Many of them commemorate the Tokes of Godinton, who
founded the almshouse in the village, which, rebuilt more than once I
think, we still see. All these things and more than these the great
yew in the churchyard has seen as its shadow grew over the graves.
From Great Chart I went on through the spring sunshine across the
Weald to Bethersden, whose quarries have supplied so much of the grey
marble one finds in Kentish churches, in the monuments and effigies
and in the old manor houses in the carved chimney-pieces fair to see.
These quarries are now all but deserted, but of old they were the most
famous in Kent, which is poor in such things. Most of the stone for
the cathedrals and greater religious houses in the county came from
Caen, whence it was easily transported by water; but this stone not
only weathered badly, but was too friable for monumental effigies or
sculpture. For these harder stone was needed, resembling marble, and
this Bethersden supplied, as we may see, in the Cathedrals of
Canterbury and Rochester and especially at Hythe where the chancel
arcade is entirely built of it.
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