church you will next see upon your way is entered from the southern porch sunward by all truly devout men; such has been the custom here since custom began.'
From step to step the pilgrims were compelled to take the oldest of paths. The same force of antique usage and affection which, in a past beyond all record, had lenttheir meaning to rocks and springs upon a public way, re-flourished; and once again, to the great pleasure of myself who write of it now, and of all my readers who love to see tradition destroying calculated things, the momentum of generations overcame.
The pilgrimage saved the road. But once started it developed new sanctities of its own, as a tree transplanted will strike roots and take a bend this way or that different from the exact intention of the gardener. In the main it did nothing but preserve the immemorial sites: the cliff above the river Wey, the lonely peaked hill of St. Martha's that answers it from beyond the stream, the cross-roads on the crest of the Downs above Reigate, the ford of the Medway, the entry into the valley of the Stour, it transformed and fixed as Christian things. Our remote ancestry was baptized again, and that good habit of the faith, whereby it refuses to break with any chain of human development, marked and retained for history the oldest things. Upon that rock St. Catherine's was built, upon that hill the Martyrs' Chapel; twin churches in line pointed to the ford of the Medway, theold and dim great battle of the valley was dominated not only by the rude monuments of those who had fallen in it, but by the abbey of Boxley. Charing worshipped the block on which the Baptist had suffered, and the church of Chilham rose on the flank of the hills which had first disputed the invasion of the Romans. What Canterbury became we know.
But this influence, though it was in the main highly conservative, may here and there mislead us.
The new civilisation was well settled before the pilgrimage began. The Normans had governed and ordered for a century; the new taxes, the new system of justice, the new central kingship, had been well founded for over a generation.
The pilgrims, therefore, at certain places did not need to follow step by step the ancient way. They sometimes fail to find us the prehistoric ford, for many bridges and ferries would exist in their time. They sometimes bend right out of the original path to visit some notable shrine, and there is more than one point where another stream of their fellows, comingfrom London or from the Channel, joins and tends to confuse the track. The occasions are but rare, [3] and they are noted here only to explain certain conclusions which will follow in the second part of this book. Taking the pilgrimage as a whole it was the chief factor in the preservation of the Old Road.
Second in the causes of the survival of the Old Road came the turnpikes. The system of turnpike roads served to perpetuate, and in many cases to revive, the use of the old way when the pilgrimage itself was but very vaguely remembered. The tolls chargeable upon these new and firm roads furnished a very powerful motive for drovers and pack-riders to use an alternative route where such charges wouldnot fall upon them. A similar cause was in operation to preserve 'the Welsh road' in the Midlands, and on this southern way of ours there are places when it was in operation, not indeed within living memory, but within the memory of the parents of those now living.
For instance, the road along the summit of the Hog's Back was a better road than the old track which follows the 300-feet contour upon the south side of the hill; but the summit road was a turnpike for many years during which the lower ill-kept lane was free, and hence a track which, since the Reformation, had served only to link up the little villages of Seale and Puttenham was used once more as a thoroughfare between Guildford and Farnham. A new stream had been diverted into the old channel, and this habit of
From step to step the pilgrims were compelled to take the oldest of paths. The same force of antique usage and affection which, in a past beyond all record, had lenttheir meaning to rocks and springs upon a public way, re-flourished; and once again, to the great pleasure of myself who write of it now, and of all my readers who love to see tradition destroying calculated things, the momentum of generations overcame.
The pilgrimage saved the road. But once started it developed new sanctities of its own, as a tree transplanted will strike roots and take a bend this way or that different from the exact intention of the gardener. In the main it did nothing but preserve the immemorial sites: the cliff above the river Wey, the lonely peaked hill of St. Martha's that answers it from beyond the stream, the cross-roads on the crest of the Downs above Reigate, the ford of the Medway, the entry into the valley of the Stour, it transformed and fixed as Christian things. Our remote ancestry was baptized again, and that good habit of the faith, whereby it refuses to break with any chain of human development, marked and retained for history the oldest things. Upon that rock St. Catherine's was built, upon that hill the Martyrs' Chapel; twin churches in line pointed to the ford of the Medway, theold and dim great battle of the valley was dominated not only by the rude monuments of those who had fallen in it, but by the abbey of Boxley. Charing worshipped the block on which the Baptist had suffered, and the church of Chilham rose on the flank of the hills which had first disputed the invasion of the Romans. What Canterbury became we know.
But this influence, though it was in the main highly conservative, may here and there mislead us.
The new civilisation was well settled before the pilgrimage began. The Normans had governed and ordered for a century; the new taxes, the new system of justice, the new central kingship, had been well founded for over a generation.
The pilgrims, therefore, at certain places did not need to follow step by step the ancient way. They sometimes fail to find us the prehistoric ford, for many bridges and ferries would exist in their time. They sometimes bend right out of the original path to visit some notable shrine, and there is more than one point where another stream of their fellows, comingfrom London or from the Channel, joins and tends to confuse the track. The occasions are but rare, [3] and they are noted here only to explain certain conclusions which will follow in the second part of this book. Taking the pilgrimage as a whole it was the chief factor in the preservation of the Old Road.
Second in the causes of the survival of the Old Road came the turnpikes. The system of turnpike roads served to perpetuate, and in many cases to revive, the use of the old way when the pilgrimage itself was but very vaguely remembered. The tolls chargeable upon these new and firm roads furnished a very powerful motive for drovers and pack-riders to use an alternative route where such charges wouldnot fall upon them. A similar cause was in operation to preserve 'the Welsh road' in the Midlands, and on this southern way of ours there are places when it was in operation, not indeed within living memory, but within the memory of the parents of those now living.
For instance, the road along the summit of the Hog's Back was a better road than the old track which follows the 300-feet contour upon the south side of the hill; but the summit road was a turnpike for many years during which the lower ill-kept lane was free, and hence a track which, since the Reformation, had served only to link up the little villages of Seale and Puttenham was used once more as a thoroughfare between Guildford and Farnham. A new stream had been diverted into the old channel, and this habit of
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