A very different New Romney from that of centuries ago, which was a place such as Longfellow wrote of, with—
“... The black wharves and the slips,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And the Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.”
But the town, although reduced in size, experienced a gorgeous time centuries later; a time that ended only in the early years of the nineteenth century. The sea had gone out of sight, but the smuggling trade brought much wealth here.
This was indeed an ideal district for the smugglers who infested the coasts of Kent and Sussex. Every dyke—or “dick,” as the country people pronounce the word—was a temporary storehouse for tubs of contraband spirits, placed there on hurried occasions, until leisure could be found to convey them into more private hiding; and those enterprising revenue officers who on fine days wandered the marshes with iron rods, probing at a venture among the reeds and bulrushes, not infrequently made lucky discoveries.
But it was when night had shut down, thick and rimy, over these levels that in those old times they woke to business. Many a cargo of gin or cognac, successfully landed along the coast on the Kentish or the Sussex side of the Rother, was conveyed by the smugglers’ labourers across Guilford Level and Walling Marsh, and no one in the neighbourhood who observed how usually flush of money were the agricultural labourers of the surrounding villages was in the least mystified as to the source of their gains. Those men knew better than any others the obscure paths and short-cuts of the levels, and could in any weather pick their way with certainty in places where those less expert would presently find themselves at the best confronted by an impassable dyke; or, at the worst of it, floundering in profound depths of mud and water. History informs us very fully of the ferocious nature of the Kentish and Sussex smugglers, who were by no means afraid of blood-guiltiness; but there can be no doubt that most of the mysterious disappearances of revenue men from time to time from this neighbourhood were caused by mischances at the dykes in foggy weather, and not by violence.
The marsh-men, the shepherds, and the agricultural labourers around Brookland took part in an exceptionally furious encounter between smugglers and a force of preventive men and naval blockaders that was fought one night in February 1821. The goods had been landed to the west of Rye, near Camber Castle, and a party of two hundred men had assembled on the beach, to carry the tubs inland, when the landing was rather belatedly discovered by the Naval Blockade look-out. An alarm was raised, and a force of sailors from the Blockade, led by officers, was sent in pursuit. The conduct of the smugglers sufficiently shows their effective organisation. They did not fling away their tubs and run. Not at all. Their march inland, past the solitary Great Cheyne Court, towards Brookland was carried out with all the precision of a well-ordered military retreat. They were not unprepared for attack, and, besides those who did the carrying, there were the “batsmen,” armed with the formidable weapons called “bats,” stout poles from six to eight feet long, and other men who carried firearms. These protectors fought a kind of rearguard action, covering the disposal of the contraband, and did it so well that although the naval officers frequently dashed forward, sword in hand, at the head of their men, they made little impression. The retreat, in good order, and the firing lasted until daybreak, when the tubs had all been hidden and it was only left for the fighting men to disperse. An officer named Mackenzie was killed in this affair, together with four smugglers, while the wounded comprised three officers, six sailors, and sixteen smugglers. Two smugglers, Cephas Quested and Richard Wraight, were captured, the first mistaking an officer in the dark for a comrade, the other losing touch with his fellows and walking into the arms of the enemy. Quested was hanged at Newgate.
BROOKLAND CHURCH.
Old Romney, two miles inland from Romney the new, is so immemorially old that the days when the sea flowed to it, and the ships came to its quays, are altogether forgotten. Sheep graze in fertile pastures, and never a sign of the sea is evident. Yet there was a time when the waters flowed inland to Appledore and Tenterden, a matter of eight miles, and it is an historical fact that the Danish fleet sailed to Appledore in A.D. 893. The very road by which the marsh is crossed between New Romney and Appledore is a Roman causeway, or embankment, still known as the Rhee Wall, along whose sides the waters lapped.
Beyond Old Romney, in the midst of Walland Marsh, is Brookland, whose church is notable for its detached wooden tower, leaning to one side, painted or tarred black, and in the shape of three extinguishers, placed each upon the other. The windows are provided with wooden shutters as a protection against the winds that blow, unrestrained, across these levels. The ancient leaden font, one of the twenty-nine leaden fonts in England, is of the early part of the thirteenth century, and is decorated in relief with the signs of the zodiac, and with figures illustrating the labours of the months. It is a curious relic, and by far the most interesting of the twenty-nine. The inscriptions above each month are in Norman-French: “Janvier, Fevrier, Mars, Avril, Mai, Juin, Juillet, Avovt, Setenbre, Vitovvre, Novenbre, Desenbre.” January is represented by a two-faced Janus, seated at a table; February by a man sitting by a fire; March, a husbandman pruning a vine; April, a bare-headed figure, robed, and in either hand a blossoming branch; May, a sporting knight on horseback, carrying a hawk on his left wrist; June, a mower; July, hayraking; August, reaping; September, threshing; October, wine-pressing; November, a swineherd knocking down acorns, while a pig feeds on them; and December, a man with an axe, killing a pig.