Roads : Ancient and Modern

I. ROADS: ANCIENT AND MODERN. 
 
The first hard roads in England were made by the Romans. Before their time the ways were grass tracks through thickets, over moors, downs and hills. All the Roman roads leading from Dover into the interior of Kent were on the hills, where they can still be traced. Some modern writers have indicated the Roman Watling Street, leaving Dover at Biggin Gate, and proceeding towards Can terbury along the present London Road, via Charlton and Buckland. They forget that the estuary of the River Dour filled the valley in the Roman time, the roads being then on the hills. From the north of the Castle, the Roman road shot out along the eastern up-lands, one branch of it turning in a direct line to Richborough Castle, its main branch keeping straight along the rear of Old Park, then by the side of Waldershare Park, and onward to Siberts wold. These two roads can be traced still, their main outlines having survived the changes of twenty centuries. From Dover, to the west, the Richborough Road crossed the Dour Valley, and, passing up Stapping Dune (now called Stepping Down), continued on the hill-tops through Hougham and Capel, keeping to the hills that skirt Folkestone Plain, and making a Junction with Stone Street to Studdfall Castle, near Shepway Cross. 

In Saxon and Norman times, when a new Dover sprang up on the margin of the Dour, the road out of Dover still clung to the eastern uplands, departing from the harbour near St. James's Church, continuing along the eastern uplands; but as the valley became dotted with villages at Charlton, Buckland, River, Ewell and I.ydden, a valley road passed through them; but travelling on the hills being best and safest, from each village winding roads climbed the eastern hills — that through Cow Pastures from Charlton; another called the Green Lane from Buckland ; Whitfield Hill from River and Ewell; and Coldred Hill from Lydden; all of which joined the main Roman Road that passed over Siberts wold and Woolwich Green to the ancient Watling Street over Barham Downs. 

The present line of the London Road over Grabble Hill was made about the Sixteenth Century; but the road over Buckland Ford (where the bridge now is) became the King's highway still later, the London Road in Elizabethan times having crossed the river at a ford just below Charlton Church, following Barton Road and Dndd's Lane to Grabble Hill. 

After the Roman occupation ceased, their roads from Dover to Canterbury were used by Saxons, Danes and Normans ; but the people of Dover did not travel inland m.uch in those times — usually, their paths were on the sea. When the organisation of the Cinque Ports had linked together the maritime communities, the local routes of travel were usually east and west. The summonses to attend the Courts of Shepway and Brotherhood w'ere in most cases answered, in the m_ost natural way for mariners, by sailing coastwise ; while others who were not mariners followed the ancient roads already mentioned to Shepway Cross or Romney.