significance here, but it may be noted that it stood by the side of an early roadway which in the southern part of its course may have joined another early road from the direction of Cooling Hill by Gore Green somewhere westward of Tunbrick Cross. At first sight, the identification of the barrow with Eohinga burh of the charter would seem attractive, but it would make it difficult if not quite impossible for the boundary of the grant to have run along any boundary of Murston, and further there is no evidence of this land having been in the hands of St. Andrew's Priory. The second possibility, one which has the support of topography although it also lacks any direct connection with the monks, is Lamb's Wood on Chilton Hills, an area immediately south of the third milestone from Rochester on the north side of the Rochester-Gravesend road. Through this wood the Shorne-Higham parish boundary runs in a north-south line, and with its fine elevated position with extensive views northward over the River, it forms like Cooling Hill a natural boundary-mark. There are distinct traces of a disturbed earthwork scarp on the north side of the Hills, particularly in the gardens of the bungalows on the north side of Walmer Avenue. The scarp presently trends southward and is lost in cultivated ground. In 1862, however, it was much more prominent, and could be seen making a large southern loop, and in the enclosure was a mound of some size.¹ In plan it had nothing in common with a Norman motte-and-bailey, and almost certainly could be regarded as Saxon or

earlier, thus providing good evidence for the suffix of the place-name. The roadway, too, seems clear enough, running from Cooling Hill by Gore Green in a south-westerly direction by a track called Land Way and the forerunner of the existing bridle-way to Higham Upshire.
   If this, as we suppose, was the southern boundary of Offa's grant, the following of the boundary of Mersc tunes fits in very easily with the present western boundary of Higham parish which in part was that of Murston.
   Towards the north the boundary of our piece of land holds to Bulan ham, and so into Merc fleot. Merc fleot is certainly one of the many creeks which empty into the Thames, but the considerable alterations which have taken place in the relative levels of land and river here make any attempt to define the creek more exactly a matter of difficulty. That creek which now bears the boundary of Higham parish on the west is more likely than any other, and by a detailed investigation of the river walls and consideration of the fact that the land was some 15 feet higher than at present, a case could probably be made out for its existence in Saxon times.
   We are left with Bulan ham, which was situated between the fleot and the boundary of Murston. Boleham Meadow mentioned by
   ¹  I am indebted to the Director-General of the Ordnance Survey for permission to examine the original field plan of the 1862 Survey.