Aspects of Kentish Local History

parsimony of their ground by the roadside, to make amends for the great havoc that is made of their soil all along the banks of the Thames by the dealers in lime, who convey it in great quantitites hence for the support of the London builders; so that in this sense those traders may be said as properly to carry Cantium in Londinium, as Æneas did Ilium in Italiam.
   The reason of our visiting this church of Cuxton was in order to see a monument there, which was erected in the year 1603, in memory of Anne Harley, second wife to Sir Robert Harley (and her only son), who is supposed to have died in childbed at a house which is at a little distance below the hill which the church stands upon, called Whorne's Place, and belonged at that time to the family of the Levisons, her relations, whom she came to pay a visit to, and died there. Her monument, which is a very [p.77] handsome one, was this year repaired by the direction and at the expense of my Lord Harley. There is another monument there for one of the Marsham family, which together with another built altarwise to one ............ Bottyler, [John—tomb dating from c.1545] the sometime rector of that church, having a brass plate upon it, is all that is  worth notice there. There was a loose plate likewise, now lying upon  this tomb of Bottyler's which did belong to the gravestone of Master Walter ...............,[really John Turner, ob. 1545] of London, woolpacker; but these inscriptions the Doctor

promised to send a copy of. Here we met a very odd compliment from some of the poor women of the place who strewed mint upon the road out of their  aprons as my Lord passed along. But he stopped their civility, by ordering them a piece of money, with which I dare say they took care to provide something that might be of more use to them in that dry and parching season. The position of this church is somewhat remarkable, for its east end, if I may so call it, stands to the south [Sic] , and this has given occasion to these two lines which are in some manuscripts piece of Dr. Plot's, now in the custody of Dr. Thorpe, in which this place is mentioned and thus taken notice of—

          He that would see a church miswent
          Let him go to Cuckeston in Kent.

   We took a compass from hence to the north-west, to see Cobham church, which is about two miles and a half off, a place of good renown and some resort in times of yore. The hills on the right hand as we came towards it from Cuxton seem very barren, but some part of them have been lately very considerably improved by sowing of cinquefoil, and doubtless the rest will be ordered after the same manner in due time. Cobham church, which is a large and spacious one, stands upon part of the