A CORNER OF KENT. 229 



the church from sharing the fate of the cliffs around 

 Sir Charles Lyell aptly calls it a " causeway of stones." 

 When he visited the church, in June 1851, he beheld 

 human bones and part of a wooden coffin " projecting 

 from the cliff near the top ; " and the keeper of the 

 church, referring probably to that epoch, reminded me 

 that visitors were fond of carrying off gruesome relics 

 of the spot in the shape of the remnants of mortality 

 which the sea had exposed on the cliff burial-ground. 



We can go back, in the history of Reculvers, to the 

 time of the Romans. Then, it was named Regulvium. 

 It was a military station of importance in those days, 

 and that it was an inland place cannot be doubted. 

 For, in the time of Henry VIII., it was a mile or so 

 distant from the sea. From that epoch onwards there 

 has been a chronicle of sure and swift wear and tear 

 by the ocean waves. The cliff is sand, with clay sand- 

 stone in slabs, interspersed among the softer material. 

 This material presents no obstacle to the attack of the 

 sea : so that we are not surprised to discover that 

 when 1781 dawned, and a drawing of Reculvers ap- 

 peared in the Gentleman's Magazine, the mile of inter- 

 vening ground seen in Henry the Eighth's time had 

 dwindled away to a mere fraction of its former size. 



The view of 1781 is instructive. Taken from be- 

 hind the towers, the church is represented still in its 

 entirety. Looking towards Herne Bay we see an out- 

 jutting tongue of land on which stand several houses. 

 Among them is an ancient chapel, now destroyed, 

 while a cottage which stood between the chapel and 

 the cliff was swept away in 1782. 



Before 1780 the ancient Roman camp had come to 

 grief, under the resistless march of the waves, and for 

 a time, we are told, the walls of the camp held firmly 



