CHAPTER XI
CHARING TO GODMERSHAM
FROM Lenham the Pilgrims’ Road threads its lonely way along the hill-side, past one or two decayed farmhouses still bearing the name of the great families who once owned these manors—the Selves and the Cobhams; and the view over the level country grows wider, and extends farther to the south and east, until we reach{168} Charing Hill, one of the highest points along this range of downs. The windmill, a few hundred yards above the track, commands a far-spreading view over the valley, stretching from the foot of the ridge to the Quarry Hills, where the towers of Egerton Church stand out on its steep mound above the hazy plains of the Weald. We look down upon Calehill, the home of the Darells for the last five centuries, and across the woods and park of Surrenden Dering, which has been held by the Dering family ever since the days of Earl Godwin, to the churches and villages of the Weald. Beyond a foreground of swelling hill and dale we see the flat expanse of Romney Marsh and Dungeness; and then for the first time we catch a glimpse of a pale blue line of sea—that sea across which Roman and Saxon and Norman all sailed in turn to land upon the Kentish shore. On clear days you can see the Sussex downs in the far horizon beyond the Weald, and near Hastings, the hill of Fairlight rising sharply from the sea. Down in the valley below, the tall tower of Charing Church lifts its head out of a confused mass of red roofs{169} and green trees, with the ivy-grown ruins of the old palace at its feet.
Many are the venerable traditions attached to the churches and villages which we have seen along our road through this pleasant land of Kent, but here is one older and more illustrious than them all. Here we have a record which goes back far beyond the days of Lanfranc and of Athelstan, and even that king of Mercia who gave Lenham to the Abbey of St. Augustine. For Charing, if not actually given, as the old legend says, by Vortigern to the ancient British Church, was at all events among the first lands bestowed on Augustine and his companions by Ethelbert, king of Kent. Saxon historians tell us how that this most ancient possession of the church of Canterbury was seized by Offa, king of Mercia, in 757, but restored again by his successor, Cenulph, in the year 788.
Long before the Conqueror’s time, the Archbishops had a house here. In Domesday Book, Charing is styled “proprium manorium archiepiscopi,” being reserved by those prelates for their private use, and from those days until{170} the manor was surrendered by Cranmer to Henry VIII. it remained a favourite residence of the Archbishops. In the thirteenth century the Franciscan Archbishop John Peckham dates many letters from his house at Charing, and Stratford, as Dean Hook tells us, was often there, and found consolation in this quiet retreat for the troubles of those stormy days. Chichele, Kemp, and Bourchier were also frequently here. Stratford first obtained the grant of a three days’ fair to be held at Charing twice a year, on the festivals of St. George and St. Luke. Leland tells us that Cardinal Morton made great buildings at Charing, and the red and black brickwork still to be seen under the ivy of the farmhouse walls may be ascribed to him, but the great gateway with the chamber and hooded fireplace above, belongs to an earlier period, and was probably the work of Stratford in the fourteenth century. Some of the older stonework is to be found in the stables and cottages now occupying the site of the offices on the west of the court. The chapel, with its pointed arches and large windows, which in Hasted’s time stood behind{171} the modern dwelling-house, was taken down eighty years ago, but the great dining-hall, with its massive walls and fine decorated window, still remains standing. This hall, where archbishops sat in state, and kingly guests were feasted; where Henry VII. was royally entertained by Archbishop Warham, on the 24th of March, 1507, and where Henry VIII. stayed with all his train on his way to the Field of Cloth of Gold, is now used as a barn. But in its decay, it must be owned, the old palace is singularly picturesque. The wallflowers grow in golden clusters high up the roofless gables and along the arches of the central gateway; masses of apple-blossom hang over the grey stone walls, and ring-necked doves bask in the sunshine on the richly coloured tiles of the old banqueting-hall.