(1) The road will attempt the shortest passage of the valley floor,
the breadth being more or less of an obstacle, according as the soil
is more or less low, covered, or damp.
(2) It will seek for a ford.
(3) Other things being equal, it would naturally cross a river as high
up as possible, where the stream was likely to be less difficult to
ford.
(4) It would cross in as immediate a neighbourhood as possible to that
height upon which survey could be made of the opportunities for
crossing.
(5) The nature of the bottom at the crossing would influence it
greatly, whether that bottom were gravel and sand, or treacherous mud.
Moreover, a primitive road would often leave evidence of its choice by
the relics of good material thrown in to harden the ford.
(6) A point of so much importance would probably be connected with
religion, and almost always with some relic of habitation or weapons.
(7) It would often preserve in its place-name some record of the
crossing.
(8) It would (as we had found it at Dorking and at Otford) choose a
place where a spur on either side led down to the river.
To these eight points may be added the further consideration, that
whatever was the more usual crossing in early historic times affords
something of a guide as to prehistoric habits, and, finally, that
where a tidal river was concerned, the motives which were present on
any river for seeking a passage as far up stream as possible would be
greatly strengthened, for the tide drowns a ford.
Now, in the light of what the map tells us, and of these principles,
let us see where the crossing is most likely to be found, and having
determined that, discover how far the hypothesis is supported by other
evidence.
To begin with Cuxton:
At Cuxton the firm land of the hills comes upon either side close to
the river. An ancient track-way upon either side leads very near to
the point of crossing and cannot be followed, or at least nothing like
so clearly followed further down the valley. At Cuxton, moreover, as a
constant tradition maintains, the crossing of the river by pilgrims
was common.
On the other hand there is nothing approaching a ford at this place.
The bottom is soft mud, the width of the river very considerable, the
tidal current strong, and of all the points at which the river might
have been crossed, it is the most distant from the direct line;
indeed, compared with the next point, Lower Halling, a traveller would
add five or six miles to his journey by choosing Cuxton.
Now, consider Aylesford, the other extreme; the highest up as Cuxton
is the lowest down the river of the four points. Aylesford has many
powerful arguments in its favour. It has produced one of the most
interesting and suggestive prehistoric relics in England: I mean that
'Aylesford pottery' which is an imitation, or possibly even an import,
of the pottery of northern Italy in the first or second centuries
before our area. It has furnished a mass of other antiquities:
armillae of gold have been found in the river and British coins and
graves on the northern bank. It preserves in the last part of its name
the tradition of a ford, and though 'ford' in place-names by no means
always signifies a ford any more than 'bridge' signifies a bridge, yet
in this case we have historic knowledge that a ford existed; and (as
is most frequently the case) the ford has been bridged.
A further argument, and in its way one of the strongest that could be
adduced, is the position of the place in the earliest of our annals.
Whether 'the Horse and the Mare,' Vortigern, and the rest are wholly
legendary or not, cannot be determined. Certainly the texture of the
story is fabulous, but Bede and 'Nennius' have both retained the
memory of a great battle fought here, in which the British overcame
the Pirates, and what is most significant of all, the legend or memory
records a previous retreat of the Saxons from a defeat at Otford. We
know, therefore, that a writer in the seventh century, though what he
was writing might be fable, would take it for granted that a retreat
westward from Otford would naturally lead along some road which passed
the Medway at Aylesford. We get another much later example of the same
thing when Edmund Ironside, after his great victory at Otford over the
Danes, pursued them to Aylesford, and was only prevented from
destroying them by their passage over the river under the cover of
treason.
This is very strong evidence in favour of Aylesford, and when one
remembers that the manor was ancient demesne, its antiquity and
importance are enhanced.
But against Aylesford there are three strong arguments. They are not
only strong, they are insuperable. The first is the immense width of
valley that would have to be crossed to reach it. That is, the immense
tract of uncertain, wooded way, without a view either of enemies or of
direction.
The second is the clay. A belt of gault of greater or lesser width
stretches all along the Downs just below the chalk. Here it is
particularly wide, and no straight line can be taken from Wrotham to
the Aylesford gravels without crossing nearly two miles of this
wretched footing, which, throughout its course, the road has most
carefully avoided. That a ford of great antiquity was there; that the
men of the sandy heights used it; that the Romans used so admirable a
ford (it is gravel near the river on either side), that they bridged
it, that they made a causeway over the clay, and that this causeway
and that bridge were continuously used after their time, I am willing
to believe; but not that the prehistoric road along the chalk hills
could have waded through all that clay to reach it, and have gone out
of its way into the bargain.
Thirdly, there is the clinching fact that a number of prehistoric
remains, Kit's Coty House and the rest, lie to the _north_ of such a
crossing, and that to reach Boxley itself, a site indubitably
dependent upon the prehistoric road, a man crossing at Aylesford would
have to turn _back_ upon his general direction.
It must further be remembered that by the seventh century some of the
valleys had acquired firm roads, inherited from the old civilisation,
and that in the rout after a battle, an army making for a tidal river,
and not able to choose their own time of crossing (as can a wayfarer),
would certainly make for a point as far up the stream as possible and
for a bridge.
If Cuxton and Aylesford, then, are to be neglected (as I think they
certainly must be), there remain only Lower Hailing and Snodland.
At first sight the weight of argument is for Lower Halling, and if the
various parts of such an argument as I adduce have different
proportions from those I lend them, one might conclude that at Lower
Halling was the original passage of the Medway.
True, there is for the passage at Lower Halling but one evidence that
I can discover, but it is an evidence of the greatest weight, and such
an one as is often permitted alone to establish a conclusion in
archæology. It is this, that there was good surface over the original
soil from the Pilgrim's Way on the hills above, right down to the
river-bank at this point. No clay intervenes between the chalk and
gravel. The primitive traveller would have had fairly dry land all the
way down to the river. Even beyond the river the belt of alluvial soil
is less broad than it is at Snodland; and altogether, if the
geological argument alone were considered, the decision undoubtedly
would be given to this place.
The claims of Snodland are asserted by a number of converging
arguments. I will enumerate them, and it will, I think, be seen that
though each is individually slight, the whole bundle is convincing.
_First._--The spur, which leaves the main range of hills for the river
(such a spur as has elsewhere, at Shalford, and at Dorking, and at
Otford, attracted the Old Road towards the ford it points to), touches
indeed both Snodland and Lower Halling on either side, but with this
great difference--that Snodland is on the south, Lower Halling upon
the north of the ridge. The elevation is not pronounced, the slope is
slight, but a little experience of such ground at various seasons will
determine one that the southern bank would be chosen under primitive
conditions. In such a conformation the southern bank alone has during
the winter any chance of drying, and in a dry summer, it matters
little whether a slope be partly of clay[35] (as is the descent to
Snodland) or of chalk (as is that to Lower Halling). During more than
half the year, therefore, the descent to Snodland was preferable;
during the other half indifferent.
_Secondly._--Immediately before and beyond the Lower Halling crossing
no antiquities of moment have been discovered: a grave, possibly
Roman, is, I believe, the only one. At Snodland, and beyond its
crossing, they are numerous. An ancient and ruined chapel marks the
descent from the hills. The church itself has Roman tiles. Beyond the
river, the Roman villa which was unearthed in 1896 by Mr. Patrick is
precisely upon the road that would lead from such a crossing up to the
Pilgrim's Way upon the hill. Close by the origin of this lane from the
ford to the hillside were discovered the fragments of what some have
believed to be a Mithraic temple; and earlier, in 1848, Roman urns and
foundations were found near the road at Little Culand.
_Thirdly._--The crossing at Snodland is shallower than that at Lower
Halling, and (though I do not pretend that the artifice is
prehistoric) the bottom has been artificially hardened.
_Fourthly._--There stands at Snodland a church, past the _southern_
porch of which goes the road, and when the river is crossed, and the
same alignment followed along the bank upon the further side for a
little way, the track again passes by a church, and again by its
_southern_ porch.
_Fifthly._--The 'Horseshoe Reach'--the reach, that is, between
Snodland and Burham--has always marked the limit between Rochester's
jurisdiction over the lower, and Maidstone's over the upper, Medway.
This is of great importance. All our tidal rivers have a sea-town and
a land-town; the limits up to which the seaport has control is nearly
always the _traditional crossing-place_ of the river. Thus Yarmouth
Stone on the Yare divides the jurisdiction of Norwich from that of
Yarmouth; it is close to the Reedham Ferry, which has always been the
first passage over the river. For London and the Thames we have the
best example of all--Staines.
_Finally_, it is not extravagant to note how the megalithic monument
(now fallen) near Trottescliffe, corresponds to Kit's Coty House on
the opposite shoulder beyond the valley. The crossing at Snodland
would be the natural road between the two.
[Illustration: ROCHESTER]
These seven converging lines of proof, or rather of suggestion--seven
points which ingenuity or research might easily develop into a
greater number--seem to me to settle the discussion in favour of
Snodland.[36]
By that ferry then we crossed. We noted the muddy river, suggestive of
the sea, the Medway, which so few miles above suggests, when it brims
at high tide, a great inland river. It has hidden reaches whose fields
and trees have quite forgotten the sea. We passed by the old church at
Burham. We were in a very field of antiquity[37] as we went our way,
and apart from the stones and fragments it has left, we were
surrounded by that great legend which made this place the funeral of
the first barbarians.
It was already nearly dark when we came to the place where that old
sphinx of three poised monoliths, Kit's Coty House, stands in a field
just north of the lane; the old circle of stones, now overthrown, lay
below us to the south.
We would not pass Kit's Coty House without going near it to touch it,
and to look at it curiously with our own eyes. Though we were very
weary, and though it was now all but dark, we trudged over the plough
to where it stood; the overwhelming age of the way we had come was
gathered up in that hackneyed place.
Whether the name be, or be not, a relic of some Gaelic phrase that
should mean 'the grave in the wood,' no one can tell. The wood has at
any rate receded, and only covers in patches the height of the hill
above; but that repeated suggestion of the immense antiquity of the
trail we were pursuing came to us from it again as we hesitated near
it, filled us with a permanent interest, and for a moment overcame our
fatigue.
When we had struck the high-road some yards beyond, just at the place
where the Pilgrims Way leaves it to reach the site where Boxley Abbey
once stood, our weakness returned. Not that the distance we had
traversed was very great, but that this kind of walking, interrupted
by doubts and careful search, and much of it of necessity taken over
rough land, had exhausted us more than we knew.
With difficulty, though it was by a fine, great falling road, we made
the town of Maidstone, and having dined there in the principal inn to
the accompaniment of wine, we determined to complete the journey, if
possible, in the course of the next day.