Part 6

Jeremiah Rosher was the inventor and sponsor of those once-famed Gardens. It was so far back as the 1830's that he conceived the grand idea of building a new town between Northfleet and Gravesend, on an estate he owned here, beside the Thames. The idea remained an idea only, for although a pier was built and the Gardens formed, Rosher never lived to see his "ville," in the sense of being a town. But his Gardens were a hugely-compensating success. It is not given to many to make a success of a hole (unless the hole is a mine), and the site of that celebrated Cockney resort was, and is, nothing else; being in fact one of the oldest and largest of the chalk-quarries, excavated to a depth of one hundred and fifty feet in some parts.

[Sidenote: WATERCRESS]

There a curious kind of rusticity was tempered with an equally curious urban flavour; there the succulent shrimp and the modest watercress ("Tea ninepence; srimps and watercreases, one shilling"), were supplemented romantically by the strains of husky bands. There art was represented by broken-nosed plaster statues of Ceres and a variety of other heathen goddesses, some supporting gas-lamps in sawdusty bars and restaurants; others gracing lawns and flower-beds. To those who delighted in plaster statues grown decrepit and minus a leg or an arm, like so many neo-classic Chelsea pensioners, Rosherville was ideal.

"Where to spend a happy day," as the advertisements used to invite--"Rosherville." The watercress consumed there, and at the other popular places near by, came from Springhead, which will be found in the country at the back of Gravesend. In 1907 died the last surviving daughter of the man who "invented" watercress as an article of food. It was about 1815 that William Bradbery, of Springhead, began to cultivate from a green weed that grew in the ditches this favourite addition to tea-tables.

He cultivated with care, and laid out extensive beds, then, when he had a marketable crop, sold it locally. It soon became a famous table dainty, and nothing would satisfy him but the patronage of London. He filled an old tea-chest with cress, and, with this on his back, trudged off to the metropolis, a score or more miles away. The sample was satisfactory, and he quickly developed a London trade.

Bradbery (it is said) when he was building up his London connection, paid a vocalist to go at night from one place of entertainment to another, singing a song in praise of the famous brown cress from the waters of Springhead.

Be that as it may, Bradbery made a fortune by cultivating his cress on the extended area. He seized an opportunity where another man would not have seen one.

Watercress is now cultivated largely, and in numerous districts. It is known, botanically, as _nasturtium officinale_.

Electric tramcars now rush and rattle through Northfleet and Rosherville, and no one contemplates journeying to these scenes with the object of spending a "happy day." The great group of semi-ecclesiastical looking buildings on the left is "Huggens' College." Almshouses continue to be built, for the fountain of benevolence is not yet dried up. It was in 1847 that this foundation came into existence, pursuant to the will of John Huggens (born 1776), who was a barge-owner and corn-merchant of Sittingbourne. Looking upon a world rather astonishingly full of almshouses for people of humble birth, he conceived the somewhat original idea of founding what, with extreme delicacy, he termed a "College" for gentlemen reduced to poor circumstances. The establishment, strictly secluded behind enclosing walls, in well-wooded grounds, houses fifty collegians. Huggens himself, in stony effigy, is seen over the gateway, seated in a frockcoat and an uncomfortable attitude, and displaying a scroll or the charter of his "College." The bountiful gentleman is sadly weatherworn, for the factory fumes of this industrial district have wrought havoc with the Portland stone from which he is sculptured. Huggens was wise among the generation of benefactors: he founded his charity in his own lifetime, and personally supervised it. He died in 1865, and his body lies in Northfleet churchyard.

We will now proceed to Gravesend, noting that in 1787 the slip road between the "Leather Bottle" at Northfleet and the beginnings of Chalk, two miles in length, was made. It would, in the language of to-day, applied to incandescent gas-mantle burners and to avoiding roads alike, be called a "by-pass."

[Sidenote: GRAVESEND]

Gravesend was at one time a place remarkable alike for its tilt-boats and its waterside taverns. The one involved the other, for the boats brought travellers here from London, and here, in the days of bad roads and worse conveyances, they judged it prudent to stay overnight, commencing their journey to Rochester the following morning. To the town of Gravesend belonged the monopoly of conveying passengers to and from London by water, and it was not until steamboats began to ply up and down the reaches of the Thames that this privilege became obsolete. Thus it will be seen that, besides being a place of call for ships, either outward bound or proceeding home, Gravesend was in receipt of much local traffic. The railway has, naturally, taken away a large proportion of this, but has brought it back, tenfold, in the shape of holiday trippers, and the continued growth of the town is sufficient evidence of its prosperity. One first hears of Gravesend in the pages of Domesday Book, where it is called "Gravesham"; but the difficulty of distinctly pronouncing the name led, centuries ago, to the corrupted termination of "end" being adopted, first in speech, and, by insensible degrees, in writing. It has an interesting history, commencing from the time when the compilers of Domesday Book found only a "hyhte," or landing-place, here, and progressing through the centuries with records of growth, and burnings by the French; with tales of Cabot's sailing hence in 1553, followed by Frobisher in 1576, to the incorporation of the town in 1568, and the flight of James the Second, a hundred and twenty years later.

Gravesend was not, in the sixteenth century, a model town. Its inhabitants paved, lighted, and cleansed their streets, accordingly as individual preferences, industry, or laziness dictated. Spouts, pipes, and projecting eaves poured dirty water on pedestrians who were rash enough to walk those streets in rainy weather, and people threw away out of window anything they wished to get rid of, quite regardless of who might be passing underneath; and so, whether fine or wet, those who picked their way carefully along the unpaved thoroughfares, stood an excellent chance of being drenched with something unpleasant. An open gutter ran down the middle of the street, full of rotting refuse; every tradesman hung out signs which sometimes fell down and killed people, and in the night, when the wind blew strong, a concert of squeaking music filled, with sounds not the most pleasant, the ears of people who wanted to go to sleep.

Things were but little less mediaeval in the middle of the seventeenth century, although the trade and importance of Gravesend had greatly increased. Troubles arose then on account of the disorderly hackmen, "foreigners and strangers"--any one not a freeman or a burgess was a "foreigner"--who plied between Gravesend and Rochester, and took away the custom that belonged of right to members of Gravesend guilds. Two years later the Corporation of Gravesend was distinctly Roundhead in its sympathies, for in 1649 we find the town mace being altered, the Royal arms removed, and those of the Commonwealth substituted, at a cost of L23 10_s._ 0_d._ In 1660, things wore a very different complexion, for in that year the Gravesend people welcomed Charles the Second with every demonstration of joy. They had the mace restored to its former condition at a cost, this time, of L17 10_s._ 0_d._, and allowed the mayor and another L2 5_s._ 7_d._ for going up to London to see that the work was done properly. They paid L3 10_s._ 0_d._ for painting the king's arms; 14_s._ to one John Phettiplace for "trumpeters and wigs"; and 5_s._ to Will Charley "for sounding about the country." Having done this, they all got gloriously drunk at a total cost of L12 15_s._ 8_d._, of which sum L10 7_s._ 8_d._ was for wine, and L2 8_s._ 0_d._ for beer.

[Illustration: RIVERSIDE, GRAVESEND.]

It was, indeed, during this latter half of the seventeenth century that Gravesend experienced one of its great periods of prosperity; and so the loyalty was well rewarded. Of this date are many of the fine old red-brick mansions in the older part of the town, together with the Admiralty House, official residence of the Duke of York when Lord High Admiral. To Gravesend he came as James the Second, a prisoner.

Embarking from Whitehall, on December 18, 1688, he reached here as late as nine o'clock at night. The next morning he was conducted hence to Rochester in the charge of a hundred of the Prince of Orange's Dutch Guards, and a melancholy journey it must have been for him, if his memory took him back to the time when, twenty-eight years before, he came up the road with his brothers, Charles the Second and the Duke of Gloucester, happily returning from exile.

To Gravesend came Royal and distinguished travellers on their way from Dover to London, and hence they embarked for the City and Westminster, escorted, if they were sufficiently Royal or distinguished by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and the City Guilds, and fitly conducted in a long procession of stately barges by this most impressive entrance to the capital of England. And even ordinary travellers preferred this route. For two reasons: the river-road was much more expeditious than the highway in those pre-MacAdamite days, and by taking it they escaped the too-pressing attentions that awaited them on Shooter's Hill and Blackheath at the hands of Captains Gibbet and Pick-Purse.

XVI

[Sidenote: OLD TIME TRAVELLERS]

Many of these distinguished travellers on this old highway have left written accounts of their doings, and very interesting readings they make. Foremost among the "distinguished" company was Marshal de Bassompierre. He came to England in 1626, on an Embassy from the King of France, and arrived at Dover on the 2nd of October. There he stayed to recruit, for the sea, as usual, had been unkind, until Sunday, the 4th, departing thence on that day for "Cantorbery," where he slept the night, going on the Monday as far as "Sitimborne," and on Tuesday to "Rocheter" and Gravesend, where he was met by the Queen's barge. Three months later, and he was returning home. On December 1st he began his farewells at the Court of Saint James's, and bade adieu to, amongst others, such fearful wild fowl as the Earl of Suffolc and the Duke of Boukinkam; this last the dissolute "Steenie"--none other! On the 5th, imagine him at Dover with an equipage of five hundred persons shivering on the brink of the Channel, and stormbound there for fourteen days at a cost of 14,000 crowns.

This imposing company embarked at last, and, after braving winds and sea for a whole day, were compelled to put back again. When they _did_ finally set off, they were five days crossing to Calais, and it was found necessary to jettison the Ambassador's two carriages _en route_, in which was, alas! 40,000 francs' worth of clothes. Also this unfortunate diplomat lost twenty-nine horses, which died of thirst on the voyage.

Another French traveller, Monsieur Jouvin de Rochefort, greatly daring, visited our shores in 1670. He took the ordinary coach for "Gravesine," in order, as he says, to embark thence for London, passing on his way from Canterbury, Arburtoon, Baten, and Asbery; Grinsrit, Sitingborn, Nieuvetoon, and Renem[2] and coming to Rochester through a strange place called Schatenne, which I don't find anywhere on the map, but suppose he means Chatham. All along the road he remarked a number of high poles, on the top of which were small kettles, in which fires were lighted to warn the countryside of the robbers who would come in bands and plunder the villages, were it not for the courage of the villagers, who formed themselves into guards. These poles were about a mile distant from each other, and to every one there was a small hut for the person whose business it was to keep the beacons burning. "God be praised," though, he reached "Gravesine" safely!

Samuel de Sorbiere, Historiographer Royal to the King of France, visited our shores in 1663. The normal passage from Calais was three hours, but on this occasion seven hours were consumed in crossing, and although the weather was very fair, the "usual Disorder which those who are not accustomed to the sea are subject to"--but no matter! To make matters worse, contempt and affronts were put upon him in Dover streets by some sons of Belial in the shape of boys who ran after him shouting, "a Monsieur, a Monsieur," and who, when they had retired to a safe distance, proceeded to the extremely impolite depth of calling him a "French dog," "which," says M. de Sorbiere, sweepingly, "is the epithet they give us in England."

Our traveller journeyed to London by wagon, rather than take a post-chaise or even the stage-coach; an extremely undignified thing for an Historiographer Royal to do, one would think. But then, 'twas the way to note the strange customs of these English! The wagon was drawn by six horses, one before another, and beside them walked the wagoner clothed in black and appointed in all things like another Saint George. He had a brave mounteero on his head, and was a merry fellow who fancied he made a figure, and seemed mightily pleased with himself. Arrived at Gravesend, our traveller, for greater expedition, took boat to London, and so an end of him, so far, at least, as these pages are concerned.

[Sidenote: M. GROSLEY]

But this little crowd of scribbling foreigners who visited England and wrote accounts of their travels in these islands before the locomotive was dreamed of, had much better opportunities of catching impressions than the railway train affords. They came up this way to London, as slowly as the poet's spring; and, as a rule, they used their opportunities very well. For instance, here is the admirable M. Grosley, a kindly Frenchman who came over from Boulogne in 1765. He gives a most interesting account of his journey along the Dover Road on the 11th April. He embarked upon Captain Meriton's packet, which arrived, in company with a prodigious number of other ships, three hours before time, off Dover. Here they had to anchor for the tide to serve their landing, and the boisterous winds drove several vessels ashore, while Captain Meriton's passengers resigned themselves to death. When at length they landed, half dead, an Englishwoman with her very amiable daughter and a tall old Irishman, who pretended to be an officer (and who doubtless "had a way with him"), landed with our traveller, and contrived that he should pay part of their fare, the only trick played upon M. Grosley (I am pleased to say) during his stay in England. The customs officers looked like beggars, but treated this foreigner like a gentleman, as indeed we may suppose he was, for he belonged to the Academy.

However, a crown was levied on passing his luggage by an innkeeper who held the _droit de viscomte_. All the inns were crowded with the miserable travellers just landed, and he with whom we are particularly concerned found it necessary to go into the kitchen of his inn and take off, with his own hands, one of the _tranches de boeuf_ grilling on the coals. After this exploit, he cautiously went to bed at six o'clock in the afternoon, for there were not enough beds to go round, and possession was ever nine points of the law! At three in the morning he was called upon to turn out in favour of a new arrival; but, notwithstanding all the rout they made, he held to his four-poster until five, when he was turned out and the game of Box and Cox commenced.

The sole inhabitants of Dover (says our traveller) were sailors, ships' captains, and innkeepers. The height of the triumphal arches, on which the vast signboards of the inns spanned the narrow streets, and the ridiculous magnificence of the ornaments that headed them, were wonderful as compared with the little post-boys, children of twelve and thirteen years of age, who were starting every minute in sole charge of post-chaises. The great multitude of travellers with which Dover was crowded afforded a reason for dispensing with a police regulation which forbade public conveyances to travel on Sundays, and on that day he set out with seven other passengers in two carriages called ("called," you notice, like that street in Jerusalem that was "called" straight) "flying machines." There were six horses to a machine, and they covered the distance to London in one day for one guinea each person; passengers' servants carried outside at half-price. The coachmen, who were most kindly disposed towards their horses, carried whips, certainly, but they were no more in their hands than the fan is in winter in the hand of a lady; they only served to make a show with, for their horses scarcely ever felt them, so great was the tenderness of the English coachman with his cattle.

But see the peculiar advantages of travelling on Sunday. There were no excisemen anywhere on duty, and even the highwaymen had ceased their labours during the night. The only knights of the road our travellers encountered were dangling from gibbets by the wayside in all the glories of periwigs and full-skirted coats. Unfortunately, the pace was marred by the frequent stoppages made to unload the brandy-kegs at the roadside inns from the boots of the coaches, where they had been stowed away in the absence of the gaugers.

[Sidenote: FOREIGNERS ON ENGLAND]

Upon their way to Canterbury, the travellers, and our foreigner in

## particular, had for some time perceived that they were no longer in

France, and when at length they reached that bourne of pilgrims they were still further impressed with that fact by observing a fat man, who was just arisen from bed, standing at a bay window during the whole time the flying machines changed their Pegasuses; and, as they were unexpected the delay was considerable. But all this while the fat man stood there in his night-shirt, with a velvet cap on his head, contemplating them with folded arms and knitted brow, and with an expression which (in France) was to be seen only on the faces of them that had just buried their dearest friends. Also, the "young persons" of both sexes stood and stared--not to mince matters--like stuck pigs.

The country which they travelled through from Dover to London was (so our traveller thought) in general a bad mixture of sand and chalk. They skirted some lovely woods as well furnished as the best-stocked forests of France--alas! where are those woods now?--and presently passed over commons covered with heath and stray broom, very high and flourishing all the year round. Those wild shrubs were left to the use of the poor of the several different parishes, but their vigour and thickness gave reason to conjecture that there were but few poor people in those parishes. The best lands were then, as now, laid out in hop-gardens.

The wayside inns appealed strongly to our traveller. They were given, whether in town or country, to the making of large accounts, but then see how rich was the English lord who, as a class, frequented them. Anyway, they were possessed of a cleanliness far beyond that to be found in the majority of the best private houses in France. There was only one inn on the road from Paris to Boulogne to be mentioned in the same breath with the English houses, and that was one at Montreuil, frequented by English travellers.

Between Canterbury and Rochester the coaches encountered an obstacle which savours rather of Don Quixote's adventures than of Sunday travelling in this unromantic country. This was nothing less than a windmill which the country-folk, taking advantage of that usually coachless day, were moving entire. Less fiery than the Don, the travellers outflanked the gigantic obstacle by dragging the coaches into the field beside the road. And of that road, M. Grosley has to say that it was excellent; covered with powdered flints, and well kept, in spite of the exemption from forced labour which the countrymen enjoyed; and here he quotes what Aurelius Victor has to say of the Emperor Vespasian's vast roadworks in Britain.

The roadways had not long been in this enviable condition; only, indeed, so recently as the days of George the Second had they been rescued from the bad state into which they had been suffered to fall during the civil wars, and, generally speaking, the English knew little or nothing of the art of road-making.

The repairing of the high-roads was at the expense of them that used them. Neither rank nor dignity was exempted from the payment of tolls; the king himself was subject to them, and the turnpike would have been shut against his equipage if none of his officers paid the money before passing by.

These high-roads had all along them a little raised bank, two or three feet broad, with a row of wooden posts whose tops were whitewashed so that the coachmen should see them at night. This was for the conveniency of foot-passengers. In places where the road was too narrow to admit of this arrangement, the proprietors of lands adjoining were obliged to give passage through their fields, which were all enclosed with tall hedges or with strong hurdles about four feet high, over which passengers leapt or climbed. Custom had so habituated the village girls to this exercise that they acquitted themselves in it with a peculiar grace and agility. The great attention of the English to the conveniency of foot-passengers had several causes. Firstly, they set the highest value upon the lives of their fellow-creatures, and in that peculiar circumstance they sacrificed to pleasure and conveniency. Secondly, their laws were not exclusively made and executed by persons who rode in their chariots. Thirdly, as the English carriages moved as swiftly in the country as slowly in the town, the meeting with persons who were so foolish or so ill-geared as to walk a-foot would have been disastrous to those wayfarers; and in so democratic a country as this the chariot-riders would have had a bad time in store for them for so small a matter as playing, as it were, the secular Juggernaut with pedestrians.

Eventually this moralising Frenchman reached London through Rochester, which place was one long street inhabited solely by ships' carpenters and dockyard men. At Greenwich, the shores of Thames loomed upon his enraptured gaze, agreeably confounded with long lines of trees and the masts of ships, and then came delightful London, and that haven where he would be--ah! you guess it, do you not? It was Leicester Fields, _le Squarr de Leicesterre_ of a later generation of Frenchmen.

XVII

[Sidenote: MILTON]