The Historical Works of Hilaire Belloc. Hilaire Belloc

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25. The course of this portion may be traced on the ½500 Ordnance (Surrey, XXV. 15) as follows:—Under the old quarry just east of the lime pits, right across the seventy-five acre field marked 42 (which forms the spur), over the railway line and the London Road bridge, and crossing the Mole a few yards north of Pixham Mill. Then right across plot marked 75 to the westernmost isolated tree in plot 74. At this point the Old Road is traceable again.

26. It is possible that it goes over the spur of Brockham Hill. The track is not at all clear for these few yards.

27. Here our track is quite different from that given in the ½500 Ordnance map for Surrey (XXVI. 10), where it is carried along the base of the hill past Buckland Lime Pits. The Ordnance map practically confesses its error, for in the succeeding sheet (XXVI. 11) the Pilgrim's Way reappears suddenly in its right place, at the top of the crest. It is easy for any one who has walked the road to see how this part of it was neglected. It is overgrown with a thick growth, and most of it, though quite plain, is not seen till you are right upon it.

28. The ½500 Ordnance map for Surrey (XXVI. 11) gives the road as going outside the Park. This is an error. It destroys the alignment altogether. The true course of it is: Enters Gatton Park south of the upper lodge, passes through the trees to the left of the carriage drive, forms part of this drive towards bottom of hill near middle lodge. Then enters wood north of Gatton Tower, and appears as terrace along side of hill. Then appears again in avenue leading to east lodge, and so out of the Park.

29. It is denied that the Portus Adurni was Shoreham: but then, everything is denied.

30. On the ½500 Ordnance map for Surrey (XXVII. 5) this track may be followed thus: Along the top of Ockley Wood, across the large fields marked 192 and 189 (rising slightly), and reaching summit towards NE. corner of the next field (168).

31. This field is marked 2 in the ½500 Ordnance map for Surrey (XXVII. 8).

32. The conjecture of the 6-inch Ordnance map for Surrey, that the road plunged down on to the plain before Gravelly Hill, and stayed there till it reappeared again in the Eye Wood, may be dismissed for the following reasons:—(1) There is no trace of it nor of any footpath or trench the whole way; (2) the Old Road never goes into the plain (save to cross a valley) at any other point; (3) the arbitrary straight line in the Ordnance map perversely clings to a very narrow belt of stiff gault! (4) there is no drainage slope on this line; (5) there is no view of the track before one such as is maintained as far as possible throughout the Old Road.

      The conjecture appears to be based upon nothing more than the name, 'Palmer's Wood,' at the turning point of this supposed track.

33. We owed our knowledge of this, as so much else, to Mrs. Adie's book, of which I wish to make continual acknowledgment.

34. The track here is well marked on the ½500 Ordnance map of Kent (XXVIII. 12, XXVIII. 16), first as a footpath (on field 73), then right across the small plantation to the east, past a clump of trees a little east of that (where it is marked by a distinct embankment), and so to the lane which has no local name, but bounds to the north the field numbered 19.

35. Not quite half a mile of it. Snodland itself stands on gravel, which just touches the river at the site of the church and ferry.

36. The full trace of this crossing may be followed in the ½500 Ordnance map for Kent (XXX. 3) as follows:—From Wrotham to (a) The Kentish Drover. The significance of this sign is the use of the Old Road by drovers in order to avoid turnpike charges, (b) on north of the Trottescliffe megalithic monument, under the old quarry there, on past Bunkers to the cross-roads. Then (c) leave present path and go a little east of south under another old pit, and so diagonally across field marked 79 (on map XXX. 4), thus reaching Paddlesworth Farm, when from the (d) ruined chapel the track is marked by the division between fields 72 and 73 till Mark Farm is reached, whence the track is a plain road ultimately becoming the High Street of Snodland. After crossing the river it is a road all the way, passing at last between the two megalithic monuments of the hundred stones and Kit's Coty House.

37. Thus in the immediate neighbourhood alone were the Roman remains of Snodland, of Burham, of Hoborough. The group of a dozen or more round Maidstone, the bronze celts found at Wrotham. Oldbury Camp, the group of Roman foundations and coins at Plaxtol, the British and Roman coins found at Boxley. The megalithic monuments of Addington, of Coldrum, Kit's Coty House, and the hundred stones. The group already mentioned at Aylesford, the camp at Fosbery, the Roman pottery at Thurnham—and this is a very incomplete list.

38. The lane is continuous after Boxley, though not everywhere equally important. North of Hollingbourne it is but a path. It soon becomes a lane again, is enclosed in the private grounds of Stede Hill (Kent,½500 Ordnance map, XLIII. 12), and is but a track for three-quarters of a mile from Lenham quarries. It is lost after Cobham Farm, and reappears as a long hedge and division between fields, and after the pits at Hart Hill becomes a lane again.

39. It has enemies, like all good things. Its neighbours to the south have sung for centuries:—

      'Dirty Charing lies in a hole,

       Has but one bell, and that she stole.'

40. The ½500 Ordnance map of Kent (LV. 10) seems to me to commit a slight error at this point. There is no need to take the Old Road through the gas works. It obviously goes south of the lodge, curls northwards on leaving the park, and is lost in the buildings near the smithy. After this it forms the lane which bounds to the north the fields marked 111 and 119.

41. Here again the 25-inch Ordnance for Kent (LV. 10) draws a conventional straight line which seemed to us erroneous. We took it to go from near Brewhouse Farm along the raised footpath to Whitehill, and then (LV. 6) under the pit, across fields 13 and 67 (not down by Soakham Farm as the map gives it), and so on to the turf where is a raised embankment and a characteristic line of yews.

42. Professor Boyd-Dawkins in connection with his examination of the iron implements found in Bigberry Camp has traced the Old Road for a mile or two westward. The map may be seen in Owens College at Manchester.

43. I would trace it more or less as follows on the 25-inch Ordnance map for Kent (XLIV. 16):—Through the orchards marked 378, 379a there just south of Bowerland, down the valley beyond, and up to Knockholt. But it is all cultivated land, and except for a footpath at the end there is no trace left.

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