CHALK 



81 



In Domesday Book Denton is written " Danitune," 

 and it is generally held that the name comes from the 

 raiding Danes, who certainly troubled this estuary ; 

 but it is probalDly " Dene-town," the place in the vale ; 

 perhaps in contradistinction to Higham, which is not 

 far off. 



Chalk is the next place on the road, and Chalk 

 is quite the smallest and most scattered of villages, 

 beginning at the summit of the hill leading out of 

 ^Milton and ending at Chalk church, which stands on 

 a hillock retired behind a clump of trees nearly a mile 



JOE GARGERY'S FORGE. 



down the road, and far aAvay from any house. All the 

 way the road commands long reaches of the Thames 

 and the Essex marshes, and on summer days the singing 

 of the larks high in air above the open fields can be 

 heard. 



At Chalk, in 1836, Charles Dickens rented a honey- 

 moon cottage, on his marriage Avith Catherine Hogarth. 

 Great controversies arose some years ago, following 

 upon what is said to be a wrong identification of the 

 place with a residence called the " Manor House " ; 

 and it was stated that the real dwelling in question was 

 the weather-boarded and much humbler cottage at the 

 fork of the old and new roads between Gravesend and 

 Northfleet, still standing, and with a commemorative 

 tablet on it. Opposite is " Joe Gargery's Forge." 



