The Kentish Traveller's Companion; In a Descriptive View of the Towns, Villages, Remarkable Buildings, and Antiquities, Situated on or Near the Road from London to Margate, Dover and Canterbury (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1776. Excerpt: ... THE KENTISH TRAVELLER'S COMPANION. STAGE I. Antiquity and exttnt of Kent.--'Lewipam.--Deptsord; Trinity Society Greenwich.--Black heat h. --Woolwich.--E/tham.--' Welling, --Eritb.--Crays.---Cray/ore .--D A R T For D. ACourse of more than eighteen hundred years, cannot be strictly faid to have deprived the county ofKent of its ancient name. Caefar denominated it Cantium; time, therefore, has made no surther alteration than in giving it an English found. Whence it acquired this name, antiquarians are not agreed. Lambard, who wrote his famous Perambulation of this county in 1570, fancied it might be deduced from Caine; which, in the British tongue, signisies a green leas j B because because of old, this county was sull of woods: but, this has generally been deemed too sorced an etymology. The conjecture of the judicious Camden is more commonly allowed to have a better soundation, --that it was so called from Britain here stretching out into a large corner eastward, and might theresore be derived from the word Canton, or Cant, which signisies a corner, and is still so used in heraldry. Kent is a maritime counsy, and is situated in the south-east part of Britain, opposite to France; from which kingdom, its nearest limits is about twenty-one miles. It is bounded on the east by the sea; and on the south, partly by the sea, and partly by Sussex, from which the river Rother divides it. Sussex and Surry are its western limits, and the Thames is its northern boundary.. It is in length, from east to west, 63 miles; and in breadth, from Rye in Sussex to the mouth of the Thames, 3 5 miles. Its circumserence measures nearly 170 miles. It contains 1248000 acres of land, 39242 houses, 408 parishes, and 30 considerable towns. If this computation is accurate, there are no