80;
+  chapel, 70, 76;
+  view from, 76
+
+Martyr's Hill, 76
+
+Martyrsworthy, 34
+
+Massilia, 4
+
+Medway river, 140, 142;
+  valley, 137, 138
+
+Mercia, Cenulph, King of, 169
+
+Mercia, Offa, King of, 129, 169
+
+Meredith, G., "Diana of the Crossways," 91 _note_
+
+Merstham, 108, 112;
+  church, 113
+
+Miller, Sir Hubert, 52
+
+Milton, John, his line on the River Mole, 95
+
+Mole river, 95, 99;
+  valley, 94
+
+Monks' Hatch, 69
+
+Monks' Walk, Winchester, 31, 33
+
+Monson, Lord, 109, 111
+
+Moor Park, 55
+
+More, Antonio, 119
+
+More, Sir Christopher, 64
+
+More, Sir William, 64
+
+Morley, Bishop, 53
+
+Morne Hill, 25
+
+Morton, Cardinal, his buildings at Charing, 170
+
+Moyle, Sir Thomas, Speaker of the House of Commons, 177
+
+Mytens, D., his portraits, 66
+
+
+Newark Hospital, 143;
+  Priory, 77
+
+Newcourt, Geoffery de, 174
+
+Newcourt manor, 174
+
+Newlands Corner, 80, 82
+
+Nore, the, 138
+
+Nore Hill, 46
+
+Norfolk, Duke of, 53
+
+North Downs, 107, 118
+
+Nowell, Alexander, Dean of St. Paul's, letter from, 68
+
+Nuns' Walk, Winchester, 31
+
+
+Odo of Bayeux, 161
+
+Otford, 126;
+  manor-house, 129;
+  battles at, 129;
+  the Bull Inn, 131;
+  legends, 131
+
+Oxted, 117
+
+
+Paddlesworth or Paulsford, 138
+
+Palmer, Mr., his treatise on "Three Surrey Churches," vi
+
+Palmers Wood, 19, 116
+
+Paternoster Lane, 19, 98
+
+St. Paul's Cathedral, 76
+
+Peckham, John, the Franciscan Archbishop, 170
+
+Penenden Heath, 150;
+  memorable assembly held at, 150
+
+Pett Place, 174
+
+Pette-juxta-Charing, 174
+
+Pilgrims to Canterbury, routes taken by, 3-6, 20, 28;
+  number of, 12, 16-18, 193, 198;
+  traces of, 18, 58;
+  characteristics, 60
+
+Pilgrims' Chapel, 98
+
+Pilgrims' Ferry, 19, 74
+
+Pilgrims' House, 138
+
+Pilgrims' Lodge, 19, 120
+
+Pilgrims' Place, 43
+
+Plantagenet, Richard, his death at Eastwell, 177
+
+Plantagenet's Well, 177
+
+Pray Meadows, 98
+
+Puttenham, 58;
+  fair at, 59;
+  Heath, 63
+
+
+Quarry Hangers, 114
+
+Quarry Hills, 101, 168
+
+
+Ranmore Common, 98
+
+Redhill, 96
+
+Reigate, 99, 103;
+  chapels, 104;
+  hill, 107;
+  park, 106
+
+Richard Coeur de Lion, his return from the Holy Land, 171;
+  at Harbledown, 188;
+  Canterbury, 206
+
+Richard III., King, 177
+
+Ripley, 77
+
+Robbers' or Roamers Moor, 58
+
+Robertson, T. C., "Materials for the History of Archbishop Becket," 12 _note_
+
+Rochester, 3, 141
+
+Romney Marsh, 168
+
+Rood, the miraculous, or winking image, 148
+
+Ropley, 43
+
+Rotherfield Park, 43
+
+Rumbold, St., the image of, 147
+
+Rupibus, Peter de, 45
+
+Rutupine, Port, 4
+
+
+Salisbury, John of, Bishop of Chartres, 12
+
+Saltwood Castle, 9
+
+Sandwich Haven, 3, 4, 73
+
+Sandy Lane, 69
+
+Scott, Sir Walter, on the death of Jane Austen, 50
+
+Seale, 58;
+  church, 59
+
+Selborne, 44
+
+Sellyng, Prior William, 154, 203
+
+Sesto, Cesare da, 111
+
+Sevenoaks, 107
+
+Shalford, 74;
+  fair at, 59, 74;
+  park, 75
+
+Shere, 88;
+  church, 87
+
+Shoelands, manor-house of, 58
+
+Shooters' Hill, 138
+
+Shrewsbury, Francis, Earl of, 37
+
+Shrewsbury, Lady, 36
+
+Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery, Earl of, 64
+
+Silchester, 28
+
+Silent Pool, 82;
+  legend of, 82
+
+Sittingbourne, 3
+
+Snails, or _Helix pomatia_, 18
+
+Snodland, limestone works, 137, 140
+
+Snowden-Ward, Mr. H., "The Canterbury Pilgrimages," vi
+
+Somers, Earl, 106
+
+Somerset, Lady Henry, 106
+
+South Downs, 76
+
+South Leith Hill, 76
+
+Southampton, 3, 20, 35
+
+Spenser, Edmund, his lines on the Mole, 95
+
+Stane Street, 97
+
+Stanhope, Charles, Earl, 122
+
+Stanhope, General, 121
+
+Stanhope, Lady Frederica, effigy of, 124
+
+Stanhope, Lady Hester, 122
+
+Stanhope, James, Earl, monument to, 124
+
+Stanley, Dean, 5;
+  extract from his account of the Canterbury pilgrimage, 6;
+  on the characteristics of pilgrims, 60
+
+Stede, Sir William, monument to, 161
+
+Stede Hill, 160
+
+Stour river, 162, 196;
+  valley, 182, 185
+
+Strangers' Hall, Winchester, 26
+
+Stratford, Archbishop, 196, 197;
+  at Charing, 170
+
+Sudbury, Simon of, 193
+
+Surrenden Dering, 168
+
+Sussex Downs, 168
+
+Swift, J., 56
+
+Swithun, St., Bishop of Winchester, 3;
+  his shrine, 21;
+  removal of his bones, 22;
+  miracles wrought, 22;
+  number of pilgrims to his shrine, 25
+
+
+Tatsfield church, 120
+
+Temple, Sir William, 56
+
+Thames river, 126;
+  valley, 76, 138
+
+Thomas', St., Hill, 195;
+  Hospital, 196;
+  Well, 117
+
+Thurnham, 152
+
+Tichborne, Isabella, 41
+
+Tichborne, Sir Roger, 41
+
+Tichborne Park, 41;
+  legend of the Dole, 41-43
+
+Tillingbourne stream, 87
+
+Titsey Park, 117;
+  discovery of Roman remains at, 100;
+  Place, 117
+
+Trottescliffe (Trosley), 138
+
+Tunbridge Wells, 107
+
+Tupper, Martin, 82
+
+Tyting's Farm, 77
+
+
+Vandyck, A., portrait by, 83
+
+Vane, Sir Harry, 136
+
+Vigo Inn, 138
+
+Vinci, Leonardo da, iii
+
+
+Walkelin, Bishop, his church, 25
+
+Walter, Archbishop Hubert, 196, 206
+
+Wanborough, 59;
+  church, 60
+
+War Camp or Cardinal's Cap, 114
+
+Warham, Archbishop, 149, 171, 208
+
+Warrenne, William of, 104
+
+Watling Street, 141, 186
+
+Watts, George Frederic, 69
+
+Wauncey, Richard de, 69
+
+Waverley Abbey, 56, 59
+
+Waynflete, Bishop William of, 45, 78
+
+Wen, the, 5
+
+Wessex, 21
+
+Westerham, 121
+
+Westhumble Lane, 98
+
+Weston Wood, 80
+
+Westwell, 175;
+  church, 175;
+  manor, 176
+
+Wey, river, 51, 57, 72, 75
+
+White, Gilbert, his house at Selborne, 44
+
+White Hill Downs, 114
+
+Whiteway End, 57
+
+Whitgift, Archbishop, 196
+
+Whorne Place, 142
+
+Wibert, Prior, 203
+
+Wickens, manor-house, 172
+
+Wilberforce, Samuel, Bishop of Winchester, place of his death, 90
+
+William III., King, 56, 106
+
+William, King of Scotland, at Canterbury, 206
+
+Winchelsea, Archbishop, 130, 164;
+  his enthronement, 194;
+  death, 194;
+  statutes, 201
+
+Winchester, 3, 20;
+  the shrine of St. Swithun, 21;
+  number of churches and chapels, 22;
+  buildings, 24;
+  number of pilgrims, 25;
+  Nuns' Walk, 31;
+  St. Giles' Hill, fair at, 31
+
+Winders' Hill, 116
+
+Windsor Castle, 76
+
+Wolsey, Cardinal, 149
+
+Wolvesey, castle of, 24, 29
+
+Wotton, 90
+
+Wotton, Sir Henry, 154
+
+Wren, Christopher, 36
+
+Wriothesley, Thomas, his treatment of the Abbey of Hyde, 29
+
+Wrotham, 132;
+  church, 135;
+  hill, 135;
+  manor-house, 134;
+  palace, 136
+
+Wulfstan, on the removal of St. Swithun's bones, 22
+
+Wykeham, William of, 24, 25, 45
+
+Wye, the, 184
+
+
+Yaldham, manor of, 136
+
+Yew trees, 6, 82, 84, 94, 99, 108, 126
+
+                              PRINTED BY
+                    HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD.,
+                         LONDON AND AYLESBURY,
+                               ENGLAND.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+ [1] W. H. Hutton, "Thomas Becket," p. 249.
+
+ [2] E. Abbott, "St. Thomas of Canterbury," i. 223.
+
+ [3] T. C. Robertson, "Materials for the History of Archbishop Becket,"
+ ii. 47, iv. 145.
+
+ [4] _Op. cit._ p. 322.
+
+ [5] "Anonymus Lambethiensis. Materials," ii. 140.
+
+ [6] "Thomas Saga," ii. 202.
+
+ [7] Hyde Bourne.
+
+ [8] Grose, "Antiquities of England and Wales," v. 110.
+
+ [9] Meredith's novel, "Diana of the Crossways," takes its name from
+ this farm.
+
+ [10] Captain E. Renouard James, whose "Notes on the Pilgrims' Way in
+ West Surrey" will be found to supply much valuable local information.
+ (London, Edward Stanford, 1871.)
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
+
+ten gold growns=> ten gold crowns {pg 188}
+
+Alresford, 35, 38; New, cloth frade at, 39;=> Alresford, 35, 38; New,
+cloth trade at, 39; {pg 217}
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Pilgrims' Way from Winchester to
+Canterbury, by Julia Cartwright
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44684 ***
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