Old England's Hole
This is most probably an old quarry, cut into the side of the old road to Dover out of
Bridge at about the lowest practicable point of the hill where chalk is available. It is
however also a source of much romantic speculation. The theory that it is the site of
an encounter between Britons and Romans is of relatively recent (early 19"‘ century)
origin. The following account is almost wholly fanciful (Caesar died of course in 44
BC. His second British expedition was in 54 BC. Nero was Emperor in AD 56).
‘At the summit of the. .. rise out of Bridge, the road, running exactly on the site of the
Roman Watling Street, comes to that bleak and elevated table-land known as Barham
Downs, the scene of Caesar's great battle with the Britons on July 23"‘, AD 56.
Twenty-seven thousand Roman soldiers, horse and foot, met the wild rush of the
Britons, who, with the usual undisciplined and untaught courage of uncivilised races,
flung themselves upon the invaders and were thrown back by the impenetrable wall of
the serried phalanxes. Recoiling dismayed from this reception, they were instantly
pursued by the Roman cavalry and cut up into isolated bands, who fought
courageously all that fatal day in the dense woodlands. Protected by mounds and
trenches defended with palisades of stakes cunningly interwoven with brushwood,
they prolonged the hopeless contest until nightfall, and then fell back. Caesar,
describing these woodland forts as oppida, gives especial attention to one troublesome
stronghold. "Being repulsed," he writes, "they withdrew themselves into the woods
and reached a place which they had prepared before, having closed all approaches to
it by felled timber." This retreat was captured by soldiers of the Seventh Legion, who,
throwing up a mound against it, advanced holding their shields over their heads in the
military formation known as "the tortoise," and drove out the defenders at the sword's
point.
This, the last place to hold out, is, despite the eighteen and a half centuries that have
passed, still to be seen in Bourne Park, on the summit of Bridge Hill, and is familiarly
known in the neighbourhood as "Old England's Hole." "Never forget," the old
countryfolk have been wont to impress their children - "never forget that this is Old
England's Hole, and that on this spot a last stand for freedom was made by your
British forefathers."
Every one in the neighbourhood knows Old England's Hole. It is seen beside the road,
on the right hand, just where the cutting through the crest of the hill, made in 1829, to
ease the pull-up for the coach-horses, begins. At that same time the course of the road
was very slightly diverted, and, instead of actually impinging on this ancient historic
landmark, as before, was made to run a few feet away. Now the spot is seen across the
fence of the park, the old course of the road still traceable beside it as a slightly
depressed green track, plentifully dotted with thistles. The stronghold consists of a
crater-like hollow, encircled by earthen banks, still high and steep. A great number of
ash-trees and thorns, some very old, gnarled and decayed, grow on these banks, and
cast a dense shade upon the interior.’
(CG Harper: The Ingoldsby Country,l904, pp63-6)
In l846, during excavation for a lake in Bourne Park, Samian pottery and other
articles were found at a depth of l0-13ft. Also, nearby, Roman interments, including a
large urn containing ashes at the same depth. Also three skeletons with large nails
near the shoulders, hands and feet. A few Roman coins. Faussett in l77l mentions
over 100 tumuli on Hanging Hill, in front of and between Bourne Place,
Bishopsbourne and the Roman road; others had been ploughed down. These were
Saxon. (Wright).
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