A HISTORY OF KENT 



near the water-side, as were the Danish works at Milton, Benfleet, 

 and Shoebury.' 



Tradition says that a ' castle ' stood where is now the church, and 

 that it was destroyed by the French in 1380. If there be truth in this 

 tradition we should think it just possible that the church stands within 

 the area of what was an extensive outer court of a stronghold of, perhaps, 

 early Norman days. On the south-west, where the ridge ends abruptly, 

 in a commanding position overlooking the ancient waterways, is a small 

 mount, wholly or partly of artificial construction, which may be a burial 

 tumulus but is more likely the base of a keep-mount. Round part of it 

 is a ditch, probably the poor remnant of a fosse filled with the accumu- 

 lated detritus of the mount, and close by on the steep hill-side are traces 

 of a spring of water, while on the other side, nearer the church, is a 

 piece of level ground which, though now neither fossed nor ramparted, 

 may well have been the base court of the keep.' 



Blackheath. — Towards the south-western corner of Blackheath, 

 near the beginning of the descent to Lewisham, there remains a portion 

 of an entrenchment which maybe of ancient date, but the work is of far 

 too slight a character to show its purpose or period. 



There also remain other broken traces of banking which may be 

 fragments of encampments. As the heath is credited with having 

 been the site of a Danish camp in the eleventh century, and as Wat Tyler 

 lay herein 1381, and Jack Cade encamped in 1449 and 1450, Henry VI 

 in 1452, and others since, it is highly probable that extensive earth- 

 works existed prior to the merciless destruction of the surface caused by 

 the gravel digging, which lasted from 18 18 till 1865. 



Deal Castle. — This, being one of Henry VIII's blockhouses, 

 to be noticed in another section of the History, needs only to be 

 mentioned here as being surrounded by a deep fosse with some masonry 

 on the counter-scarp. Sandown Castle, also built by Henry, has now 

 little left beyond the ruins of its foundations. 



Erith : Lesnes. — In immediate proximity to the site occupied by 

 Richard de Luci's twelfth-century abbey of Westwood in Lesnes, 

 mainly just within the adjoining wood, are traces of earthworks which 

 may have sheltered Saxon or Dane when the waters of the Thames 

 almost touched the base of the high ground, and left a ' hoo ' or dry 

 shelf of land suitable for the settlement of an early community. 



Now and for long past the marsh north of the position has been 

 separated from it by a raised road ^ which has closed in two little 

 valleys (one on either side of the abbey site, but the eastern at a greater 

 distance) once open to the Thames. 



> The place-name Afuldre need not be regarded as exact location ; it may be that Kenardington 

 (which see ante) is the site both of the half-wrought Saxon fortress and of the work constructed by the 

 Danes. The words of Ethelwerd's chronicle appear to imply that the Danish camp was erected on the 

 site of the Saxon work. 



' The traces being very vague, we have included this description in Class X, though it may properly 

 belong to Class E. 



3 This road, once an embankment, is now a tramway. 

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