Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/534

 A HISTORY OF KENT near the water-side, as were the Danish works at Milton, Benfleet, and Shoebury.' Tradition says that a ' castle ' stood where is now the church, and that it was destroyed by the French in 1380. If there be truth in this tradition we should think it just possible that the church stands within the area of what was an extensive outer court of a stronghold of, perhaps, early Norman days. On the south-west, where the ridge ends abruptly, in a commanding position overlooking the ancient waterways, is a small mount, wholly or partly of artificial construction, which may be a burial tumulus but is more likely the base of a keep-mount. Round part of it is a ditch, probably the poor remnant of a fosse filled with the accumu- lated detritus of the mount, and close by on the steep hill-side are traces of a spring of water, while on the other side, nearer the church, is a piece of level ground which, though now neither fossed nor ramparted, may well have been the base court of the keep.' Blackheath. — Towards the south-western corner of Blackheath, near the beginning of the descent to Lewisham, there remains a portion of an entrenchment which maybe of ancient date, but the work is of far too slight a character to show its purpose or period. There also remain other broken traces of banking which may be fragments of encampments. As the heath is credited with having been the site of a Danish camp in the eleventh century, and as Wat Tyler lay herein 1381, and Jack Cade encamped in 1449 and 1450, Henry VI in 1452, and others since, it is highly probable that extensive earth- works existed prior to the merciless destruction of the surface caused by the gravel digging, which lasted from 18 18 till 1865. Deal Castle. — This, being one of Henry VIII's blockhouses, to be noticed in another section of the History, needs only to be mentioned here as being surrounded by a deep fosse with some masonry on the counter-scarp. Sandown Castle, also built by Henry, has now little left beyond the ruins of its foundations. Erith : Lesnes. — In immediate proximity to the site occupied by Richard de Luci's twelfth-century abbey of Westwood in Lesnes, mainly just within the adjoining wood, are traces of earthworks which may have sheltered Saxon or Dane when the waters of the Thames almost touched the base of the high ground, and left a ' hoo ' or dry shelf of land suitable for the settlement of an early community. Now and for long past the marsh north of the position has been separated from it by a raised road ^ which has closed in two little valleys (one on either side of the abbey site, but the eastern at a greater distance) once open to the Thames. > The place-name Afuldre need not be regarded as exact location ; it may be that Kenardington (which see ante) is the site both of the half-wrought Saxon fortress and of the work constructed by the Danes. The words of Ethelwerd's chronicle appear to imply that the Danish camp was erected on the site of the Saxon work. ' The traces being very vague, we have included this description in Class X, though it may properly belong to Class E. 3 This road, once an embankment, is now a tramway. 440