Hither so late as 1509 the
Rother was navigable, and we find Archbishop Warham on the petition of
the people licensing a small chapel there of St John Baptist still in
existence, for the use of the inhabitants and as a sanctuary or a
graveyard for the burial of those wrecked on the "sea-shore" _infra
predictum oppidum de Smallhyth_.
Now in this lies all the greatness of Tenterden. Rye, which had early
been added to the Cinque Ports, was a place of very considerable
importance, but upon the east it was entirely cut off by Romney Marsh,
upon the west, too, a considerable marshland closed by a great and
desolate hill country closed it in, but to the north was a navigable
river, a road that is, leading up into England, and at the head of it
a town naturally sprang up. That town was Tenterden, and her true
position was recognised by Henry VI., when he united her to Rye. Till
then she was one of "the Seven Hundreds" belonging to the Crown.
Domesday Book knows nothing of her; as a place of importance, as a
town that is, she is a creation of Rye, and her development was thus
necessarily late and endured but for a season.
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