Mercery Lane, which is here shown, is one of the ancient narrow streets of the city, and the engraver has given an excellent idea of its present appearance. The houses on each side are two storeys higher, and that would still further seem to contract its width; but the Cathedral, and the Christ Church gateway that shuts off the Cathedral precincts, and appears to span the street, are very well given.
This is the principal gateway to the close, and was built by Prior Goldstone in 1517. The octagonal sides were formerly surmounted by elegant turrets, but these have been taken down as low as the battlements. The arms of Becket are carved on one of the spandrels, and there is an inscription:—“HOC OPUS CONSTRUCTUM EST ANNO DOMINI MILESSIMO QUINGENTESSIMO DECIMO SEPTIMO.” The effect of the great cathedral towers in warm gray, and the
precinct archway seen through a long vista of dark street, is peculiarly grand.
There are not a few black-and-white gabled houses still standing in Canterbury, and now all antiquities are preserved with jealous care. The small houses shown at end of this chapter are characteristic of the humbler dwellings of the city, and show how low a room was sometimes considered to be sufficient. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth a British town stood here as far back as nine centuries before the Christian era; but the Romans early established a colony here, and changed the old British name to Durovernum. A view of a Roman gateway is still given in Gostling’s Walks, and another Roman gateway was taken down in 1790.
Falstaff Inn is an ancient hostelry of very considerable merit as to its present accommodation. The signboard projects to an extraordinary extent into the road, and is supported by elaborate wrought iron work.
The west gate, which is shown in the same engraving, is the only one of the six ancient barriers of Canterbury. Britton tells us that it was built by Archbishop Sudbury, who proposed to erect strong defences at each entrance to the city, and connect
them all by walls, which should completely surround it. “The barbarous murder of that active and benevolent prelate by the insurgents under Wat Tyler on Tower Hill, June 14, 1381, put an end to this among many other appropriate and useful improvements planned for the advantage of his metropolitan city. The gatehouse he, however, completed, and it is an interesting feature among the numerous antiquities of the place. It crosses the high road from London to Dover, and serves as a protection to the bridge over the western branch of the Stour, which at this place is only a small stream. It is embattled and machicolated, and the grooves still remain which directed the fall of the portcullis. The arch is of subsequent date, and forms part of the reparations effected by Archbishop Juxon after the disturbance occasioned by the puritanical Mayor at Christmas 1647. The centre is flanked by the very lofty and spacious round towers, the foundations of which are laid in the river Stour. They are divided into two storeys, and are pierced with loopholes having circular endings, similar to those observable in the remains of the fortifications near Dane-John-Hill, and are embattled.” This gatehouse, when Britton wrote his description, was used as the city prison both for criminals and debtors.
Canterbury is always associated with Chaucer’s wonderful work, the Canterbury Tales, and the accurate insight that this gives into the manners and customs of the time. The Tabard, afterwards the Talbot in Southwark, retained till comparatively recent times many of the features of the hostelry that it had when Chaucer described it. The landlord was a man of great mark, and his social importance is rather startling to our present ideas. His guests were composed of all ranks of people, and after their dinner was over he proposed a journey to Canterbury at his own cost and charges, and that he should judge the best story that any of them could narrate on the road, being “wise and well ytaught” himself. Chaucer’s characters of the guests are wonderfully clever and lifelike, even at the present day; but it is rather curious to find him so outspoken against the monk and friar, and contrasting them with the “poure parson of a town,” and “the clerk of Oxenford.” The former seems to have suggested Goldsmith’s village parson, and indeed it is impossible to read Chaucer’s description without being reminded of almost parallel passages, though Goldsmith’s are of course so much sweeter.