And having duly noted this elegy of a truly admirable man, we may leave Milton, pausing but to look down upon the estuary of the Thames, where the great liners pass to and fro the most distant parts of the world, and also to consider the humours of a hundred years ago, when, as now, Milton was in the corporate jurisdiction of Gravesend, and when it sufficed both to employ one watchman between them. This watchman was also Common Crier, and was supported, not by a salary, but (like a hospital) by voluntary contributions. And he did not do badly by the grateful Gravesenders, for he collected, one year with another, L60, which, added to the market-gardening business he also carried on, must have made quite a comfortable income. [Sidenote: DENTON] A little way beyond Milton, where the road curves round to the right, there will be seen on the left an eighteenth-century mansion, standing in extensive grounds. Immediately within the lodge-gates is what looks like a small church, surrounded by trees. It is older and far more interesting than it seems to be. Until 1901 it was, in fact, a roofless ruin; but it was then restored by Mr. George M. Arnold, who then owned Denton Court, the name of the house. The church, now used as a private chapel by the owner of Denton Court, was in fact Denton Chapel, the place of worship of the parish of Denton, which was ecclesiastically separate from Milton until 1879. Denton is a place so small that few maps condescend to notice it, but it is an ancient place, first named in A.D. 950, as "Denetune," when the manor was given by one Byrhtric to the Priory of St. Andrew at Rochester, which built this chapel of St. Mary. It was on the dissolution of the monasteries in the time of Henry the Eighth that it fell into ruin. [Illustration: DENTON CHAPEL.] The chapel is of literary interest, for it is the original of Barham's "Ingoldsby Abbey." In travelling between Canterbury and London by coach, Barham noticed the ruined walls standing up, silhouetted against the sky, and looking far more important than intrinsically they were; for this was then a cleared space, the new road near by having in 1787 been cut actually through the little churchyard. Commentators in various editions of the _Ingoldsby Legends_ have stated sceptically "the remains of Ingoldsby Abbey will be found--if found at all--among the 'Chateaux en Espagne.'" That is not so; for here it is. Barham himself, in a note to the legend "The Ingoldsby Penance," remarks the ruins are "still to be seen by the side of the high Dover road, about a mile and a half below the town of Gravesend." ... near The great gate Father Thames rolls sun-bright and clear, Cobham woods to the right--on the opposite shore Laindon Hills in the distance, ten miles off, or more; Then you've Milton and Gravesend behind--and before You can see almost all the way down to the Nore.