A Week's Tramp in Dickens-Land Part 26

In a field which we visit, not very far from Kit's Coty House, is another group of stones, called the "countless stones." As we pa.s.s some boys are trying to solve the arithmetical problem, which cannot be readily accomplished, as the stones lie intermingled in a very strange and irregular manner, and are overgrown with brushwood. The belief that these stones cannot be counted is one constantly found connected with similar remains, _e.g._ Stonehenge, Avebury, etc. We heard a local story of a baker, who once tried to effect the operation by placing a loaf on the top of each stone as a kind of check or tally; but a dog running away with one of his loaves, upset his calculations.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kit's Coty House]

Both the "Coty House" and the "countless stones" consist of a silicious sandstone of the Eocene period, overlying the chalk, and are identical with the "Sa.r.s.ens," or "Grey Wethers," which occur at the pre-historic town of Avebury, and at Stonehenge; the smaller stones of the latter are, however, of igneous origin, and "are believed by Mr. Fergusson to have been votive offerings." These ma.s.ses, of what Sir A. C. Ramsay calls "tough and intractable silicious stone," have been, he says, "left on the ground, after the removal by denudation of other and softer parts of the Eocene strata." We subsequently saw several of these "grey wethers" in the grounds of Cobham Hall, and we noticed small ma.s.ses of the same stone _in situ_ in Pear Tree Lane, near Gad's Hill Place.

Speaking of Kit's Coty House in his _Short History of the English People_, the late Mr. J. R. Green, in describing the English Conquest and referring to this neighbourhood, says:--"It was from a steep knoll on which the grey weather-beaten stones of this monument are reared that the view of their first battle-field would break on the English warriors; and a lane which still leads down from it through peaceful homesteads would guide them across the ford which has left its name in the little village of Aylesford. The Chronicle of the conquering people tells nothing of the rush that may have carried the ford, or of the fight that went struggling up through the village. It only tells that Horsa fell in the moment of victory, and the flint heap of Horsted, which has long preserved his name, and was held in after-time to mark his grave, is thus the earliest of those monuments of English valour of which Westminster is the last and n.o.blest shrine. The victory of Aylesford did more than give East Kent to the English; it struck the keynote of the whole English conquest of Britain."

d.i.c.kens's visits to this locality in his early days may have suggested the discovery of the stone with the inscription:--

[Ill.u.s.tration:

+ B I L S T U M P S H I S. M.

A R K]

In later life he was fond of bringing his friends here "by a couple of postilions in the old red jackets of the old red royal Dover road" to enjoy a picnic. Describing a visit here with Longfellow he says:--"It was like a holiday ride in England fifty years ago."

Returning to the main road, we reach the high land of Blue Bell--"Upper Bell," as it is marked on the Ordnance Map. We are not quite on the highest range, but sufficiently high (about three hundred feet) to enable us to appreciate the splendid view that presents itself. In the valley below winds the Medway, broadening as it approaches Rochester.[30] The opposite heights consist of the western range of hills, the width of the valley from point to point being about ten miles. The "sky-line" of hills running from north to south cannot be less than sixty miles, extending to the famous Weald of Kent (weald, wald, or wolde, being literally "a wooded region, an open country"); all the intervening s.p.a.ce of undulating slope and valley (river excepted) is filled up by hamlets, gra.s.s, root, and cornfields, hop-gardens, orchards and woodlands, the whole forming a picture of matchless beauty. No wonder d.i.c.kens was very fond of this delightful walk; it must be gone over to be appreciated.[31]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Kits Coty House and "Blue Bell" From the Painting by Gegan]

We tramp on through Boxley and Bridge Woods, down the hill, and pa.s.s Borstal Convict Prison and Fort Clarence, where there are guns which we were informed would carry a ball from this elevated ground right over the Thames into the county of Ess.e.x (a distance of seven miles); and so we get back again to Rochester.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] Lambarde says, "Malling, in Saxon Mealing, or Mealuing, that is, the Low place flourishing with Meal or Corne, for so it is everywhere accepted."

[27] The italics are interpolated.

[28] Burham, although now enshrouded in the smoke of lime-making, was probably sixty years ago a delightfully rural spot.

[29] Mr. Roach Smith reminded us that the yew was in times past planted for its wood to be used as bows.

[30] Professor Huxley, in his _Physiography_, has estimated that "at the present rate of wear and tear, denudation can have lowered the surface of the Thames Basin by hardly more than an inch since the Norman Conquest; and nearly a million years must elapse before the whole basin of the Thames will be worn down to the sea-level"; and Dr. A. Geikie, after a series of elaborate calculations, has postulated "as probably a fair average, a valley of 1000 feet deep may be excavated in 1,200,000 years." Taking these estimates as a basis, and allowing for an average height of three hundred feet, we roughly arrive at a period of about four hundred thousand years as the possible length of time which it has taken to form this beautiful valley. Professor Huxley may well say that "the geologist has thoughts of time and s.p.a.ce to which the ordinary mind is a stranger."

[31] Mr. Kitton's ill.u.s.tration (from the painting by Gegan, a local artist, executed many years since) gives a good idea of the scenery of this beautiful district. It also reproduces the profile of a huge chalk cliff not now visible, but which existed about half a century ago, having a curious resemblance to the head of a lion, and forming at the time a conspicuous landmark to travellers.

CHAPTER XI.

BROADSTAIRS, MARGATE, AND CANTERBURY.

"We have a fine sea, wholesome for all people; profitable for the body, profitable for the mind."--_Our English Watering-Place._

"All is going on as it was wont. The waves are hoa.r.s.e with repet.i.tion of their mystery; the dust lies piled upon the sh.o.r.e; the sea-birds soar and hover; the winds and clouds go forth upon their trackless flight; the white arms beckon in the moonlight to the invisible country far away."--_Dombey and Son._

"A moment, and I occupy my place in the Cathedral, where we all went together every Sunday morning, a.s.sembling first at school for that purpose. The earthy smell, the sunless air, the sensation of the world being shut out, the resounding of the organ through the black and white arched galleries and aisles, are wings that take me back and hold me hovering above those days in a half-sleeping and half-waking dream."--_David Copperfield._

TAKING advantage of an excursion train (for tramps usually go on the cheap), we start early on Wednesday by the South-Eastern Railway from Chatham station for Broadstairs. As usual the weather favours us--it is a glorious day. Pa.s.sing the stations of New Brompton, Rainham, Newington, and Sittingbourne, we soon get into open country, in the midst of hop gardens with their verdant aisles of the fragrant and tonic, tendril-like plants reaching in some instances perhaps to several hundred yards, and crowned with yellowish-green fruit-ma.s.ses, which have a special charm for those unaccustomed to such scenery. The odd-looking "oast-houses,"[32] or drying-houses for the hops, are a noticeable feature of the neighbourhood, dotting it about here and there in pairs. They are mostly red-brick and cone-shaped, somewhat smaller than the familiar gla.s.s-houses of the Midland districts, and have a wooden cowl, painted white, at the apex for ventilation. We are rather too early for the hop-picking, and thus--but for a time only--miss an interesting sight. d.i.c.kens, in one of his letters to Forster, gives a dreary picture of this annual harvest:--

"Hop-picking is going on, and people sleep in the garden, and breathe in at the key-hole of the house door. I have been amazed, before this year, by the number of miserable lean wretches, hardly able to crawl, who come hop-picking. I find it is a superst.i.tion that the dust of the newly-picked hop, falling freshly into the throat, is a cure for consumption. So the poor creatures drag themselves along the roads, and sleep under wet hedges, and get cured soon and finally."

On the whole it is said to be a very indifferent season, but many plantations look promising. "If," as a grower remarks to us in the train, "we could have a little more of this fine weather! There has been too much rain, and too little sun this year." The apples also are a poor crop.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hop-picking in Kent]

On a second visit to this pleasant neighbourhood, we see at Mear's Barr Farm, near Rainham, the whole process of hop-picking. True, it is not executed by that ragam.u.f.finly crowd of strangers which d.i.c.kens had in his "mind's eye" when he wrote the words just quoted, and which usually takes possession of most of the hop-growing districts of Kent during the picking season, but by an a.s.semblage of native villagers, mostly women, girls, and boys,--neat, clean, and homely,--together with a few men who do the heavier part of the work. They are of all ages, from the tottering old grandmother, careworn wife, and buxom maiden, to the child in perambulator and baby in arms; and in the bright sunlight, amid the groves of festooning green columns, form a most orderly, varied, and picturesque gathering--a regular picnic in fact, judging from the cheerful look on most of the faces, and the merry laugh that is occasionally heard.

Mr. Fred Scott, tenant of the farm, of which Lord Hothfield is owner, is kind enough to go over the hop-garden with us, and describe all the details. When the hops are ripe (_i. e._ when the seeds are hard) and ready to be gathered, the pickers swarm on the ground, and a man divides the "bine" at the bottom of the "pole" by means of a bill-hook--not cutting it too close for fear of bleeding--leaving the root to sprout next year, and then draws out the pole, to which is attached the long, creeping bine, trailing over at top. If the pole sticks too fast in the ground, he eases it by means of a lever, or "hop-dog" (a long, stout wooden implement, having a toothed iron projection). "Mind my dog don't bite you, sir," says one of the men facetiously, as we step over this rough-looking tool. Women then carry the poles to, and lay them across, the "bin," a receptacle formed by four upright poles stuck in the ground and placed at an angle, supporting a framework from which depends the "bin-cloth," made of jute or hemp, holding from ten to twenty bushels of green hops, weighing about 1-1/2 lbs. per bushel when dry.

The picking then commences, and nimble fingers of all sizes very soon strip the poles of the aromatically-smelling ripe hops, the poles being cast aside in heaps, to be afterwards cleared of the old bines and put into "stacks" of three hundred each, and used again next season.

The bins, which vary in number according to the size of the hop-garden, are placed in rows on the margin of the plantation, and usually have ten "hop-hills" (_i. e._ plants) on each side, and are moved inside the plantation as the poles are pulled up. Each bin belongs to a "sett" (_i.

e._ family or companionship), consisting of from five to seven persons, and is taken charge of by a "binman." When the bin is full, a "measurer"

(either the farmer himself or his deputy) takes account of the quant.i.ty of hops picked, and records it in a book to the credit of each working family. Then the green hops are carted off in "pokes" or sacks to the "oast-houses" to be dried. For this purpose, anthracite coal and charcoal are used in the kiln, a shovelful or two of sulphur being added to the fire when the hops are put on. The process of drying takes eleven hours, and afterwards the dried hops are packed in pockets which, when full, weigh about a hundredweight and a half each, the packing being effected by hydraulic pressure. They are then sent to market, the earliest arrivals fetching very high prices. As much as 50 per cwt. was paid in 1882, but the ordinary price averages from 4 to 8 per cwt.

_Humulus Lupulus_, the hop, belongs to the natural order _Urticaceae_--a plant of rather wide distribution, but said to be absent in Scotland--and is a herbaceous, dioecious perennial, usually propagated by removal of the young shoots or by cuttings. According to Sowerby, the genus is derived from _humus_, the ground, as, unless supported or trained, the plant falls to the earth; and the common name "hop" from the Saxon _hoppan_, to climb. William King, in his _Art of Cookery_, says that "heresy and hops came in together"; while an old popular rhyme records that:--

"Hops, carp, pickerel, and beer, Came into England all in one year."

Tusser in his _Hondreth Good Points of Husbandrie_, published in 1557, gives sundry directions for the cultivation of hops, and quaintly advocates their use as follows:--

"The hop for his profit I thus do exalt, It strengtheneth drink, and it savoureth malt; And being well brewed, long kept it will last, And drawing abide--if you draw not too fast."

The hop has many varieties--thirty or more--among which may be mentioned prolifics, bramblings, goldings, common goldings, old goldings, Canterbury goldings, Meopham goldings, etc. When once planted they last for a hundred years, but some growers replace them every ten years or sooner.

The princ.i.p.al enemies of the hop are "mould" caused by the fungus _Sphaerotheca Castagnei_, and several kinds of insects, especially the "green fly," _Aphis humuli_, but the high wind is most to be dreaded. It tears the hop-bines from the poles and throws the poles down, which in falling crush other bines, and thus bruise the hops and prevent their growth, besides obstructing the pa.s.sage of air and sunlight, and causing the development of mould or mildew. The remedy for mould is dusting with sulphur, and for the green fly, syringing with tobacco or qua.s.sia water and soap, "Hop-wash," as it is called. Sometimes the lady-bird (_Coccinella septempunctata_) is present in sufficient numbers to consume the green fly. Very little can be done to obviate the effects of the wind, but a protective fence of the wild hop--called a "lee" or "loo"--is sometimes put up round very choice plantations.

The hop-poles, the preparation of which const.i.tutes a distinct industry, are either of larch, Spanish chestnut, ash, willow, birch, or beech--larch or chestnut being preferred. Women clear the poles of the bark, and men sharpen them at one end, which is dipped in creosote before being used. The ground is cleared, and the poles are stuck in against the old plants in February or March.

We are informed that the hop-picking is much looked forward to by the villagers with pleasure as the means of supplying them with a little purse for clothing, etc., against winter-time. Each family or companionship earns from thirty shillings to two pounds per week during the season.

We proceed on our excursion, and pa.s.s Faversham, which stands in a rather picturesque bit of country some way up Faversham Creek, and is sheltered on the west by a ridge of wooded hills where the hop country ceases, as the railway bends north-easterly for Margate and Ramsgate.

Whitstable, the next station pa.s.sed, is famous for the most delicate oysters in the market, the fishery of which is regulated by an annual court; and it is said that one grower alone sends fifty thousand barrels a year to London from this district. We speculate whether these delicious molluscs were supplied at that famous supper described in the thirty-ninth chapter of _The Old Curiosity Shop_, at which were present Kit, his mother, the baby, little Jacob, and Barbara, after the night at the play, when Kit told the waiter "to bring three dozen of his largest-sized oysters, and to look sharp about it," and fulfilled his promise "to let little Jacob know what oysters meant." All along, as the railway winds from Whitstable to Margate, glimpses of the sea are visible, and vary our excursion pleasantly.

The next noteworthy place we pa.s.s is Reculver--the ancient Regulbium--which, according to Mr. Phillips Bevan, is "mentioned in the Itinerary of Antoninus as being garrisoned by the first cohort of Brabantois Belgians. After the Romans, it was occupied by the Saxon Ethelbert, who is said to have occupied it as a palace, and to have been buried there." "The two picturesque towers" (quoting Bevan again), "which form so conspicuous a land and sea mark, are called 'The Sisters,' and are in reality modern-built by the Trinity Board in place of two erected traditionally by an Abbess of Faversham, who was wrecked here with her sister on their way to Broadstairs." The sea is fast encroaching on the land here, notwithstanding the erection of a large sea-wall and piles.

Pa.s.sing Margate, we reach Broadstairs, about thirty-seven miles from Chatham. Broadstairs, immortalized in _Our English Watering Place_ (which paper, says Forster, "appeared while I was there, and great was the local excitement"), is so inseparably a.s.sociated with the earlier years of Charles d.i.c.kens's holiday-life, that it becomes most interesting to his admirers. Forster also says, "His later seaside holiday, September 1837, was pa.s.sed at Broadstairs, as were those of many subsequent years; and the little watering-place has been made memorable by his pleasant sketch of it." At the time of his first visit (1837) he was writing a portion of _Pickwick_ (Part 18); in 1838 part of _Nicholas Nickleby_; and in 1839 part of _The Old Curiosity Shop_. He was also there in 1840, 1841, and 1842, when writing the _American Notes_; in 1845 and 1847, when writing _Dombey and Son_; in 1848 and 1850, when engaged on _David Copperfield_; and in 1851, when he was drafting the outlines of _Bleak House_. At the end of November of that year, when he had settled himself in his new London abode (Tavistock House), the book was begun, "and, as so generally happened with the more important incidents of his life, but always accidentally, begun on a Friday." After 1851, he returned not again to Broadstairs until 1859, when he paid his last visit to the place, and stayed a week there. The reason for his forsaking it was that it had become too noisy for him.

Broadstairs stands midway between the North Foreland and Ramsgate, and owes its name to the breadth of the sea-gate or "stair," which was originally defended by a gate or archway. An archway still survives on the road to the sea, and bears on it two inscriptions, (1) "Built by George Culenier about 1540"; (2) "Repaired by Sir John Henniker, Bart., 1795."

Broadstairs has good sands, precipitous chalk cliffs, and a very fine sea-view. The railway station is about a mile from the pier, and the town is approached by a well-kept road ("the main street of our watering-place. . . . You may know it by its being always stopped up with donkey chaises. Whenever you come here and see the harnessed donkeys eating clover out of barrows drawn completely across a narrow thoroughfare, you may be quite sure you are in our High Street"), with villas standing in their own gardens, most of which are brightened by summer flowers, notably the blue clematis (_Clematis Jackmani_) and by those charming seaside evergreens the _Escallonia_ and the _Euonymus_.

As we near the sea, the shops become more numerous, and, on the right-hand side, we have no difficulty in finding (although we heard it had been altered considerably) the house "No. 12, High Street," in which d.i.c.kens lived when he first visited Broadstairs. It is a plain little dwelling of single front, with a small parlour looking into the street, and has one story over--just the place that seems suited to the financial position of the novelist when he was commencing life. The house is now occupied by Mr. Bean, plumber and glazier, whose wife courteously shows us over it, and into the back yard and little garden, kindly giving us some pears from an old tree growing there, whereon we speculate as to whether d.i.c.kens himself had ever enjoyed the fruit from the same old tree. He appears to have lived in this house during his visits in 1837 and 1838. We ask the good lady if she is aware that Charles d.i.c.kens had formerly stayed in her house, and she replies in the negative, so we recommend her to get her husband to put up a tablet outside to the effect "Charles d.i.c.kens lived here, 1837," in imitation of the example of the Society of Arts in Furnival's Inn. There can be no doubt as to the ident.i.ty of the house, for we take the precaution of ascertaining that the numbers have not been altered.

Our efforts to discover "Lawn House," where d.i.c.kens stayed on his visits from 1838 to 1848, are attended with some difficulty. First we are told it lay this way, then that, and then the other; a smart villa in a new road is pointed out to us as the object of our search, which we at once reject, as being too recent. But we are patient and persevering, feeling, with Mr. F.'s aunt, that "you can't make a head and brains out of a bra.s.s k.n.o.b with nothing in it. You couldn't do it when your Uncle George was living; much less when he's dead!" Finally, we appeal to some one who looks like the "oldest inhabitant," and obtain something like a clue. We are eventually directed to a veritable "Lawn House," which is the last house on the left as you approach "Fort House." It must have changed in respect of its surroundings since forty years have pa.s.sed, and although there is nothing outside to indicate it as such, it seems fair to a.s.sume that this was the house described in the _Life_ as "a small villa between the hill and the cornfield." The present occupier, who has no recollection of d.i.c.kens ever having been there, courteously allows us to see the hall and dining-room. The house is of course a great improvement upon "No 12, High Street."