I think Tenterden steeple is the cause of Goodwin
Sandes. For I am an old man syr' quod he, 'and I may remember the
building of Tenterden Steeple and I may remember when there was no
steeple at all there. And before that Tenterden Steeple was in
building there was no manner of speaking of any flats or sands that
stopped the haven; and therefore I thinke that Tenterden steeple is
the cause of the destroying and decaying of Sandwich haven."
Post hoc, propter hoc and this silly old man has been held up to all
ensuing ages as an absurdly simple old fellow. But what after all if
he should be right in part at least?
Tenterden church, we are told, belonged to the Abbey of St Augustine
in Canterbury, which also owned the Goodwin Sands, part, it is said,
of the immense domain of Earl Godwin. Now it was in their hands that
the money collected throughout Kent for the building and fencing of
the coast against the sea had always been placed. We learn that "when
the sea had been very quiet for many years without any encroachings,"
the abbot commuted that money to the building of a steeple and
endowing of the church in Tenterden, so that the sea walls were
neglected.
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