[A] AYLESFORD is seated on the banks of the Medway, by which the parish is divided. The church is so singularly situated, from being placed on a rising ground, that persons in the churchyard can almost look down the chimnies of the houses. The neighbourhood is famed as having been the spot where, we are told by ancient historians, a sanguinary battle was fought in 445, between the Britons and Saxons; the conflict having taken place about five years after the first landing of the latter in Britain. It appears from our chronicles that Vortimer, then monarch of this island, having first defeated his enemies on the banks of the Darent, in Kent, pursued their routed forces to Aylesford; at which place the Saxons had passed to the eastern side of the Medway, where a most obstinate and bloody battle took place between the contending armies, when the fate of the day, having long remained undecided, at length terminated favourably for the Britons. In that decisive affair, Horsa, brother of Hengist, the Saxon chief, and Catigrinus, brother to King Vortimer, are said to have contended hand to hand, when both died bravely upon the spot. Horsa, | if tradition may be credited, was interred about three miles north of Aylesford, at a spot still bearing the name of Horsted; that is to say, "the place of Horsa;" where, in the adjoining fields, large stones are still dispersed over the soil; some in erect positions, while others, from lapse of time, have been thrown down; being, there is little doubt, placed there as memorials of the Saxon warriors slain in that famous encounter. Prince Cartigrinus is supposed to have been inhumed still nearer the field of slaughter, on the summit of an acclivity, about one mile north of Aylesford, and a quarter of a mile west from the high road leading from Rochester to Maidstone; at which place, Kitt's Cotty House still stands, as represented in our engraving. This memorial consists of four large stones, of the pebble kind, two placed in the ground, being partly upright, forming two sides, a third standing in the middle between them, while the fourth, being the largest, is laid transversely over them, thus forming a covering. None of these stones bear the imprint of the chisel, or any sign whatsoever of manual labour. Alfred and Edmund Ironside defeated the Danes in this vicinity. Sir Charles Sedley, of poetical and dissolute notoriety, was a native of this place; as was also Sir Paul Rycaut, the celebrated eastern traveller. [Sidenote: The site of a Saxon battle.] [Sidenote: Kitt's Cotty House.]