successors' military station and seek the site of Durolevum town or city,
they unaccountably lose sight of the fact that this Roman province of
Britannia Prima was obviously very populous, and that Durolevum, instead
of being a small isolated town, must needs have been the centre of a
thickly populated district of smaller towns, hamlets, and outlying villas,
stretching for miles along the now solitary reaches of the Dover Road, and
reaching down to the Upchurch marshes.
The era of the Roman colonization of Britain is so remote that few
antiquaries even ever stop awhile to consider how long those hardy aliens
occupied this island, or how effective that occupation was, either in a
military or social sense. Four hundred years just measure the length of
time the Romans were with us; and what can not be done in so lengthy a
period! Four hundred years would suffice to create a high state of
civilization from mere savagery, and that is what the Romans accomplished
here in that space of time. They not only conquered, but they eventually
pacified, the fierce and fearless Britons; and they established export and
import trades that rendered Britain the most prosperous colony of the
Roman Empire, and the Romano-British merchants and people the wealthiest
colonists of those times. Stately villas beyond the towns, but
sufficiently near them to invoke, if needs were, the protection of the
cohorts, rose up on all sides, where the rich traders in British produce
took their ease or engaged themselves in cultivating the cherry and
sweet-chestnut trees which they had introduced from the sunny hillsides of
Italy. There is to this day a manor at Milton-next-Sittingbourne called
"Northwood Chasteners," so called from an ancient grove of chestnuts
(_castaneas_), the descendants of the first chestnut trees introduced by
the Romans. Vast Roman potteries had their being in the lowlands beside
the Medway; Upchurch, Faversham, and Richborough furnished the tables of
Roman Emperors and epicures with the "native" oysters that were even then
famous and the cause of an immense trade; while manufactures poured in
from Rome to suit the British taste.
Durolevum must, then, be sought amid the potsherds of a hundred
settlements, any one of which might have been a suburb of that forgotten
station; but the site where the present village of Newington stands was
probably fresh ground when the Saxons came and drove out with ruthless
slaughter the luxurious and enervated Romanized British, who speedily
fell a prey to barbarians when once the Roman garrison was withdrawn.
Archaeologists have remarked that the Saxons generally occupied the Roman
towns that were left after the Romano-British fled from them; but although
they sometimes did so, there are many instances where they established
towns on new sites closely adjoining the old, but carefully separated from
them. Such was the case at Wroxeter, where the Saxons built an entirely
new town, adjoining, but not actually on, the ruined and deserted city of
Uriconium. Probably the Saxons found Durolevum wrecked in the internal
struggles that rent Britain asunder after the legionaries were withdrawn;
and, being a Pagan and superstitious people, they shunned the almost
deserted heap of ruins as being the abode of evil spirits. The stagnant
and fetid wreck of a great city, whose fallen houses covered the bodies of
many slaughtered citizens, and whose site was very likely overflowed with
choked drains and freshets from the swollen streams, was not exactly the
place to appeal to strangers, even though uncivilized, as a suitable site
for dwelling upon; and, indeed, it may readily be imagined that these
rotting remains of a dead civilization would be infinitely more
awe-inspiring to a barbaric race than to the few remaining Britons who had
seen the place in all the pride and circumstance of better days. And,
indeed, the black, polluted earth of a long-inhabited town, and the
will-o'-wisps and phosphorescent bubbles bred from the corruption below,
that would float at night upon the surface of the water, would have
frighted most people of those superstitious times.
Newington stands on elevated ground, away from such chances, but in its
immediate neighbourhood have been found many Roman relics, and all around,
the fields, the meadows, and the hillsides are rich in legends and broken
pottery. Standard Hill is so called from a tradition that the Roman eagle
was there displayed, and a field adjoining is known as Crockfield, from
the great number of Roman pots and fragments of pottery turned up there
by the plough. The name of Keycol Hill, too, is said to have had a Roman
origin, and Hasted derives it from Caii Collis, or Caius Julius Caesar's
Hill. Finally, the modern roadside hamlet of Key Street, between Newington
and Sittingbourne, is said to owe its name to _Caii Stratum_, or Caius
Street.
[Illustration: KEY STREET.]
The inn at Key Street, now called the "Key," was previously to 1733 known
as the "Ship." It stands near the hill-top where Key Street commences, and
commands a long, straight dip of the road towards Sittingbourne, whose
outlying houses are just beyond the farthest clump of trees.
[Sidenote: PLACE-NAMES]
The chance wayfarer little thinks how abundant are the vestiges of
antiquity here, both in fragments of pottery, and in the time-honoured
names of manors, fields, and meadows. Such things are only to be brought
to light by the painstaking local historian who has access to Court Rolls
and ancient estate maps. It is little known or considered by the dwellers
in populous towns that almost every meadow, field, croft, pasture, down,
or woodland has its name, as distinct and as well-known locally as that
of any London street included in the Directory. More than this, these
names are often the survivals of a state of things existing a thousand
years ago. They are frequently rendered obscure by the corruption and
evolution of languages, and by the physical changes that have come over
the face of the country during so long a period; but with research, and
linguistic scholarship, and a knowledge both of local history and the
ancient history of the country in general, much that seems at first
obscure, or even utterly inexplicable, may be finally resolved into
meaning. The study of these place-names has all the attraction of original
exploration, and leads on inexhaustibly. But while the tracking of
apparently meaningless names to their origin has all the fascination of
sport, it gives rise to many hazardous conjectures and lame conclusions,
and names that do not yield their secrets to patient inquiry are too often
thrust into some ill-fitting category from which they are rescued, to the
shame and derision of those who placed them there. In fine,
"cock-sureness" is nowhere more out of place than in these inquiries, and
in nothing else is the mental effort of "jumping to conclusions" met with
such ludicrous accidents. It has, for instance, long been a commonplace in
these inquiries to refer the names of towns, villages, or hamlets ending
in "ing" to the settlements of Saxon patriarchal tribes; and the Hallings,
Coolings, Bobbings, Detlings, and Wellings are set down as having been
originally the homes of Teutonic clans taking their names from chieftains
named Halla, Coela, Bobba, and so forth.
But while this rule may generally hold good, it must not be applied
automatically, and the "learning" that has given this origin to the names
of Sittingbourne, Newington, and Ospringe must be regarded as a grotesque
exercise of imagination, creating previously unheard-of clans, the
Soedingas, the Newingas, and the Osprings, who are not only new to
archaeology, but probably have never existed. Of course, in the utter
absence of all evidence, save that of the places themselves so named, no
statement can be _proved_ correct; but these mystic Soedingas may almost
certainly be dismissed to the realm of fairy-tales, and if there ever was
a tribe of Newingas, they _took_ their name _from_ the village which they
built and where they lived, instead of _giving_ it _to_ the place. Where
others have come to grief, it would be rash to seek new derivations; but
it seems evident that Ospringe derives its name from the stream flowing
through the village, and that the name of Sittingbourne is nothing other
than "seething burn," or "the bubbling brook," a poetic name which the
place no longer merits. Place-names of Roman origin may be sought in the
several _Vigos_ that exist, some now the names of fields, marshes,
roadsides, and commons where there is not a house to be seen, but which
were originally the sites of Roman villages, the name of "Vigo"--the Latin
_vicus_--having been traditionally handed down to the present day many
centuries after the last traces of those settlements have disappeared.
Many fields, too, here and in different parts of the country, are named
"Whitehall." How did they get that name? The answer is sought in the Roman
word "_aula_," the residence of a magistrate or a chief man in authority.
When the Saxons came, they found these grand _aulas_, built of stone,
dotted about the country, some ruined, others tolerably perfect; and they
must have made a strong impression upon these barbaric Pagans, used at
that early period of their history only to wooden dwellings of the rudest
construction. They would have demanded the names of these places from the
Romano-British, who would tell them they were _aulas_; and they would have
called them "hwit aulas," from the stone of which they were built. It was
thus that the many villages called "Whitchurch" got their name, from the
stone (or "white") churches that were so remarkable as compared with the
dark-hued temples and churches of wood to which the Saxons were
accustomed.
But if this origin of the "Whitehalls" does not satisfy, there is another
which may be even more likely. They were, possibly, at one time the sites
of village Witan-halls, where the wise men of the Saxon villages assembled
their local Parliaments, the "witans" or "witenagemots," those remote
forerunners of the village- and parish-councils which statesmen of the
late nineteenth century have established, as items in a more or less
admirable scheme for restoring the Heptarchy. There are "Whitehalls" in
the immediate outlying fields of Sittingbourne, and there is one within
the Roman encampment overhanging the railway cutting at Harbledown; but at
none of these places are there any traces of buildings above ground.
Excavation might reveal ancient foundations.
XXVIII
[Sidenote: HERMITS]
As mediaeval travellers approached Sittingbourne from the direction of
London, the first objects they perceived were the chapel and hermitage of
Schamel, dedicated to Saint Thomas a Becket, and standing on the south
side of the road. They are gone now, and a wayside public-house--"The
Volunteers"--stands on, or near their site; but the hermitage was, from
the time of King John to the impious days of Henry the Eighth, a
resting-place for those devout pilgrims who sought the shrine of the "holy
blissful martyr" at Canterbury. In the reign, however, of that "Defender
of the Faith"--when it suited him--the chapel and the hermitage were
scattered to the winds, and the hermit thrust out into a world that had
grown tired of making pilgrimages. But, while it lasted, the Hermitage of
Schamel did a very thriving business; so thriving, indeed, as to excite
the jealousy of the Sittingbourne people, who conceived themselves injured
by the intercepting of pilgrims before they could reach and fertilize the
town with streams of gold. Rich pilgrims were a source of wealth to many
towns and villages on the Dover Road, and hermits, bishops, priors, and
abbots contended for them like 'busmen for passengers before the
introduction of the bell-punch and the ticket system.
We first hear of Schamel Hermitage in the time of a priest named Samuel,
whose duties consisted in saying mass daily, in wearing a hair-shirt,
refraining from soap and water, and in attending upon those pilgrims and
travellers who did not mind the apostolic dirt in which he wallowed; and
by whose alms he supported himself and the chapel. Samuel died and was
gathered to his fathers, and the building presently fell into decay, to be
rebuilt by an Augustinian monk, during whose lifetime the annals of the
Hermitage are too placid for recounting in this place. His successor was
one Walter de Hermestone, who was appointed by the Queen about 1271.
Imagine his disgust, though, when he came here and found the place a
wreck, the work of the Vicar and the townsfolk of Sittingbourne. This
estimable clergyman, whose name was Simon de Shordich, and who seems to
have brought the manners and customs of his native place with him, had
carried off the Hermitage bell and altar as prizes to his own church, and
the men of Sittingbourne had left both the Hermitage and the Chapel in the
likeness of a Babylonic ruin. History does not record what became of
Walter de Hermestone, but it seems likely that he departed for some more
peaceful spot. Meanwhile, Simon de Shordich died, perhaps from the effects
of the eremitical curses which the disappointed incumbent of the ruinated
place doubtless showered on him; and he was followed, both in his Vicarage
and his evil courses, by a certain Boniface, who carted away the ruins and
sold them.
[Sidenote: SCHAMEL]
Sixteen years later an inquiry was held on these matters, at the instance
of the Queen, who, holding the manor of Milton-next-Sittingbourne, was
patron of the chapel. There seems to have been a hamlet of Schamel at this
time, for a certain William the Weaver, and others who gave evidence
before the commission, are located here. It must have been about this era
that the chapel was rebuilt, but little is heard of it until June, 1358,
when the Queen of Edward the Third passed by, and gave 20s. in alms. Friar
Richard de Lexeden was then in possession. Two years later, King John of
France passed, on his way home, and gave twenty nobles, a sum equal to no
less than L120 of our money; and that is the last we hear of the Hermitage
until it was for ever destroyed in 1542-43.
Meanwhile, the chapel of Swanstree, at the east end of the town, was as
much upheld and cared for by the Sittingbourne people as the Schamel
chapel was robbed and injured. Wealthy tradespeople left money in their
wills to its altars and for the repair of the roads thither, and the
Vicars of Sittingbourne approved of it, because it not only did not take
away from them, but gleaned anything that the pilgrims had to spare after
they left Sittingbourne, and before they came to the next town. But
although so favoured, this chapel has gone the way of the other, and not a
vestige of it remains. It stood on the grounds of the present Murston
Rectory.
[Sidenote: SITTINGBOURNE]
Sittingbourne was not a large place in the days that ended with the advent
of railway times, but it had an astonishing number of hotels, inns, and
beer-houses. People had not at that time begun to see that the royal road
to fortune lay in the making of bricks and tiles, and so they amassed
riches by plundering the travellers whose evil stars sent them down the
road to Canterbury and Dover; and in the lulls of business when no
travellers were forthcoming, they probably "kept their hands in" by
overcharging one another. I believe Sittingbourne must have been a town of
inns, and but little else, and that the population lived in hotels and
drank wines, beer, and spirits all day long and a great part of the night,
just for the fun of the thing.
Not that mine host of the "Red Lion" was at all extortionate when he
entertained Henry the Fifth in 1415, on his return from Agincourt. On the
contrary, the bill was decidedly reasonable, amounting only to
nine-and-sixpence, including wine. You cannot, unhappily, dine conquering
heroes of any sort--much less kings--so reasonably nowadays, and I suspect
that, even a century or more ago, when the First and Second Georges were
used to put up at the "George," on their way to or from Hanover, prices
must have ruled much higher. The "Red Lion" was undoubtedly the chief inn
at Sittingbourne from a very early time, and it kept its good repute for
centuries; for here it was that Henry the Eighth stayed when "progressing"
along the Dover Road in 1541, and here he held what in those autocratic
times answered to our present Cabinet Councils. If I were a licensed
victualler I could wish those days back again. Beside the "Red Lion" and
the "George," there were at this time the scarcely less inferior
hostelries of the "Horn," the "Saracen's Head," the "Bull," and the "White
Hart"; and, what with Emperors, Kings, Archbishops, Cardinals, and other
dignitaries, with trains of attendants numbering anything from two
thousand down to fifty, they must all have been needed. In the sixteenth
century, then, Emperors and Kings were the usual guests of the "Red Lion."
The landlord at that time sniffed at Princes and Archbishops, and turned
away such riff-raff as Dukes and Earls. So soon, however, as 1610, we find
a mere untitled traveller received at the "Red Lion"; one Justus
Zinzerling, a German, who came posting up the road from Canterbury. We
know from his own account that posting was not in those days very
expensive. He paid three shillings for riding these fifteen miles, and
alighting at the "Red Lion," put up for the night, glad to get here, past
the body of a robber who had been hanged from a roadside tree for
murdering a messenger. The body was so surrounded with chains and rings
that Herr Zinzerling was of the opinion it would last a long time for the
due reading of a much-needed moral to others. He found the landlord of the
"Red Lion" to be a Scotchman who knew Latin, and on this common ground of
good-fellowship they drank to one another and quoted the classics until
drink tied their tongues and deposited their bodies under the table.
I have already had occasion to mention six first-class inns that
flourished here three hundred years ago; but in the middle of last century
there were a great many more. The "George," the "Rose," and the "Red Lion"
seem to have been the chiefest of them about this time; and, if we may
believe Hasted (and there is no reason why we shouldn't), the "Rose" was
"the most superb of any throughout the kingdom, and the entertainment
afforded in it equally so." But where is the "Rose Hotel" now? Gone, alas!
with the snows of yester-year. Where, also, the "George," which at the
time of Waterloo kept forty pairs of post-horses? and where the "Red
Lion"? It would, I fancy, puzzle most folks to say, for although they
still stand, the change that came over the spirit of their dream about
1840 has caused them to be cut up into separate houses and tenements.
We can, however, by intensive observation, identify the "Rose." It is a
handsome red brick building on the left-hand side, now occupied by a firm
of grocers. The identification is from a beautifully-carved rose in a red
brick panel on the first floor, with the initials "R. I." and the date
1708. The building is large, and has eight windows in a row. But the
"George" has nine, and the "Lion" twelve.
About this time, too, the people seem to have given up living in hotels
and inns, and to have taken to private houses. Also, they drank tea
instead of beer; and so presently we find the inns disappearing that at
one time stood next to one another, in a long line on both sides of the
High Street, and even in the branch thoroughfares. Here was the "White
Hart," large enough in 1815 to have eighteen soldiers quartered in it
daily. It is now divided between a Bank and a Brewery. Here, also, was the
"Gun," which, aptly enough, had as many vicissitudes as the fortunes of
war, for it was turned into the Parish Workhouse, opened again in 1752 as
the "Globe," and presently became the workhouse again, with, probably, the
landlord as its first inmate! But it was no greater a success as what our
grandfathers with an ironical humour termed a "House of Industry" than as
a hostelry, and so it was not long before the paupers were marched out and
another phase of its strange eventful history commenced. This time it
became a coachmaker's workshop, and there we will leave it.
Sittingbourne innkeepers had an inordinate fancy for changing their signs,
and some of their houses have borne as many aliases as an old and hardened
swindler. Thus the "Seven Stars" became in turn the "Cherry Tree," the
"Union Flag," and finally the "Volunteers"; while the present "Plough Inn"
(only they may have changed its name again already) in East Street has
been successively the "King Henry the Eighth," and the "Royal Oak." Other
houses were the "Bull," the "Adam and Eve," the "Walnut Tree," the "King's
Head," "Six Bells," "Black Boy," "Boatswain's Call," "Ship," "Chequer,"
"Three Post Boys," "Crown," "Bird in Hand," "Lamb," "Three Kings,"
"Angel," "Portobello," "Bell," "Duke's Head," and "Cross Keys"; to name
but a selection, but age has withered, and want of custom staled, the most
of them, and, instead of entertaining travellers, the inhabitants of
Sittingbourne poison them with the appalling smells that arise from the
numberless brick-kilns round about.
[Sidenote: BRICKS AND TILES]
For the making of bricks and tiles is the chief industry of Sittingbourne
nowadays, and a very large and flourishing industry it is; so much so,
indeed, that there will be presently nothing of Sittingbourne left at all;
because, like maggots that live _in_ cheeses--and _on_ them--the
Sittingbourne brickmakers find their sustenance in the ground on which
they live, and have carted away nearly all the surrounding country. When
they have worked down to the chalk and the bed-rock, I don't know what
they _will_ do. Already all the hills have vanished and have been
distributed over England in the shape of bricks, and when folks return who
have known Sittingbourne in their youth, they don't recognize the place,
and go away wondering whether curses will fall upon it because its people
have thus removed the old landmarks.
Changed, indeed, it is, not only from those days when the great ones of
the earth sojourned here, but also from those comparatively recent times
when the traveller's only choice was the road. Then three parts of the
population were engaged in hotel-keeping, licensed-victualling, or
coach-building; innkeepers, job-masters, hostlers, post-boys,
chamber-maids, and boots, were their styles and titles, and if you are
curious enough to turn the pages of Sittingbourne registers you will find
such entries as these to be the chiefest of their contents: "John Slater,
innholder, of the White Hart, was buryed, 22nd Feby, 1708/9"; or "Joseph,
ostler at the Crowne, buryed Oct. 23, 1708."
When the railway came, ruin, swift and terrible, fell upon this busy
community. Grass grew in the stable-yards; the old high-hung yellow
chariots and the light post-chaises rotted to pieces that were used to be
hired by travellers who did not care so much about the price as the pace
they went; the price of horses fell; the vast interiors of the hotels with
their numberless bedrooms, and one-time cosy coffee-rooms, echoed to the
casual tread of some unfrequent guest, uncomfortable and half-frightened
at the solitary state in which he sat; hostlers, grooms, and washers
lounged miserably about the mouldy harness-rooms in company with dejected
post-boys; chamber-maids departed to other scenes and occupations; and
"boots" gradually lost the encyclopaedic knowledge for which he was
renowned, and forgot alike the number of miles to the next post-town and
the proper way to clean a pair of Bluchers.