city, they returned to their ships, and led the Archbishop Elfleah with them, and kept him with them until the time when they martyred him.* It was to Greenwich that they conveyed their victim, where a church was erected and consecrated to his memory.+ Here the Danes would find a convenient harbour for their vessels in a season of inactivity, in the vale through which the Ravensbourne runs into the Thames, between the hill at the west end of Blackheath, and the high ground in Surrey on the other side of the stream. According to a received tradition, they availed themselves also of a similar harbour in the vicinity of Gravesend. The valley which interposes between the hill that ascends to Northfleet, and that which winds up to Swanscomb, was once covered with water, and being locked on each side with these hills, made a secure road for shipping, which invited the Dane to make a winter station for his navy, and the same report will tell you likewise of anchors which have been digged up about the verge of that marsh, which is contiguous to the Thames; and certainly if we consider the position of the valley, which is nothing but a chain of marsh land, interlaced with a stream called Ebbs-fleet, which swells and sinks with the flux and reflux of the adjacent river; and the dimensions of their ships at that time in use, which were not of any extraordinary bulk; this tradition is not improbable.§ The site of Gravesend therefore was in the very vortex of these descents, and thus exposed to predatory warfare, or what was scarcely less alarming, the actual presence of the barbarian foemen when their actual hostility was for a season suspended; the shores of the Thames between London and the sea would not be selected for the sites of towns, until the Saxons and Danes had ceased to infest the island, notwithstanding the advantages of access to the river for transit. It will be inferred that this attraction induced a resort that commenced at the earliest period of which any history has been preserved. • Saxon Chronicle, passim. + Camden's Britannia, Edit. 1795; p. 188. Watling Street, the Roman way that has already been mentioned, was continued from the north through London, in a straight line to Canterbury, whence it diverged by separate lines to the Roman ports of Ritupis, Dubris, and Lemanis, on the coast of modern Kent, as the high road from London runs at this day, through Canterbury to Dover, and the towns in the Isle of Thanet. This track from the continent through the County towards London was necessarily frequented, at least from the period when the churches of Canterbury and Rochester had been founded by St. Augustine, who arrived at Canterbury in the year 596. THE NORMANS. The earliest notice of Gravesend extant, is preserved in the venerable record called "Domesday;" the registry of the great survey made by command of William the Conqueror, and supposed to have been commenced about the year 1067, and completed in 1086. In that precious description of the land he had won, almost eight centuries ago, the place is called Gravesham, and the following are amplified versions of the extracts from it, contained in the accompanying fac simile. MILTON. Ralph, son of Turold, holds of the Bishop, in the hundred of Toltingtrow, Meletune taxed at one suling and 3 yokes. The arable land is 4 carucates. In demesne there is one, and 21 villeins with 2 borderers, having 2 carucates. There is a church and 1 mill of 49 pence, and a hythe of 20 shillings, and 3 servants. In the time of King Edward, [the Confessor,] it was worth 4 pounds, afterwards 3 pounds, now 6 pounds; Richard holds in his Lowy, [of the value of] 5 shillings in one wood. Lewin, the Earl, held it. GRAVESEND. Herbert, son of Ivo, holds of the Bishop Gravesham, taxed at 2 sulings and 1 yoke. The arable land is 4 carucates. In de mesne there is one, and 4 villeins, with 8 servants, having 2 oxen; there is a church and 1 hythe. In the time of King Edward [the Confessor] it was worth 10 pounds, when he received as much, now 11 pounds. This manor was in three manors. In the time of King Edward, Leuric and Ulwin and Godwin held them. Now it is in one. According to the authority of Domesday, it appears that the name of the manor was Gravesham, but early in the next century it was denominated Graveshende, in a charter conferring the tithes of the parish upon the Monastery of St. Augustine, at Canterbury.* Such discrepancies are not uncommon, but they are supposed to have arisen from subsequent corruptions, and that the names given in Domesday are the correct and original appellations.+ Gravesham is probably derived from Graaf, or Reeve, and Heim, Hime, (whence Hamlet); the dwelling place within the united manors, of the Reeve or representative of the superior Lord. 'In auncient time, almost every manor had its Reve, whose authoritie was, not only to levie the Lord's Rents, to set to worke his servauntes, and to husband his demeasnes to his best profit and commoditie, but also to gouverne his tenants in peace, and to lead them foorth to war, when necessitye so required,' and "Caput Baroniæ," head of the barony, was the capital village of the barony, where the Baron had his principal seat, and common residence.‡ The name of the village of S'Graavenzande, situated six miles south-west of the Hague in the United Provinces in a sandy dis • Registrum Roffense, p.526. Ex Bibl. Cott Claudius D-x. folio 239. Thorn. Chronica, Col. 1799. The orthography of names in Domesday, frequently varies from what we find them described in records soon after the Conquest, and their present appellation. so that it is often with difficulty the real places can be found out, but probably this does not arise from the scribes or clerks who took down the names being Normans, and those who gave in the information being Saxons, as some have imagined; but from the names being since that time much corrupted and falsely spelt, the names of towns, as they are found in the survey, being in the opinion of some, the real, true and old names, as they were in the time of Edward the Confessor, and might be taken from Alfred's Domesday, which was at that time extant.-Kelham's Domesday, Illustrated, p. 18. Lambarde's Perambulation of Kent, p. 484.—Kennett, Gloss. Par. Antiq. i |