The Dover Road: Annals of an Ancient Turnpike

by Charles G. Harper

Opposite Tappington is the modernized Denton Court, with the old chapel of Denton standing in the Park. Of this you may read in the Legends, but those who seek the brass of the Lady Rohesia, with its inscription—

“Praie for ye sowle of ye Lady Royse
And for alle Christen sowles!”

will be disappointed, for it is one of Barham’s embellishments upon fact. “Tappington Moor” is, of course, Barham Downs, and the wild characteristics of the place are very well described in The Hand of Glory. The nearest approach to the Tappington gates existing in fact are the entrance gates to Broome Park, standing on the road near the lane leading to Barham; and the mansion of Broome, an Elizabethan country house, bears a strong resemblance to the stately seat seen in Barham’s drawing.

THE “HALFWAY HOUSE”

The whole district abounds with legends and folk-lore suitable to this wild and treeless country, and that so romantic a humorist as Barham should have sprung from a local family of Kentish squires is only fitting. The terror of these parts at the end of last century was Black Robin, a highwayman who frequented the roads and made his headquarters at a little inn on the by-road between Bishopsbourne and Barham. “Black Robin’s Corner” it is still called, but the negro’s head of the sign is a libel upon that “gentleman of the road.” He took his name, not from the colour of his skin, but from the crape mask and the black clothes he wore, and from the black mare he rode. Not a pleasant fellow to meet

On the lone bleak moor at the midnight hour,
Beneath the gallows tree;

but almost preferable to the spectre horseman who led a foreign traveller out of his way on these Downs. Night had come on, overtaking a party of mounted travellers making for Dover, and so dark had it grown that they soon became separated. However, the hindmost party dimly perceived two cavaliers in front, and spurred towards them; but when the horses’ hoofs in advance flashed fire and their riders were seen to grow strangely luminous, these pixie-led travellers thought it time to turn back. It was time they did so, for already their horses were sinking in a bog, and as they turned they heard the rest of their party blowing their horns in quite another direction. Possibly they turned in at the “Halfway House” that stands away back from the road behind a screen of trees, just past the eighth milestone; both to take something to enliven their spirits withal and to tell the landlord of these strange happenings. If they did, I have no doubt that they saw stranger sights still when they came forth, when the earth would rise up and smite them in the face, and the swinging sign of the “Halfway House” would perform a somersault over the constellations. For they dealt in strange and curious liquors here in the days of old; spirits that had never paid tribute to the Excise, and were ever so many degrees over-proof, made the heart of man glad and his legs to tie themselves into Gordian knots. You cannot get so immediately and incapably drunk nowadays at the “Halfway House,” and ’tis better so, but I have seen the place drunk dry in the space of an hour by thirsty Volunteers marching from London to Dover at Eastertide. When they had gone, it was as hopeless to call for a draught of ale as I imagine it would have been to ask the hostess for that old-time Kentish delicacy, the “pudding-pie,” that was once to be had for the asking at any inn during Easter week. The “pudding-pie” has almost entirely vanished from Kent, but, “once upon a time,” not to have tasted one was regarded as unlucky, and it was the usual thing for ale-house customers to ask for a “pudding-pie” as a right. “Neow, missus,” the Kentish yokel would say, “let uz tëaste one o’ them ’ere puddeners o’ yourn,” and the “missus” would hand him a flat circular tart, about the size of a saucer, and filled with custard sprinkled thinly with currants.

Downs extend all the way from here to Lydden, three miles away, and Lydden itself lies enfolded in a chalky bottom through which the road runs steeply. Downs stretch on either side of the tiny village and frown down upon it, making its insignificance more marked and its little cottages and little church look like toys. On the left hand, at the distance of half a mile, goes the railway, past that old village of Sibertswould, which railway directors in a conspiracy with Kentish rustics have agreed to call “Shepherdswell,” and it continues in a deep, precipitous cutting through the chalk to Kearsney station, another three miles ahead; and so presently into Dover. And now the road leads uphill to Ewell, where the springs of the little river Dour burst forth and gem all the valley hence to Dover with gracious foliage. The good folk of Ewell have recovered the “Temple” prefix to the village name. As “Temple Ewell” it was anciently known, for here once was situated a Preceptory of the Knights Templar.

THE DRELLINGORE STREAM

The Dour, whose name means simply “water,” bubbles up in springs at Temple Ewell, and is fed by a stream which comes down the valley on the right, from Alkham, two miles or so away, and from Drellingore, a further mile. That stream is intermittent; being a “nailbourne,” or chalk stream; storing up water in its caverns until, these being filled, either by exceptional rains, or long accumulation of springs, there comes an overflow, generally doing more than fill the usually dry bed. The Drellingore stream will then very often flood the road.