Within
the most interesting thing left to us is the glass in the east window
of the south chancel where we see the Blessed Virgin with her lily,
part of an Annunciation. There, too, in another window are the arms of
Castile and of Leon, a strange blazon to find in the Weald of Kent.
But characteristic as Great Chart, Bethersden and High Halden are of
this strange wealden county, they do not express it, sum it up and
dominate it as does Tenterden Town, some two or three miles to the
south of High Halden.
If we look at the ordnance map we shall see that the town of Tenterden
is set upon a great headland thrust out by the higher land of the
Kentish Weald, southward and east towards those low marshlands that
are lost almost imperceptibly in the sea, and are known to us as
Romney Marsh. This great headland, in shape something like a clenched
fist, stands between the two branches of the Rother, the river which
flows into the sea at Rye, and which was once navigable by ships so
far up as Small Hythe just under the southern escarpment of the
headland upon which Tenterden stands.
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