48 



he came he gave to Christ Church, Canterbury, the haven of 

 Sandwich and all the dues arising from it ;" where it is stated 

 the gift extended on either side of the haven — " So that lo ! 

 when the flood is at the highest, and all at the fullest, if a ship 

 be floating so nigh the land as mightest may, and a man stand- 

 ing in the ship have a taper in his hand, etc., the boundary 

 being as far as he could throw it." He also gave the small boat 

 and ferry of the haven, and the toll of the vessels. It will be 

 part of our duty to enquire at what period this Wantsum estuary 

 silted up, and what was its extent in Roman times — on both 

 which subjects a great deal of misapprehension occurs. Firstly, 

 the extent of this estuary in Roman times. Bede's Ec. His., 

 B. 1, c. 25, states — "Thanet divided from the other land by the 

 river Wantsum, which is about three furlongs over, ?iX\Afordableotjlv 

 in two places, for both ends of it run into the sea." I would 

 first observe many authors of note doubt Bede's topographical 

 knowledge of places in East Kent. But if the Wantsum was 

 then three furlongs wide, it was nevertheless fordable in two 

 places ; so it could not have been very deep, and we have no 

 intimation where it was three furlongs wide. In the same 

 chapter Bede states — "In this island (in Thanet) landed the 

 servant of our Lord, Augustine and his companions, being, as 

 is reported, forty men." This is stared in one place to have 

 been at Ebbs-fleet, where Hetigisi and Horsa, conquerors of Kent, 

 are likewise said to have landed. Tborne states Augustine landed 

 in Thanet, in loci qui dicitur Ratesburgh. I have drawn 

 your attention to this, because the notion has generally 

 been accepted that the landing-place in Thanet thus early 

 mentioned was from Pegwell Bay to Ebbs-fleet, and this and 

 other circumstances have led to a belief that the whole 

 space between Sandwich and Ebbs-fleet was at that time covered 

 by the sea. An old map engraved in Dugdale's jMonasticum, 

 and one in Lewis's history of Thanet, have given rise to these 

 erroneous views.* My friend Alderman Brent still, I believe, 

 entertains this notion. I shall in the next chapter show the 

 errorof such a viewon Geological data. I now only give Historical 

 data of these. Firstly, Stonar, just opposite Sandwich, has been 

 ia the Isle of Thanet from the earliest historical period. Then 

 the word Fleet meant a harbour, not in our now accepted term, 

 such as Ramsgate Harbour, but was a landing place situate 

 within a river, so that vessels in early times sailed into these 

 rivers and made their fleets in places far removed from the in- 

 fluence of the tidal waves. In 1267 we mentioned a boundary 

 of the Port of Sandwich near, Holbergh, belonging to the Lord 

 of Poldre. This Poldre is a Dutch name, implying land pro- 

 tected from the sea by embankments ; and it would imply that 

 thus early the Dutch were employed to embank, or gave their 



* See also a short dissertation on the antiquities of the two ancient ports of 

 Richborough and Sandwich by Mr. John Lewis, proceedings cf Royal 

 Society of Antiquaries, 1744. 



