List of Illustrations

SEPARATE PLATES
Entrance to Hastings, by Minnis Rock and the oldLondon Road[Frontispiece]
PAGE
Lewisham[19]
Entrance to the Widows’ College[27]
In the First Quadrangle, Widows’ College, Bromley[31]
The Road across Bromley Common[45]
Knockholt Beeches[59]
An old Wayside Cottage, below Polhill[67]
The South Front, Knole (Photo C. Essenhigh Corke & Co.)[99]
The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells[127]
The Toad Rock[135]
Kent[149]
Lamberhurst[155]
Scotney Castle[161]
Weird Oast-houses, Lamberhurst165
The Moated Castle of Bodiam[183]
“Duke William comforts his Young Soldiers” (CentralIncident of the Battle of Hastings. From theBayeux Tapestry)[211]
Battle Abbey[229]
Hastings Old Town[261]
ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT
Business-Card of the “Bolt-in-Tun” Coach Office[9]
The Colfe Almshouses[22]
The Old Toll-house, Pratt’s Bottom[56]
A Phyllis of Knockholt[61]
Longford[69]
Riverhead[72]
Sign of the “Blackboy” Inn[78]
Sign of the “Bricklayers’ Arms”[79]
Old Mansion, formerly the “Cats” Inn[81]
Seal of Sevenoaks Grammar School[83]
Knole, from the Road[89]
The Gateway, Knole[92]
The Stone Court, Knole[95]
The “Dumb Bell” 101
The Seven Oaks[103]
The “White Hart” Inn[105]
River Hill and the Kentish Weald[110]
Tonbridge Castle[114]
The “Chequers,” Tonbridge[118]
A Sporting Weather-vane[119]
Church of King Charles the Martyr[124]
Tunbridge Ware[133]
Scene at “High Rocks”138
The Marquis of Abergavenny’s “A”[139]
The Neville Gate, Frant[140]
The “Blue Boys” Inn[143]
Bayham Abbey: Across the Water-meadows[158]
Etchingham Church[172]
The Ancient Vane, Etchingham[174]
Brass of Sir William de Etchingham[175]
The Fox preaching to the Geese[176]
The Abbey Farm[179]
William the Conqueror (Bayeux Tapestry)[198]
Last Stand of the English (Bayeux Tapestry)[213]
Flight of the English Churls (Bayeux Tapestry)[215]
A Descendant of the Saxon Churls[227]
Battle Church[232]
A Bye-road at Battle[233]
The Road past Crowhurst Park[235]
Junction of Roads spoiled by Tramways, Baldslow[238]
“Huz and Buz”: Entrance to Holmhurst[241]
Queen Anne, at Holmhurst[245]
Ruins of the Old Church, Ore[247]
The Old London Road[249]
All Saints’[253]
Old House, All Saints’ Street[258]
Old Tackle-boxes, Hastings[265]
St. Clement’s Church[279]
A Slain Norman (Bayeux Tapestry)[284]

The HASTINGS ROAD

I

The road to Hastings is measured from what, in these times, seems the unlikely starting-point of London Bridge, and is identical with the Dover Road as far as New Cross, where it turns to the right and goes through Lewisham, the Dover Road continuing by Deptford and Blackheath.

Few would now choose such a starting-point for a journey to Hastings, but there is reason in most things, and when this road was first travelled there was a very special reason for this choice. London Bridge was, until 1750, the only bridge that crossed the Thames between London and Putney, and the sole way to the southern counties therefore lay through Southwark.