Our “Cold Harbours.”
Perhaps the most common place-name in England is that of Cold Harbour; though Sutton and Norton may run it close. Over one hundred and seventy have been enumerated in England, a number which would be brought up to over two hundred if we added the Caldecots and the Calcotts (we have a Calcott in Sturry parish) which are names with the same meaning. And yet in a sense Cold Harbour is not a place-name, for the only parish of that name was not formed and named until 1842. It is near Dorking. However, as a name of a manor or a farm it is common. Thus in London (where we should hardly expect Cold Harbours of the kind found in country places) there was the Manor of Coldherberghe, of which we know much since 1327. Situated on the bank of the Thames near London Bridge, its mansion was tenanted by royal dukes, a bishop, a Lord Mayor, and afterwards became the Hall of the Watermen’s Company, and at last the City of London Brewery. The other is in Camberwell, which was one great manor at the time of the Conquest, but later divided into minor lordships, to two of which the name of Cold Harbour was given, of which one was Cold Herbergh, Hachesham (Hatcham now), while the other survives in the well known Cold Harbour Lane, in Camberwell. In early 19th century maps Cold Blow Farm was the representative of the old manor (Kent has a Cold Blow in Bexley). A curious 15th century corruption was Coldabbeye, though there was never an abbey there. The farm succumbed to suburban expansion in the 19th century; but Harbour Road, Cold Harbour Lane, and Cold Harbour Place, tell us of its site.
The Cold Harbours in Kent are thirty in number, while ten are found in each of the contiguous counties of Surrey and Sussex. They are found at Addington, Aldington, Aylesford, Barham Downs, Bishopsbourne, Bridge, Chislehurst, Deptford, Ditton, Eltham, Higham, Hildenborough, Eltham, Lamberhurst, Lymne, Maidstone, Newington, Northfleet, Penshurst, Sellinge, Sittingbourne, Stoke-in-Hoo, Sutton-at-Hone, Tenterden, Trench, Tunbridge, Woodnesborough, Woolwich, Wrotham, and Wye. The majority of these are upon or near Roman sites, or on the Roman main roads, a fact to be borne in mind when we come to consider their origin. For Isaac Taylor says of early travelling: “Where no religious house existed to receive the traveller he would usually be compelled to content himself with the shelter of bare walls. The ruins of deserted Roman villas were no doubt so used, and such places seem commonly to have borne the name of Cold Harbour. In the neighbourhood of ancient roads we find no less than seventy, and about a dozen more bearing the analogous name of Caldecot or ‘cold cot.’” His figures have now been shown to be very much under the mark. So Forbes and Burmester, in their Our Roman Highways, say: “The appearance of such names is believed to be a sure indication of the use in comparatively modern times of Roman buildings for purposes of temporary shelters; and the occasional discovery of tessellated pavements injured by fires lighted in the corners of rooms suggests their utilization by wayfarers.”
Not that all would have been villas or private residences. The orderly and practical Romans on their great military roads had a colonia at each 15 or 20 miles with a mansio or government posting station, and between each, at about five miles distance, was a mutatio with less accommodation, and used by a humbler class. The manager of each was called a Strator—like our Way Warden. In many cases we find that the Cold Harbours come exactly where we should look for the regularly set mutatio. The same kind of arrangement is found in the Hans or Khans of the East, which provide shelter for traveller and stabling for his horse or other beast of burden; but no bed or food. Analogous also are the dak-bungalows familiar to us in India.
The name, however, is pure Saxon, like the German Kalt Herberg, and the surviving French Auberge for a small place of rest and refreshment. Mr. Unthank, a friend and church-worker of mine in Walworth, enlisted my interest in the name a dozen years ago, and since he has written learnedly on the subject in Notes and Queries (1914) and the Home Counties Magazine (1912). He calls them “the leanest shadows of our cheerful inns,” and though bare walls and a bit of a roof would be better than nothing to a traveller over Barham Downs, yet, compared with the “warmest welcome in an inn” experienced elsewhere, he would no doubt call it a cold harbour. Later, and in Middle English, the Heribeorg, shelter for a host, became as Herberg a synonym for any inn, and later still Harbourers or harbingers were the caterers or victuallers, who at last gained the right to sell ale in competition with the more normal hostelries. Then the trade-name became a surname, and John le Herberger appears, and perhaps the Harpers of to-day indicate an innkeeper rather than a musician as their ancestor.
Of course, the perverse ingenuity of some has invented strange derivations for the name. Stow suggests that they were coal-stations! Another writer (who apparently only knew of one Cold Harbour near London Bridge) that it was where the Köln or Cologne merchants had their headquarters! Another derives from Col (ubris) arbor—the tree or staff round which a serpent twines. This is the emblem of Mercury the messenger of Jupiter, and may have been therefore the sign of the Roman posting-stations!