restored it, possibly from the design
of the same master-mason. Certainly nothing in the whole county of
Kent is better worth a visit. It would seem to have been built with a
part of the money offered at the shrine of St William in the Cathedral
of Rochester upon the Pilgrim's Way; for Stone belonged to the Bishops
of Rochester, who had a manor house there. The nave, aisles, chancel,
and tower are all in the Early English style and very noble work of
their kind, built in the time of Bishop Lawrence de Martin of
Rochester (1251-1274); while to the fourteenth century belongs the
vestry to the north of the chancel and the western windows in nave and
aisles and the piers of the tower as we now see them. Perhaps the
oldest thing in the church is the doorway in the north aisle which
would seem to be Norman, but Street tells us that this "is a curious
instance of imitation of earlier work, rather than evidence of the
doorway itself being earlier than the rest of the church."

Within, the church is delightful, increasing in richness of detail
eastward towards the chancel where nothing indeed can surpass the
beauty of the arcade, so like the work at Westminster, borne by
pillars of Purbeck, its spandrels filled with wonderfully lovely,
delicate, and yet vigorous foliage. Here are two brasses, one of 1408
to John Lambarde, the rector in Chaucer's day, the other of 1530 to
Sir John Dew. In the north aisle we may find certain ancient paintings
the best preserved of which represents the Madonna and Child.

The north aisle of the chancel is not at one with the church; it was
built in the early sixteenth century by the Wilshyre family as their
Chantry. Here lies Sir John Wilshyre, Governor of Calais in the time
of Henry VIII. The glass everywhere is unfortunately modern.

One leaves Stone church with regret; it is so fair and yet so
hopelessly dead that one is astonished and almost afraid. Less than a
mile along the road, to the north of it one passes Ingress Abbey,
where once the nuns of Dartford Priory had a grange. The present
house, once the residence of Alderman Harmer, the radical and
reformer of our criminal courts, was built of the stone of old London
Bridge.

Here upon the high road one is really in the marshes by Thames side;
but a little way off the highway to the south on higher ground stands
Swanscombe and it is worth while to see it for it is a very famous
place. "After such time," says Lambarde, quoting Thomas the