By taking the next turning on the right, up a commonplace new street called “King Edward Road,” and then turning left, a large country residence on the right hand will presently be seen. This is the manor of Grange, or Grench, formerly a member of the Cinque Port of Hastings, and a separate parish. Some ancient, ivy-clad ruins in front of the modern house are those of a chapel and a barn built in 1378 by Sir John Philipot, Mayor of London. Not really “Lord” Mayor, strictly speaking, for that dignified title is not known to have been given before 1486.
The manor comprised 120 acres, and was held by the service of finding one ship and two armed men in time of war. Philipot, however, did better than this. His patriotism impelled him to provide 1,000 men and a squadron of vessels, to aid against the French. This ancient manor enjoyed until modern times the singular extra-territorial right of affording shelter to fugitives from justice who escaped thither; and criminals who succeeded in reaching this Alsatia could not be arrested on the warrant of the local magistrates until a confirming warrant had been obtained from Hastings.
Proceeding and passing a railed-in redoubt, the road rises. Turning then to left and again to right, we come down beside the estuary of the Medway, amid the pear and cherry orchards, into Lower Rainham, past Otterham Creek, and on to Upchurch. Here the church has a steeple of fantastic ugliness, resembling two wooden extinguishers placed one above another. There is a curious crypt, or bonehouse, under the north chancel aisle. This district is famous for the many finds of Roman pottery in the Medway creeks: the well-known black “Upchurch ware,” generally discovered by punting in the shallow waters and prodding the mud with rods. It is supposed that an extensive industry was seated here in ancient times, on land now more or less submerged. It is now pretty generally supposed (why it should be I know not) that all the finds possible have been made. Hasted, writing of these parts early in the eighteenth century, says “the noxious vapours arising from the marshes subject the inhabitants to continued intermittents, and shorten their lives at a very early period.” This, at any rate, seems to be of the past.
UPCHURCH.
Passing Upchurch, the creek of Lower Halstow is soon seen, with the church away on the left, amid scenes of brickmaking activity. The road in the next half-mile turns sharply right at Parksore, rising steeply; that going straight ahead to a place marked “Funton” on the map, rapidly becoming impassable.
Cresting the hill, a wonderful distant view over across to Sheerness, disclosing the battleships there, like uncanny monsters of fairy-lore, is obtained. Bending right and then left, and passing a moated farm, and then a gate across the road, we come in another mile to cross-roads and there turn left for Iwade, and through the village to the bridge across the Swale into Sheppey, at Kingsferry.
CHAPTER V
SHEPPEY
It was in the Swale that Augustine baptized King Ethelbert on Whit Sunday, June 2nd, A.D. 596, and thus made him a child of God. On Christmas Day the following year he similarly baptized 10,000 of the King’s subjects, but exactly where these chilly ceremonies took place is not recorded. In any case, if the Swale were as muddy then as it is now, the converts must have come out extremely dirty.