In Kent we find Farnborough, Frindsbury, Wateringbury, Hildenborough,
Pembury, Cobhambury, Southborough, Oldbury, Bigbury, Glassenbury, two
Hawkenburies, Holborough, Howbury, Scadbury, Goodbury, Eastbury,
Fallburie, Stockbury (where the ditch and bank had been supplemented by
a palisade of stocks, the predecessor of our fathers’ cheveaux de frise
in warlike defence), Binbury, Westborough (in Maidstone above and
defending the Medway), Woodnesbury, Willesborough, Queenborough,
Richborough, Bidborough, Marshborough, Statenborough, Tattlebury,
Downbury, Hockenbury, Dunbury and Tatlingbury—a long list which
predicates long years, or rather centuries, of fighting in defence, as
much as my previous list of forestal names proves how much of Kent was
covered with woods.
Some of these, like Oldbury and Bigbury, are undoubtedly old British
camps or forts; others were adapted, or newly made, by Romans and,
later, by Saxons, while again later still a Norman castle might be
reared on the old strategic spot, as in the case of Thornham Castle,
near me. Flinders Petrie, however, says that “many sites which by their
name of bury suggest a camp or fort are now bare of remains.” So he
writes after examining Downbury Farm, near Pembury, Hockenbury, and
Dunbury, near Staplehurst, Tattlebury near Headcorn, Tatlingbury near
Capel, Perry Hill near Cooling, Pembury, Frindsbury and Wateringbury.
Our Barrows in Kent are mainly small, graves rather than mounds, but we
have the place-names Barrow Green, Barrow Hill near Ashford, and Barrow
Hill by Sellindge.
Our “Hithes.”
Hithe is the Saxon for haven, or place where ships could lie, and Hythe
(Heda in Domesday Book, and Hee in a deed of 1229) was near the edge of
the sea when history begins; but West Hythe, which is now three miles
from the sea, was the old port used by the Romans and by them called
Limene, the harbour. Hence our modern Lympne—Portus Lemanis, in which
the p is a modern addition. I find it Limene in 1291, Lymen in 1396,
Limne in 1475, and Lymne in 1480.
Then, right in the Weald, is the hamlet of Smallhythe, three miles south
of Tenterden. Down to 1509, however, there was a channel from the sea up
to here.
Newheth, or New Hythe, is a hamlet of East Malling—and it was a sort of
port (or perhaps a wharf) on the Medway for shipping goods from South
Kent and the Weald.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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