Page:Notes on the churches in the counties of Kent, Sussex, and Surrey.djvu/154

116 bog timber may be seen), indicating the land to have been once a forest. And if such was the case there, we may well imagine the same of the analogous district of Pevensey Level, which latter moreover, being far less extensive than Romney Marsh, and comprising a wide mouth with branches behind running up into the interior country, was thus more generally surrounded by high land, and therefore more liable than the other to the encroachments of the adjoining forest.

One grand desideratum yet remains toward the elucidation of this disputed subject the site of Anderida: namely, excavations, carefully and judiciously conducted, to the roadway of the former streets within the Roman walls at Pevensey, in search of human bones, fragments of the old dwellings, pottery, or other objects, which might explain the customs of the former inhabitants, as well as the probable cause and period of the desolation of the ancient town.

232. near Hithe.—The "Neventone of (D.B.) with a church must be Newington near Hithe; but it is there described as adjoining, "adjacens," a manor in the hundred of Besbrough. Newington itself is now in the hundred of Folkstone.—The chapel of St. Nicholas, standing at the extremity of the town of Hithe (under which it has already been mentioned) was actually in the parish of Newington. The ruins existed in 1574, when it was used as a barn. It was desecrated at the Reformation. (Lambarde.)—A.D. 1771 the vicarage of Newington was united to the rectory of Cheriton. Brasses in Newington Church: Tho. Chylton, wife, and three children, 1501; John Clarke, vicar, 1501; Rich. Rigge, and three wives, 1522. The case of the font is of carved oak. At Blackwose, or Canon's Court, was a cell of Premonstratensian Monks to the Priory of Lavendene, Bucks; but it being deserted, and the monks wandering about the country, the general Chapter of the Order united it to St. Radigund's. (Hasted.)

233. near Sittingbourne.—The "Newetone" in Milton hundred of (D.B.) is sometimes supposed to have been the town in the Isle of Sheppey afterwards called Queenborough; but the fact of it comprising a wood feeding thirty hogs, and a