Something too we may learn at Bethersden of the true nature of the Weald. I shall have something to say of this later, but here at any rate the curiously difficult character of this country in regard to the going may be understood, though of course less easily now than of old. It is said that before, at the end of the eighteenth century, the excellent system of roads we still use was built up, the ways hereabouts were so bad--they are still far from good--that when spring came it was customary to plough them up in order that they might dry off. We hear of great ladies going to church in carriages drawn by teams of oxen. Hardly passable after rain, the roads, says Hasted, were "so miry that the traveller's horse frequently plunged through them up to the girths of the saddle; and the waggons sank so deep in the ruts as to slide along on the nave of the wheels and axle of them. In some few of the principal roads, as from Tenterden hither, there was a stone causeway, about three feet wide, for the accommodation of horse and foot passengers; but there was none further on till near Bethersden, to the great distress of travellers. When these roads became tolerably dry in summer, they were ploughed up, and laid in a half circle to dry, the only amendment they ever had. In extreme dry weather in summer, they became exceedingly hard, and, by traffic, so smooth as to seem glazed, like a potter's vessel, though a single hour's rain rendered them so slippery as to be very dangerous to travellers." The roads in fact were and are, little more than lanes between the isolated woods across the low scrub of the old Weald. The church of Bethersden is dedicated to St Margaret. It follows the local type having a nave with north and south aisles and a chancel with north and south chapels, vestry, south porch and western tower. The place is not mentioned in Domesday Book, but about 1194 we find Archbishop Herbert confirming the church of St Margaret of Beatrichesdenne, with the chapel of Hecchisdenne (Etchden) to the Priory of St Gregory in Canterbury. No sign of this Norman church remains, the building we see in Bethersden being mainly Perpendicular; but the double lighted windows at the west end of the north aisle are Early English and there is a Decorated niche under the entrance to the rood left. The tower is modern, but possesses a fourteenth century bell. It is curious that though the church is dedicated to St Margaret and the fair, according to Hasted, was held upon July 20th, St Margaret's day, the place should be spoken of as Beatrichesdenne as though there were some local St Beatrice; but of her we know nothing.