In the thirteenth century a great number of pilgrims seem to have stopped at Maidstone, where, in 1261, Archbishop Boniface built a hospital for their reception on the banks of the Medway. The funds which supported this hospital, the Newark—New-work, Novi operis, as it was called—were diverted by Archbishop Courtenay, a hundred and forty years later, to the maintenance of his new college of All Saints, on the opposite side of the river, but a remnant of the older foundation is still preserved in the beautiful Early English Chancel of St. Peter’s Church, which was originally attached to Boniface’s hospital, and is still known as the Pilgrims’ Chapel. By the time that Archbishop Courtenay founded his college, the stream of pilgrims had greatly diminished, and the hostel which had been intended for their resting-place was rapidly sinking into a common almshouse. Maidstone, too, no doubt, lay considerably out of the pilgrims’ course, and the great majority naturally preferred{144} to cross the Medway by the ferry at Snodland. Others again might choose Aylesford, which lay a mile or two below. At this ancient town, the Eglesford of the Saxon Chronicle, there was a{145} stone bridge across the river, and a Carmelite Priory founded in 1240 by Richard de Grey, on his return from the Crusades, where the pilgrims would be sure to find shelter. But even if they did not cross the Medway at this place, where the old church stands so picturesquely on its high bank overhanging river and red roofs, the pilgrims certainly passed through the parish of Aylesford. For on the opposite banks of the ferry at Snodland the familiar line of yew trees appears again, ascending the hill by Burham church, and runs through the upper part of Aylesford parish, close to the famous dolmen of Kits Coty House. This most interesting sepulchral monument, Kêd-coit—Celtic for the Tomb in the Wood—consists of three upright blocks of sandstone about eight feet high and eight feet broad, with a covering stone of eleven feet which forms the roof, and is one of a group of similar remains which lie scattered over the hill-side and are locally known as the Countless Stones. We have here, in fact, a great cemetery of the Druids which once extended for many miles on both sides of the river. Deep pits dug out in the{146} chalk, filled with flints and covered with slabs of stone, have been discovered on Aylesford Common, and a whole avenue of stones formerly connected this burial place with the cromlechs at Addington, six miles off. Here, if the old legend be true, was fought the great battle which decided the fate of Britain, and gave England into the hands of the English. For at this place, the old chroniclers say, about the year 455, the Saxon invaders stopped on their march to the Castle of Rochester, and turning southwards met the Britons in that deadly fray, when both Kentigern and Horsa were left dead on the field of battle. Ancient military entrenchments are still visible on the hill-side near Kits Coty House, and a boulder on the top was long pointed out as the stone on which Hengist was proclaimed the first king of Kent.
About a mile from this memorable spot, in the plains at the foot of the downs, was a shrine which no pilgrim of mediæval days would leave unvisited, the Cistercian Abbey of Boxley, then generally known as the Abbatia S. Crucis de Gracias, the Abbey of the Holy Rood of Grace.{147}
