Vol. II.—29.
Keston Cross.
Keston Cross.
Com. Kent, 13 miles from London, 3 from Bromley.—Itinerary.
When I designed with my friend W. a visit to the Dulwich gallery, which we did not effect, we did not foresee the consequence of diversion from our intent; and having been put out of our way, we strolled without considering “the end thereof.” Hence, our peradventure at the “Crooked Billet,” on Penge Common;[252] our loitering to sketch the “Bridge on the Road to Beckenham;”[253] the same, for the same purpose, at “the Porch of Beckenham Church-yard;”[254] the survey of “Beckenham Church;”[255] the view of its old Font in the public-house garden;[256] and the look at the hall of “Wickham Court,” and West Wickham church.[257] New and beautiful prospects opened to us from the latter village; and to the just enumerated six articles, and their engravings, respecting that part of the country, in the former volume of the Table Book, it is intended to add like abstracts of our further proceedings. In short, to be respectful and orderly, as one moiety of a walking committee, self-constituted and appointed, I take permission to “report progress, and ask leave to go again.”
The “Crooked Billet” at Penge, and mine host of the “Swan” at West Wickham, have had visitors curious to trace the pleasant route, and remark the particulars previously described. While indulging the sight, there is another sense that craves to be satisfied; and premising that we are now penetrating further “into the bowels of the land,” it becomes a duty to acquaint followers with head-quarters. For the present, it is neither necessary nor expedient to nicely mark the road to “Keston Cross”—go which way you will it is an agreeable one. A Tunbridge or Seven-Oaks coach passes within a short half mile, and the Westerham coach within the same distance. If a delightful two hours’ lounging walk from Bromley be desired, take the turning from the Swan at Bromley to Beckenham church; go through the church-yard over a stile, keep the meadow foot-path, cross the Wickham road, and wander by hedge-row elms, as your will and the country-folk direct you, till you arrive at Hayes Common; then make for the lower or left-hand side of the common, and leaving the mill on the right, get into the cottaged lane. At a few hundred yards past the sheep-wash, formed in a little dell by the Ravensbourne, at the end of the open rise, stands “Keston Cross.”
Before reaching this place on my first visit to it, the country people had indiscriminately called it “Keston Cross” and “Keston mark;” and lacking all intelligible information from them respecting the reason for its being so named, I puzzled myself with conjectures, as to whether it was the site of a cross of memorial, a market cross, a preaching cross, or what other kind of cross. It was somewhat of disappointment to me, when, in an angle of a cross-road, instead of some ancient vestige, there appeared a commodious, respectable, and comfortable-looking house of accommodation for man and horse; and, swinging high in air, its sign, the red-cross, heraldically, a cross gules; its form being, on reference to old Randle Holme, “a cross molyne, invertant;” to describe which, on the same authority, it may be said, that “this cross much resembles the molyne, or pomette; saving in this, the cut, or sawed ends, so turn themselves inward that they appear to be escrowles rolled up. Some term it molyne, the ends rolled up.”[258] So much for the sign, which I take to be a forgotten memorial of some old boundary stone, or land-mark, in the form of a cross, long since removed from the spot, and perhaps after it had become a “stump-cross;” which crosses were of so ancient date, that the Christians, ignorantly supposing them to have been dedicated to idolatrous purposes, religiously destroyed them, and their ancient names were soon forgotten: “this may be the reason why so many broken crosses were called stump-crosses.”[259] The observation is scarcely a digression; for the house and sign, commonly called “Keston Cross,” or “Keston mark,” stand on a site, which, for reasons that will appear by and by, the antiquary deems sacred. The annexed [representation] shows the direction of the roads, and the star * in the corner the angular situation of the house, cut out of Holwood, the estate of the late Mr. Pitt, which is bounded by the Farnborough and Westerham roads, and commands from the grounds of the enclosure the finest view towards the weald of Kent in this part of the county.
“Keston Cross” I call “head-quarters,” because in this house you will find yourself “at home.” You may sparkle forth to many remarkable spots in the vicinage, and then return and take your “corporal refection,” and go in and out at will; or you may sit at your ease, and do nothing but contemplate in quiet; or, in short, you may do just as you like. Of course this is said to “gentle” readers; and I presume the Table Book has no others: certain it is, that ungentle persons are unwelcome visitors, and not likely to visit again at “Keston Cross.” Its occupant, Mr. S. Young—his name is beneath his sign—will not be regarded by any one, who does himself the pleasure to call at his house, as a common landlord. If you see him seated beside the door, you estimate him at least of that order one of whom, on his travels, the chamberlain at the inn at Rochester describes to Gadshill as worthy his particular notice—“a franklin in the weald of Kent, that hath three hundred marks with him in gold—one that hath abundance of charge too.”[260] You take Mr. Young for a country gentleman; and, if you company with him, may perhaps hear him tell, as many a country gentleman would—bating obsolete phrase and versification—