Fase 3 Diagnóstico y análisis turístico cultural del territorio

Due to the lack of any extensive preparation in what appears to have been a preliminary journey to collect information and probably objects, Plot and Browne on their trip through Kent relied upon a less formal network for practical advice and information regarding the locale they were visiting; it was not a network of ‘men of curiosity’ to whom they turned, but men they met along the way. The third day of their tour, 17th _{August 1693, provides an illustrative example of both}

the use of and problems associated with local knowledge. They were following the Roman way, from Chinglewell towards Rochester. As they entered the town, which was home to some 3000 people,60 _{the path of the road was obscured.}

Given that the River Medway acted as the boundary of the far side of the town, they felt ‘it was rational to enquire for the most fordable’ part of the River, presuming that they could find the Roman road on the other side. The locals informed them that there were two places, around a mile apart, at which the river may be forded, one of which was near Friendsbury church where at low water ‘in our grandfathers days, by the help of a horses head, any one might pass the river’, suggesting a fairly simple crossing.61 _{Both potential locations were}

investigated, and a small hill nearby climbed to get a better view, with no luck as to finding the Roman road. Unfortunately, despite this help with potential locations for fording the River, both local and prior knowledge had failed Plot and Browne: the Romans had not only forded the Medway, they had also built a

60 _{C. W. Chalklin, Seventeenth-century Kent: a social and economic history (London,}

1965), pp. 30-36.

bridge across it which had lasted through until the winter of 1381/2, on the site of the bridge which Plot and Browne used themselves.62 _{As a result of this they}

lost the Roman road for about three miles, only recovering it on the far side of Chatham hill.

Despite the occasionally problematic nature of relying solely on locals for information, the success of Plot and Browne’s trip rested upon this type of personal assistance by the inhabitants of the area, as evidenced earlier regarding John Lowe’s aid in their finding chalk pits. The importance of local aid was also clearly and openly recorded in printed county natural histories. Plot, for instance, was guided through local environments by people such as William Barnesley, a ‘good old Gentleman’, who, as well as furnishing Plot with a report of a solar Iris (a circular light which often appears after a rainbow), rode with him for a length of time to show him around his part of Staffordshire- ‘notwithstanding his Age’.63

More often, though, the names of those providing assistance remain unrecorded, their presence is only notable in the text through regular references to the historian in question ‘enquir[ing]’ into various matters among local people. Local assistance, then, extended from the provision of extensive guided tours such as that provided by Barnesley in Staffordshire, through to what presumably were brief conversations on topics of interest to both the locals and the investigators, as was the case by Plot and Browne in Kent, and was

62 _{'The Roman Bridge', The Rochester Bridge Trust,}

<http://www.rbt.org.uk/bridges/roman.htm> (4 Oct).

considered important enough to record in the public version of the produced works, whether manuscript or print.

There were many cases in which it was impossible for Plot and Browne to determine with any certainty whether previous authors or their own prior knowledge was correct. This can be seen when the two enquired after a Danish encampment that Lambarde had identified near Greenwich- an early-eleventh- century Danish invasion led by Swaine was said at the time to have given Swanscombe its name. ‘After a strict inquiry’ they had neither heard nor seen evidence of the camp. In the same area they were unable to find Swanscombe castle which John Philpot, a herald who had made extensive collections for a history of Kent before the Civil War, suggested had been built as a tribute to Swaine.64 _{After recounting both Lambarde and Philpot’s accounts, and adding}

their own discussions with locals, including the lord of the Manor, Mr. Weldon, Browne bemoans the lack of conclusive evidence and ventures a possible explanation: ‘perhaps Mr Weldon’s house stands on the castle and the Danish fortifications are dug away at Greenhithe.’ Whether they were searching for the Norman mottle they thought to be a natural feature, or were confused regarding the castle in nearby Rochester following their textual research, the two men were clear in one thing: they did not have a firm conclusion and so were happy

64 _{Thomas Browne, Account of a tour through Kent with Robert Plot, f. 7.; Philpot’s}

‘Collections for a History of Kent’ are in the British Library, Lansdowne MSS. 267, 268, 269, 276 and also see Harleian MS. 3917, ‘A Collection of Monuments and Arms in Churches of Kent, with a few pedigrees inserted’.

to venture a possible explanation as a modest conjecture, making the speculative element of this section of their travel narrative clear.

Twentieth-century investigations by local historians, following a vicious debate regarding the inclusion of a Viking ship on Swanscombe's civic badge, have concluded that Swaine had far less influence on the area’s history than previously thought, discrediting the proposed genealogical roots of Swanscombe. Likewise, the only castle uncovered was a Norman “motte” which sat in an area described by Browne and Plot as a raised mound, which they evidently did not recognise as a castle. It is more probable, though, that the reports of a castle given to the two explorers, rather than referring to the Norman motte, stem from a confused account of the Lord of Swanscombe Manor’s position as one of the principal captains of Rochester Castle. That castle, also unmentioned in the account, was granted to the Weldon’s under James I and was stripped for timber and other building materials through the seventeenth century, leaving the ruin largely as we see it today.65 _{I include this simply to note that the twentieth and}

twenty-first century conclusions are no more certain than those of Plot and Browne, and that again, like Plot and Browne, our contemporary local historians make a “best guess” based on the available evidence, rather than claiming certainty.

Plot and Browne, of course, were not infallible, and on occasion their work actually served to reduce the accuracy of knowledge of the local area. One

65 _{Christopher Bull, 'From Domesday to the Industrial Era 1086 - 1825', Swanscombe -} Local History, <http://swanscombe.com/newsevents/history.asp> (3 Jul).

instance of this can be seen from their conjectures regarding the chalk pits found a mile and a half from where Lambarde located them, which more recent research has suggested were better explained by Camden than Browne. These pits, Browne writes, were similar to some which had been described by Camden in Essex; Camden ‘supposes that the Britains dug chalk out of them but,’ Browne conjectures ‘surely that was not their purpose’ given the free availability of chalk nearer the surface.66 _{Indeed there was so much chalk available that it was strip-}

mined for export during the eighteenth century, and used locally in huge quantities for cement manufacture through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; Browne’s speculation demonstrates a good knowledge of the surrounding landscape and was therefore not unreasonable.67 _{The pits}

encountered by Plot and Browne, though, bore no resemblance to the strip- mining of later generations, on the surface showing as a hole ‘scarce a fathom [1.8m] broad’, but ‘9 fathoms [16.2m] deep’ and ‘within three yards of the bottom… it expatiates itself and is of a circular form’. Browne raises the possibility that these pits were military in origin used, as ‘Tacitus says the Germans did’, to hide from invading forces, in this case the Danes. His evidence for this came from records of conversations in Essex in which similar pits were called ‘Dane’s holes’- though given that locals in Dartford had no name for them this was only raised as a possibility. In the centuries after the publication of Plot and Browne’s trip, the mystery of what these pits were used for continued to vex

66 _{Thomas Browne, Account of a tour through Kent with Robert Plot, f. 11.} 67 _{Bull, 'From Domesday to the Industrial Era 1086 - 1825',}

local natural historians and antiquarians. Suggestions put forward included their use as ancient grain pits and Druid altars, but we now believe, thanks to work by Kent Archaeological Society and Kent Underground Research Group, that they were indeed chalk mines. According to this work, farmers used these mines to get pure chalk in order to enrich their soil, and because of the narrow opening in relation to the amount of chalk that could be extracted this method had the advantage of not destroying a large area of their farmland.68 _{In other words, on}

this occasion, recent research has sided with Camden over Browne.

“Educated guesswork” would be perhaps the most accurate summary of the preceding examples in which Plot and Browne, as well as their twentieth- century counterparts, offer conjectures regarding the presence of castles and the use of chalk pits. Plot and Browne compiled evidence taken from previous texts, discussions with locals, their wider knowledge, and their personal observations, and deduced what they considered to be the most plausible explanation. Importantly, they made it clear that this was their conjecture, not a matter of fact- ‘perhaps’ is about as certain as they could get in these situations. However, it was personal observations undertaken along the way that were the most common source of information in both printed and manuscript county natural histories, as is illustrated particularly clearly in Plot and Browne’s narrative.

Importantly, and unlike in the writings of contemporaries such as Robert Hooke, the personal was not edited out of the observations reported in county

68 _{'Deneholes', Kent Underground Research Group,}

natural histories- indeed the personal pronoun is a regular occurrence, and even where it is absent there is a clear sense of implied narrative.69 _{Towards the end}

of their trip, for instance, Browne gives an account of the ‘diverse places [in which] the Roman way is over grown with bushes at Hempton hill within less than three miles of Hyde it turns to the right hand and winds about to the left again going down to Stanford where it is quite worn out’.70 _{By giving information}

regarding distances and directions in such a manner in the context of a travel narrative the writer not only conveys the information, but gives an impression of personal experience. The reader could envisage the trip itself and could, potentially, replicate it were they ever in the area. However, most of this direct narrative of the journey itself did not survive the editing process: from reading of Oxfordshire, one would have no idea as to the order in which Plot surveyed the county, while this is eminently clear from his notebooks.71