In spite of its many interesting associations there is now little that is distinctive about modern Eltham. Its church, however, retains the quaint wooden tower and shingle spire of an earlier building, and {124} there are a few fine old mansions in the neighbourhood, notably the Elizabethan Well Hall, now a farmhouse, in which Sir Thomas More's favourite daughter, Margaret Roper, lived for some time. Two densely populated suburbs, that not long ago were remote and secluded villages, picturesquely built on the Ravensbourne, are Lee and Lewisham, the former connected with Eltham Palace by a subterranean passage which was discovered in 1836, and is supposed to have formed part of a complete system of communication between the latter and the outer world. Its exit from the Eltham end was protected by massive iron gates beneath the moat, near to which a flight of steps led down to a strong-room, probably used as a hiding-place for treasure, though, strange to say, there are no local traditions concerning it. [Sidenote: Chiselhurst] All that is now left at Lee to recall the old days when it was an outlying hamlet of Eltham, is the tower of the ancient parish church; and Lewisham, the name of which means the homestead in the meadow, is even more modernised, though its history can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon times, when it seems to have formed part with Greenwich and the two Coombes of one property that was given, as related above, by Ethelruda, a niece of King Alfred to the Abbey of St. Paul's at Ghent, in connection with which a Benedictine priory was founded at Lewisham, the memory of which is preserved in the name of the Priory Farm occupying its site. Another suburb in close touch with Eltham is Mottino-ham that retains more of its rural character than either {125} Lee or Lewisham; and not far away are the still pretty villages of Rushey Green, Catford, and Catford Bridge. More celebrated than any of these, however, is the important settlement of Chislehurst, that, owing chiefly to the exceptional beauty of its situation on a lofty common, defended from encroachment by a natural rampart of woods, seems likely to be able long to defy the levelling influences which have spoiled so many of the districts of outlying London.