THE DOVER ROAD 



255 



The Dover Road after leaving Chatham is simply the old 

 Watling Street with modern improvements and nothing 

 more. It runs consequently in nearly as straight a line as 

 can be imagined, through a fine rolling country, com- 

 manding here and there fine views, and here and there 

 no views at all. But that plethora of historic incident 

 which marked the Dover Road as far as Rochester still 

 occurs ; till, at the end of twenty-five miles one furlong 

 we reach Canterbury, which is a sort of historical reservoir 

 in itself 



We are not there however yet. By no means. And 

 on the way there (after passing through Rainham and 

 Moor Street) Newington, six miles from Chatham, first 

 gives me pause. For here a very dolorous event occurred 

 in what we are pleased to call the dark ages. And it 

 occurred in a priory for nuns, I am sorry to say, which 

 was founded shortly after the Domesday Survey. There 

 was a difference of opinion among the ladies on a rainy 

 afternoon, and the next morning the prioress was found 

 strangled in her bed. The catastrophe striking even 

 the mediaeval authorities as something out of the ordinary 

 course of nature, they took decisive measures for staying 

 the scandal by burying all the nuns alive in a chalk pit ; 

 a curious instance of an adroit dealing with a difficulty, 

 which may be seen (the chalk pit, not the difficulty) to 

 this day. 



After which heavy business we had better get on to 

 Sittingbourne (thirty-nine miles six furlongs from 

 London) for a little refreshment. And Sittingbourne is, 

 or rather was, in the old coaching days, a good place 

 for a dinner. At all events, here many of our English 

 kings dined, Henry the Fifth amongst the number, who 

 was sumptuously entertained at the Red Lion on his 

 return from Agincourt at the cost of nine shillings and 

 sixpence. ("Are visions about .^ ") Here also George 

 the First and George the Second refreshed repeatedly 

 on their way to Hanover at the George or Rose, but, as 

 I apprehend, at a more extended tariff. The George 



