I suppose the great
days of Rye to have been those of the thirteenth and fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries; and it was therefore during this period that
Tenterden began its career as a town. After the failure of the sea,
Rye sank slowly back into what it is to-day, but Tenterden would
appear to have stood up against that misfortune with some success,
for we find Elizabeth incorporating it under a charter.
There can be but few more charming towns in Kent than Tenterden as we
see it to-day, looking out from its headland southward to the great
uplifted Isle of Oxney beyond which lies the sea, and eastward over
all the mystery of Romney Marsh. The church which should, one thinks,
have borne the name of St Michael, is dedicated in honour of St
Mildred. It is a large building of the thirteenth, fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries, the tower, its latest feature, being also its
noblest. Indeed the tower of Tenterden church, if we may believe the
local legend, is certainly the most important in Kent. For it is said,
and, rightly understood, there may after all be something in it, to
have been the cause of the Goodwin Sands.
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