it takes up thirty acres of ground: it is an amazing _congeries_ of
walls, ditches, arches, embattlements, mounts, and all imaginable
contrivances to render it impregnable after the old mode: but with
highest regret I beheld this most noble and memorable fortress, once
thought the key of Britain, and that has divers times had the honour to
save the kingdom from conquest and slavery, now become a common prey
to the people that belong to it: in the late wars with France they
kept 1500 prisoners in the great castle; but within this twelvemonth
they have carried away the timbers and floors, disabling it even for
that use. Thus much I think out of gratitude is its due; let it stand
a monument of antiquity, or sink slowly by its own ruin. The brass gun
called Queen Elizabeth’s Pocket-pistol is a great curiosity, twenty-two
foot long: it requires fifteen pound of powder, and carries a ball
seven miles (as the gunner told me;) it is excellently well wrought. I
saw two very old keys, and a brass horn, which seem to be the ensigns
of authority belonging to the constable of the castle, or lord warden
of the cinque ports. One part of the fortifications consists of a large
circular work, in which stands the old church, said to have been built
by Lucius, an ancient king of the Britons, and first christian. Bishop
Stillingfleet thinks he is no romantic person, but reigned in Kent and
Sussex: however that be, I believe this church is as ancient as the
time assigned him. There is not much doubt to be made, that upon this
hill was a _castrum_ of the Romans, like that at Richborough, to guard
this haven. It is somewhat surprizing that our Saxon ancestors should
take great pains to demolish Roman works, though they wanted such in
the same places, and were forced to build them again. I look upon it
as an argument that they had no thoughts of conquering the island
at first, and destroyed these bulwarks, that such might not hinder
their depredations; but espying the nakedness of the land, thoroughly
evacuated of its youth and men of arms by the Romans, they found a
conquest practicable: then were they obliged to repair these
castles. The church we are speaking of was built, in the first times
of christianity, out of part of the Roman ruins, whence there are huge
quantities of Roman bricks laid into the work: the arches are intirely
turned with them; the corners and many parts, both within and without,
are built up therewith; and the remainder is of stone originally cut
by the Romans: it is in form of a cross, and has a square tower in
the middle. I have represented the drawing of it in plate 48. The
stone windows of this church are of later date than the building; they
have been put in long since: but the greatest curiosity here is the
_Pharos_, or Roman watch-tower, standing at the west end of the church:
notwithstanding it is so much disfigured by new daubing with mortar,
casing and mending, I discovered its primary intention the first minute
I saw it; and sent the three prints of it, which I here present the
reader, to monsieur Montfaucon, at the instances of my most honoured
lord, the archbishop of Canterbury. I was in hopes they would have been
more useful to that celebrated author; for therein at least he might
have found, that the building which he first took for a _Pharos_, and
whereof he gives us four views, is only the tower of the church we were
talking of. The description of this curious work, which I believe the
most perfect of any left, in short is thus.
[Illustration: 39·2ᵈ. The Prospect of DOVER _9 Oct. 1724_.
_Stukeley delin._ _Toms sculp._]
[Illustration: 40·2ᵈ. _The Appearance of Dover at the time of Cæsar’s
Landing._
_Stukeley delin._ _Toms sculp._]
[Illustration: 48 ROMANO-SAXONIC.
_The Old Church & Roman Pharos in Dover Castle. 8. Oct. 1722._
_Sᵗ. Martins Church near Canterbury where K. Ethelberts Queen us’d
to goe to Christian Service._
Erudito viro et Amicissimo Johi Hardy de Nottingham.
_Tabulam hanc vovet W. Stukeley_
_Stukeley delin._ _I. Harris Sculp_]
[Illustration: 47 _The_ Ichnography & Section of the +Roman Pharos+
_in_ +Dover+ _Castle_.
Tabulam Architectonicam Dno. Jacobo Thornhil-Equiti, ad Rem
Pictoriam Servienti
Regio. D.D. _Wˢ. Stukeley._
_Stukeley del._ _I.Vᵈᵉʳ. Gucht Sculp._]
[Illustration: 46 +The Roman Pharos in Dover Castle+ 8 Oct. 1722.
_Quæ olim_ Romanis _navigantibus facem præbuit_
Pharon _in Castro Dubriensi_ Rogᵒ. Gale Arm.
_consecratum posuit_ Wˢ. Stukeley 1722.
_Stukeley delin._ _E Kirkall sculp._]
[Sidenote: TAB. XLVII.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XLVI.]
In the 47th plate we have shown the ground-plot upon which it is
formed, and a section of the work; whence we may readily observe that
the design is simple, but admirably contrived for its use and purpose:
the base is octagonal without, within a square; but the sides of the
square and octagon are equal, viz. fifteen Roman feet, which reduces
the wall to the thickness of ten feet. In this manner it was carried
up to the top, which was much higher than at present; but it retires
inward continually from all sides, with much the same proportion as an
Egyptian _obelus_. Upon four of these sides there are windows narrow,
handsomely turned with a semi-circular arch of Roman brick six foot
high, so that the outside of it appears as in our 46th plate. The
door to it is on the east side, about six foot wide, very well turned
over head, with an arch made of a course of Roman brick and stone
alternately, fourteen foot high. All the stones of this work are of
a narrow scantling; and the manner of the composure, throughout, is
perfectly the same with that lately described at Richborough castle:
there are first two courses of this brick, which is level with the
bottom of the windows; then seven courses of hewn stone, which mount up
to the top of the windows; then two courses of brick, seven of stone
alternately, to the top; every window by this means reaching to a stage
or story. There are five of these stages left: the windows are visible
enough to a discerning eye, though some be stopt up, others covered
over, others have modern church-like windows of stone put in. I suppose
the inside was intirely filled up with a stair-case: the height of what
is left is forty foot; I believe there was twenty foot more originally;
and the whole number of windows on a side was eight. This building was
made use of as a steeple, and had a pleasant ring of bells in it, which
Sir George Rook procured to be carried away to Portsmouth. Since then
the office of the ordnance, under pretext of savingness, have taken
away the lead that covered it, and left this rare piece of art and
masonry to struggle with the sea, air and weather. Mr. Degg gave me
a coin of Dioclesian, found here. The Erpinghams arms are patched up
against one side of the _Pharos_, being two bars and a canton; so that
I suppose it was repaired in Henry the Fifth’s time, lord Erpingham
then warden of Dover castle. In the Roman castle here the Tungrican
soldiers had their station. I have heard there is another such _Pharos_
at St. Andrew’s in Scotland.[121]
On the other high cliff opposite to this, beyond the town, has been
another _Pharos_: some part of the bottom part of it is still left,
called The Devil’s Drop, from the strength of the mortar: others call
it Bredonstone. Here the new constable of the castle is sworn. If we
consider the ancient state of Dover, we must imagine that the little
river ran directly into the sea, and left a harbour close to the walls
of the town; but in process of time, as the sea threw up that vast
beach which lies between the town and it, the river was forced by an
oblique passage to creep along the shore under the southern cliff,
and there vent itself where now is the harbour. This is what Nature
practises in the microcosm in innumerable instances, as the passage
of the gall and pancreatic juice into the intestines, in the duct of
the urine from the ureters into the bladder, of the chyle into the
torrent of the blood, insinuating themselves for some space between
the membranes. And this caution may be of service in forming harbours;
as in that costly work of the French king’s before Dunkirk, where two
banks or piers projected for half a mile through the sands directly,
which ought rather to have gone downwards a little towards the fall of
the tide. The cliffs here are of solid chalk to the very bottom, full
of the blackest flints; and those at Calais seem perfectly like them;
and no doubt a long vein of chalk is continued from one to the other
under the sea, and perhaps through many countries: but that these two
places were ever contiguous, or joined by an isthmus, is chimerical.
Though the mariners have much mathematics on board, and in all their
tackle and machinery, yet here I had occasion of observing a gross
error, that has not been thought on, in the shape of their oars; where
the extremity of that fan-like part, which opposes the water in rowing,
is broadest. Now this is quite contrary to Nature’s method, who is the
best geometrician in like cases: in the shape of a single feather,
or in the wings of birds, the extremity is always pointed, and the
broadest part is nearest the joint where the power lies, analogous
to the _fulcrum_ of leavers; therefore is drawn off to a narrower
scantling, as the part recedes from it, and the effect of the moving
force: thus it is even in the wings of butterflies, and all other
insects, as well as birds; and so in the water-beetles that row with
oars. Though the broad part resists the water more as farther distant
from the _fulcrum_, yet it requires more proportionable strength; and
in my judgment, therefore, oars ought to be made quite the contrary
way, and drawn off into a point, the broadest part nearest the hand;
and I doubt not but equal strength will then out-row the other,
_cæteris paribus_.[122]
Beyond Dover southward the cliff is exceedingly high to Folkstone.
In the road two great Roman barrows, which will be eaten away in a
few years by the sea. Here this larger track of cliff ends, as to the
ocean, and slaunts off westward towards Wye in a long ledge very steep
all the way to the west. The whole county of Kent consists of three
or four of these parcels, lying parallel, and running nearly north
and south: they rise gently from the east as a reclining plain, and
then end suddenly on the western side with a quick descent: at bottom
begins another such plain, and it ends in like manner after it has
gone its proper distance, to be alike succeeded, as we said before.
Beyond this we are upon, southward is a lesser ledge of high ground
sandy and rocky, but good land, especially in the valleys, and full
of wood. This is terminated by Romney marsh, such another country as
our Lincolnshire Holland. To the right of us is Eleham, seated in a
pleasant concavity: there has been a religious house. Upon one end of
our upper chalk-hills, near Folkstone, is a camp called Castle hill.
[Illustration: 98 View of Folkston——+Lapis TITVLI+.
_Stukeley d, & Nobilissimo Comiti
Winchilsea d. d_.]
[Sidenote: +Lapis Tituli.+]
[Sidenote: TAB. XCVIII.]
Now descending, Folkstone[123] offers itself, still standing on a
cliff, but not so high as the former, and of a rocky composure, the
other being chalk: it was anciently called _Flostane_, a lesser rock,
or cliff of stone; so that it probably was the _lapis tituli_ of the
Romans. Here is a copious spring runs through the town. Near the
church, upon the sea side, is a square plain, like that I observed at
Burgh in Lincolnshire, and was of the same use. I saw two pieces of old
wall hanging over the terrible cliff, seemingly of Roman work: here are
some old guns, one of iron of a very odd cast, no doubt as old as Henry
the Eighth’s time. Many Roman coins have been found here. A nunnery was
built by Eanswide, a religious daughter of Eadbald king of Kent.
I passed by Sandgate castle, another of those built by Henry VIII.
in a little valley where the shore is plain: then we enter upon the
beach. Here are many springs which come down from the higher ground,
and sink immediately into this beach, rendering it a little boggy: this
I thought very odd. You ride through a wood of sea-poppy, which is a
fine variety in nature, casting all the numerous seeds into a long
pod, instead of the common globular head: the leaves look hoary, like
sea-ragwort, and are finely crisped; the flowers of a most delicate
yellow, taken notice of by the poet,
_Ore floridulo nitens
Alba parthenice velut
Luteumve papaver._ +Catull.+
[Sidenote: +Hythe.+]
Hythe stands on the edge of this lesser ridge, but the marsh has
intercepted it from the sea. They talk much of their charnel-house full
of human bones, said to have been the massacred Danes; but I thought it
not worth going to see, nor believed their report of it. They say this
has been a great city, and reached as far as West Hythe, where is an
old ruinous chapel: they mean undoubtedly the city of _Lemanis_. Here
were two hospitals, St. Bartholomew’s, and St. Leonard’s.
I visited Saltwood castle, in hopes to find somewhat Roman, as is
reported: it is a very strong seat of the archbishop’s: the outer wall
has towers and battlements, and a deep ditch: within, and on one side,
stands the main body of the place: two great and high towers at the
gate of this, over which are the founder’s arms, archbishop Courtney,
in two escutcheons; the first impaled with those of the see; the other
plain, a label over three plates. This inner work has a stronger and
higher wall, with a broad embattled parapet at top: within is a court,
but the lodgings are all demolished: the floor of the ruinous chapel is
strongly vaulted: in the middle of the court is a large square well,
which is the only thing I saw that looked like Roman. It is said that
hereabouts anchors are dug up; which, if true, is not owing to the
sea’s coming so high, as the vulgar think, for that is impossible; but
to an iron forge of the Romans, conveniently placed, where so much wood
grows, so near the sea, and so many ports. They say too that Roman
coins are found at Newington, not far off here.
[Sidenote: +Lemanis+ Portus.]
[Sidenote: TAB. XCIX.]
[Sidenote: TAB. LVIII.]
A little way further, at the end of the Stane-street,[124] the Roman
road from Canterbury; and at a proper distance from thence is the port
of _Lemanis_. I am surprized that some Kentish antiquaries should,
by pretended corrections of the Itinerary, send it farther off to
the southern coasts. As soon as I came to Limne church, looking
from the brow of the hill to the subjacent marshes, I descried the
tattered Roman walls, situate on this southern decline, almost at
the bottom. One would imagine the name came from the _Stone-street_;
for such it literally signifies, _via lapidea_: this is a solid rock
of stone laid out in a strait line between here and Canterbury. Thus
in Yorkshire another Roman road is called _Leming-lane_, from its
stony composure. _Lhe_ signifies a way in British; _maen_, a stone.
Its present appellation of _Studfal_ castle gives occasion to some
uncouth etymologies: without any difficulty I think it derived from
_stæd-weall_, the sea-shore, in Saxon; so that it signifies no more
than _castrum littoreum_. This fine remnant of Roman work, and which
was the garrison of the Turnacensian band, hangs as it were upon the
side of the hill; for it is pretty steep in descent: the walls include
about twelve acres of ground, in form somewhat squarish, without any
ditch: a pretty brook, arising from the rock west of the church, runs
for some space on the east side of the wall; then passes through it,
and so along its lowermost edge by the farm-house at bottom. The
composition of the wall is similar to that of Richborough; but instead
of hewn stone and regular courses, as there, the interval between
the three layers of Roman brick is made of rag-stone: the brick too
is of the same whitish kind, but remarkably thin. I suppose the clay
shrank much in burning. This interval of stone is four feet of Roman
standard: the walls are twelve foot thick, and have some round holes at
equal spaces, that run quite through, as we observed at _Sorbiodunum_
and _Verolanium_ perhaps to let the air in for drying the wall, being
of so great a thickness. Here are several of the circular, or rather
elliptic buttments, as thick as the wall, like those at the castle of
_Garionenum_, near Yarmouth in Norfolk, in plate 58. which my worthy
and learned friend Mr. Hare gave me from his own mensuration. It is a
piece of masonry, I must own, unaccountable to me: they are like round
towers or bastions, but solid; and some scarce join to the wall at the
sides, but go quite through to the inside. The circuit of this wall is
manifest enough on three sides, but that southward is levelled to the
ground: every where else, where not standing, it lies sideways, flat,
close by, in prodigious parcels; or where standing, cracked through the
whole solid thickness, as if Time was in a merry humour, and ruined it
in sport: but I believe it is the effect of design and much labour, as
I said of Richborough: probably the Saxons or Danes thus dismantled
it, to render it useless against their incursions. Where this wall is
standing, it is ten foot high or more, made with excellent cement: on
the eastern side is such another gate, formed by the return of the
wall, as at the place last mentioned. Geo. Hunt, an old man, living in
the farm-house, told me he has found coins here: he says, once
the sea-bank broke, and his house with all the adjacent marshes was
floated: for the level of the ocean is higher than this place; but it
has fenced itself out by raising the ground continually near the shore,
as it does in other like marshes. Whether the sea reached this lower
wall, even in the time of the Romans, I cannot determine; for I do not
believe this was the very port, but the castle belonging to it: that, I
rather think, was somewhat more eastward, about West Hithe; and there,
the town that belonged to it: for they find old foundations frequently
under the side of the hill, laid in strong terrace mortar. The rev. Mr.
Bagnal, minister of the place, informs me, that the field, of about
sixteen acres of ground, adjoining to the church-yard of Limne, is to
this day called the Northern town: nor do they know that it ever had
any other name; which intimates that the Roman town was thereabouts,
lying upon the slope of the hill, as the castle does, and to the east
of it. This port is now called Ship-way, where the _limenarcha_, or
lord warden of the cinque ports, was anciently sworn; where their
courts were kept, and all the pleas relating to these ports: since the
decay thereof, that ceremony is transferred to Dover. This Ship-way
too denominates the _lathe_, or division of the country. Leland says,
the people of Limne had an horn and mace, remaining ensigns of their
authority.
Thus have we conducted our journey, for the space of 500 miles, all
upon Roman roads, to these three famous ports on the eastern shore,
where commonly the great Roman emperors and generals landed from the
continent; and in which we have run over such notices as occurred to us
in thirty-five Roman stations, many camps, and other things of highest
antiquity. The season of the year for expeditions being far spent, it
is time to release your lordship’s patience, and retire into harbour,
concluding with the great Roman wit, in his poetical voyage,
_Lemanis longæ finis chartæque, viæque._
10 Octob. 1722.
[Illustration: 99 LEMANIS Portus _9 Oct. 1722_.
_Dnᵒ. Hans Sloan Barrᵗᵗᵒ._ +M.D.+ _Tabulam d.d. W Stukeley._
_Stukeley Delin_]
[Illustration: 58 GARIONENVM
Borough Castle
_3. Miles S.W. from Great-Yarmouth contains abᵗ 5. acres_
_Statio fuit hæc Præpositi Equitum Stablesianorum sub comite
Limitis Saxonici._
Henrico Hare Armᵒ. GARIONENVM sua manu dimensum consecrat
_W. Stukeley._]
ITER DUMNONIENSE. VI.
_Ipse locis capitur patriis & singula lætus
Exquiritque, auditque virûm monumenta priorum._ +Virg.+
_To my Lord_ PEMBROKE.
I have sometimes in travelling been apt, within my own mind, to make a
comparison between the excellence of the study of Philosophy, and that
commonly called Antiquity, that is, ancient history. The beauties and
the advantage of natural inquiries I cannot but be highly sensible of;
yet I must needs give the preference to the latter, as it more nearly
concerns the rational part of the creation, for whom the whole was
made: it is a comment upon the wonderful volumes of divine wisdom, and
the conduct of providence in the management of its supreme workmanship.
God has given us indeed a large manuscript of his power, and other
adorable attributes, in his wide-extended products, the furniture of
the world; but in man, a more correct epitome of himself; a delegated
immaterial particle of his spirituality, a self-moving principle of
free agency, from the very fountain of all existence. As he is the
great master-wheel and _primum movens_; so we are the subordinate
executors of his mighty purposes, by his direction and superintendence
carrying on the regular government and unseen operations thereof.
Whoever declaims against this, ought to be looked upon as one of a
poor, narrow way of thinking, and who does not deserve so much as that
noble faculty of the soul, reminiscence or memory, which is the same
to a single man, as ancient history is to the whole community: such a
one no more claims the name of a scholar, than he that knows but the
letters of the Alphabet, or whose study consists only in Gazettes. It
is the knowledge of antiquity that can give us a maturity in judgement,
either in persons or things; and how unfit such a one is, that is
destitute of it, in the executing the great offices of life, I need not
inculcate.
But nothing I can say in favour of this subject, can be so great a
panegyric to it, as your lordship’s illustrious name prefixed. The
glorious ardour for this kind of learning, that kindled in your
younger years, and that through a long cultivation of it has produced
a boundless extent of knowledge, with the deepest penetration, the
strongest judgement, the fire of the soul, and all sublimest qualities
which the world admires in your lordship; bears down all opposition to
the study of antiquities, wherein you preside most worthily; wherein no
one dares to be rival, or hopes to be equal. We see the fruits of it in
the best-chosen library of ancient authors, in the best collection of
most ancient coins, statues, busto’s, and learned marbles, which the
world can show. You, my lord, by treading in the steps of the great
Arundel, have brought old arts, Greece and Rome, nay Apollo and all his
Muses, to Great Britain: Wilton is become tramontane Italy.
Every part of learning is your lordship’s province, and sure of your
protection. But I have a particular happiness in laying before you
the following account of this summer’s journey, because the greatest
part of it was by your own direction, and as excursions I made whilst
at your lordship’s most delightful seat at Wilton. I shall begin with
what I observed in my tour about it, and proceed to my more western
perambulation through a country pregnant of antiquities, and the
greatest curiosities in the world.
The _Belgæ_, the ancient inhabitants of this country, were a brave and
warlike people, when on their original continent; and we have no reason
to think, after transplantation on the British soil, they abated aught
of their courage and valour, natural to its inhabitants. These were
one of those powerful nations, whose conquest gave opportunity to the
emperor Vespasian highly to signalize his conduct when he first made a
figure in arms. Hence it is that we find so many camps hereabouts, from
the sea side to the midland parts; many of which were made by him, and
others by his undaunted opposers. The road from Wilton to Shaftesbury,
called the Ten-mile Course, is a fine ridge of downs, continued upon
the southern bank of the river Nader, with a sweet prospect to the
right and left, all the way, over the towns and the country on both
sides: a traveller is highly indebted to your lordship for adding to
his pleasure and advantage, in reviving the Roman method of placing a
numbered stone at every mile, and the living index of a tree to make it
more observable; which ought to be recommended as a laudable pattern
to others: thus C. Gracchus planted a stone at every mile, with the
distance inscribed, says Plutarch; and thus Rutilius, Itinerar. II.
_Intervalla viæ fessis præstare videtur,
Qui notat inscriptus millia crebra lapis._
[Sidenote: +Chiselbury.+]
[Sidenote: Br. _oppidum_.]