16 FEBRUARY 1889, Page 11

THE PILGRIMS' ROAD.

IT is not a great thoroughfare engineered and paved for traffic, like Watling Street, joining now, as it did in Roman times, great markets and factories, carrying trade and war and plunder ; nor is it like the Foss Road, that goes straight and broad, in one sheer line, from Lincoln to Gloucestershire, always of the same width (about fifty yards), in some places with a strip of hard road in the middle, but for the greater part soft with grass or mud ; nor is it like the Ridgeway, a track along the top of open downs ;—the Pilgrims' Road is a dawdling lane for idlers, narrow and meandering as a brook. It was suited to its travellers. It was not the way a courier would have galloped ; not the road for merchants on business, with the wares from the staple to the fair; not suited to a great noble with a train. It prefers fords and ferries to bridges. It avoids towns and seeks monasteries. The Pilgrims had no business to do at markets, and they were even unwelcome ; strangers often brought the pest ; but at religious houses they prescribed for free and common corody ; just as latter-day pilgrims claim peck, perch, and flick at—the workhouse. Bat it is specially the road for those who would ride comfortably. For the Pilgrims were not like these degenerate descendants in England, or those one sees in Moscow streets even now, afoot in grey clothes and banded legs, authorised to beg ; they were franklins fair and free, riding in pleasant company, an easy journey, unhurried. And so, chosen, as it were, with the instinct of a sheep-track, the road suited such travellers as would go easily ; it is neither steep nor level, but always the road under the hill, sheltered ; the headland above the clay fallow that a careful rider would choose, so as to avoid, on the one side, the miry ground along the valley—for these bottoms ride deep— and on the other, breathing his horse up the steep hill. It is a bit broader than a bridle-way, the width of a pack-horse track, so that gossips could ride abreast ; but too narrow for carts to pass. And further, chosen with a view to safety, to avoid the danger of robbers lying in wait, like those that beset Rochester, the Pilgrims' Road never passes through a wood ; it keeps the open country.

It divides Kent, going about straight through the middle from East to West, and has nothing to do with London or the "Tabard." Of course, the end of the journey was the great shrine at Canterbury, of which there is now left no trace, save the deep marks in the stone steps worn by the Pilgrims' knees, so thoroughly did Henry's Commissioners eradicate the (sic) traitors' memory and discanonise his Episcopate; but as to where the road began, antiquarians quarrel as over the Curia Regis. But as soon as it enters Kent from Titsey, it is well marked. It can be traced thence through Chevening Park, lying under the hill about 300 ft. or 400 ft. below the ridge. After Chevening it crosses the valley and fords the Darenth, that excellent trout- stream, to reach Otford, where the Pilgrims could lie at the Archbishop's Palace, or push on six miles to Wrotham Palace. At Otford it becomes again the road under the hill, as before ; and going just above and outside, it passes Kemsing, Wrotham, Trotterscliffe, and so to the Medway. Ordinary travellers to Canterbury would have then turned north to Rochester, and followed Watling Street, or south to Maidstone, and gone through Ashford, or at least crossed the Medway by Aylesford Bridge. But the Pilgrims preferred the ferry at Snodland, so as to reach lodgings at Boxley Abbey. And here the road still follows its former character, under the hill, near but just above and outside Thurnham, Lenham, Charing, and so through Eastwell Park and along the Stour to Canterbury.

At the present day—one has never heard of modern Ultra- montanes making pilgrimages to St. Thomas's, or if they do, it is by train—it remains a by-way (except some four miles made hard), and is used by the farmers along it as an occupation road for carts ; or chiefly by hunters wishing a soft ride to covert. For a cit in search of the picturesque, it offers little ; there is no broad view, no great ruin, no tea-garden and dancing. But if you prefer to be rid of tourists and bicycles, your walk along it will be repaid by passing through the scenes that Richard Jefferies loved ; quiet, homely English fields and farms, oast-houses and hop-gardens, and the old, heavy, wooden Kentish plough held by a real smock-frock, and with four horses led by a boy with brown galligaskins, soft and wrinkled, many-buttoned, reaching up to the thigh. And if you try to talk to them, though the county accent is a sharp snarl, you will get a shrewd, sensible answer, and be persuaded that our boast is not wholly untrue :— " Then sing in praise of Men of Kent, so loyal, brave, and free; In Britain's race, if one surpass, a Man of Kent is he."

And all along, whether the village inn be tied to Kennard, or Leney, or Bartram, you may be pretty sure to find ful- filled the tramp's mark,—" The beer in this place is good." And when you are tired, the station is never more than three miles off, where the London, Chatham, and Dover, or South-Eastern, will bring you back express. And one may be sure that as long as the Church of England endures, the Pilgrims' Road through Kent and its site will be kept in memory ; for the local legal custom is,—" Woodland south of the Pilgrims' Road pays no tithe."