Mr. S. Young’s comfortable little inn, the Cross at Keston, or Keston Mark, is mentioned [before] as being at the north-east corner of the grounds belonging to Holwood. My friend W—— and I, on a second visit to Mr. Young’s house, went from thence, for the purpose of seeing the church and village of Keston, through which the main road runs to Westerham. We kept along to the entrance gate of Holwood, which we passed, having the park palings on our left, till we came to a well in the road, which derives its water from springs within Holwood, and stands on a swell of meadow land, called “the War Bank.” Further on, and out of the road to the right, lies the village of Keston, a few houses embowered in a dell of trees; with a stone church, which did not seem to have been built more than a couple of centuries. A peep through the windows satisfied us that there was nothing worth looking at within. We had heard of stone coffins having been found at the bottom of the War Bank, and we returned to that spot; where, though the ground had been ploughed and was in pasture, we met with much stone rubbish in the soil, and some large pieces loose on the surface and in the ditches of the hedge. These appearances indicated a former structure there; and an old labourer, whom we fell in with, told us that when he was a boy, his grandfather used to talk of “Keston old church” having stood in that spot, but becoming decayed, it was pulled down, and the church rebuilt in its present situation, with the materials of the ancient edifice. If this information was correct, the coffins which were discovered in that spot were more likely to have been deposited there in ordinary burial, than to have contained, as most of the country people suppose, the bodies of persons slain in battle on the War Bank. Besides, if that mound derives its name, as tradition reports, from a conflict there between the Romans and the ancient Britons, it must be remembered that our rude aboriginal ancestors were unaccustomed to that mode of sepulture, and that Cæsar had work of more consequence to employ his soldiers on than such laborious constructions for the interment of his officers. One of these coffins is at Mr. Smith’s, near the well-head on the War Bank, and another is at lady Farnaby’s, at Wickham Court.
The little village of Keston is, of itself, nothing; but, looking over it from the road towards the weald of Kent, and particularly Surrey, there is a sweeping view of hill and dale, arable and pasture, intersected with woodlands. Its name is said to have been derived from Cæsar’s (pronounced Kæsar’s) town; but it is quite as likely to have been a corruption of “castrum,” a fortress or citadel. There is little doubt that the Romans maintained a military position on the heights adjoining Keston for a considerable time. The site they held was afterwards occupied by the late right honourable William Pitt; and respecting it, there was published in the year 1792 the following
Account of Holwood.
Holwood-hill, at present the seat of the right hon. William Pitt, is a most beautiful eminence, commanding (without the view of water) one of the most agreeable prospects in this country, or perhaps in this kingdom.
The house is a very small, old, plastered brick building; but being on the edge of a celebrated fox-hunting country, it was formerly the residence of various gentlemen who hunted with the old duke of Grafton. It afterwards came into the hands of the late Mr. Calcraft, the agent; and, small as it is, was used as a house of rendezvous by the heads of the great party at that time, where they privately formed their schemes of parliamentary manœuvre, and partook of Mr. Calcraft and Mrs. Bellamy’s elegant entertainment.
From Mr. Calcraft it came into the hands of the Burrell family: by them it was sold to captain Ross, and was purchased of him by —— Burrow, Esq., (nephew of the late sir James Burrow,) who stuccoed the house, added greatly to the grounds by various purchases, grubbed and converted considerable woods into beautiful pasture and pieces of water, and planted those ornamental shrubberies, which have rendered it so delightful and so justly admired a spot.
—— Randall, Esq., an eminent shipbuilder, purchased it of Mr. Burrow, and he has since sold it to the right hon. William Pitt, a native of (Hayes) the adjoining parish.
Holwood is fourteen miles distant from London, in the parish of Keston, Kent; which parish evidently, either by Latin or Saxon derivation, takes its name from the camp, commonly called Julius Cæsar’s Camp; on the south entrenchment of which Mr. Pitt’s house stands, and some part of the pleasure-ground is within the same.
This celebrated camp, till within these twenty years, was tolerably perfect: it consisted of a circular double, and in some places treble entrenchment, enclosing about twenty-nine acres of land; into which there appeared to have been no original entrance but by the opening to the north-west, which descends to the spring called “Cæsar’s Spring.” This spring has long been converted into a most useful public cold bath; a dressing-house is built on the brink of it; it is ornamented with beautiful trees, and from its romantic situation, forms a most pleasing scene.
However antiquarians (from the variety of fragments, coins, &c. discovered ploughed up in the neighbourhood) may have been induced to differ in conjecture as to the person who framed it, they all agree that this camp was originally a strong and considerable Roman station, though not of the larger sort; but rather from its commanding situation, and short distance from the Thames, a camp of observation, or castra æstiva. At the same time, there is great reason to suppose it to have been since possessed by other invaders.