File:The Old Road (1904) (14760846214).jpg

Identifier: cu31924028008229 (find matches)
Title: The Old Road
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Belloc, Hilaire, 1870-1953 Hyde, William Henry, 1858-1925, illus
Subjects: Roads
Publisher: London, A. Constable
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Text Appearing Before Image:
, following the southernedge of the watershed, would enter Farnham by the line of Farnham Lane; it would thence follow the southern sideof the range of hUls until it reached the sea above the PortusLemanis—the inlet which covered the marshy plain belowthe present village Lympne. Such was undoubtedly the earliest form of the Old Road,but upon this original trajectory two exceptions fell in a timeso remote that it has hardly left a record. The western end ofthe Road was deflected and came to spring, not from Stone-henge, but from the site of Winchester; the eastern portionwas cut short: it terminated, not at some Port, but atCanterbury, inland. Why did Winchester come to absorb the traffic of the west,and to form the dep6t and the political centre of southernEngland ? Why did Canterbury, an inland town, become thegoal of this long journey towards the narrow seas ? The importance of the one and of the other can be explained.Let me take them in order, and begin first with Canterbury. i8
Text Appearing After Image:
IHB IBHBGULARITIES WHICH ABE THE OUTWARD SHELL OF ANTIQUITY IN A CITY, THE OLD ROAD The Causes op the Development of Winchester andCanterbury, and op their Position as Termini ofthe Old Koad. The Straits of Dover fill the history of this island becausethey have aiforded our principal gate upon a full life. All isolated territories—valleys difficult of entry, peninsulas,islands—have this double quality: they are not sufficient tolive a full life of themselves, but, receiving sufficient materialof civilisation from the larger world outside, they will use itintensively and bring it to the summit of perfection. Cut off, they wither. Nowhere does humanity fall moreabject and lethargic than in such defended places, if the defencebe too long maintained. But let them admit from time totime the invasion of armies or ideas, and nowhere doeshumanity flourish more densely or higher. The arts, the fierceair of patriotism, in whose heat alone the gems of achievementcan form, the solution of abs

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