l8G2.] KENTISH BOTANY. 133 



fore reaching this ancient town, al)oiit two hundred yards from 

 the road which branches ofl'to Lydd, by the roadside we observed 

 a few plants of Crepis biennis. The bank on the left-hand side 

 was for a quarter of a mile dotted here and there with these plants. 

 ■ This was the only locality in Romney Marsh where this species 

 was observed, y^xsludrnfiiaq bluoo oj/ Aoid^n mo'it i 



The following' account of this very ancient seaport is from 

 Lambarde's 'Perambulation of Kent^ (page 197): — "There be 

 '>i^- Rent therefore two townes of this name^ the Olde and the 

 New Riimney ; as touching the latter whereof I minde not to 

 speake, having not hitherto founde either in recorde or hystorie 

 anything pertaining thereunto ; but that little which I have to 

 say must be of Olde Rumney, which was long since a principal 

 port, and giveth cause of name to the new towne, even as itselfe 

 first tooke it of the large level and territorie of marishe ground 

 that is adjoining." 



' " In the time of God wine, Earl of Kent, this haven was in- 

 v< ' Vaded by him and his sons, who ' led away all such ships as they 

 I found in the haj'borow there.' " — Lambarde, 198. 

 i' ' In Hasted's time, 1785, the village of Old Romney consisted 

 /')iiofn0ijibout fifteen mean, straggling houses, with the church in 

 the midst of them, Avhere it is much sheltered by trees, which 

 gives it a more pleasing appearance than any part of the adjoin- 

 ing country, which, as well as the rest of this parish, is an open, 

 unsheltered flat of marshes." — Hasted, 518, vol. ii. 



The houses around the church have disappeared. The trees 

 ^oJ£are still there, or some of them, and they give to this remnant 

 •'of a very ancient town a^nlore 'pleasing appearance than any part 



of the adjoining country.' ' ^ ■ ' '' . ■ ; ' ■ 



oJ ;lii;Gid Romney, said to be' on a' hill, which is so small that we 



c (idid not see it, is probably iiot more than two or three yards 



vhffoigher than the level of the sea at spring-tides, and was at an 



early period one of the Cinque Ports, though it is now from 



three to four miles distant from the sea.. 



New Romney is two miles beyond its more inland, and — if we 

 can trust the name— its more ancient namesake; '^^^li^' v' 



In the time of Hasted, the historian of Kent; New 'Romney 



was exactly what it is now, a decayed and decaying town like 

 Sandwich, only more desolate in appearance. It was a flourish- 

 ing town in the reign of Edward the Confessor, and continued 



