As they came down the steep hill, before they
entered the town, they would pass an almshouse or hospital, midway
upon the hill, a leper-house in all likelihood, dedicated in honour of
St Mary Magdalen. Something of this remains to us in the building we
see, which, however, is later than the Reformation.
Nothing I think actually in the town can, as we see it, be said to
have been there when Chaucer went by except the very noble church. He
and his pilgrims looked and wondered, as we do still, upon the great
tower said to have been built by Gundulph as a fortress to hold the
ford, which, altered though it has been more than once, is still
something at which one can only admire. The upper part, however, dates
from the fifteenth century. Then there is the chancel restored in
1863, the north part of which is supposed to have been built in the
thirteenth century in honour of St Thomas himself, no doubt by the
pilgrims who, passing by on their way to Canterbury, were wont to
spend a night in Dartford town, and certainly to hear Mass in the
place of their sojourn e'er they set out in the earliest morning.
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