and “Hoo-St.-Werburgh:” and this last has the church above referred to. This is situated on the southern or Medway shore of the Hoo; but on the cliff of the northern side of the elevated core of the peninsula, and over-looking the great reach of the estuary of the Thames, and the broad alluvial level embraced by it, is the town of “Cliffe;” of which the church has the dedication St. Helen. The two churches are just four miles apart. There are several other churches now in the peninsula, but the others have been attributed to these two, of St. Werburgh and St. Helen, as their mother churches, of which the other parishes are ancient offshoots or chapelries. * * * * * Among the most famous names of places in England, during the long aggressive reigns of Æthelbald and Offa, when, for the largest part of the eighth century, the other kingdoms were more or less threatened with the supremacy of Mercia, was that of a place called Cloveshoe or Clovesham.[27] Its celebrity has been, no doubt, much enhanced by its intimate connection with the Church History of that period; but it has shared, with many of the names of the localities of the most important events of the history of those times, in a great deal of uncertainty and controversy as to the actual place. Few monuments of those ages are preserved to us in such multitude as names of places, and in such apparent entireness; but few are of such uncertain and doubtful appropriation. Although we are living in the midst of the scenes of the greatest events of our early history; yet one of the most surprising circumstances is, that of the number of the names of the places that have remained almost unaltered, during the interval of twelve centuries, so few of them can, with any degree of certainty, be identified: so that, although a Gazetteer or Index Locorum of those times would be a most valuable help it would be the most difficult to compile; and, judging from past attempts at contributions to it, impossible to be done with any reasonable approach to trustworthiness. The visible monuments have almost entirely been swept from off the face of the earth. Towns, then of importance and even magnitude, if not now entirely subject to the plough, are only represented by the merest villages; and religious institutions have had their identity drowned by the importation of later monastic orders; and generally by more catholic, but less national or local, dedications. The names of the places, in some few cases identified by immemorial traditions, are often the only indications of the whereabouts of some of the greatest events; but even the names themselves are obscured by the different methods, used in that age and in ours, of distinguishing them from other similar names; and the traditions, which should have preserved them, are interrupted by the long interval, between the events themselves, and the time at which the names first come again into our sight.