DARTFORD 51 



XIII 



Dartford, to which wc now come, is a queer Httle 

 town, planted in a profound hollow, through which 

 runs its wealth-giving Darent. Mills and factories 

 meet the eye at every turn. Not smoking, grimy 

 factories of the kinds that blast the Midland counties, 

 but cleanly-looking boarded structures for the most 

 part, own brothers to flour-mills in outward aspect ; 

 places where paper is manufactured, and nowadays 

 drugs and chemicals. Dartford is industrial to-day, 

 but there are old-fashioned nooks, and some of the 

 street-names are intriguing : " Bullace Lane " and 

 " Overy Street,"' for example. Few people nowadays 

 knoAV what is a " bullace," It is, or was, a small wild 

 plum, of the damson kind. 



And here is the traditional home of paper-making 

 in England, for it was in Dartford, in the reign of 

 Good Queen Bess, that John Spielman (majesty, 

 in the person of Gloriana's successor, James the First, 

 knighted him for it in 1605) introduced the art of 

 paper-making to these shores. What induced that 

 man of gold and jewels and precious stones (he was 

 jeweller to Her Majesty) to take up paper-making, I do 

 not know ; but he made a very good thing of it, 

 commercially speaking, and no wonder, Avhen he had 

 sole license during ten years for collecting rags for 

 making his paper withal. Besides introducing the 

 manufacture of paper, Sir John Spielman added the 

 lime-tree to our parks and gardens, for he brought 

 over with him from his native place, Lindau, in 

 Germany, two slips from some U7iter den linden or 

 another, and planted them in front of his Dartford 

 home, where they flourished and became the progenitors 

 of all the limes in England. 



If you step into the quaint old church of Dartford, 

 you will see, as soon as your eyes become accustomed 

 to the gloom, the tomb of Sir John Spielman and his 



