VIII

Bromley, in the days when it was only a small thing, was in the diocese of Rochester. It has long since been transferred to Canterbury, and the manor that had belonged to the Bishops of Rochester ever since the eighth century, when it was given to them by King Ethelbert, was sold with the palace into private hands in 1845. Those who will may see the exterior of it to this day, but it is not the palace that the Norman Gundulf built, nor even that whence Bishop Warner escaped, for it was several times rebuilt, lastly in 1775. The site of the once Holy Well of St. Blaise, the woolcombers’ saint, formerly much resorted to for its chalybeate waters, is still to be seen in the grounds.

There are pitfalls for the stranger on every road in the way of pronouncing place-names. Bromley-by-Bow is (or was until recently, but there is a constant flux in these things) “Brumley,” and accordingly this should have the like sound; but you will not hear this Kentish town so named. The natives will not change the “o” into “u.”

But aborigines are somewhat difficult to find here, for the Bromley that was a little market town with two fairs a year and a weekly market granted by Henry the Sixth is a thing of the buried past. Bromley is now suburban. It has grown from the little place of 1801, with 2,700 inhabitants, to a populous town which in 1901 numbered 27,358.

Much of the old town has vanished, but it will never be like an ordinary suburb that grew potatoes last year, and has within six months grown streets of houses “fitted with electric light, hot and cold water-supply, and drained in accordance with the latest improvements,” thus to quote advertisements. The town, in common with other places, has all those modern features, but it has also a surviving proportion of ancient houses, and even when they are gone it will still have its history. By virtue of that past it keeps to-day a larger air and a greater disunity than it could command merely as the dormitory of City men who leave early in the morning and return at night, and pay rent, rates, and taxes, but can have little of the sense of belonging to the place.

Bromley, precisely like an assertive person who has “got on” in the world, signalised its recent expansion by acquiring a coat-of-arms; but not the most magnificent parvenu would dare sport a display so elaborate and comprehensive as that which alone would serve Bromley. In the recondite terminology affected by heralds it is “quarterly, gules and azure; on a fesse wavy argent three ravens volant proper between, in the first quarter, two branches slipped of the third: in the second a sun in splendour; in the third an escallop shell or; and in the fourth a horse forcené, also argent: and for the crest, on a wreath of the colours, upon two bars wavy azure and argent, an escallop shell, as in the arms, between two branches of broom proper.”

It sounds like the description by a maniac of the contents of a shop-window, set up by a compositor who had misplaced the punctuation; but it is clear and pellucid reading to a herald. At any rate, there is no difficulty in discovering what it all means, for the device is proudly and abundantly displayed in Bromley itself.

These many charges are not without their significance. The escallop shell is in allusion to the time when the palace of the Bishops of Rochester was situated here; the broom refers to the planta genista, the broom that gave, in the long ago, its name to Bromley, and still flourishes in the district; the sun in splendour indicates Sundridge, whose name itself by no means alludes to the sun; and the white horse is, of course, the familiar unconquered horse of Kent. The ravens recall the legendary history of the Ravensbourne. Beneath all this display is a Latin motto, to the effect that “While I grow I hope.”

Gravely aloof from all these things, the old parish church of Bromley stands indeed in the centre of the town, but in a quiet lane leading to a pretty little public garden on the edge of a height overlooking all South London and its sea of roof-tops. It need scarcely be said that the long body and the apocalyptic towers of the Crystal Palace are prominent in the view. They brood like an obsession over all the southern suburbs.

The exterior of the church looks very venerable and rustic, and has even been improved by a tasteful new chancel built in recent times. In the churchyard, built into the south wall, is a small and modest tablet inscribed:

Here lyeth interred ye body of Martine French of this parish, with four of his wives and two daughters. He departed this life 12 January anno 1661, being aged 61, and his last wife died ye 13th of ye same month, leaving behind him one sonne Martine and two daughters, Sarah and Mary.

But Martin French is a very minor person beside the neighbouring

ELIZABETH MONK
who departed this Life on the 27^th Day of August 1753
Aged 101
She was the Widow of John Monk late of this Parish,
Blacksmith,
her second Husband,
To whom she had been a Wife near 50 Years:
By whom she had no Children:
And of the Issue of her first Marriage none lived to the second.
But Virtue
would not suffer her to be childless:
An infant to whom and to whose Father & Mother she had
been Nurse
(such is the uncertainty of temporal Prosperity)
became dependent upon Strangers for the Necessaries of Life.
To him she afforded the Protection of a Mother.
This parental Charity was returned with filial Affection:
And she was supported in the feebleness of Age
By him whom she had cherished in the Helplessnesss of Infancy.
Let it be Rememb’red
That there is no Station in which Industry will not obtain
Power to be Liberal:
Nor any Character on which Liberality will not
Confer Honour.
She had been long prepared by a simple and unaffected Piety
for that awful Moment, which however delayed
is universally sure.
How few are allowed an equal Time of Probation:
How many by their Lives appear to presume upon more:
To preserve the Memory of this Person,
but yet more to perpetuate the Lesson of her Life,
This Stone was erected by voluntary Contribution.

For lavish use of capital letters, adjectives, and copybook sentiments this would be difficult to beat.