Aspects of Kentish Local History

eminence of the hill, and has in times past been a collegiate one; and it has at this time several gravestones lying in it with old inscriptions on brass plates, some belonging to the family of the Cobhams, and some to the members of the College. I should have been very sorry not to have had more time to take more particular notice and to transcribe the inscriptions of the most remarkable and ancient of them, had not our kind companion, the physician, promised to send a very faithful account and transcript of them to Lord Haley, which he is very capable of doing, as well as things of far greater consequence, with great exactness. The ruins of the College, which  was founded by one of the Cobhams, [Sir John, ob. 1408] are on the north [Sic] side of the church; and the cloisters belonging to it did join to the church on that side. The ruins of it are now converted into almshouses for some poor people of this and the neighbouring parishes. The old hall on the south side is still standing pretty entire, and is about the bigness of the refectory of Edmund Hall in Oxford, but it is now a mere lumber room. The screen at the entrance into it is likewise entire, as is the door-way into the buttery, which was locked, and now doubtless converted to some other use.
   We moved hence towards the south east, leaving Cobham Hall (the ancient seat of the Cobhams) on the left hand in a bottom as we passed through the park belonging to it, which was formerly noted for its great

extent, so that now where we crossed it from the entrance of the avenue to the end of the pales is reckoned above three miles; but it has now no deer in it, and but very few other creatures that I could see, both that and the great house having the face of great ruin approaching. The estate is now about 2,200l. per annum, but has for some time been contested for at law by .................
   We got into the great Canterbury road again a little above Strood, and into our inn at Rochester betwixt eleven and twelve o'clock, having rode [p.78] that morning about ten miles. Whilst dinner was getting ready we stepped into the cathedral, and had just time to take a very short cursory view of that ancient building, which now looks but very poorly and desolate. I think every one of the brass plates are taken off the gravestones, but there are two or three old monuments still remaining. The oldest, as I remember, is Bishop Lowe's, enclosed in a pew on the south [Sic] side of the choir; it is built with stone, altarwise, and has an inscription still legible, but this, and a modern one very remarkable on Dr. Cæsar, a physician formerly of this place on the left hand as you enter into the church at the south [Sic] gate, is promised to be sent after us by the obliging and good-natured physician who still survives there, and constantly attended us.