by Feversham, whither I went to visit the remains of the monastery
founded by king Stephen, and where he was buried with his family. At
present nothing left but two gate-houses, and they of mean structure:
the hall was standing intire within this forty year; but now the whole
monastery is level with the ground, and converted into orchards, so
that I could not so much as guess at the place where the church was.
They have a report still, that at the dissolution of abbeys they took
up the coffin of lead wherein the king was buried, and sold it: as
for his corpse, they threw it into the Thames. Here king Ethelstan
enacted laws, anno 903. At Newington seems to have been another
station: many Roman coins and antiquities have been found there. Vide
large accounts thereof in Burton’s Itinerary, p. 181. and Casaubon’s
translation of Antoninus Philos. Beyond Broughton, which seems to have
been another,[111] you come to a very high hill, steep on the west. The
Watling-street here first presents the tower of the cathedral in its
line, and both together make a fine show:
_Apparet rursum moles operosa viarum,
Consurgit stratis agger ubique suis._
[Sidenote: +Durovernum.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. XCVI.]
[Sidenote: TAB. LIV.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXV.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXIV.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXV.]
Canterbury is deservedly famous for religious as well as Roman
antiquity, being the place where christianity first made its entrance
among our Saxon ancestors. Here are many remains of Roman buildings,
many made of Roman materials in the Saxon times: many antiquities found
in digging about the hop-grounds; your lordship has quantities of them.
The city is strongly walled about, and many lunettes or towers at due
intervals; a deep ditch close underneath, and a great rampart of earth
within. The original ground-plot here, as in many other cities, is
spoiled by churches built in the middle of streets. To the south is
an old obscure gate, called Worth gate, partly walled up: it is under
the castle. This is intirely a Roman work: the semi-circular arch is
of Roman brick, beautifully turned; the piers of stone; the thickness
of it is three Roman feet. I suppose this the original gate of the
Roman city, and from hence went the road which presently divides itself
into two: the one goes by Chilham to _Durolenum_, over the river at
Sharnford, as we said; the other goes in a very strait line, by the
name of Stone-street, to the port of _Lemanis_. The castle built here
in William the Conqueror’s time, extending its limits beyond this gate,
was the occasion of blocking it up; and so Winchup gate was built a
little further eastward, to supply its use. The castle is much of the
same form as that at Rochester, and the walls of the same thickness. A
little further within the walls is a very high mount, called Dungeon
hill: a ditch and high bank inclose the _area_ before it: it seems to
have been part of the old castle. Opposite to it without the walls is a
hill, seeming to have been raised by the Danes when they besieged the
city. The top of Dungeon hill is equal to the top of the castle, and
has a fine prospect over the city and country. The materials of the
city-walls are chiefly flint. Next to this, where the Watling-street
comes,[112] is Riding-gate, built by a mayor of the city, but evidently
in the place of the Roman one; for there is part of the Roman arch,
and the pier of one side, still visible, but much lower than the
present gate: and in a yard close by is part of the arch of a postern,
or foot-gate, by the side of it: these arches are of Roman brick,
and there are in the wall here and there some more fragments of the
Roman work. The draught of it I have given in the plate of the city
ground-plot, 96. Hence the Watling-street passes directly to Dover,
over Barham downs. Next to East-gate is another gate, opposite to
what they call St. Ethelbert’s tower: this is the way to the port of
_Rutupium_. Here is the famous monastery of St. Augustin, the first
metropolitan, built, as they say, near the palace of the converted
king Ethelbert: two gates remain next the city, and both very stately:
perhaps one belonged to the palace, the other to the monastery, which
doubtless as magnificent as richly endowed; and such its ruins
demonstrate, and the great compass of ground it took up, incircled with
a very high wall. Great vying was ever here between the religious of
St. Austin and of Tho. à Becket, both very rich and contentious. At
the west end of this church, as I conjecture, were two great towers:
half of one is still remaining, called Ethelbert’s tower: all the whole
stones and pillars about it are skinned off as far as they can reach;
and every year a buttress, a side of an arch, or the like, passes _sub
hasta_. There is part of the other standing, if it can be so said,
that is only not fallen; I call it _muro torto_: it is a vast angular
piece of the tower, about thirty foot high, which has been undermined
by digging away a course at bottom, in order to be thrown down; but it
happened only to disjoint itself from the foundation, and leaping, as
it were, a little space, lodged itself in the ground in that inclining
state, to the wonderment of the vulgar who do not discern the meaning
of it, though the foundation it came from is sufficiently visible: thus
happening to be equally poized, it is a sight somewhat dreadful, and
forbids a too near approach on any side, with the apprehension of its
falling that way. Under St. Ethelbert’s tower is the porch where St.
Augustin and his six successors, as Bede tells us, were interred: the
arched roof is left, but ready to fall: the pavement is gone, in the
middle of which was an altar. The adjacent close is full of religious
ruins and foundations, one great part turned into a stable near the
almery: all over they are busy in pulling it up, to sell the stones;
which generally pays the rent, and yet the tenants of such places
thrive never the more. In one corner of this field are the walls of
a chapel, said to have been a christian temple before St. Augustin’s
time, and reconsecrated by him to St. Pancras: a great apple-tree and
some plum-trees now grow in it: the lower part of it is really old, and
mostly made of Roman brick, and thicker walls than the superstructure:
there is an old Roman arch on the south side toward to altar, the top
of it about as high as one’s nose; so that the ground has been much
raised: the present east window is a pointed arch, though made of Roman
brick, later than St. Austin’s time: near it a little room, said to
have been king Ethelbert’s pagan chapel: however it be, both these and
the wall adjoining are mostly built of Roman brick: the breadth of the
mortar is rather more than the brick, and full of pebbles; but the mark
of the devil’s claws, there observed by the vulgar, is fantastical.
The garden and orchard adjoining seem to lie in their ancient form:
there is a large square mount close by the wall, which it equals in
height, and gives a prospect into the fields. Your lordship has a
huge water-pipe dug up among many other antiquities in a Roman bath
discovered at Canterbury: it is five inches and a half diameter at the
smaller end, seventeen long, seven in diameter at the broad end: they
were fastened into one another with strong terrace cement. The great
number of other antiquities of all sorts, found at and about this city,
make part of your fine collection.
[Illustration: 96 DVROVERNVM. _5 Oct. 1722_
_Stukeley delin_ Collegæ charissimo Johi Gray M. D. Civitatē svā
_dd. W. Stukeley._ _I. Harris sculp_]
[Illustration: 24 _The Ruins of Sᵗ. Augustins Church in the Porch of
which the English Apostle was bury’d, now called Ethelberts tower at
Canterbury Oct. 6. 1722._
_Dedicated to her Grace the Dutchess of Ancaster._
_Stukeley del._ _I.Vᵈᵉʳ. Gucht Sculp._]
[Illustration: 25 _A View in Sᵗ Austins Monastery Canterbury_
_Sᵗ Gregorys Chappel_
_The Heathen chappel of Ethelbert. 6 Oct. 1722_
_Stukeley delin_ _Harris sculp_]
Eastward of this, and farther out of the city, is the church of
St. Martin, said to be the christian place of devotion, where king
Ethelbert’s queen used to go, and St. Austin’s first see: it is built,
for the most part, of Roman brick: in the middle is a very large
old-fashioned font, supposed that where the king was baptised. North
of the city is a very small remnant of St. Gregory’s chapel, founded
probably by Austin to the honour of his patron.
The cathedral of Canterbury is very stately, but neither in length,
breadth, nor height, especially in front, equal to Lincoln, in my
judgement: it is intirely vaulted with stone, and of a very pretty
model of building, but much too high for its breadth, as all Gothic
buildings were. I believe they got this ill taste from building upon
the old foundations, the ancient churches being much narrower and lower
than in the succeeding times: when greater riches flowed in upon them,
they carried their walls and roofs to an unseemly height. The place
where Thomas à Becket’s shrine stood, is sufficiently known by the mark
of the devoted knees quite around it, which have left deep impressions
in the hard coarse marble. The Black Prince has a noble monument of
brass: that of Henry IV. is a good tomb, and there is a pretty chapel
hard by, to say mass for him. There is an old picture of arch-bishop
Becket’s martyrdom, as called; and upon the wall an old painting of the
siege of Jerusalem, in our old habits. Here are several monuments of
the bishops. The metropolitan chair is of grey marble, standing behind
the high altar: the cloysters are pretty good, and a very large chapel
near them, called Sermon-house, wainscotted with Irish oak. The reason
of the ancient name of this British city seems intimated in this verse
of Virgil,
_Divinosque lacus & averna sonantia silvis._ Æn. iii.
The poor derivation of the commentators thereon ought to be referred to
Tuscan original, to which our Celtic is a-kin.
[Sidenote: +Rutupiæ.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXXV. 2d Vol.]
Leaving Canterbury,[113] I journeyed to find out _Rutupiæ_. At Wingham
I saw a very large barrow, of Celtic make, by the road side, called
the Mount: upon enquiry I found there were several more in the parish,
and that a lane here is called Port-lane; doubtless the Roman road,
for here the common road goes more southward. The Roman city and port
without peradventure was the place now called Stonar, or _Stanar_,
as they pronounce it, from the stony foundations I chuse to think;
over-against Sandwich, or rather half a mile lower upon the river
coming from Canterbury, and almost incompassed by it. This river at
first discharged itself into the sea by Ebbesflete, north of the Roman
city, till the sand, pouring so directly upon it, obliged the stream
to slide under the cliff by Richborough castle, and so by Sandwich:
then, coming in obliquely by the weight of its waters, it maintains
its passage. I conceit the etymology of _Rhutupium_, about which the
learned contend much, is to be sought for in this _Ebbesflete_; and
that this water was originally called _Ube_, or _Tyvi_: _rhyd tyf_ or
_tyvi_, is the passage over it: the Saxons called it _Reptacester_, a
contraction only from _Rhutupicester_: and so our _Ebbe_ at present
came from them; _Ruptimuth_ anciently. Hence you see far into the isle
of Thanet and Ramsgate cliff, named from the Romans, thrusting its
chalky promontory into the sea. This was the chief port for the Roman
navy.[114] At present there is only a farm-house or two, standing on
an elevation in the marshes: they informed me that here had been a
great city, and that they can discover all the streets when the corn
is on the ground; and those streets are nothing but pure gravel laid
very deep: innumerable stones and foundations have been dug up, but now
mostly evacuated; and no doubt Sandwich was built out of it. The river
runs close by it, with difficulty preserving its current to the sea;
but no doubt originally it was an open beach, or port: perhaps the city
itself was an island. The old mouth of the river is now filled up by
the astonishing quantity of small pebbles thrown into this bay by the
roll of the ocean: you see here a hundred acres of this flat
ground covered over with them six or seven foot deep, and looking blue
like the water. I fancied the people that lived here, in like danger
with those that travel the sandy deserts of Africa, or Arabia. Here
are two elevations, where they say two churches stood: upon one, where
an elder-tree grows, much rubble and stone is left, but no part of any
building; nor is it easy to distinguish what it was originally.
[Illustration: 35·2ᵈ. View of Portus Rutupiæ from Sandwich. _7.
Oct. 1722._
_South West view of_ Richborough Castle.
_Stukeley delin:_ _E. Kirkall sculp:_]
[Illustration: 97 Richborow _Castle of the Romans 7 Oct. 1722_.
Auspiciis Doctissimi D. Tancred Robinson M. D. &c.
_Stukeley delin:_]
[Illustration: 36·2ᵈ. _The Remains of the_ Castrensian Amphitheater
_at Richborough Castle. Oct. 7. 1724._
_Stukeley. delin:_ _E. Kirkall. Sculp:_]
[Sidenote: TAB. XCVII.]
[Sidenote: Amphitheatre]
[Sidenote: TAB. XXXVI. 2d Vol.]
Richborough castle, as now called, was the fort as it were to this
city, and station of the garrison, which was to watch and defend the
port and sea-coast hereabout; or rather one of those castles built upon
the _littus Saxonicum_, in the time of Theodosius: it is a mile off
Stanar and Sandwich, situate upon the highest elevation near hand, and
being the only small part of a bold shore in all this bay: the river
runs at the foot of it,
———— _arvaque & urbem
Littore diductam angusto interluit æstu._ +Virg.+ Æn. iii.
It is a most noble remnant of Roman antiquity, where in later times of
their empire the _Legio_ II. _Aug._ was quartered: the walls on three
sides are pretty intire, and in some places still about twenty-five or
thirty foot high, without any ditch: the side next the sea being upon
a kind of cliff, the top of the wall is but level with the ground:
beside, at the east angle the wall descends to another slope just upon
the river, which seems to have been in the nature of an outwork, or
gradual ascent into the castle: the ground on the inside is pretty much
raised. In the middle of the north-east side there is a square work
jutting out from the wall, which seems to have been an oblique[115]
gate to enter at, for those that came from the water side; and it
is not unlikely that gap on the north-west side was another gate:
it was a square CV. paces one way, CL. the other; according to the
Roman method of making camps, a third part longer than their breadth.
There is a foundation within, which has caused many words among the
Kentish antiquaries; seems to have been a _Pharos_, or lodging for the
commanding officer, a _prætorium_: there are foundations of several
apartments, the walls monstrously thick and strong. It is manifest
to any one that seriously contemplates the ruins of the walls in
divers places, that this castle was destroyed by great violence and
industriously; I guess, by the Saxons immediately after the Romans left
the island, when they could more boldly make descénts upon the coast:
the reason why, is evident from the intent of these castles: upon the
eastern corner, especially, great piles of wall lie one upon another
like rocks: in other places cavities are hewn out of its thickness,
that would make good lodging-rooms: the manner of the composition of
the walls is seven courses of small hewn stone, which take up four
Roman feet: then two courses of Roman brick, which are white, like
the brick in the isle of Ely. I observe all the brick about Sandwich
to be of the same colour, made of whitish clay. The walls are twelve
foot thick: the inward body thereof is made of flint and excessive
hard mortar. Sandwich bears directly south. Dr. Holland talks of a
carved head over one of the gates; but I could find no such thing now.
In the way thither, upon an eminence is the carcass of a castrensian
amphitheatre made of turf; I suppose, for the exercise and diversion
of the garrison: the soil of it is gravel and sand, and has been long
ploughed over, that we need not wonder it is so level. There are three
Roman _tumuli_ before Sandwich west gate; one a windmill stands on: it
is not easy to assign which Contentus was buried under:
_Contentum tellus quem Rutupina tegit._ +Auson.+
South of Sandwich, as we go along upon the sea-shore, are six large
and broad Celtic _tumuli_, equidistant: the second from the town has
been dug away, to raise a little fort upon the road: they all stand in
a line east and west.[116] This flat coast is fenced against the ocean
by the sand-downs, which in Lincolnshire we call _meals_: but within
the memory of man, as they told me, the sea has commenced a new method
of guarding against its own violence, by covering the shore, for a
great depth and height, with the pebbles afore mentioned; which is an
odd mutation in nature; and it is observable that these pebbles come
from the south. I rode from Sandwich as far as Hithe, upon the brink
of the shore or cliff, in sight of France all the way; and nothing
could be more entertaining in this autumnal season, when the weather
is generally clear, serene and calm. Much sea _tithymal_ grows here,
and a very pretty plant, _papaver cornutum flore luteo_, rock samphire
feeding upon _petroleum_, a most excellent pickle, and many more.[117]
The murmur of the ocean has a noble solemnity in it, as Homer says,
when latinised,
_Eructante salo raucam dant littora vocem._
More copiously expressed in Virgil,
_Et gemitum ingentem pelagi, pulsataque saxa,
Audimus longe, fractasque ad littora voces.
Exsultantque vada atque æstu miscentur arenæ._ Æn. iii.
which is an exact idea of this place. By listening attentively I
observed this noise of the ocean is by fits, at short but equal
intervals; which I believe gave occasion to that fancy of the ancients,
that every tenth wave was the largest; of which Ovid has a distich.
[Sidenote: TAB. XXXVII. 2nd Vol.]
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.
[Illustration: 37·2ᵈ. _A Prospect towards Deal from yᵉ Barrow South of
Walmer Castle._
_Stukeley delin._ _Toms. Sculp._]
[Illustration: 38·2ᵈ. _The Appeareance of the Roman_ DVBRIS
_Stukeley delin._ _Toms Sculp._]
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.+]