Here the pilgrims left the hills to descend into the valley below. Twice before, at Shalford and Dorking, they had crossed the rivers which make their way through the chalk range; now they had reached the third great break in the downs, and the broad stream of the Medway lay{141} at their feet. They might, if they pleased, go on to Rochester, three miles higher up, and join the road taken by the London pilgrims along the Watling Street to Canterbury—the route of Chaucer’s pilgrimage. But most of them, it appears, preferred to follow the hills to which they had clung so long.
The exact point where they crossed the river has been often disputed. According to the old maps it was by the ford at Cuxton, where the{142} river was shallow enough to allow of their passage. From Bunker’s Farm, immediately above Birling, a road diverges northwards to Cuxton and Rochester, and was certainly used by many of the pilgrims. At Upper Halling, on this track, we may still see the lancet windows of a pilgrims’ shrine formerly dedicated to St. Laurence, which have been built into some cottages known as Chapel houses. The Bishops of Rochester, who held this manor from Egbert’s days, had “a right fair house” at Lower Halling, on the banks of the Medway, with a vineyard which produced grapes for King Henry III.’s table. This pleasant manor-house on the river was the favourite summer residence of Bishop Hamo de Hethe, who built a new hall and chapel in the reign of Edward I., and placed his own statue on a gateway which was still standing in the eighteenth century. Another interesting house, Whorne Place, lies a little higher up, on the banks of the Medway, where the grass-grown track leading from Bunker’s Farm joins the main road to Cuxton and Rochester. This fine brick mansion formerly{143} belonged to the Levesons, and the quarterings of Sir John Leveson and his two wives are to be seen above the central porch.