The great Early English church adjoins the castle, originally one of the numerous seats of the Archbishops of Canterbury, and afterwards for centuries a farmhouse. This interesting building, with remains of fourteenth-century work, was sold about 1907 to Mr. F. J. Tennant, the millionaire brother-in-law of Mr. Asquith. Until that time the public had access to the place; but it has since been restored and huge additions made, wholly changing the aspect of the spot. Before these developments it was possible to wander anywhere at will about the ruins of the castrum on the undercliff; but now one is restricted, and goes between limits of barbed-wire, and hedged in with threatening prohibitions. It is to be observed that never before in all its history had the castle suffered siege or violence, until this transformation had been effected. And then its warlike history began, in the determined irruption of a band of those “bold, bad ones,” the silly suffragettes, who stormed the terraces and flung stones through the dining-room windows during one of Mr. Asquith’s visits. The great gods laugh at the exquisite irony of the situation! From the ridge on which Lympne is placed one looks down over the whole extent of Romney Marsh, with the Military Canal down in the foreground, and out in middle distance the curving sweep of the shore, accented at intervals by the line of martello towers. It is beautiful by day, but touched to nobility at night, under the gleam of the harvest moon. [Illustration: LYMPNE CASTLE AND CHURCH.] Half a mile out of Lympne, on the way to Aldington, a rough and obscure lane turns to the left, out of the road, between some new residences which have just been built. It is not at first a particularly inviting way, but it leads to a singular undercliff scene, where an ancient cottage, completely wrapped in creepers, even to roof and chimneys, stands on a plateau which has the appearance of having slid bodily half way down the cliff. This indeed is exactly what, in the words of Hasted, the historian of Kent, did happen one night in the year 1727. So evenly and silently did this take place that the farmer and his wife knew nothing of it until they awoke next morning to the new point of view presented from their windows. The cottage is known as the “French House,” from the fine view hence of the coast of France.