GUTTERIDGE GATE 217 



jingling sons of Mars, each man with his adoring young 

 woman, and sometimes one on either arm, for there is 

 great competition for these gallant Hussars, Lancers, 

 and Dragoons among the Canterbury fair ones ; and 

 " unappropriated blessings " of a rank in life that does 

 not permit of " walking out " with mere troopers sit at 

 windows commanding the road, sighing for that the 

 conventions of the age do not permit them to " stoop 

 to conquer " the conquerors of their fluttering hearts. 

 " I could worship that man," says the Fairy Queen in 

 lolanthe, gazing admiringly upon " Private Willis of the 

 Grenadier Guards " ; and how much more worshipful 

 than a foot-soldier are the " cavalry chaps " of the 

 Canterbury depot ! 



It was a hundred yards or so along the road from 

 Gutteridge Gate that two Dragoons figured in a 

 highway robbery upon His Majesty's Mails in 1789. 

 The bells were chiming three o'clock in the morning 

 of July 31 in that year when Daniel Goldup, the 

 mounted postman, came up the hill from Bridge with 

 the French mails slung across his horse's back. As he 

 eased his jDace in ascending the hill, three men called 

 upon him to stop. One of them he recognized as a 

 villager from Elham named Hills, and the two others he 

 perceived to be Dragoons disguised in smock-frocks. 

 Telling Hills he had no letters for him, Goldup proceeded 

 on his way. Hills fired but missed, and the three then 

 ran after him ; one laying hold of the horse's bridle 

 while the other two seized the mail-bags and rifled them. 

 They detained him an hour while they examined the 

 letters, and then, tying up the mail-bags again, let 

 him go. 



The village of Bridge, down below, takes its name 

 from the small bridge that carrie, the road over the 

 Lesser Stour. It is a pretty and peaceful place 

 to-day, ^\'ith quaint boarded houses ; a Norman and 

 Early English church, containing some curious and 

 grotesque carvings of Adam and Eve ; and encircled 

 by woods, the remote descendants of the almost 



