Part 22

Sandown castle is composed of four lunettes of very thick arched work of stone, with many port-holes for great guns: in the middle is a great round tower, with a cistern at top; underneath an arched cavern, bomb-proof: a foss incompasses the whole, to which there is a passage over a draw-bridge. Deal castle and Walmer castle are of the same nature, all built by Harry VIII. to guard this naked level coast: moreover, lines are drawn along between castle and castle, and at proper intervals round bastions with a ditch and parapet of earth, where cannon may be planted, as in the infancy of fortification. These are what Camden calls _Rome’s works_, and fancies to be remnants of Cæsar’s ship-camp: the neighbours with as little truth affirm they were thrown up by Oliver Cromwell, for reduction of these castles: one is close by the north side of Deal, and two between Deal castle and Walmer castle. At Walmer castle the cliff begins for about half a mile southward with a gentle rise to a hill, whereon is a _tumulus_: then the shore is plain again in a valley till you come to Kings-wold, which is half a mile’s space. Between Walmer castle and Deal I take to be the spot where Cæsar landed in his first expedition, because it is the first place where the shore can be ascended north of Dover, and exactly answers his assigned distance of eight miles: probably in his second expedition, when he came with many more ships, and had a perfect knowledge of the country, he went a little farther in the downs, whereabouts now is Deal, a town lately sprung up from the mariners. As for his sea-camps, it is vain to expect a sight of them; they are many ages since absorpt by the ocean, which has so long been exercising its power, and wasting the land away. Even since Harry the VIIIth’s time it has carried off the sea-ward _esplanades_ of the three castles, and one half of two of the three circular forts. Indeed, of late years, the providential ejectment of those pebbles has put a stop to it in some measure; and it is amazing to see how it by degrees fills up these fosses and trenches, and sometimes flies over the banks a good way up into the land, with a power well expressed by the poet,

_Aut vaga cum Tethys Rutupinaque littora fervent._ +Lucan.+ vi.

But of this affair of Cæsar’s I reserve to myself another opportunity of speaking, when I shall expresly treat of his expedition hither. At Deal castle is a very good well, though close by the sea.

Now my journey lay intirely upon the edge of the cliffs, whose precipicious height, with the noble prospect at sea, and most awful roaring of the waves, filled the mind with a sense of Nature’s majesty. About St. Margaret’s on cliff, near the light-houses, I saw in two places a great number of little _tumuli_, of unequal bulk, close by one another; and the like I found frequently about Barham downs, and between Hardres[118] and Chilham, and other places. I know not that such have ever been taken notice of: the people say they were burying-places of the Danes; probably digging into them might give us some satisfaction. I believe them Celtic, because I saw many sorts of them, and such as appear on Salisbury plain.

[Sidenote: +Dubris Portus.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. XXXVIII. 2nd Vol.]

[Sidenote: TAB. XXXIX. XL. 2d Vol.]

Dover is a most romantic situation: it is a great valley, and the only one about this coast where water is admitted inwards of the cliff, here very high; and a running brook discharges itself into the sea:[119] the water formerly came a good way higher up, and made a large port; and they have found anchors above the town. The Roman city of _Dubris_ was to the south of the river: the Watling-street enters it at Bigin gate, coming very strait from Canterbury over Barham down, where it is very perfect:[120] butting directly upon the great tower of the cathedral, it bears a little more northerly than north-west. This city was an oblong square, and some of the walls are left: the churches are of a very antique make: that of St. Martin is collegiate, founded by Wightred king of Kent; it is a venerable ruin: the east end seems to have terminated in three semi-circular works: it was built in form of a cross, as to its main body. Much remains of the priory, now a farm-house. The _maison dieu_ over-against it is become a store-house: here the knights Hospitallers or Templars lodged, coming into, or going out of, the kingdom. The piers that form the haven, or large bason, are costly and great works: above is a fort with four bastions of modern date. The broad beach which lies at the mouth of this great valley, and was the harbour in Cæsar’s time, is very delightful: it is no little part of the diversion, in walking there, to observe the odd produce of the ocean thrown up under your feet, and the sea-plants that grow there; the _umbelli_, _star-fishes_, many curious fossils and shells; the _eringo_, _sea-lungs_, _sea-weed_, or _ood_ as called, &c. One long street here is named Snare-gate, from the most tremendous rocks of chalk hanging directly over the houses; as Cnarsborough in Yorkshire, says Mr. Camden, p. 715.

[Sidenote: +Dover Castle.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. XLVIII.]

[Sidenote: _Roman._ +Pharos.+]

The castle is the strongest place in the world, of old fortification; it takes up thirty acres of ground: it is an amazing _congeries_ of walls, ditches, arches, embattlements, mounts, and all imaginable contrivances to render it impregnable after the old mode: but with highest regret I beheld this most noble and memorable fortress, once thought the key of Britain, and that has divers times had the honour to save the kingdom from conquest and slavery, now become a common prey to the people that belong to it: in the late wars with France they kept 1500 prisoners in the great castle; but within this twelvemonth they have carried away the timbers and floors, disabling it even for that use. Thus much I think out of gratitude is its due; let it stand a monument of antiquity, or sink slowly by its own ruin. The brass gun called Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket-pistol is a great curiosity, twenty-two foot long: it requires fifteen pound of powder, and carries a ball seven miles (as the gunner told me;) it is excellently well wrought. I saw two very old keys, and a brass horn, which seem to be the ensigns of authority belonging to the constable of the castle, or lord warden of the cinque ports. One part of the fortifications consists of a large circular work, in which stands the old church, said to have been built by Lucius, an ancient king of the Britons, and first christian. Bishop Stillingfleet thinks he is no romantic person, but reigned in Kent and Sussex: however that be, I believe this church is as ancient as the time assigned him. There is not much doubt to be made, that upon this hill was a _castrum_ of the Romans, like that at Richborough, to guard this haven. It is somewhat surprizing that our Saxon ancestors should take great pains to demolish Roman works, though they wanted such in the same places, and were forced to build them again. I look upon it as an argument that they had no thoughts of conquering the island at first, and destroyed these bulwarks, that such might not hinder their depredations; but espying the nakedness of the land, thoroughly evacuated of its youth and men of arms by the Romans, they found a conquest practicable: then were they obliged to repair these castles. The church we are speaking of was built, in the first times of christianity, out of part of the Roman ruins, whence there are huge quantities of Roman bricks laid into the work: the arches are intirely turned with them; the corners and many parts, both within and without, are built up therewith; and the remainder is of stone originally cut by the Romans: it is in form of a cross, and has a square tower in the middle. I have represented the drawing of it in plate 48. The stone windows of this church are of later date than the building; they have been put in long since: but the greatest curiosity here is the _Pharos_, or Roman watch-tower, standing at the west end of the church: notwithstanding it is so much disfigured by new daubing with mortar, casing and mending, I discovered its primary intention the first minute I saw it; and sent the three prints of it, which I here present the reader, to monsieur Montfaucon, at the instances of my most honoured lord, the archbishop of Canterbury. I was in hopes they would have been more useful to that celebrated author; for therein at least he might have found, that the building which he first took for a _Pharos_, and whereof he gives us four views, is only the tower of the church we were talking of. The description of this curious work, which I believe the most perfect of any left, in short is thus.

[Sidenote: TAB. XLVII.]

[Sidenote: TAB. XLVI.]

In the 47th plate we have shown the ground-plot upon which it is formed, and a section of the work; whence we may readily observe that the design is simple, but admirably contrived for its use and purpose: the base is octagonal without, within a square; but the sides of the square and octagon are equal, viz. fifteen Roman feet, which reduces the wall to the thickness of ten feet. In this manner it was carried up to the top, which was much higher than at present; but it retires inward continually from all sides, with much the same proportion as an Egyptian _obelus_. Upon four of these sides there are windows narrow, handsomely turned with a semi-circular arch of Roman brick six foot high, so that the outside of it appears as in our 46th plate. The door to it is on the east side, about six foot wide, very well turned over head, with an arch made of a course of Roman brick and stone alternately, fourteen foot high. All the stones of this work are of a narrow scantling; and the manner of the composure, throughout, is perfectly the same with that lately described at Richborough castle: there are first two courses of this brick, which is level with the bottom of the windows; then seven courses of hewn stone, which mount up to the top of the windows; then two courses of brick, seven of stone alternately, to the top; every window by this means reaching to a stage or story. There are five of these stages left: the windows are visible enough to a discerning eye, though some be stopt up, others covered over, others have modern church-like windows of stone put in. I suppose the inside was intirely filled up with a stair-case: the height of what is left is forty foot; I believe there was twenty foot more originally; and the whole number of windows on a side was eight. This building was made use of as a steeple, and had a pleasant ring of bells in it, which Sir George Rook procured to be carried away to Portsmouth. Since then the office of the ordnance, under pretext of savingness, have taken away the lead that covered it, and left this rare piece of art and masonry to struggle with the sea, air and weather. Mr. Degg gave me a coin of Dioclesian, found here. The Erpinghams arms are patched up against one side of the _Pharos_, being two bars and a canton; so that I suppose it was repaired in Henry the Fifth’s time, lord Erpingham then warden of Dover castle. In the Roman castle here the Tungrican soldiers had their station. I have heard there is another such _Pharos_ at St. Andrew’s in Scotland.[121]

On the other high cliff opposite to this, beyond the town, has been another _Pharos_: some part of the bottom part of it is still left, called The Devil’s Drop, from the strength of the mortar: others call it Bredonstone. Here the new constable of the castle is sworn. If we consider the ancient state of Dover, we must imagine that the little river ran directly into the sea, and left a harbour close to the walls of the town; but in process of time, as the sea threw up that vast beach which lies between the town and it, the river was forced by an oblique passage to creep along the shore under the southern cliff, and there vent itself where now is the harbour. This is what Nature practises in the microcosm in innumerable instances, as the passage of the gall and pancreatic juice into the intestines, in the duct of the urine from the ureters into the bladder, of the chyle into the torrent of the blood, insinuating themselves for some space between the membranes. And this caution may be of service in forming harbours; as in that costly work of the French king’s before Dunkirk, where two banks or piers projected for half a mile through the sands directly, which ought rather to have gone downwards a little towards the fall of the tide. The cliffs here are of solid chalk to the very bottom, full of the blackest flints; and those at Calais seem perfectly like them; and no doubt a long vein of chalk is continued from one to the other under the sea, and perhaps through many countries: but that these two places were ever contiguous, or joined by an isthmus, is chimerical.

Though the mariners have much mathematics on board, and in all their tackle and machinery, yet here I had occasion of observing a gross error, that has not been thought on, in the shape of their oars; where the extremity of that fan-like part, which opposes the water in rowing, is broadest. Now this is quite contrary to Nature’s method, who is the best geometrician in like cases: in the shape of a single feather, or in the wings of birds, the extremity is always pointed, and the broadest part is nearest the joint where the power lies, analogous to the _fulcrum_ of leavers; therefore is drawn off to a narrower scantling, as the part recedes from it, and the effect of the moving force: thus it is even in the wings of butterflies, and all other insects, as well as birds; and so in the water-beetles that row with oars. Though the broad part resists the water more as farther distant from the _fulcrum_, yet it requires more proportionable strength; and in my judgment, therefore, oars ought to be made quite the contrary way, and drawn off into a point, the broadest part nearest the hand; and I doubt not but equal strength will then out-row the other, _cæteris paribus_.[122]

Beyond Dover southward the cliff is exceedingly high to Folkstone. In the road two great Roman barrows, which will be eaten away in a few years by the sea. Here this larger track of cliff ends, as to the ocean, and slaunts off westward towards Wye in a long ledge very steep all the way to the west. The whole county of Kent consists of three or four of these parcels, lying parallel, and running nearly north and south: they rise gently from the east as a reclining plain, and then end suddenly on the western side with a quick descent: at bottom begins another such plain, and it ends in like manner after it has gone its proper distance, to be alike succeeded, as we said before. Beyond this we are upon, southward is a lesser ledge of high ground sandy and rocky, but good land, especially in the valleys, and full of wood. This is terminated by Romney marsh, such another country as our Lincolnshire Holland. To the right of us is Eleham, seated in a pleasant concavity: there has been a religious house. Upon one end of our upper chalk-hills, near Folkstone, is a camp called Castle hill.

[Sidenote: +Lapis Tituli.+]

[Sidenote: TAB. XCVIII.]

Now descending, Folkstone[123] offers itself, still standing on a cliff, but not so high as the former, and of a rocky composure, the other being chalk: it was anciently called _Flostane_, a lesser rock, or cliff of stone; so that it probably was the _lapis tituli_ of the Romans. Here is a copious spring runs through the town. Near the church, upon the sea side, is a square plain, like that I observed at Burgh in Lincolnshire, and was of the same use. I saw two pieces of old wall hanging over the terrible cliff, seemingly of Roman work: here are some old guns, one of iron of a very odd cast, no doubt as old as Henry the Eighth’s time. Many Roman coins have been found here. A nunnery was built by Eanswide, a religious daughter of Eadbald king of Kent.

I passed by Sandgate castle, another of those built by Henry VIII. in a little valley where the shore is plain: then we enter upon the beach. Here are many springs which come down from the higher ground, and sink immediately into this beach, rendering it a little boggy: this I thought very odd. You ride through a wood of sea-poppy, which is a fine variety in nature, casting all the numerous seeds into a long pod, instead of the common globular head: the leaves look hoary, like sea-ragwort, and are finely crisped; the flowers of a most delicate yellow, taken notice of by the poet,

_Ore floridulo nitens Alba parthenice velut Luteumve papaver._ +Catull.+

[Sidenote: +Hythe.+]

Hythe stands on the edge of this lesser ridge, but the marsh has intercepted it from the sea. They talk much of their charnel-house full of human bones, said to have been the massacred Danes; but I thought it not worth going to see, nor believed their report of it. They say this has been a great city, and reached as far as West Hythe, where is an old ruinous chapel: they mean undoubtedly the city of _Lemanis_. Here were two hospitals, St. Bartholomew’s, and St. Leonard’s.

I visited Saltwood castle, in hopes to find somewhat Roman, as is reported: it is a very strong seat of the archbishop’s: the outer wall has towers and battlements, and a deep ditch: within, and on one side, stands the main body of the place: two great and high towers at the gate of this, over which are the founder’s arms, archbishop Courtney, in two escutcheons; the first impaled with those of the see; the other plain, a label over three plates. This inner work has a stronger and higher wall, with a broad embattled parapet at top: within is a court, but the lodgings are all demolished: the floor of the ruinous chapel is strongly vaulted: in the middle of the court is a large square well, which is the only thing I saw that looked like Roman. It is said that hereabouts anchors are dug up; which, if true, is not owing to the sea’s coming so high, as the vulgar think, for that is impossible; but to an iron forge of the Romans, conveniently placed, where so much wood grows, so near the sea, and so many ports. They say too that Roman coins are found at Newington, not far off here.

[Sidenote: +Lemanis+ Portus.]

[Sidenote: TAB. XCIX.]

[Sidenote: TAB. LVIII.]