Aspects of Kentish Local History

IN the present melancholy conditions for both writers and printers, it is hoped that the following pages (perhaps of no great weight) may provide an interesting pot-boiler and a further contribution to the records of Kentish topography. Unlike the "Tour in 1735" which I published in Arch. Cant., XLIII (1931), the present material has already got into print. But after more than forty years, and considering the recondite field in which it appeared, it seems nearly as remote from the reach of the ordinary reader as does the original manuscript. Because of this and the interesting flashes of contemporary life and observation, I hope the tour may be acceptable. One could wish there were any comment on the goal when reached at Canterbury, but there the record tantalizingly stops dead.
   I have not been able, thus far, to identify the writer of these notes, nor, apparently, had the Historical MSS. Commission. Perhaps he was the private secretary of the noted Lord Harley. All that emerges from the text is that he was a Welshman (like the two or three clergymen mentioned at Dartford); a man with an interest in monumental inscriptions; and (see under Faversham) a person with some antipathy towards Nonconformists.

Some further hint of his dislikes is met with early in the matter of the picture at Lambeth House.* There also the reader should note the astonishing story of the guide who stated that Holbein's portrait of Warham was 800 years old. Those looking up the 1735 tour will find another case where the custodian of portraits appeared to know nothing about them.
   The writer is evidently not strong on points of the compass, as a marginal sic will remind the reader from time to time.
   The game of cricket at Dartford is of distinct interest, in pre-Hambledon days, and it is an even earlier reference than the match between Kent and Sussex at Lewes, recorded in the Sussex part of the 1735 tour. †
   * The text already uses the modern title of "Palace" for the archiepiscopal manor-house of Lambeth, connected with the see of Canterbury since c. 1190. But "Lambeth House" was still in common use in the eighteenth century; and strict usage limits the word "Palace" to an episcopal residence in the cathedral city exclusively. --- V.J.T.
   † See regarding this Lord Harris's History of Kent Cricket (1907). On p. 34 is the record of a match played in 1705 between Malling and Chatham and, at the above date, one between Tonbridge and Dartford. The paragraph on pp. 60 and 61 is quoted on p. 12 of Lord Harris's History.—ED.