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.]