Some of these, like Oldbury and Bigbury, are undoubtedly old British camps or forts; others were adapted, or newly made, by Romans and, later, by Saxons, while again later still a Norman castle might be reared on the old strategic spot, as in the case of Thornham Castle, near me. Flinders Petrie, however, says that “many sites which by their name of bury suggest a camp or fort are now bare of remains.” So he writes after examining Downbury Farm, near Pembury, Hockenbury, and Dunbury, near Staplehurst, Tattlebury near Headcorn, Tatlingbury near Capel, Perry Hill near Cooling, Pembury, Frindsbury and Wateringbury.
Our Barrows in Kent are mainly small, graves rather than mounds, but we have the place-names Barrow Green, Barrow Hill near Ashford, and Barrow Hill by Sellindge.
Our “Hithes.”
Hithe is the Saxon for haven, or place where ships could lie, and Hythe (Heda in Domesday Book, and Hee in a deed of 1229) was near the edge of the sea when history begins; but West Hythe, which is now three miles from the sea, was the old port used by the Romans and by them called Limene, the harbour. Hence our modern Lympne—Portus Lemanis, in which the p is a modern addition. I find it Limene in 1291, Lymen in 1396, Limne in 1475, and Lymne in 1480.
Then, right in the Weald, is the hamlet of Smallhythe, three miles south of Tenterden. Down to 1509, however, there was a channel from the sea up to here.
Newheth, or New Hythe, is a hamlet of East Malling—and it was a sort of port (or perhaps a wharf) on the Medway for shipping goods from South Kent and the Weald.
On the Thames, below Dartford, is Greenhithe, which has kept both its name and the justification thereof from the times of the Saxons to the present day. There the Danish King had an entrenched camp as a winter station for his soldiers. Here William the Conqueror was stopped by the men of Kent until he confirmed them in their old Saxon laws and privileges. From here Sir John Franklin and Captain Crozier sailed in the Erebus and Terror (in the year and month of my birth) on their last and fatal voyage to the Pole. Here still the hithe discharges its lime and chalk, and has an environment and background of green fields and woods.
Ærrehythe, “the old haven,” known to us as Erith, the landing place for what was from 1178, when it was founded, the important Abbey of Lesnes, which still gives its name to the Hundred.
Our “Cold Harbours.”
Perhaps the most common place-name in England is that of Cold Harbour; though Sutton and Norton may run it close. Over one hundred and seventy have been enumerated in England, a number which would be brought up to over two hundred if we added the Caldecots and the Calcotts (we have a Calcott in Sturry parish) which are names with the same meaning. And yet in a sense Cold Harbour is not a place-name, for the only parish of that name was not formed and named until 1842. It is near Dorking. However, as a name of a manor or a farm it is common. Thus in London (where we should hardly expect Cold Harbours of the kind found in country places) there was the Manor of Coldherberghe, of which we know much since 1327. Situated on the bank of the Thames near London Bridge, its mansion was tenanted by royal dukes, a bishop, a Lord Mayor, and afterwards became the Hall of the Watermen’s Company, and at last the City of London Brewery. The other is in Camberwell, which was one great manor at the time of the Conquest, but later divided into minor lordships, to two of which the name of Cold Harbour was given, of which one was Cold Herbergh, Hachesham (Hatcham now), while the other survives in the well known Cold Harbour Lane, in Camberwell. In early 19th century maps Cold Blow Farm was the representative of the old manor (Kent has a Cold Blow in Bexley). A curious 15th century corruption was Coldabbeye, though there was never an abbey there. The farm succumbed to suburban expansion in the 19th century; but Harbour Road, Cold Harbour Lane, and Cold Harbour Place, tell us of its site.