PREFACE

As one of the counties most crowded with varied interests, as the scene of many historic events, as the place at which invaders and more peaceful visitors have landed, as the raising ground of a strong yeomanry and of many men of great distinction from the time of the making of England to the present, as the original centre of our national church life, Kent has a peculiarly notable position among the counties of England. Many books have been written dealing with these various aspects of the county, and with its geological features, with its flora and its fauna; others have been devoted to its history, now in large and many-volumed form, now in merest outline; its past has been presented in fiction and in archæological records, there have been many guides dealing with it as a whole, and many more dealing in special fashion with particular centres. A library of respectable dimensions might be made of books concerning Kent, so that it may seem a temerarious act to add yet another to their number. The series to which this volume belongs has, however, established a place of its own in the large class of topographical works. Between the voluminous method of a Hasted or the worthy clergyman who spent his life in collecting materials and would have written a greater history had he had a second life to do it in, and that of the compiler of the useful but necessarily compact "guide," there are many degrees. It is a position between these two extremes

that a volume of the Highways and Byways Series such as this seeks to fill ; while it may answer many of the requirements of a guide book it does not pretend to supplant such a useful companion.

In dividing up a county into subjects for chapters many methods may be followed. Here I have mostly taken a district around some centre from which it may conveniently be explored, and have sought to indicate the nature of the surrounding scenery, to point out the more interesting places to be visited, and to tell something of the men and events associated with them. The object has been to indicate the various attractions of a county peculiarly rich in associations, and including within its limits much beautiful and varied scenery.

From Lambarde, who perambulated Kent nearly three centuries and a half ago, there has been a succession of writers on Kent and to a large number of them the present day writer is necessarily indebted for he is but telling an old tale in a new way. To many who have preceded me in wandering about the highways and byways of Kent I owe much, but special mention must be made of the long series of volumes of the Archæologia Cantiana, a crowded repository of facts which is invaluable to all who would inquire into the past history of Kent. But if the gossiping topographer owes gratitude to predecessors who have worked in the same field he is also grateful to friends and to those acquaintances whom his work has brought him, who have assisted him in compressing much into little,—a large county into a small volume.

In the spelling of place names -in which there is occasional disagreement I have made a rule of following that of the Ordnance Survey maps.

October 17, 1907.

W. J.