PREFACE 



THE history and topography of Kent are so pecuh'arly attrac- 

 tive that many historians have turned their attention to the 

 county and it has thus been supplied with a continuous flow 

 of topographical works from the sixteenth century to the 

 present day. The first of its historians, and perhaps the earliest 

 English county historian, was William Lambarde, who in 1576 pub- 

 lished his Perambulation of Kent containing the Description^ Hystorie and 

 Customes of that Shyre. Lambarde was born in 1536 and was the son 

 of a draper and alderman of London. He practised law and after 

 publishing some collections relating to the Anglo-Saxon period com- 

 pleted his Perambulation of Kent in 1570. This, his principal work, 

 although not quite on the lines of the more modern county histories, 

 gives most quaint and interesting descriptions of old customs which 

 during the period of change in which he lived were fast passing 

 away. After serving the office of Keeper of the Records for some 

 years he died in 1601. Lambarde's work was followed in 1659 by 

 Richard Kilburne's Topographie or Survey of the County of Kent and 

 John Philipot's Villare Cantiutn, published by his son Thomas Philipot, 

 but neither of these can well be considered a county history. In 

 1 7 1 9 Dr. John Harris, a profuse writer, published a History of Kent which, 

 although not of the strictest accuracy, contains much information and 

 is accompanied by a series of plates of great interest by Kyp. 



It is however to Edward Hasted that we naturally turn as the 

 historian of Kent. Born in 1732 he was brought up to the law and 

 was a man of considerable property till, like other county historians, his 

 work involved him in pecuniary difficulties. His History of Kent 

 was issued in four volumes, the first of which appeared in 1778 and 

 the last in 1799. It is said to have occupied over forty years of his life, 

 and from the care with which it is compiled may be classed among the 

 best of our county histories. It shows an enormous amount of research, 

 particularly among the records of the ecclesiastical corporations which 

 were available to him in the county ; but the public records, then dis- 

 tributed in various offices and not easily accessible, are somewhat neg- 

 lected. A new edition of this history was contemplated by Mr. Henry 

 H. Drake, but only the first volume including the Hundred of Black- 

 heath was completed and published in 1886. It is much fuller in detail 

 than Hasted's work and considerable use has been made of the public 

 records now collected together at the Public Record Office. 



