46 THE DOVER ROAD 



were succeeded by the Austens, who made alterations, 

 until 1772, when it passed to Sir Francis Dashwood, 

 in whose family it yet remains. 



In the neighbourhood of Bexley Heath, and also 

 at Crayford and places beside the Thames near Dartford 

 are some singular shafts of unknown age or purpose, 

 sunk into the soil, frequently to a depth of a hundred 

 feet, through the chalk of which this district chiefly 

 consists. " Danes' Holes," the country-folk call them, 

 and they are traditionally supposed to have been 

 constructed as hiding-places to which the old 

 inhabitants of these parts could retire when the 

 Northmen's piratical fleets appeared in the estuary of 

 the Thames. Antiquaries have a theory that these 

 singular pits were sunk by our neolithic forbears in 

 search of flints. The antiquaries, however, are most 

 probably wrong, because flints were to be found readily 

 enough by the men of the Stone Age, without going 

 to the trouble of mining for them ; and no one has yet 

 arisen to show that neolithic man was more likely than 

 we, his descendants, to give himself unnecessary labour. 



We will, therefore, assume that the legendary name 

 of " Danes' Holes " shadows forth the purpose of these 

 shafts a great deal more correctly than the ingenious 

 theories of antiquaries, made to fit personal pre- 

 dilections ; the more especially as legendary history 

 is generally found to square with facts much more 

 frequently than scientific pundits would have us believe. 



These remarkable pits commence with a trumpet- 

 shaped orifice Avhich immediately contracts into a 

 narrow shaft, broadening at the bottom into a bulb-like 

 chamber, not unremotely resembling in shape the tube 

 and bulb of a thermometer. " By a curious coinci- 

 dence," says one who has long been familiar with these 

 strange survivals, '' the shape of the Bexley shafts 

 is exactly that of a local beer-measure which is held in 

 great estimation. In several houses may be seen an 

 advertisement that " beer is sold by the yard." 



