Leigh for Breakfast in 1823
Leigh for Breakfast in 1823
What was the Leigh area like in the autumn of 1823? We have a vivid description by one of England’s great eccentric radicals, William Cobbett (1763-1835).
Cobbett, the son of a Hampshire farmer, had a turbulent career. He became a soldier, but was, most famously, a journalist for many years. He published the Weekly Political Register which often deeply upset the establishment. He had to flee to America twice and was once jailed for debt. However, his most lasting achievement was the diaries of his ‘Rural Rides’ all over England where he describes not only the scenery but the huge range of people he meets, the architecture, topography and the social problems of the area.
For example, he had ridden from Dover where the Government (William Pitt, the Younger) expenditure on Dover Castle’s tunnels infuriated him. “More brick and stone have been buried in this hill for every labouring man in the counties of Kent and Sussex”. He commented – sensibly – that Napoleon would not be landing at Dover which was already known to be a stronghold.
His mood had not mellowed by the time he reached the Sittingbourne area, where he records his aggravation that English farmers had to pay tithes which made it difficult for them to compete with French farmers; and his complaint – yet again echoing the Brexit debate – that a Government Minister (Canning) was trying to make deals with America, whilst “the Americans, (our) lovely daughter, in a moment of excessive love, has gone off with a lover – to wit, the French . . .”.
By the time Cobbett had reached Mereworth on Friday 5 September his mood was less critical. On the following day he concentrated more on unusual buildings. “In Hadlow, there is a house, the most singular looking thing I ever saw . . . stuck all over with a parcel of chimneys, or things like chimneys; little brick columns, with sorts of caps on them, looking like carnation sticks with caps on the top to catch earwigs . . .”.
At Tonbridge, “I stopped only a few minutes” and describes Tonbridge as “but a common county town, though very clean, and the people looking very well. The climate must be pretty warm here; for on entering the town, I saw a large Althea Frutex in bloom (Hibiscus Syriacus), a thing rare enough any year, and particularly a year like this (1823).”
Then on to Westerham: “Instead of going to the Wen (i.e. London) along the turnpike road through Sevenoaks, I turned left when I got about a mile out of Tonbridge, in order to come along that tract of country called the Weald of Kent, that is to say, the solid clays, which have no bottom which are unmixed with chalk, sand, stone, or anything else, the country of dirty roads and oak trees . . . I stopped to breakfast at a place called Leigh. [n.b. One assumes this was at The Porcupine – an established coaching inn]. From Leigh I came to Chittingstone causeway . . . I came to Bough-beach, then to Four Elms and then to the little market town of Westerham – I found the corn very good; and, low as the ground is wet as it is cold, as it is there will be very little of the wheat which will not be housed before Saturday night. All the corn is good, and the barley excellent.
“Not far from Bough-beach, I saw two oak trees, one of which was, they told me, more than thirty feet round and the other more than twenty-seven; but they have been hollow for half a century . . .”. [N.B. the oak on our Green is 28 feet at its base but only 19 feet at chest height which is apparently – according to Ian Vincent – the proper place for such measurements.]
“I have had a most beautiful ride through the Weald. The day is very hot; but I have been in the shade; and my horse’s feet very often in the rivulets and wet lanes. In one place I rode above a mile completely arched over by the bough of the underwood, growing in the banks of the lake. What an odd taste that man must have who prefers a turnpike-road to a lane like this”.
Cobbett rode 44 miles that day – back to home in Kensington.
Chris Rowley (Aug 2020)