Dunton Green, formerly Donington, is a rather Cockneyfied hamlet that is at present halting between expansion and a few regretful reminiscences of a past rural state. It is very populous, and the children live and have their playground in the open road.
LONGFORD.
At Longford, to which we come after Dunton Green, the river Darenth is crossed, at an early stage of its career, by a bridge that long ago superseded the ford. It is still a narrow bridge, with a roadway only twenty feet wide, but it has been already once widened and once renewed, as two tablets, built into the wall on either side, declare:
This Bridge was renewed by order of the Commissioners of Sevenoakes Turnpike.
William Covell, Mason.
And
This Bridge was Widen’d in March a.d. 1813 by order of the Seven Oaks Turnpike Road.
J. Smith, Archt.
The Darenth rises at Westerham, only five miles away; but there is already a sufficient head of water in the infant stream to serve the purpose of a large flour-mill standing here.
Beyond it, a dusty stretch leads into Riverhead, past a strange little outlying group of houses lying back from the road and fronted with the rows of lime-trees that give it the name of Linden Square. Local gossip declares the place to have once been a coaching inn, but exact information is utterly unprocurable.