CHAPTER XII
CHILHAM TO HARBLEDOWN
THE Pilgrims’ Way skirted the wooded slopes of Godmersham Park for about a mile, and then entered Chilham Park. The park is now closed, but the old track lay right across the park, and in front of Chilham Castle. The position of this fortress, overlooking the valley of the Stour, has made it memorable in English history. Chilham has been in turn a Roman camp, a Saxon castle, and a Norman keep, and has played an eventful{183} part in some of the fiercest struggles of those days. According to a generally received tradition recorded by Camden, Chilham was the scene of the battle on the river in Cæsar’s second expedition; and the British barrow near the Stour, popularly known as Julaber’s Grave, was believed to be the tomb of the Roman tribune, Julius Laberius, although, as a matter of fact, it contains no sepulchral remains. In the second century Chilham is said to have been the home of that traditional personage, the Christian King Lucius, and in Saxon days of the chief Cilla. The castle was strongly fortified to resist the invasion of the Danes, by whom it was repeatedly attacked. After the Norman Conquest it belonged to Fulbert de Dover, whose last descendant, Isabel, Countess of Atholl, died here in 1292, and is buried in the under-croft at Canterbury. Then it passed into the hands of the great Lord Badlesmere, of Leeds, who on one occasion gave Queen Isabel, the wife of Edward II., a splendid reception here, and afterwards astonished the peaceful citizens and monks of Canterbury by appearing at their gates, followed by nineteen armed knights, each with a{184} drawn sword in his hand, to pay his devotions at the shrine of St. Thomas. As late as the sixteenth century Leland describes Chilham Castle as beautiful for pleasure, commodious for use, and strong for defence; but soon after he wrote these words, the greater part of the old house was pulled down by its owner, Sir Thomas Cheney, Warden of the Cinque Ports under Edward VI., to complete his new mansion in the Isle of Sheppey. The Norman keep, an octagonal fortress three stories high, is the only part of the mediæval structure that now remains, and can still be seen in the gardens of the new house built in 1616 by Sir Dudley Digges, Master of the Rolls in the reign of James I. This fine Jacobean manor-house stands well on the rising ground above the river, and both the garden terrace and the top of the old keep afford beautiful views of the vale of Ashford and the downs beyond the Wye. Still more picturesque is the market-place of Chilham itself. On one side we have the red brick walls and white stone doorway of the castle, seen at the end of its short avenue of tall lime trees on the other the quaint red roofs and timbered houses{185} of the charming old square, with the grey church tower surrounded by the brilliant green of sycamores and beeches. On a bright spring morning, when the leaves are young and the meadows along the river-side are golden with buttercups, there can be no prettier picture than this of the old market square of Cilla’s home.
From the heights of Chilham the Pilgrims’ Way descends into the valley of the Stour, and after following the course of the river for a short time, climbs the opposite hill and strikes into Bigberry Wood. Here we come suddenly upon the most ancient earthwork along the whole line of the road, an entrenchment which Professor Boyd Dawkins, who explored it thoroughly some years ago, has ascribed to the prehistoric Iron Age. For most of us, perhaps, Bigberry Camp has a still greater interest as the fort which the Britons held against the assault of the Roman invaders, and which was stormed and carried by Cæsar’s legions. The memory of that desperate fight, which sealed the fate of Britain and her conquest by the great Proconsul, still lingers in the popular mind, and the shepherd who follows his flock and{186} the waggoner who drives his team along the road, still talk of the famous battle that was fought here two thousand years ago.
After this the path crosses the valley and runs through the hop-gardens to join Watling Street—the road by which Chaucer’s pilgrims came to Canterbury—at Harbledown. This is the little village on the edge of the forest of Blean, which has been immortalised by Chaucer’s lines—
“Wist ye not where standeth a little toun
Which that ycleped is Bob-up-and-down,
Under the Blee in Canterbury way.”
