ther of the Bishop were certainly resident here. He died in March, 1489, and was interred in St. Paul's Cathedral. The memory of these eminent Prelates was so highly venerated at Oxford, that a particular day was appointed to consecrate it by an anniversary festival, on which occasion they are said to have been stiled the 'Mecænases of the University."

OLLANTIGH continued in the possession of the Kemps till the year 1607, when, on the death of Sir Thomas Kemp without issue male, it devolved to his four daughters, coheiresses, by whose respective husbands it was soon afterwards conveyed to Sir Timothy Thornhill. His descendant, Major Richard Thornhill, (who, in 1711, mortally wounded Sir Cholmley Dering, Bart. in a duel in Tothill Fields, Westminster,) vested it in trustees, to be sold for the payment of his debts; and they shortly afterwards conveyed it, with other estates in this county, to Jacob Sawbridge, Esq. who was deeply engaged in the iniquitous South Sea Scheme in the reign of George the First. His grandson, the late JOHN SAWBRIDGE, Esq. the patriotic Alderman, and representative of the City of London in three successive Parliaments, was born here on the seventeenth of March, 1732; and on his death, in 1795, soon after he had entered into his sixty-third year, was buried in Wye Church. He expended large sums in altering the mansion, which had been erected by Sir Thomas Kemp, K. B. towards the end of the reign of Henry the Seventh, and in improving and extending the grounds. His sister, the late well-known MRS. CATHERINE MACAULAY GRAHAM, was also a native of Ollantigh, her birth occurring at this seat on the twenty-third of March, 1731. She was a woman of a strong, ardent and independent mind; but, perhaps, of feelings somewhat too vivid to permit that deep research into the causes of events, which should ever be a marked feature in the character of the historian. Her detestation of despotism, and of the intrigues of courts, seems also, in some few instances, to have thrown a cloud over her judgment; and it may be questioned, whether her bias to republicanism did not arise as much

Hasted's Kent, Vol. XII. p. 427.

minch from the impulse of sensibility, as from the deductions of the understanding. Her History of England' was published between the years 1763 and 1782, in nine volumes, quarto; and has her portrait attached to it, finely engraved as a medallion. She died in Berkshire, in 1791, after a long and severe illness. The present possessor of Ollantigh is Samuel Elias Sawbridge, Esq. son of the Alderman, and late M. P. for Canterbury. The house occupies a low situation near the banks of the Stour River, which has been altered and extended so as to form a noble ornament to the grounds. In making a sunk fence here a few years ago, on one side of a large Tumulus, two skeletons were found about five feet below the surface, together with several small pieces of iron, two of which appeared to have been spear-heads.*

On the acclivity of Trenworth Down, in Crundal Parish, about a mile north-eastward from Ollantigh, a Roman Burying-place, crossed by a waggon-way, was accidentally discovered in the year 1703; and various skeletons, and human bones, both of adults and children, together with several small urns, and other vessels, bave been found here at subsequent periods.+ "Here also, in the years 1757 and 1759, the late Rev. Brian Fausset, of Heppington, dug very successfully, and in the several graves which he opened, found numbers of urns, ossuaries, pateræ, and lachrymatories, both of Roman earthenware and of glass, of different sizes and colours, as red, lead-colour, dark-brown, and white, with the names of the different manufacturers on many of them. He found likewise several female trinkets, and a coin of the younger Faustina. The skeletons, of which there were several, all lay with their feet to the south-west.-All the above remains now form part of the valuable collection at Heppington."

About twenty years previously to the above discovery, in digging for sand on the range of hills eastward from Crundal, but in

Hasted's Kent, Vol. VHI. p. 545,-6.

the

+ Harris's Hist of Kent, p. 89; where the different vessels are represented by a wood cut, which has been copied by Hasted on copper.

Hasted's Kent, Vol. VII. p. 370,-1.

the Parish of Godmersham, a large Roman Urn was found, of sufficient capacity to hold half a bushel. Within it was a shallow earthen pan, in which stood a small urn of fine red earth, but no remains whatever either of ashes or bones. The large urn was covered with a broad flat stone, and fenced round with a wall of flints to preserve it from external injury.*

The Manor of GODMERSHAM was given to the Priory of Christ Church, Canterbury, by Beornulph, King of Mercia, in the year 822, for the use of the Refectory, and for the clothing of the Monks. It was afterwards wrested from the Church, but restored, in the year 1036, by Archbishop Egelnoth, who had purchased it of Duke Sired, for seventy-two marks of silver. The Priors of Christ Church had liberty of free warren here: and in the thirty-eighth of Edward the Third, they also obtained the privilege of holding a market weekly. After the Dissolution, Godmersham was granted to the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury, to whom it still belongs. The COURT LODGE, or Manor House, now called the Priory, which is situated near the Church, was a residence of the Priors of Canterbury, and it still retains may vestiges of its ancient character. It appears to have been almost, if not entirely, rebuilt about the end of the reign of Richard the Second, by Prior Chillenden; but some considerable enlargements were made by Prior Selling, in the time of Edward the Fourth. A statue, supposed to be of the former Prior, in an episcopal dress, with a pastoral cross in one hand, and the other upraised in the attitude of benediction, is yet remaining in a small niche over the entrance porch. The Church is a small fabric, dedicated to St. Lawrence, and had formerly a chantry connected with it on the south side; but the latter has been rebuilt, and made into two seats, appropriated to the Manors of Ford and Eggarton, both which

Harris's Hist. of Kent, p. 90.

+ The privilege of wearing the mitre, &c. was obtained by Chillenden's immediate predecessor, Prior Fynch; the grant for the use of the pastoral staff and sandals, was procured by Chillenden himself. See P. 827.

which are in this Parish. Within that belonging to the former, is a window neatly fitted up with painted glass, partly ancient, and partly modern.

GODMERSHAM PARK is pleasantly situated on the west side of the high road between Canterbury and Ashford, and backed by extensive woods. The present owner, Edward Austen, Esq. obtained it by the will of his relation, Thomas Knight, Esq. (M. P. for Kent in the year 1774,) whose father inherited this seat from his paternal ancestors, the family of Brodnax, but assumed the name of Knight from those of Chawton, in Hampshire. The mansion, which is a handsome edifice, consisting of a centre with wings, was built in the year 1732, by the late Mr. Knight, who, about ten years afterwards, inclosed the Park, which was formerly called Ford Park, from the original appellation of this Manor, and is well stocked with deer.

Immediately adjoining to Godmersham Park, on the north, is CHILHAM PARK, the seat of James Wildman, Esq. a West Indian, by whom it was purchased of the late Thomas Heron, Esq. brother to Sir Richard Heron, Bart. This gentleman, under the authority of an Act of Parliament, had himself purchased the Honour, Manor, and Castle of Chilham, with their appurtenances, from the Colebrookes, who, in the year 1724, had bought them of Colonel Thomas Digges, a descendant from the celebrated Sir Dudley Digges, the latter of whom had married one of the four daughters and co-heiresses of Sir Thomas Kemp, of Ollantigh, and in her right became possessed of one-fourth of these demesnes in 1607, and shortly afterwards had the whole conveyed to him by the respective husbands of his wife's sisters. Sir Dudley Digges erected the present mansion, which was completed for his residence about the year 1616: it is a venerable brick edifice, but singular in its form, which is an irregular polygon. The upper windows command some fine views over the vale of the Stour, and adjacent country.

At a short distance from the house, towards the north-west, stand the remains of CHILHAM CASTLE, concerning the origin of which a great deal of hypothetical argument has been advanced

by