Our Dartford Neighbourhood

I remember an article from a newspaper when I was young. I am not sure of the title or the paper or the author. It was a disparaging piece by someone who travelled through my hometown one rainy day. What I do remember decades later was the belittling of my hometown… and of me by extension. After all, I was a member of the community that created it. Constructive criticism is one thing. I lived there: I knew things could have been done better. But writing an article that our city was ugly and had no redeeming value: that was just mean. It has taken me several decades to realise that the article said much more about the author than it did about me. Sure, I was not in the bustle of a financial centre or in the mix of a cultural hub. But we had a bustle and a mix of our own. It probably was hard for a privileged outsider to appreciate what accomplishment might look like amidst the barriers inherent to the underprivileged community of my hometown. My experience in Dartford has been less than superlative. Perhaps that says more about me than about Dartford. But I will do my best not to disparage an entire town as I cannot appreciate its journey.

So as the name suggests, Dartford is named for a ford across a river. The river in this case is the River Darent. The ford is now a bridge, although I was unaware of the bridge or the river even though I drove over them many times. I only discovered them when I found a picture of them from beneath online.

Dartford to most people in England today conjures a very different more conspicuous river crossing. The Dartford Crossing consists of tunnels going under the Thames north (pictured) and a huge bridge going over south (pictured). It is the only major road crossing the Thames east of London and the tunnels are frequently closed to escort hazardous and wide loads through them, leaving motorists inching through their own car exhaust in the resulting backlog. But eventually, they continue their journeys, leaving behind their exhaust cloud as a memory of the pause in their journeys. I wonder sometimes if another invisible cloud of frustration and impatience that also grew while waiting for the traffic to resume its progress is also left to linger.

Walking around town, Mick Jagger is everywhere: not the person. I have never seen him in person, not that I know anyway. But his name and photographs are everywhere: well, not recent photographs. Photographs from maybe half a century ago. So obviously, he is from here. In fact, the hustings I wrote about in June was held in the Mick Jagger Centre. Legend has it that Jagger and Richards first met on Platform 2 of the Dartford Railway Station and there is blue plaque (pictured) there to commemorate it.

Photo Credits

Bridge: kentnews.co.uk

Tunnel: connectplusservices.co.uk

Blue Plaque: localrags.co.uk

Dartford Flat

Fascinating older stuff: a recent sample

While our recent wanderings over the past several months may not have included any stone circles, I did manage to run into my first dole table (pictured) outside of St John the Baptist Church in Penshurst. There are apparently only a few of them left. In addition to being used in the 1500’s & 1600’s to settle contracts and tithes, food and money were left out on them for those in need. The medieval church also had some pretty amazing monuments inside.

I was excited when I happened upon what  I thought was a medieval hagioscope at St Martin of Tours Church in Eynsford. A hagioscope is a hole in an interior wall so that the worshipper(s) could see the elevation of the host. But I cannot find it on any official lists, so it may not be a real one. But the dark roof timbers contrasting against the whitewashed walls (pictured) make for a remarkably tranquil atmosphere.

More recently, during Open House London, we visited Temple Church (pictured), London. This medieval church was fashioned after the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which was a common practice by the Knights Templar at the time.

Photo Credits

St John the Baptist churchyard, Penshurst

St Martin of Tours, Eynsford

Temple Church, London