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Perambulators of Kent

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 Kent has received more than its share of visitors over the years, some of which have left their thoughts on the county. This is a brief summary of some of them, with particular reference to our corner. John Leland (1503 - 1552) was a humanist antiquary in and around the court of Henry VIII. He warned Thomas Cromwell of the risk of losing the wealth of monastic libraries during the Dissolution, and searched out books thereafter. The five volumes of his Itinerary included a chapter on Kent "Let this be the firste chapitre of the booke", he wrote; "The King hymself was borne yn Kent. Kent is the key of al Englande." His Itineraries were made between 1538 and 1543 at the height of the Reformation. The structure of the work, divided into counties, set the form of local historical writing for the future. He commended the results to the king, writing "there is almoste nother cape, nor bay, haven, creke or peere, river or confluence of rivers, breches, waschis, lakes...
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Turnpikes

  HL_PO_PB_1_1839_2&3V1n79.Local and Personal Act, 2 & 3 Victoria I, c xxxiii.pdf http://www.turnpikes.org.uk/map%20Kent%20turnpikes.jpg
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Sea pea Lathyrus japonicus

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  Watsonia 1977.   R. E. RANDALL  L. japonicus is a creeping or climbing perennial most commonly found on shingle beaches but occasionally recorded from dunes and other coastal habitats. It is fairly long-lived and once established it is not likely to disappear except where coastal changes or human pressure cause this to occur. Where beaches are accreting seawards and more closed vegetation enters as humus builds up, it disappears on older shingle but persists nearer the shore where the vegetation is open.   Its seeds are avidly eaten by birds, and many animals, especially sheep, find the whole plant palatable. Brightmore & White (1963) suggest that an exceptional spread of L. japonicus at Rye Harbour from 1962 until 1964 resulted from dispersal of seeds by flocks of stock dove, Columba oenas.  The plants cease flowering and soon die when heavily or frequently trampled. In eastern E. Sussex, V.c. 14, and E. Kent, v.c. 15, L. japonicus is much more ...
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Mongeham Anglo-Saxon cemetery

 Crop marks reveal some interesting things, and again we scuttle down the rabbit hole. Google Earth shows crop marks between Great Mongeham church and Ripple, which bear further investigation.
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Welcome to the Rabbit Hole

Going down a Rabbit Hole -  "To enter into a situation or begin a process or journey that is particularly strange, problematic, difficult, complex, or chaotic, especially one that becomes increasingly so as it develops or unfolds." This is an increasingly-common condition as the internet leads us willingly or not into areas of knowledge that we didn't know existed, and that free time in retirement allows us to follow. Those of us lucky enough to have built up a library of random books can now justify keeping them, gathering dust until their unexpected moment of use arrives. Time spent on these unassociated subjects leads to a mass of jottings, notes, spreadsheet and maps which risk being lost to posterity, so here's an attempt to draw some of them together for our interest in nature, local history and so on in east Kent. East Kent , for our purposes, is defined as the triangle edged by the towns of Dover, Canterbury and Sandwich (so broadly the Dover District Council...
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