May St Thomas avert an
evil only too likely to befall us. As for Ospringe, however, it was
after all in some sort royal property, the Crown having anciently a
Camera Regis there for the King's use when he was on his way to
Canterbury or to France.
At Ospringe I left the great road to visit Davington and to sleep at
Faversham. The long spring day was already drawing in when I came into
Davington, as delightful and charming a little place as is to be found
anywhere along the great road. Upon a hill-top there perhaps the
Romans had a temple or a villa, at any rate they called the place
Durolevum, and so it stands in the Antonine _Itinerary_. There is
evidence, too, that the site was not abandoned when with the failure
of their administration and the final departure of the Legions, there
went down the long roads, our youth and hope. Where the present church
stands, in part a Norman building, there was probably a Saxon Chapel.
Then in 1153 came Fulke de Newenham and founded here and built a
Benedictine nunnery in honour of St Mary Magdalen. That the house was
never richly endowed nor large at all, we may know from that name it
had--the house of the poor nuns of Davington.
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