Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/27

 PREFACE THE history and topography of Kent are so pecuh'arly attrac- tive that many historians have turned their attention to the county and it has thus been supplied with a continuous flow of topographical works from the sixteenth century to the present day. The first of its historians, and perhaps the earliest English county historian, was William Lambarde, who in 1576 pub- lished his Perambulation of Kent containing the Description^ Hystorie and Customes of that Shyre. Lambarde was born in 1536 and was the son of a draper and alderman of London. He practised law and after publishing some collections relating to the Anglo-Saxon period com- pleted his Perambulation of Kent in 1570. This, his principal work, although not quite on the lines of the more modern county histories, gives most quaint and interesting descriptions of old customs which during the period of change in which he lived were fast passing away. After serving the office of Keeper of the Records for some years he died in 1601. Lambarde's work was followed in 1659 by Richard Kilburne's Topographie or Survey of the County of Kent and John Philipot's Villare Cantiutn, published by his son Thomas Philipot, but neither of these can well be considered a county history. In 1 7 1 9 Dr. John Harris, a profuse writer, published a History of Kent which, although not of the strictest accuracy, contains much information and is accompanied by a series of plates of great interest by Kyp. It is however to Edward Hasted that we naturally turn as the historian of Kent. Born in 1732 he was brought up to the law and was a man of considerable property till, like other county historians, his work involved him in pecuniary difficulties. His History of Kent was issued in four volumes, the first of which appeared in 1778 and the last in 1799. It is said to have occupied over forty years of his life, and from the care with which it is compiled may be classed among the best of our county histories. It shows an enormous amount of research, particularly among the records of the ecclesiastical corporations which were available to him in the county ; but the public records, then dis- tributed in various offices and not easily accessible, are somewhat neg- lected. A new edition of this history was contemplated by Mr. Henry H. Drake, but only the first volume including the Hundred of Black- heath was completed and published in 1886. It is much fuller in detail than Hasted's work and considerable use has been made of the public records now collected together at the Public Record Office.