Deal and Its Environs

( 108 ) DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS.* BY THE LATE GEORGE DOWKER, F.G.S. IN Deal itself there is little of archasological interest save the Castles, which have been undertaken by an abler hand; and of the rest there is little to record except about hovellers and smugglers. All honour, however, is due to our brave Deal and Walmer boatmen. My archEeological researches have been chiefly directed towards this part of Kent in relation to Eoman and Saxon times, and on the present occasion I shall select my material chiefly from these sources. Most of us in our journey to Deal by the iron rail have traversed almost the identical course which our early Danish invaders took in their ships when they made their piratical raids on Sandwich, Thanet, and Canterbury, by the Wantsum estuary ; we have halted at Watchester (if I mistake not the early name of the place afterwards called Minster), and rushing along under the walls of Eutupise, again stopped at the ancient port of Sandwich, and from thence to Deal through the swampy marshes of the Word Minnis and Lydden Valley. Erom the low level of these marshes you may have been led to picture them covered by the sea in Eoman times, and this would have been a very natural inference. But knowing that Eoman pottery, coins, and traces of the Eoman occupation have been found in the sand-hills—and indeed below the sand-hills considerably northward of Deal, beyond Sandown Castle—we must modify these views, and conclude that some natural barrier existed, or causes were then at work to exclude the sea from this area. In 18951 observed, in an excavation for a new gasometer on the north of Deal, that the subsoil consisted of four feet of peat, with bog oak, covered with ten feet of blown sand, * Read at the Annual Meeting of the Kent Arohseologioal Sooiety at Deal on 27th July, 1898. DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. 109 shewing that probably the soil of tbe Word Miimis extended in this direction. Data are still wanting in relation to the soils covering the marsh, but I shall pass on to historical facts connected with the neighbourhood. Most writers on Deal have considered it the landing-place of Julius Caesar when he first visited our shores B.C. 55, but there are not wanting many eminent writers who dispute this. The matter has been argued on astronomical data; and taking the present tidal flow at full moon, and reckoning that Caesar's ships were off Dover, it has been considered that when he weighed anchor and sailed with the tide he must have gone westward, and not eastward. In 1875 1 read a Paper on the same subject before the Eoyal Archseological Institute,* in which I disputed the validity of the tidal argument based on the present tide tables, as the great coast changes that have taken place since them must have affected the tides, and upon these considerations I placed the landing between Deal and Sandwich, at the mouth of the Wantsum estuary. Mr. Lewin, who advocated the westward direction of Caesar's ships, objected to Deal or Walmer as not fulfilling the conditions of the narrative. " Where," he asked, " are the marshes which are put prominently forward by every writer of the account ? Csesar speaks of vada or shoals, Dion Cassius of the Tevajos or lagoons, Plutarch of the marshy and swampy ground, Maximus of an island formed by the ebb and flow of the tide "—I pointed out in my essay' that all these were present near Deal, where I pictured the landing to have taken place. "Deal and its Environs " means the Oornilo Hundred, and I shall endeavour to sketch its history up to the time of the Norman Conquest. The derivation of the word Cornilo is somewhat difficult. According to Professor Skeat it is clearly local, and probably means Corn or Cornhill, certainly a very appropriate title, considering the noted fertility of the soil. It is comparatively a small Hundred, whioh would imply that it was thickly populated. The earliest inhabitants of which we have any historical * See Archceological Journal, vol. xxxiii. 110 DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. evidence were the Celts. According to Professor Isaac Taylor the district is thickly dotted with Celtic names. British gold coins have been found at Deal, Walmer, Sandown, Worth, and Northbourne. At Eingwould Mr. C. H. Woodruff explored two barrows, evidently Celtic or British; heaps of flints were often strewn on such graves, and there is a farm called Stone-heap not far from Little Mongeham which is very suggestive of a like Celtic tumulus. A similar barrow, half a mile south-east towards St. Margaret's Bay, had been explored by the Eev. J . Eawlins, and a large barrow at West Langdon, which had previously been disturbed, probably of the same age. These barrows were situated on the high downs on uncultivated ground, and were probably much more numerous, but have been levelled down and destroyed as the lands became cultivated, so that we have only a few recorded among the number that once existed. The county must have been covered with woods, as the names Eingwold, Sibertswold, etc., testify. Eoads there certainly were, as the British warriors followed Cassar's ships with their chariots from Dover to Deal. At the time of the Eoman occupation they probably made use of the British roads, inasmuch as our programme includes a visit to Ash and Betshanger. I may here mention the great military road from Dover to Eichborough, which passes through Betshanger, which may yet be traced neaaiy in a straight line from Charlton, Dover, to Woodnesborough Hill, passing by Whitfield, Guston, Napchester, Maidensole, East and West Studall. Many years ago the late Mr, Eoach Smith drew my attention to the name Napchester as of unusnal Eoman signification, and I undertook several journeys to explore the place, without finding anything Eoman but the name. However, I traced the Eoman road to Woodnesborough, and thence by Each End to near the Eichborough Island, and together with the late Dr. Sheppard of Canterbury we explored the country to find the Eoman way from Canterbury to Eichborough. I have lately heard that some Eoman coins have been found in a field at Marshborough where the trace of the road was lost, but where I imagined it must have passed, DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. Il l The result of our observations was recorded in a map accompanying my report on the Eichborough excavations in 1865, and published in Archceologia Oantiana, Vol. VIIL, p. 12. It has, however, received but scant notice. Omitting for the present other Eoman roads in the district, let me draw attention to other evidences of the Eoman occupation. A glance at Mr. George Payne's Archaeological Survey Map will shew numerous places in this Hundred where Eoman remains have been met with.* I will particularize some of these. I before alluded to the trace of Eoman occupation in the sand-hills, and the circumstances connected with that find are of more than usual interest. In Pritchard's History of Deal it is stated that " in 1830 a labouring man, in digging for sand in the sand-hills, came upon a couple of pots—vases—which the simple man broke; they contained several pounds weight of Eoman coins, which he sold or gave away." This coming to the ears of Mr. Eolfe of Sandwich, that gentleman recovered most of them, and subsequently they came into the possession of Sir John Lubbock, with whom part of them still remain. Mr. Eoach Smith described them in Vol. XIV. of our Proceedings. They date from Valerian (A.T>. 254—260) and Gallienus to the time of Tetricus and Aurelian, the coins of Tetricus and tbe young Csesar his son, as well as the preceding Emperors, being very numerous. The inference that Mr. Eoach Smith drew from this hoard, and others of a like nature found elsewhere, was that they were all buried at one and the same time, close on the reign of Tetricus (267—272), when his army in Gaul was largely recruited from Britain, the soldiers burying them and expecting to find them again when they returned from Gaul. But in addition to this evidence, in 1848 Mr. Eolfe made excavations near the same spot, where sand had been carted for making the Deal railway, which resulted in his finding a quantity of Eoman pottery, fibulfe, a pair of hand-mills, and a large drilled stone. I have ascertained from Mr. Noble, who resides at Deal and has a collection of named coins, that it was his * Archaeological Survey of the County of Kent, communicated to the Society of Antiquaries. 112 DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. father that found the pots of money in the sand-hills, and also collected the coins now in his possession; and he is under the impression that the coins were found in a ship there. This is, however, evidently a mistake. Pritchard makes no mention of a ship in connection with the coins, nor did Mr. Eolfe or Mr. C. Eoach Smith. In Mr. Pritchard's book, however, mention is made of the " finding of a trench in the sand-hills, at another time, which was filled with human bones;" also that it is " no uncommon thing for rudely-constructed coffins to be exposed to view after heavy gales of wind, lying in the sand on the shore from Sandown Castle to N. Battery, and what is strange, a great deal of money is occasionally found here after the wash of the sea, when the tide has ebbed." I have endeavoured to clear up the history of the coins with very partial success. In Mr. Noble's collection (which was his father's) there are a number of Boman coins dating before Julius Caesar, also some Greet, and, I believe, Venetian coins; for elucidating any local history, however, they are worthless, as the particulars respecting them are wanting. Sir John Evans doubts any Greek coins having ever been found at Deal. It is much to be deplored that when coins or other ancient relics are met with all particulars of their find are not recorded, and I should add that purchasers of such, who take them away with the idea of possessing something scarce or ancient, are doing a positive harm to local archa3ological science by hiding away what may be of no intrinsic value, but of great topographical interest. Shortly before reading this Paper I made every enquiry at Deal about finds of Eoman or Saxon relics, and no one seemed at all interested in the matter or could tell me of any recent finds; but my enquiry has already borne fruit in the finding of Saxon graves near Upper Deal; and Roman pottery has been likewise found there and in the Deal Cemetery. Mr. Elwin, who resided some time at Walmer, has recorded many Eomano-British remains, chiefly on the site of the new parish church and in the neighbouring grounds of St. Mildred's. It is probable that many more Eoman and Saxon remains are left unexplored and unrecorded. Prom DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. 11 3 what has been met with it would seem that Eoman and Saxon interments have been made on the same spot, as has been the case in the Cemetery at Ozingell in Thanet. Mr. Boys has recorded the finding of a remarkable Eoman structure in the Castle field at Worth, which he described as about a quarter of a mile south-west of the church, having foundations of the walls of two square buildings, one within the other, each side of the outer one measuring 53 feet, and the inner one 28£ feet, and the thickness of each wall 4 feet, with the interval between them 8^ feet. In exposing the whole to view, the workmen threw up fragments of Eoman tiles, paterae, and urns. Mr. Boys thought it extremely probable that this was a Eoman exploratory tower with outwork. It may have been a Pharos to guard the entrance to the Eutupine posts, as it is placed on the highest hill overlooking the marshes, or it may have been a cemetery like that in Joywood, Lookham, near Maidstone, described by the late C. Taylor Smythe in Vol. XV. of our Proceedings. Mr. Boys observed, " All the villages above the level of the marshes to the westward of Lower Deal and about Sandwich are constantly furnishing British, Eoman, and Saxon money." The part of Kent connected with Northbourne in the Cornilo Hundred was occupied in Saxon times by the Jutes, and they seem to have settled down on the richest and most productive lands, and lived apparently in princely fashion among the conquered people. Deale or Dale in very early times held but a secondary place in the history of the neighbourhood. The town was originally built on land belonging to the Archbishop, and in Chamberlain's fee; its chief importance resulted from its maritime situation and connection with the Cinque Ports. The manor known as Chamberlain's Pee was part of the ancient possessions of the Canons of the Priory of St. Martin's at Dover, of whom it was held as a freeland by the Abbot and Monastery of St. Augustine's. It consisted of 121 acres and a portion of the tithes within the parish, and was formed of what is now. called Upper Deal. The church, dedicated to St. Leonard, seems originally to have been a Norman structure, but in modern times to have been most barbarously VOL, xxrv, " j 114 DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. enlarged with red brick, having no regard to architectural beauty. At the west end was a gallery erected by the Deal pilots in 1705, in commemoration of which I suppose they painted on it a man-of-war ship, and on each side a globe, no doubt to shew their knowledge of the world. The church possesses, however, a very interesting piscina, which looks as if intended to stand apart from the wall, and having Norman carvings. There is a tablet to Thomas Boys of Eredville, who died in 1562, and a family tomb in the centre of the church of the Coppen family, formerly of the manor house (1690), which still remains just opposite the church, late the residence of Mr. John Gaunt. With regard to the houses at Deal I would have you note that the oldest of them seem to date from the seventeenth century, and to have been bnilt on a line of former beach in Middle Street, and from the Lower Street (now the High Street) to the present Beach Street there are two steps up, so that the present Beach Street occupies a higher level than either of the former ones. Some of the back streets seem like a rabbit-warren, and doubtless served a nseful purpose when the smuggling days were at their height. A few old houses may yet be seen; one was the residence of a Mr. John Carter, of local note. Although I have said I would not refer to the castles, I should like to note that Sandown Castle is no more, having been pulled down in 1863 by order of the War Office, and the materials sold. Some of these have been used in the chapel erected for Eastry Union. I can remember the Castle in its entirety, and it was used by the Artillery Volunteers for gun practice. It was chiefly notable from the fact of its having been the place where Colonel Hutcheson was confined as a State prisoner in 1663, and died in 1664, his crime being that, loving his country better than his king, he took the side of the Parliamentary party against Charles I., and was one among the many who signed his death-warrant. Leland wrote: " Deale, half a mile from the sea-shore, a fishing village." The old road to Sandwich was by the sandhills, but has been replaced by the present turnpike-road through Upper Deal, DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. 11 5 NOETHBOTJBNE. A great part of the early history of the Cornilo Hundred is written in that of the great monastic establishment of Northbourne Court, dating back as it does to the very introduction of Christianity by St. Augustine. Thorne, followed by Elm ham, alleges that the monastery of St. Augustine came into possession of the Manor of Northbourne in the year 618 by direct donation of King Eadbald, son and successor of King Ethelbert. The Charter (given in extenso) is, however, in all likelihood spurious or mutilated, and Haddan and Stubbs so class it. The tradition handed down by the above chroniclers is to the effect that Northbourne was the endowment of the Chapel of St. Mary, founded by Eadbald (as recorded by Bede) close to the new Canterbury Monastery, and later covered up or destroyed in the enlargement of the same. The land is described as thirty ploughlands with marshes, pastures, etc. Erom the fact that in all the records extant Northbourne is set down as the undisputed property of the Abbot and Brethren of St. Augustine's, there is no doubt that the land was theirs from the very first centuries of Anglo-Saxon Christianity. If we trust Thorne, it was the first portion of real estate acquired by them after Chislet and Sturry, the asserted gifts of Ethelbert himself. In 97.4 the Northbourne land was enlarged by one hundred acres adjoining it in the direction of Mongeham, and in 1156 the English Pope Adrian IV. ordered the revenues of Northbourne, with its tithes and the monies accruing from offerings made to its dependent chapels, to be devoted to the maintenance of the Hospice at the Abbey gate, where, as in other monasteries, the poor were lodged and fed at the charge of the monks. After the audit of his accounts, therefore, the Northbourne Prior or Superior was required to hand over any balance in hand to the monk charged with the care of the " Hospitium pauperum et peregrinorum." In 1313 King Edward II. ratified the holding of Northbourne,* and in all probability it continued to be managed by the monks for the benefit of the poor, as * Hasted's Sistory of Kent, vol. iv., folio, p. 144. I 2 116 DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. prescribed by Pope Adrian, till the Dissolution. That this was the case in 1292 we know, as at that time the Bishops of Winchester and Lincoln had authority to tax for the expenses of a crusade all ecclesiastical property in the south of England, and those sources of income were alone excepted which could be shewn to be regularly applied in their entirety to succouring the sick and distressed among the laity, to the instruction of the poor scholars, and the like. Naturally the Abbot of St. Augustine's pleaded this exemption for Northbourne. A jury of twenty-four laymen was empanelled from Northbourne and four adjacent parishes, and the trial was conducted by the Dean of Sandwich. It was found that not only did all the Northbourne profits go to the poor, but that the Father Almoner had in addition constantly to borrow, besides seeking help from other revenues of the Abbey. The Northbourne properties belonging to the monks of St. Augustine were almost co-extensive with the Cornilo Hundred, for not only did Northbourne borough comprehend Northbourne Street, Coldharbour, and Stone-heap, but in a register and rental of St. Augustine's Abbey taken about the sixteenth year of King Eichard II. we find that the manor of Northbourne has a free court, and has in demesne Little Mongeham, the wood of Hedelinge, Bettshanger, and the following hamlets : Napelherst, East Stodwolde, West Stodwolde, Eastsole, Essele, part of West Langedon, Merton, East Sutton, West Sutton, Grenewege, Little Mungham, Lyden, Soldone, Norbroke, Tiekenherst, and a certain mill at Kerfonore in Bewsborough Hundred; and we are reminded from Thome's account of the size and importance of the manor in the fourteenth century, when it was reckoned at 2139 acres of land, besides 208 acres of wood—the best estate after the Thanet property that the monks owned. In some way also it reached the sea-shore, probably below Sholden. The alleged Charter of Eadbald says thirty " aratra," with pasture lands, marshes, meadows, woods, and foreshore (fines maritimi). Close to Northbourne was a quantity of waste land overgrown with bushes, the haunt of highwaymen and evildoers DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. 117 infesting the road from Canterbury, This by Eoyal Warrant Abbot Eadulfus reclaimed about the year 1320. He enclosed it with a stone wall and converted it into a vineyard. Particulars of this vineyard are in the Surrender Collection Eoll of Accounts of the Abbey of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, and appear in Archceologia Oantiana, Vol. II., p. 226, It is there called " Nordhome," and in a footnote it is stated: Nordhome, " an estate belonging to the Abbey of St. Martin's parish," which is unintelligible, unless it refers to the erroneous idea that St. Augustine's Abbey was in St. Martin's parish. With regard to the name Northbourne, it must have been so named by the inhabitants residing towards the south, probably in the Bewsborough Hundred. I can find no argument for the statement that Northbourne was a "palace" or ordinary residence of the early kings of Kent, nor can I readily conceive how, if such was the belief in the Middle Ages, the compilers of Eadbald's supposed Charter (so very prolix in its details) could have passed in silence so interesting a particular. Dugdale omits to mention Northbourne. It and others like it were branch houses, the property of the chief monastery, whose abbot represented them in civil and canon law. In the mention made of Northbourne in the Chronicles it would appear that the buildings were looked upon as manor houses, rather than granges or " cells." The calling Northbourne an abbey would be a mistake, arising from the circumstance that it was the residence of monks situated on abbey lands, and if of such importance as to need the stationing there of five, six, or more monks, would rank as a priory. The chapels of Northbourne are several times particularized as Sholden, East Langdon, Little Mongeham, and Cotmanton, The Northbourne Church was anciently appended to the manor, and was in early times appropriated to the Abbey of St. Augustine. The Abbots of St. Augustine, although they had little property in Deal, yet had some connection with the place by the acquisition of a prebend in St. Martin's College Church, Dover, founded in Saxon times as a College of Secular Canons, These divided (at 118 DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. least in part) their estates into prebends, of which two or three were endowed with estates in or about Deal, and in Domesday Book one of the Deal prebends (one ploughland) is described as belonging to the Abbot of St. Augustine's. In a list of A.D. 1274 the Abbot has no tenants in Deal, but in 1288 Edward I. gave him a charter dispensing with the mortmain law so far as to allow him to acquire lands in Langdon, Eipple, Deal, and other adjacent places to the quantity of 68 acres. Eipple Court appears also from Hasted to have been part of the possession of the Abbot of St. Augustine's in 1079. THE PRESENT STATE OP NORTHHOURNE. At Northbourne is a very interesting Norman cruciform church, with a massive square central tower and no aisles. The north and south walls are thick with high deep-splayed windows. It seems to have been altered and the tower repaired in the thirteenth or fourteenth century. A chapel is mentioned in the endowment of the vicarage 1278. The church is dedicated to St. Augustine. The chancel is repaired by the Archbishop's lessee of the almonry. The latter was an hospital built just without the gate of the monastery for the reception of strangers—the poor resorting to it from all parts—and the relief of the weak and infirm. At Northbourne Court the present buildings consist of the dwelling-house and farm buildings of modern date, a long high red-brick wall skirting the road from Mongeham for a distance I should say of 60 rods, with a gate in the centre; this encloses a garden, which reaches down the side of the hill to the water-course, and within which are some raised terraces of brick and an ancient stable of the same, while near the house are some very high red-brick walls with large buttresses, against which, on the garden side next the house, are three tiers of raised terraces. Within the gardens are the ancient remains of a chapel of flint and stone, with binding courses of tiles. There is a park at the back of some 85 acres in extent, which had springs in it, and a stream ran' through the property, which had formerly DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. 119 been the mill-stream, and was one of the feeders to the north stream which runs into the Stour or Haven at Sandwich.* LITTLE MONGEHAM:, SUTTON, AND EIPPLE. I have already drawn attention to the connection of these places with the Convent of St. Augustine, and we have (according to Hasted) evidence that this grant dates from A.D 760, " wherein Aldric, son of Widred, King of Kent, with consent of Bergwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, gave six ploughlands to Lambert, then the Abbot of St. Augustine's. Salmon de Eipple made many improvements, particularly at Lytyl Mungam, where he built much;" this must have been in the twelfth century. We should like to know what this church was like, as nothing but the. foundations now remain. I hear from the Eev. B. Austen, late Eector of Mongeham and Sutton, that these foundations are often met with by the sexton, and also that there are foundations of the Manor House, at Sutton, of Sir Nicholas de Creol in a field to the north of the village; also that Mr. Christian was the architect who did the restoration of the very interesting little church at Sutton, but has left no notes on the same. It is a Norman building with an eastern apsidal termination with three windows, and under them an arcade of semi-circular arches, having shafts with sculptured capitals set upon a ledge. We might have expected some Saxon work in these churches. GREAT MONGEHAM CHURCH. Great Mongeham appears to have been one of the most ancient townships of the neighbourhood. In an old Charter it is spoken of as " Vicus antiqus," perhaps the first Saxon settlement. I can trace, however, no connection between it and Northbourne. The fine church, dedicated to St. Martin, was restored a few years ago by Mr. Butterfield, and would seem to have been originally a Norman structure, and enlarged about the * Eor a fuller description of Northbourne Court we may refer to the preceding article hy Lord Northbourne.—EDITOE, 120 DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. year 1200 or a little later; and the tower (a very fine one, built about the time of Eichard II. or Henry V.) was an independent structure, if we may trust the notes communicated by Mr. Butterfield. The present building chiefly dates from the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries, except the north ohapel. As all the properties adjoining Northbourne, with the exception of Mongeham, were more or less connected with St. Augustine's Monastery, we may conclude that it had in Saxon times been the property of some earldorman whose namehas not descended to us. It contained the manor with the mansion of Eogge's Court (long since dwindled down to a mere cottage), which was formerly part of the estate of the eminent family of Eogge,* and it is the only one of the many they possessed in this county that is called by this surname. In conclusion, I may add that the making of the Cornilo Hundred was in Saxon times chiefly the work of the monastic establishments. No written Saxon laws or grants of a date anterior to the introduction of Christianhy by Augustine have been handed down to ns, nor is it probable that any such ever existed, inasmuch as the Saxon invaders, though possessed of a Eunic alphabet, do not appear to have applied it to such a purpose. In the Jutish kingdom of Kent the prerogatives, attributes, and authority of the King, the rights and privileges of the Thanes or Nobles, the liberties and franchises of the people, the tenure of land and territorial division of the county into lordships and manors, arose by silent and imperceptible degrees as the Jutish conquerors advanced in their subjugation of the ancient inhabitants. Other parts of the Cornilo Hundred were in ancient times the properties of the monks of St. Martin's at Dover. I t is recorded in an ancient Chronielet quoted by Lysons that " Withred, King of Kent, built St. Martin's Church, with several edifices in the town of Dover, for the accommodation „ i*o«T Ha8t eA' ! *•«»*» l°l- 'lv-> P- W> and ArclHBologia Cantiana, Vol. V,, p. 125, for account of the Fogge family. ' '' ' •f Lysons' History of Dover. DEAL AND ITS ENVIRONS. 12 1 of twenty-two secular canons, whom he removed from the Castle." As their sovereign was the patron they were endowed at an early period with large grants of land. The canons held their possessions in common under several Saxon kings, but encroachments were made upon their estates prior to the Norman Conquest. Several of the canons were prebendaries, and they had houses and lands annexed to them, particularly at Sibertswould, Buckland, Charlton, Earthinghoe, Guston, Deal, and St. Margaret's. In a summary of their lands, held by the prebendaries at the time of Edward the Confessor and William I., we find they had various properties in the Cornilo and Bewsborough Hundreds, and yet when the Norman Survey was made they yielded no more than £48; they had been plundered of pastures, salt-works, fisheries, and mills. Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent, the Conqueror's half-brother, by appropriating the lands of different manors and suffering his military retainers to seize the possessions of the prebends, had an opportunity of gratifying bis ecclesiastical and military dependants; so we find that this part of Kent was filled with Norman barons under him and his successors. Hence, at Walmer and other parts of the Hundred, we find the manors possessed by the D'Aubervilles, De Creols, the Crevequers, Grandvilles, etc., and at the time of the Domesday Survey, with the exception of the lands and manors belonging to the great monastic establishments, the rest of the Cornilo Hundred was held by the Conqueror's followers.