the road now north-west of the present way to
Canterbury.
Sarr formerly had its church, which was dedicated to St.
Giles. It is not recorded in Domesday, but is sketched in the early map of
Thanet above described. Hasted tells us, that in the 41st Edward III. (1368)
its poverty is alluded to, and it is mentioned in the time of Richard II.
as being exempted from the tenth; but at what period it ceased to be used
for Divine Service is unknown; we know, however, that during the
fourteenth century it fell into decay, probably through the decrease of
the inhabitants by the loss of the importance once attached to Sarr when
it owned a haven and a ferry. Hasted has placed the church at a distance
of forty rods from the village, on the road leading from Sarr to Monkton;
but investigations which have arisen out of these recent researches have
revealed the site of a church at a distance considerably greater from the
hamlet, upon the second bluff of a large chalk-pit on the road to |
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Ramsgate, and in a direct
line between Elm-stone windmill and St. Nicholas church.
The road that passes it was anciently denominated the Dun
Strete, or "Street over the Down." It appears from the map
before-mentioned to have gone in a straight line from the ferry to St.
Lawrence’s, and was probably a Roman, or perhaps a British road. Over
this ancient way must have passed the Saxons when they landed at Ebb’s
Flete, in 447, shortly afterwards to make the conquest of Kent, and
subsequently of England. Then, and much later, Thanet was covered with
woods, the tradition of which is still preserved in the names of various
hamlets and holdings. The rising land especially, stretching from St
Nicholas towards Birchington, was one continuous forest; a spot which is
still denoted by a sea-mark, where the timber was once consumed. In
these woods. as Lewis tells us, were to be |