KENT. 203 



rises in Caesar's Well near Keston, flows past the old market town of Bromley, 

 drives the mill-wheels of Lewisham, and separates Deptford from Greenwich. 

 Greenwich is celebrated for its Hospital, consisting of four blocks of buildings erected 

 from designs by Sir Christopher Wren. The inyalided sailors for whom this great 

 work was erected know it no longer, they being paid a pension instead of being 

 lodged and boarded, and their place is now occupied by the Eoyal Xaval College 

 and a Naval Museum. The old refectory, or hall, a magnificent apartment of 

 noble proportions, is used as a gallery of pictures illustrating England's naval 

 glories. On a verdant hill which rises in the centre of Greenwich Park, laid 

 out by Le JS^ôtre, there stands an unpretending building. This is the Royal 

 Observatory, rendered famous by the labours of Flamsteed, Halley, Bradley, and 

 Maskelyne, who have found a worthy successor in the present Astronomer-Royal. 

 This Observatory is fitted out with the most costly instruments. The initial meridian 

 almost universally accepted by mariners throughout the world passes through the 

 equatorial cupola forming its roof Strange to relate, the exact difference in 

 longitude between Greenwich and Paris is not yet known. It probably amounts 

 to 2° 20' 15",* but authorities differ to the extent of 400 feet. 



To Greenwich succeeds JFoohcich, which owes its growth to its great Arsenal, 

 its barracks, Military Academy, and other establishments. The Arsenal covers 

 a very large area, and is a great repository and storehouse, no less than a manu- 

 factory, of guns, carriages, and warlike materials of every kind, not infrequently 

 employing 10,000 workpeople. The dockyard was closed in 1869, and is now used 

 for stores. North Woolwich is on the left bank of the river. Shooter's Hill, to 

 the south of Woolwich Common, is famous for its views of London and the valley of 

 the Thames. Charlton, Blaclheath, and Lee are populous places between Woolwich 

 and Greenwich, with numerous villa residences. Chislehurst, a few miles to the 

 south, beautifully situated on a broad common surrounded by lofty trees, contains 

 Camden House, once the residence of the antiquary after whom it is named. 

 Napoleon III. retired to this house, and died there an exile. 



Descending the Thames below Woolwich, we pass village after village along the 

 Kentish shore, whilst the flat shore of Essex is but thinly peopled. Immediately 

 below Plumstead Marshes, on which some factories have been established, we 

 arrive at the pretty village of Lrith, close to the river bank, with extensive 

 ballast pits and iron works in its rear. Dartforcl, a flourishing place, where paper- 

 making and the manufacture of gunpowder are extensively carried on, lies on 

 the river Darent, a short distance above its outfall into the Thames. Other paper- 

 mills are to be met with at St. Mary's Cray, on the Cray, which joins the 

 Darent at Dartford. We next pass Greenhithe, near which, at the Swine's Camp, 

 • (now Swanscombe), the men of Kent, led on by Stigand and Egheltig, offered such 

 stout resistance to William the Conqueror. North fleet, with its chalk quarries, 

 comes next, and then we reach Gravesend, a shipping port of some importance, 

 situated at the foot of gentle hills. The fisheries furnish the chief employment of 

 the seafaring population, and most of the shrimps consumed in London are sent 



* Hilgard, "United States Coast Survey, Kepoit for 1874." 



