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made a Roman holiday. In 1843 the British
Archæological Association, fostered by those zealous antiquaries
Charles Roach Smith and Thomas Wright, held its first Congress at
Canterbury under the distinguished Presidency of Lord Albert Conyngham,
afterwards Lord Londesborough. For the edification of the Congress
several Saxon barrows had been opened on the President's estate at
Bourne Park near Canterbury, and as in those days barrows could nearly
always be relied upon for antiquarian entertainment, then it may have
been that plans were made for the turning over of Holborough. At any
rate in the following summer Wright and his noble patron came to stay at
The Friars at Aylesford, where they gathered round them the persons
proper to attend upon the digging of a barrow, namely the local clergy,
their ladies, an Oxford undergraduate, Aretas Akers by name, and a dozen
labourers. Wright thus describes their progress:1
"It was the labour of four long days to cut entirely |
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through
the barrow; but we who were not absolutely diggers contrived to pass our
time to the full satisfaction of all the party. We had hired one of the
boats which are used in this part of the country for carrying the
amateur toxophilites along the Medway to their archery meetings; and
each morning after an early breakfast we were rowed down the river,
which is here picturesque and singlularly tortuous, to the place of
landing. A plentiful supply of provisions had been procured for
picnicing on the hill and we remained by the barrow all day, watching
and directing operations."
The barrow was at that time about 20 feet high from the natural chalk,
its diameter was some 93 feet, and the circumference was (and is)
difficult to determine adjudged to be rather more than 200 feet.
1 Wright in Arch. Journ.,
I (1844), p. 262, and Gentleman's Magazine, December 1852, pp.
568-71, and Wanderings of an Antiquary (1854), pp. 186-189.
George Payne, Collectanea Cantiana (1893), p. 136. |