THE "BULL" 55 



the passage until the neiohbouring hermit, who Hved 

 in a fine damp eell by the riverside, sueeeeded in 

 collecting enough money Avherewith to build a bridge 

 whose successor forms an excellent leaning-stock on 

 Sundays to the British workman waiting anxiously for 

 the public-houses to open. 



There is in the church a small thirteenth century 

 lancet window in the west end wall of the north aisle, 

 which is pointed out as the window of the cell occupied 

 by the hermit who tended the ford. It commanded 

 the road ; and no doubt the hermit was often knocked 

 up at night by travellers desiring to be guided over the 

 river. In 1903 a charming picture in stained glass was 

 added, " The Hermit of the Ford," showing a bearded 

 and hooded man holding up a lantern. The ford was 

 not superseded until 1461, when the first bridge was 

 built. This remained until the present bridge replaced 

 it, in 1754. On that occasion, the churchyard on the 

 south side of the church was curtailed, for widening 

 the road, and an angle of the church itself was in 1792 

 shaved off for the footpath, as can be seen to this day. 



The old inns of Dartford are very numerous. Most of 

 them, unfortunately, have been cut up into small beer- 

 houses and tenements since the coaches were run off the 

 road by steam, but one fine old galleried inn, the " Bull," 

 remains to show what the coachinoj inns of lono^ ago 

 were like. The courtyard is now roofed-in with glass, 

 and the little bedrooms behind the carved balusters of 

 the gallery are largely given up to spiders and lumber. 

 But, fortunately for those who care to see what an old 

 galleried inn was like, the changes here have consisted 

 only of additions instead, as is only too usual, of 

 destruction. There is a curious detail, too, about the 

 " Bull," and that is the whimsical position of its sign 

 in a place where ninety out of a hundred people never 

 see it. The " bull in a china-shop " is proverbial, 

 but a bull among the chimney-pots is something quite 

 out of the common. It is here, though, that the 

 effigy of a great black bull may be seen, reared up 



