To the south it is cut off
by a perhaps greater barrier; between it and the sea, stands the
impassable mystery of Romney Marsh. In such a situation, before the
railways revolutionised travel in England, how could Ashford have had
any importance? Even the old road westward from Dover into Britain,
the Pilgrims' Way to Stonehenge or Winchester passed it by, leaving it
in the Weald to follow the escarpment of the Downs north or west. No
Roman road served it, and indeed it was but a small and isolated place
till the Middle Age began to revive and recreate Europe. Even then
Ashford was probably late in development.
Its history, if one may call it history, is concerned with the owners
of the manor of Ashford and not with any civil or municipal records.
Indeed the earlier chroniclers, though they speak of Great Chart and
Wye, know nothing of Ashford which in Domesday Book appears to have
consisted of a few mills and a small church, the manor being in
possession of Edward the Confessor, while St Augustine's at Canterbury
and Earl Godwin held certain lands thereabout. Hugh de Montfort got
what the King and Earl Godwin had possessed, after the Conquest, but
the Monastery of St Augustine's seems to have continued to hold its
land.
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