England -- Antiquities; England -- Description and travel; Roads -- Great Britain
Henceforward antiquities of every kind were to meet us as we advanced,
because the Old Road on its way to the Straits gained importance with
every ten miles of its way. Tributary roads continually fell into it:
one had come in long ago at Alton, from Portsmouth and the Meon
valley; at Farnham, a second had joined, which as the reader knows was
probably older than the Old Road itself; others at the Guildford gap,
others from the Weald and from the north as well at Dorking, another
at Gatton, another at the Caterham Road: and each would swell the
traffic and the movement upon this principal line of advance towards
the Straits of Dover. More were to come. One of the highest importance
(for it led from London along the valley of the Darent) was to join us
at Otford; the last and perhaps the greatest, beyond the Medway, in
the stretch before Boxley. With each of these the importance and the
meaning of the road developed, and the increasing crowd of memories or
records was like a company coming in on either side to press on with
us to Canterbury.
Before leaving Titsey Park, the Old Road showed another of its
characteristics in passing again just south of the site where the old
church once stood; thenceforward for many miles it becomes a good
modern lane, pursuing its way without deviation for five miles due
east along the slope of the hills. Of this part, as of all such
sections of our way, where a modern road coincides with the
prehistoric way, there is little to be said. The level was not high,
nor the vale immediately beneath us broad. Above us from the main
ridge was granted, I knew by many journeys, that great vision: the
whole southern plain, and above the near sand-hills, at one sweep,
half the county of Sussex. But the matter of our journey forbade the
enjoyment of such a sight, just as the matter of my book forbids me to
speak of the very entertaining people of all kinds who came across us
during these days and days, especially in the inns.
The road continues thus, following a contour between four and five
hundred feet above sea-level, crosses the Kentish Border, and remains
a good, well-kept lane, until it reaches the border of Chevening Park.
The right-of-way along the road across the park (where, of course, it
has ceased to be a lane, and is no more than an indication upon the
turf) has ceased since the passing of an Act of Parliament in the
late eighteenth century, which Act diverts the traveller to the south,
round the enclosure. But the direction taken by the Old Road across
this ground is fairly evident until the last few hundred yards.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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