concerning the stopping of Sandwich haven.  Among others came in before him an olde man with a white head, and one that was thought to be little lesse than an hundereth yeares olde.  When Maister More saw this aged man he thought it expedient to heare him say his minde in this matter, for being so olde a man it was likely that he knew most of any man in that presence and company.  So Maister More called this olde aged man unto him and sayd, ‘Father,’ sayd he, ’tell me if ye can what is the cause of this great arising of the sande and shelves here about this haven the which sop it up that no shippes can aride here?  Ye are the oldest man that I can espie in all this companye, so that, if any man can tell any cause of it, ye of all likelihode can say most in it, or at least wise more than any other man here assembled.’  ‘Yea forsooth, good maister,’ quod this olde man, ’for I am well nigh an hundred yeares olde and no man here in this company anything neare unto mine age.’  ‘Well, then,’ quod Maister More, ’how say you in this matter?  What thinke ye to be the cause of these shelves and flattes that stop up Sandwiche haven?’ ‘Forsooth syr,’ quod he, ’I am an olde man.  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.  If this be so, that oldest inhabitant was not such a fool as he seems to look.

I slept under the shadow of Tenterden steeple and very early in the morning set out for Appledore, where I crossed the canal and came into the Marsh.  I cannot hope to express my enthusiasm for this strange and mysterious country so full of the music of running water, with its winding roads, its immense pastures, its cattle and sheep and flowers, its far away great hills and at the end, though it has no end, the sea.  It mixes with the sea indeed as the sky does, so that no man far off can say this is land or this is water.