. The Old Road . wholly legendary or not, cannot bedetermined. Certainly the texture of the story is fabulous, butBede and Nennius have both retained the memory of a greatbattle fought here, in which the British overcame the Pirates,and what is most significant of all, the legend or memoryrecords a previous retreat of the Saxons from a defeat atOtford. We know, therefore, that a writer in the seventhcentury, though what he was writing might be fable, wouldtake it for granted that a retreat westward from Otford wouldnaturally lead along some road which passed the Medway atAylesford. We get anot
. The Old Road . wholly legendary or not, cannot bedetermined. Certainly the texture of the story is fabulous, butBede and Nennius have both retained the memory of a greatbattle fought here, in which the British overcame the Pirates,and what is most significant of all, the legend or memoryrecords a previous retreat of the Saxons from a defeat atOtford. We know, therefore, that a writer in the seventhcentury, though what he was writing might be fable, wouldtake it for granted that a retreat westward from Otford wouldnaturally lead along some road which passed the Medway atAylesford. We get another much later example of the samething when Edmund Ironside, after his great victory at Otfordover the Danes, pursued them to Aylesford, and was onlyprevented from destroying them by their passage over theriver under the cover of treason. This is very strong evidence in favour of Aylesford, andwhen one remembers that the manor was ancient demesne, itsantiquity and importance are e O u v « > 2 c. OF THE ROAD But against Aylesford there are three strong are not only strong, they are insuperable. The first isthe immense width of valley that would have to be crossed toreach it. That is, the immense tract of uncertain, wooded way,without a view either of enemies or of direction. The second is the clay. A belt of gault of greater or lesserwidth stretches all along the Downs just below the it is particularly wide, and no straight line can be takenfrom Wrotham to the Aylesford gravels without crossingnearly two miles of this wretched footing, which, throughoutits course, the road has most carefully avoided. That a ford ofgreat antiquity was there ; that the men of the sandy heightsused it; that the Romans used so admirable a ford (it isgravel near the river on either side), that they bridged it, thatthey made a causeway over the clay, and that this causewayand that bridge were continuously used after their time, I amwilling to believe ; but n
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