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.

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."

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.