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That such and such Causes determined the Track of the Old Road, and that it ran from Winchester to Canterbury

If one looks at a map of England in relief one sees that five great ridges of high land come, the first from just east of north, the second from the north-east, the third and fourth from the east, and the fifth from the south and west, to converge on Wilts and the Hampshire border.

Roughly speaking, their area of convergence is Salisbury Plain, and it has been suggested that Avebury and Stonehenge drew the importance of their sites from this convergence; for these continuous high lands would present the first natural highways by which a primitive people could gather from all parts of the island.

The advantages afforded in the matter of travel by such hills (which are called in great parts of their course the Cotswold, the Chilterns, the North Downs, the South Downs, and the Dorsetshire Downs) are still quite plainly apparent if a man will follow them on foot.

He will see from the heights even to-day the remains of the woodland which made the valleys and the wealds originally far more difficult to traverse. He will note the greater dryness of these heights, and he will remark, if he contrast his cross-country going on the hills with that of the valleys, that the geological formation of these heights, with their contours, fit them peculiarly for an original means of communication.

Four out of the five are great dry, turf-covered ridges of chalk, steep towards the summer sun. The fifth range, the Cotswold, though oolitic and therefore greasy under foot, is at the summit of its western escarpment much drier than the valleys; for that escarpment is steep, and drains off well into the valley of the Severn.

When one has once recognised the importance of these five radiating lines of hills and of their point of convergence, one will next see that of the five, one in particular must have had an especial value perhaps in the very earliest times, and certainly in all the centuries just preceding the historic period, during which Britain, from similarities in religion, language, and blood, was closely connected with the Continent. The passage westward from the Straits of Dover to the Hampshire centres must have been by far the most important line of traffic. We know that it has been so continuously in historic times, and it is easy to prove that long before the opening of our national history with the Roman invasions, some east-to-west road must have been the leading road of England.

Few of the following considerations are new, but all are to the purpose:

1. The Straits of Dover are the natural entry into the country. The nature of that entry, and its very great effect upon the development of our island, I will discuss later in connection with the town of Canterbury. How far the Straits may have a rival lower down the Channel I will discuss in connection with the town of Winchester. For the present, the main point is that in the earliest times, whoever came in and out of the country came in and out most easily by the only harbours whence the further shore is visible.

2. When the Straits had been crossed and England entered, whither would the principal road lead? The conformation of Kent forced it westward, for the Thames estuary forbade a northern, the only alternative route.

One track of great importance did indeed go north and west, crossing near London. It was later known as the Watling Street; it was the artery which drained the Midlands; it became the connection with sacred Anglesey, ultimately the northern door into Ireland.

But no northern road—whether leading as did the Watling Street to Chester, or bending round as did the Icknield Way north-east after passing the ford of the Thames, or taking the island in diagonal as did the Fosse Way, or leading from London to the Humber as did the Ermine Street, or up at last to the Wall as did the Maiden Way—none of these could have a principal importance until the Romans invented frontiers: frontier garrisons to be fed, and frontier walls to be defended. Before their time this northern portion of England, split by the barren Pennines, hardly cultivated, leading nowhere, could not have been a goal for our principal road. That must have run to the south of Thames, and must have led from the Straits to the districts of which I have spoken—Hampshire, the Mendips, the Wiltshire Hills, Devonshire, and Cornwall.

3. The west of the island contained its principal supplies of mineral. Lead indeed was found and exploited in the north, but perhaps not before the Romans, whereas the variety and the amount of the wealth in the valley of the Severn and the peninsula beyond gave all that region an economic preponderance over the rest of the island. Tin, an absolute necessity for the Mediterranean civilisation, was certainly found in Cornwall, though the identification of the Scilly Islands with the Cassiterides is doubtful.

The Mendips formed another metallic centre, presumably richer than even the Devonian peninsula. Lead certainly came in early times regularly from these hills, and Gloucester remained till the Middle Ages associated with the tax on iron.

4. There is a fourth aspect of the matter: it is of a sort that history neglects, but it is one the importance of which will be recognised with increasing force if the public knowledge of the past is destined to advance. It is that powers mainly resident in the mind have moulded society and its implements.

That economic tendency upon which our materialists lay so great a stress is equally immaterial (did they but know it) with the laws they profess to ignore, and is but one form of the common power which human need evokes. A man must not only eat, he must eat according to his soul: he must live among his own, he must have this to play with, that to worship, he must rest his eyes upon a suitable landscape, he must separate himself from men discordant to him, and also combat them when occasion serves. The south-west of England has had in this region of ideas from the earliest times a special character and a peculiar value. It is one in spirit with Brittany, with Ireland, and with Wales; nor is it by any means certain that this racial sympathy was the product of the Saxon invasions alone. It is possible that the slower and heavier men were in Kent before Caesar landed, it must be remembered that our theory of 'waves of population' perpetually pressing aborigines westward remains nothing but a theory, while it is certain that the sheltered vales and the high tors would nourish men very different from those of the East Anglian flats or the Weald.

Now one of the forces which helps to produce a road is the necessity of interchange—what physicists call potential—a difference between opposite poles. Such a force is to be discovered in the permanent character of the west; its permanent differentiation from our eastern seaboard. Nor is it fantastic to insist upon the legends which illumine this corner of the island. Glastonbury was for centuries the most sacred spot in our country, and it was sacred precisely because confused memories of an immense antiquity clung round it. The struggle between the Romano-British princes and the heathen pirates, a struggle the main effort of which must have taken place much further east, is yet fixed by legend in that same land of abrupt rocks and isolated valleys which forms the eastern margin of the Bristol Channel, and Arthur, who was king if anything of the Logrians, yet has been given by tradition a castle at Tintagel.

To the west, then, would the main road have gone so far as the mind could drive it.

5. The eastern and western road would have been the main artery of southern England, just as the Icknield Way (the north-eastern and south-western one along the Chilterns) would have been the main artery from the Midlands and from the men of the Fens, just as the road along the Cotswold would have been the artery along the Severn valley and from the bend of this at the Wrekin on up into the Fells and the Pennines; and just as that along the Dorsetshire Downs would have been the great means of communication for the Devonian peninsula.

Now of all these districts, the first was by far the most important. Southern and eastern England, Hampshire, Surrey, Sussex, south Berkshire, were the most open and the best cultivated areas, enjoyed the best climate, and were most in touch with the civilisation of the Continent. It is true to say that right down to the industrial revolution the centre of gravity of England lay south of the Thames. In the actual fighting the south always conquered the north, and whereas influence monastic and constitutional would spread from either end of the island, it was the southern which ultimately survived.

There is more. It was along the green-sand ridge of south England that neolithic man had his principal seat. The getting of iron sprang up before history on the red stone of the Sussex weald; it remained there till our grandfathers' time. The oaks that grew from Kent to Devon, along so many creeks from the Rother to the Tamar, built our first ships. They remained our resource for this industry till the Napoleonic wars. The Victory was launched in Beaulieu River, and the first eye-witness, Caesar, heard that in cultivation the south had preceded the north.

6. Finally, not only was the district the best in England to develop an important road, but the platform or site for that road was ready provided, and invited use much more definitely than did any other way from the narrow seas up into the island.

* * * * *

With this last point I am led to describe the natural causeway which seems to call for a traveller landing in Kent to use it if he would go westward, or for one leaving the inland country to use it as the last part of his journey eastward towards the sea—I mean those heights which are called in their entirety the North Downs.

There runs from the neighbourhood of the Straits of Dover right across south England, in a great bow, a range of hills which for its length, unchanging pattern and aspect, has no exact parallel in Europe.

A man who should leave the Straits with the object of reaching the Hampshire centres would find a moderately steep, dry, chalky slope, always looking full towards the southern sun, bare of trees, cut by but three river valleys (and but one of these of any width), not often indented with combes or projecting spurs: this conspicuous range would lead him by the mere view of it straight on to his destination.

When you have turned the corner of the valley of the Stour, you can see for miles and miles the Kentish Downs like a wall pointing on over the Medway to Wrotham and the villages beyond. When you reach that projecting shoulder of Wrotham Hill you can still see on for miles and miles the straight, clean-cut embankment of chalk inviting you to pursue it westward at such a height as will clear the last cultivation of the valleys, and as will give you some view of your further progress. The end of each day's march is clearly apparent from the beginning of it, and the whole is seen to lie along this astonishingly homogeneous ridge. You do not lose that advantage for perhaps four days of going until you reach the valley of the Wey and the Guildford Gap; and even then for many miles further, though no longer on the chalk but on the sand, a sharp hillside, still looking at the sun, is afforded you in the Hog's Back.

You may say that from the Straits of Dover to Farnham, Nature herself laid down the platform of a perfectly defined ridge, from which a man going west could hardly deviate, even if there were no path to guide him.

THESE PITS WHICH UNCOVER THE CHALK BARE FOR US

See page 191

From Farnham to the converging point near Salisbury, where he would meet the northern, the western, and the south-western roads, no definite ridge continued; but high rolling downs of chalk gave him good enough going, and led him along a water-parting which saved him the crossing of rivers, and afforded for his last two or three days a dry and firm soil.

Such, we must presume, was the full course of the original Road from east to west. To put it the other way round, and give from west to east the primeval track from the centre of south England to the Straits of Dover, we may say that it would leave Stonehenge to enter Hampshire near Quarley Hill, leave Bury Hill Camp on the right, pass near Whitchurch, and so proceeding eastward, following the southern edge of the watershed, would enter Farnham by the line of 'Farnham Lane'; it would thence follow the southern side of the range of hills until it reached the sea above the Portus Lemanis—the inlet which covered the marshy plain below the present village Lympne.

Such was undoubtedly the earliest form of the Old Road, but upon this original trajectory two exceptions fell in a time so remote that it has hardly left a record. The western end of the Road was deflected and came to spring, not from Stonehenge, but from the site of Winchester; the eastern portion was cut short: it terminated, not at some port, but at Canterbury, inland.

Why did Winchester come to absorb the traffic of the west, and to form the depôt and the political centre of southern England? Why did Canterbury, an inland town, become the goal of this long journey towards the narrow seas?

The importance of the one and of the other can be explained. Let me take them in order, and begin first with Canterbury.

The Causes of the Development of Winchester and Canterbury, and of their Position as Termini of the Old Road

The Straits of Dover fill the history of this island because they have afforded our principal gate upon a full life.

All isolated territories—valleys difficult of entry, peninsulas, islands—have this double quality: they are not sufficient to live a full life of themselves, but, receiving sufficient material of civilisation from the larger world outside, they will use it intensively and bring it to the summit of perfection.

Cut off, they wither. Nowhere does humanity fall more abject and lethargic than in such defended places, if the defence be too long maintained. But let them admit from time to time the invasion of armies or ideas, and nowhere does humanity flourish more densely or higher. The arts, the fierce air of patriotism, in whose heat alone the gems of achievement can form, the solution of abstract problems, the expression of the soul in letters—for all these things seclusion provides a special opportunity. It protects their origins from the enemies of seeds, it nurtures their growth with the advantage of a still air, it gives them a resting-place for their maturity.

The valleys prove my thesis. The abandoned valleys of Savoy and Piedmont are goitrous, smitten, sterile. They are the places where, in the Middle Ages, vapid degradations of religion (the Waldensian for instance) could arise; they are the back-waters of Europe. Contrast with them the principal and open valleys; the valley of the Grésivaudan, a trench sown with wealth and vigour, the dale which is the backbone of strong Dauphiné, or that valley of the Romanche from which the Revolution sprang, or that of the Ticino which comes down from the Alps to the Italian plain, rejoicing like a virgin stepping forward into the ample day of her womanhood, arms open and all informed with life. Remember the Limagne and the Nemosian vineyard; I could think that God had made these half-secluded places to prop up our fading memories of Paradise.

And as the valleys, so the islands also prove it. Consider Crete, Cyprus, Sicily—for the matter of that our own island—what they can be when they are linked with neighbouring civilisation, and what when they are cut off.

The place of landing, therefore, is always capital and sacred for islands, and with us that place was chiefly the Kentish shore.

It might seem natural that some special haven upon that shore should absorb our traditions and receive our principal road. It was not so. Canterbury, and no port, received that road and became the nucleus of worship in the island. Why?

Canterbury, and not some port, is the terminus of the Old Road, on account of the effect of the tide in the Straits of Dover. The bastion of Kent, jutting out into the sharpest current of the narrow seas, distorts and confuses the violent tides of the Channel. Now complexity of tides involves a multiplicity of harbours, and many neighbouring harbours among which seamen choose as necessity may drive them, involve a common centre inland.

That is the whole of my argument.

We have already seen how necessarily this corner of England will attract exit and entry. The most powerful emotion connected with that attraction was the sight of land. There is but one small section of the continental coast whence England, the sun shining on the chalk cliffs, can be clearly seen; and it can be so seen but upon certain days, say one day out of three. The little section lies between Sangatte and Ambleteuse. Here a great hill, whose seaward projection is the cape of Gris Nez, affords a good look-out, and hence I say that at least 120 days out of the year the further shore is visible. On rarer occasions it may be got beyond Calais on the east, and as far as the high sandhills near Etaples on the south and west.

Similarly there is but a small section of the Kentish coast whence the further shore can be seen. It extends from the South Foreland, you may say, to the hill above Folkestone; half a day's walk. There are days when you can see it as far north as Ramsgate Hill, but those days are rare; further west than Folkestone it is hardly ever seen (for the country is flat) save under conditions of mirage, such as startled the people of Hastings at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

There are from the continental side no good starting-points from the coast immediate to Gris Nez; it is rocky, uncertain, and unprovided with inlets. Calais, to the east, was probably the earliest port of departure. Here, at least, is a hole in the land, and there are two considerations which make it probable that the earliest men would start from this side of Gris Nez rather than the other. The first is that they could run as far as possible sheltered from the prevailing winds—for these come from the west and south-west; with such winds they would, up to the point of Gris Nez, be in calm water, while if they started from Boulogne they would have no such advantage. The second is that they could run with an ebb tide down to Gris Nez, and then if the wind failed so that they could not cross in one tide, the flood would be to their advantage when they neared the English coast. It would take them up again under lee of the land, round the South Foreland to Sandwich. From Boulogne they would have to start without shelter, run up on a flood tide, and if they missed that tide they might have drifted down again under the full force of the prevailing wind, any distance along the English coast. Boulogne ultimately became the principal port of exit and entry. It was certainly so used by the Romans; but Calais must, I think, have been the earliest starting-point.

From Calais, then, the run would have been made to the English shores.

But when we note the conditions of this corner of England several things strike us. In the first place, the number of the harbours. These included originally Winchelsea, Rye, the Portus Lemanis, Dover, Richborough, Reculvers; in all six harbours in this small stretch of coast. If we look at the place to-day we find something similar; men will attempt Rye, they will make Folkestone or Dover for choice; Sandwich at a pinch in quite small boats. Ramsgate after Dover gives the best of modern opportunities. There is something more. Most of these harbours were and are bad; most of them were and are artificial.

It is true that in ancient times the strait which divided the Island of Thanet from the mainland afforded an excellent shelter at either end. Reculvers was at one end, and the island of Rutupiae (Richborough) at the other. If one could not get into Richborough and was carried round the North Foreland, one could always beat round into Reculvers; but Dover was not much of a harbour; the Port Lemanis must have been open to the south wind and was probably very shallow; Rye, though better than it is now, was never a steep shore, and was always a difficult place to make. The modern harbours may, without exaggeration, be described as every one of them artificial. Folkestone is distinctly so. The old harbour of Dover has silted up centuries ago, and the gas works of the town are built over its site. Ramsgate would be of no value but for the two constructed piers.

Now what is the meaning of this multiplicity, and of all this interest in preserving such a multiplicity even by artificial means? The tide is the clue to the problem.

Consider a man starting from the continental shore to reach England; consider him sailing with a fresh breeze, for if the breeze was not fresh his chances of crossing in a reasonable time and of making any particular place of landing were small. Consider the fact that if he crossed in a fresh breeze that breeze would be, three times out of four, from the south or west. He runs under the lee of Gris Nez, and when he is beyond that point of rock, he gets into the short, sharp tumble of the sea which is raised by such a wind against the tide, for he has started at the ebb. He runs down with the wind abeam perhaps as far as the end of the Varne (where we now have the Varne Buoy), for the tide so takes him. He sees the water breaking and boiling at this shallow place. It settles near the turn of the tide. He holds on easily, making less westing and pointing well up to the shore. There opens before him a broad but very shallow lagoon with probably some central channel which he knows. He enters and has made the most favourable of the many crossings he knows. It is the Portus Lemanis—our Lympne.

But there are other chances. The wind might fail him, or the wind might so increase that he had to run before it. Did it fail him he would be caught by the flood tide some miles from land. He would drift up along the English shore, getting a few hundred yards nearer with every catspaw, and looking impatiently for some place to which he could steer. The dip in the cliffs at Dover would give him a chance perhaps. If he missed that he would round the South Foreland; he would have the advantage of smooth water, and he would make for the island Rutupiae, which stood at the southern entrance of the strait between the Isle of Thanet and the mainland. If his bad luck preserved, he might be swept up in what we now call the Gull Stream round the North Foreland; but the tide would have been making so long by this time as to be curling round Longnose, and even without the wind he could trust to it almost alone to make Reculvers. Similarly if the wind made him run before it and caused him to miss the Portus Lemanis, he would have the advantage of a weather shore once he was round the South Foreland, and could run with smooth water under him into Rutupiae.

With the prevalent winds, then, and the tidal conditions of the Straits, a multiplicity of harbours was a necessity for this crossing. In a tideless sea—such as the Mediterranean—one harbour, and one alone, would have absorbed the trade of Kent. Under our tidal conditions, a coast most ill-provided was compelled to furnish no less than six.

I could add, were I not afraid of confusing the reader, many other examples of this necessity. For instance, when one runs from the Belgian ports, or Dunkirk, to England, ever so little a change in the wind may make it necessary to go north above the North Foreland. Again, there is the barrier of the Goodwins, which, in spite of legend, is probably prehistoric. If you could not get well south of that barrier at the first trial you had to go north of it. Everything has compelled men, so far, to provide as many chances as possible upon this coast, and at the present day the breakwater at Folkestone, the desperate attempt which many still make to use the harbour of Rye, to some extent the great works of Dover, the poor relic of Sandwich, the continual improvement of Ramsgate, point to the same necessity. Perhaps some refuge less distant from the sea than the estuary of the Swale will be made again to replace Reculvers upon the north of the Kentish coast.