The Historical Works of Hilaire Belloc. Hilaire Belloc

Poissy, in St. Eutropius at Santes (a Roman well), in the Augustinian chapel at Avignon (now a barracks). In Notre Dame at Etampes there are three wells. There is a well in St. Martin of Tours, in the Abbey of Jobbes, in the Church of Gamache. Our Lady of the Smithies at Orleans (now pulled down) had a well into which Ebroin threw St. Leger, the Bishop; and close by at Patay there is one in St. Sigismund's into which Chlodomir threw some one or other. Old Vendée is full of such sacred wells. The parish church of Praebecq has one, of Perique, of Challans (filled up in fourteenth century). At Cheffoi you can see one in full use, right before the high altar and adorned with a sculpture of the woman at the well—and this is but a short and random list.

2. See upon this abandoned portion Mr. Shore's article in the third volume of the Archæological Review.

3. The points where the pilgrims obviously left the Old Road are Compton (p. 160) and Burford Bridge (p. 181). They probably left it after Merstham (p. 205) and perhaps after Chilham (p. 271), while they certainly confused the record of the passages of the Wey (p. 165), and perhaps of the Medway (p. 242). As for their supposed excursion into the plain near Oxted (p. 213), I can find no proof of it. The places where other tracks coming in impair the Old Road are on either side of the Mole (p. 181), the Darent (p. 222), and the Medway (p. 237), where, along such river valleys, such tributaries would naturally lead.

4. See note on p. 158.

5. In the case of three—those of Gatton, Arthur's Seat, and Godmersham—an excellent reason can at once be discovered. The Road goes just north of the crest, in order to avoid the long circuit of a jutting-out spur with its re-entrant curve. For that re-entrant curve, it must be remembered, would be worse going, and wetter, than even the short excursion to the north of the crest. In the fourth case, however, where the Road goes to the north for a few hundred yards behind Weston Wood, I can offer no explanation of the cause. It is sufficiently remarkable that in all this great distance there should be but that one true exception to the rule, and a characteristic so universal permits me, I think, to take it for certain in one doubtful place (Chilham) that the Road has followed the sunny side of the slope.

6. There is another, less clear, beyond Titsey, another beyond Chevening, and there are traces of another above Lenham.

7. The 6-inch Ordnance Map would add Albury (see p. 174).

8. The prosperity of the Jews in the early Middle Ages was remarkable. They have been said to have accumulated 46 per cent. of the total personalty of England in little more than the first century of their operations. This is an error, due to overlooking the fact that for the Saladin Tithe the Jew was taxed one fourth and not one-tenth of his goods. The true figure should be about 25½ per cent. But even that is astonishing for perhaps one per cent. of the population. It supposes an average Jewish fortune twenty-five times larger than the average English one.

9. This is a strong argument, because Headbourne Worthy, the point in dispute, was precisely the most important of these villages. It is given in Domesday (Ordie) as the holding of Mortemer, while King's Worthy was but a hamlet, and Martyrs' Worthy is not mentioned.

10. Mr. Haverfield in the Victoria History of Hampshire (vol. i. 287) gives the Roman Road as going straight from the North Gate to the King's Worthy church. See also his general map and his description on p. 321. This is surely preferable to the conjecture of the 6-inch Ordnance (Hampshire, XLI.) that it followed the line of Hyde Street and proceeded to Headbourne Worthy.

11. One would naturally expect Alfred's bones to have been scattered with the rest in the Reformation; they seem to have been spared. It was most probably Alfred's leaden coffin that was dug up unopened in the building of the now vanished prison, and sold in 1788. It fetched two pounds.

12. Leaving upon our left the first of the archæological discoveries which mark the whole of the Road:—the Roman villa unearthed or explored by Mr. Collier in 1878.

13. The balance of evidence is certainly against it. In favour of the antiquity of New Alresford we have the phrase restored applied to Bishop Lucy's market, and the three churches attached to Alresford in Domesday, and supposed to show that more than one village was attached to the manor. Against, we have the immediate presence of the artificial head of water established by the Bishop; the name, and the fact that the medieval road from Alton went not to New but to Old Alresford. Again, while there is no special mention of New Alresford in Domesday, there is mention of Sutton, close by, and a Bishop's palace stood there for some centuries.

14. Their passage is an excellent example of the Reversion of the Pilgrimage to an ancient road. The regular road in the thirteenth century was presumably that by Chawton Wood and Bighton, mentioned by Duthie, who finds it in a charter of Henry III.'s. (This charter, it is only fair to add, was never discovered by his executors.)

15. Thus West Street and Broad Street near Lenham, Dun Street at the edge of Eastwell, the old name for Albury (Weston Street), etc.

16. The point where the line leaves the modern road is east of Bury Lane, just past a farm called Dean Farm. The ridge is first noticeable in the field marked 134 in the ½500 inch Ordnance Map for Hampshire [XLII. 7, Old Series, 1870, Ropley Parish].

17. These fields are marked 191, 192, and 194 on ½500 inch Ordnance Map, Hampshire, Old Series, 1870, XLII. 8.

18. The boundary between the fields marked 201, and 202–3 in map cited above. The track is again lost for a short distance in crossing the field marked 205.

19. The last few yards of the alignment follow the boundary between plots marked 219 and 216 in map already quoted.

20. Moreover, from this same point the medieval road to Old Alresford mentioned above left Alton.

21. Though the valley is full of clay the road avoids it with remarkable success. Of the eight miles between Alton and Farnham the first three have chosen a narrow strip of good gravel, the next one and a half miles are on green-sand. At the entry to Bentley village the clay is unavoidable, but after a mile of it the road takes advantage of a patch of gravel as far as the Bull Inn. It has then to cross a quarter-mile belt of gault, but beyond this it uses a long, irregular, and narrow patch of gravel, and at the end of this, just east of the county boundary, it finds the narrow belt of sand which it keeps to all the way to Farnham. The whole is an example of how a primitive track will avoid bad soil.

22. This field is marked 37 in the ½500-inch Ordnance Map for Surrey, l. xxxi.