[3] The points where the pilgrims obviously left the Old Road are Compton ([p. 160]) and Burford Bridge ([p. 181]). They probably left it after Merstham ([p. 205]) and perhaps after Chilham ([p. 271]), while they certainly confused the record of the passages of the Wey ([p. 165]), and perhaps of the Medway ([p. 242]). As for their supposed excursion into the plain near Oxted ([p. 213]), I can find no proof of it. The places where other tracks coming in impair the Old Road are on either side of the Mole ([p. 181]), the Darent ([p. 222]), and the Medway ([p. 237]), where, along such river valleys, such tributaries would naturally lead.
[5] In the case of three—those of Gatton, Arthur's Seat, and Godmersham—an excellent reason can at once be discovered. The Road goes just north of the crest, in order to avoid the long circuit of a jutting-out spur with its re-entrant curve. For that re-entrant curve, it must be remembered, would be worse going, and wetter, than even the short excursion to the north of the crest. In the fourth case, however, where the Road goes to the north for a few hundred yards behind Weston Wood, I can offer no explanation of the cause. It is sufficiently remarkable that in all this great distance there should be but that one true exception to the rule, and a characteristic so universal permits me, I think, to take it for certain in one doubtful place (Chilham) that the Road has followed the sunny side of the slope.
[6] There is another, less clear, beyond Titsey, another beyond Chevening, and there are traces of another above Lenham.
[7] The 6-inch Ordnance Map would add Albury (see [p. 174]).
[8] The prosperity of the Jews in the early Middle Ages was remarkable. They have been said to have accumulated 46 per cent. of the total personalty of England in little more than the first century of their operations. This is an error, due to overlooking the fact that for the Saladin Tithe the Jew was taxed one fourth and not one-tenth of his goods. The true figure should be about 25½ per cent. But even that is astonishing for perhaps one per cent. of the population. It supposes an average Jewish fortune twenty-five times larger than the average English one.
[9] This is a strong argument, because Headbourne Worthy, the point in dispute, was precisely the most important of these villages. It is given in Domesday (Ordie) as the holding of Mortemer, while King's Worthy was but a hamlet, and Martyrs' Worthy is not mentioned.
[10] Mr. Haverfield in the Victoria History of Hampshire (vol. i. 287) gives the Roman Road as going straight from the North Gate to the King's Worthy church. See also his general map and his description on p. 321. This is surely preferable to the conjecture of the 6-inch Ordnance (Hampshire, XLI.) that it followed the line of Hyde Street and proceeded to Headbourne Worthy.
[11] One would naturally expect Alfred's bones to have been scattered with the rest in the Reformation; they seem to have been spared. It was most probably Alfred's leaden coffin that was dug up unopened in the building of the now vanished prison, and sold in 1788. It fetched two pounds.
[12] Leaving upon our left the first of the archæological discoveries which mark the whole of the Road:—the Roman villa unearthed or explored by Mr. Collier in 1878.