The reality of Faversham is perhaps something of a shock on coming to close quarters, following the invitation of that beckoning spire. There are picturesque and stately corners in this ancient, but still thriving, port, but the corners and purlieus that are by no means pleasant are found along the waterside. There are situated vast heaps of rubbish from London dustbins, brought to these quays by barges, for use in the brickmaking that is one of Faversham’s principal means of livelihood. The great heaps and the barges lying by the quays look picturesque enough in an illustration with the church spire for a background, but the cinders and the dust are distressing when a high wind is blowing. [Illustration: FAVERSHAM.] The interior of Faversham church should be seen to be believed. It is a curious example of the eighteenth-century way with ancient Gothic architecture, and discloses an attempt to convert a Gothic nave into an Ionic interior. The effort was a half-hearted one, for while the columns are in the Ionic style, the Perpendicular clerestory windows remain; with, however, a fillet of classic ornament around them. The fine large Early English transepts have not been interfered with. On a pillar of the north transept is a twelfth-century fresco representing the Nativity, and in the chancel remains the brass to one William Thornbury, rector and anchorite, 1481. In the churchyard will be seen this curious epitaph: WILLIAM LEPINE of facetious Memory, Ob. the 11th of March 1778 Æt. 30 Years Alas Where be your gibes now? Your gambols? your flashes of Merriment that were wont to set the Table in a roar? This is, of course, a quotation from _Hamlet_. Lepine, who ended so untimely, was a dissolute and convivial lawyer of Faversham. CHAPTER VII MILTON-NEXT-SITTINGBOURNE--SITTINGBOURNE OLD INNS--MURSTON--LUDDENHAM A curious and but-little-visited part of the Kentish littoral is that which stretches, some eight miles or so, between Iwade, Milton, Sittingbourne, Tonge, and Faversham. It is that part of the country, going down to the low-lying shores of the Swale, which was in olden times spoken of as being possessed of “wealth without health.” The land was, and is still, wonderfully fertile, but in remote days was full of malaria. To-day, as the traveller by the leisurely South-Eastern Railway passes from Sittingbourne, past Teynham to Faversham, he sees orchards and farmsteads, grazing sheep, and many evidences of prosperity and beauty. It seems to him like a Land of Promise. And truly, once past the squalid papermaking and brickmaking purlieus of Sittingbourne, this is a district of exceptional beauty; by no means flat; and rich in orchards of cherry, apple, and pear.