In the earliest days of which we have knowledge all Kent was practically either forest or marsh, with a little cornland in Thanet and sheep pastures in Sheppey, and it was plainly on the edges of the forests (Blean and Anderida running right across the county from Whitstable to Cranbrook) that the early settlers from Jutland made their homes. Like pioneer backwoodsmen in Canada and elsewhere, they had first to clear of trees, and then to fence, the spot each family had chosen. For 25 years I have passed annually through the agricultural districts of Belgium, Alsace, Lorraine, and Switzerland (and sometimes France), and two things always strike me—that English agriculturists are not on the whole so thrifty, so tidy, or so hardworking, as their Continental brethren, and that abroad they seem to have neither need nor desire for hedges or other fences. Our colonists in England, however, show in place-names how necessary they thought enclosures to be.

First there is the ubiquitous “ton” as a suffix. The sons of Ælla, the Ellings, made their Ellington. Now “ton” means an enclosure, and especially enclosed land with a dwelling thereon. Then it comes to signify the house on the enclosure. In Scotland even now the “toun” is the farmhouse and outbuildings, and in Kent I find in a charter of 1432 a conveyance of “land with all Houses ... called Wattyshagh, formerly called Taune.” Then, as the original house became a nucleus, and a hamlet swelled into a village, and a village into a town, we got our modern sense of the word, which, however, is later than the Norman conquest.

Even earlier than “ton” would be “field,” which is not the same as lea or mead, but denotes a patch of felled or cleared land. So we have our Chelsfield, Oakfield, Ifield, Broomfield, Whitfield, Swingfield, Fairfield, Hothfield, Stalisfield, Clexfield, Longfield, Fieldgreen, and Netherfield, in the more forestal part of Kent, while in the list of parishes in the Rochester diocese, where marsh and down prevailed, I find only one parish—Matfield—which suggests old felling of trees. Sometimes, however, there would be attractive glades or leys on the outskirts of the forest, already pastured or cultivated to a certain extent. Hence arose not only place-names, but nick-names (sur-names came much later) of persons who lived or worked therein, such as John of the Horse Ley, John of the Cow Ley, John of the Sheep Ley, John of the Swine Ley, which later became surnames. Isaac Taylor enumerates 22 leys in Central Kent, but one cannot test his figures without knowing what map he used. Hence as place-names our Hartley, Swanley, Langley, Bromley, Oakley or Ockley, Hockley, Bickley, Whitley, Boxley, Mydley, Barley, Brenchley, Elmley, Ripley, Angley, Beverley, Gorseley Wood, Harley, Pluckley, Throwley, Bexley, Leybourne, Shirley, Kelmsley, Ridley, Tudeley, etc.

Then there were, and are, the Dens, forty-two of them in Central Kent, says Isaac Taylor; but Mr. Furley, in his Weald of Kent, says that the great manor of Aldington alone possessed forty-four dens. It was probably a Celtic word adopted by the Saxons, and designated a wooded valley mostly used for swine pasture. So we have the Ardenne forest in France and Belgium, and elsewhere in England Henley in Arden and the Forest of Arden, which stretched from Gloucestershire to Nottingham. Down to the 17th century the “Court of the Dens” was held at Aldington, near Hythe, to determine pasture rights and wrongs.

One cannot enumerate all the Kentish dens which might be found not only on the map but in old manorial records. In old Tenterden alone there were Pittesden, Igglesden, Strenchden, Godden, Gatesden, Bugglesden, Finchden, Twisden, Lovedene, Haffendene, Brissendene, Haldene, and Little Haldene as manors, of some of which even the names have departed. I find that of the 16 parishes in the rural deanery of West Charing eight end in den and five in hurst, and I think Furley is in error when he says that only 16 extant parishes (as distinct from manors) in Kent end in den. A small original settlement in a den might soon increase in size even in early Saxon times, and so we have several parishes and manors called Denton. Other local place-names which are due to their position in the old forest land are those which end in hyrst or, later, hurst. Hursts and Cherts were the denser parts of the forest, and the word is said to apply specially to wooded high ground. The two words may be originally the same, with the old German Hart (whence the Hartz mountains), as parent. So we have Bredhurst, Goudhurst, Hawkhurst, Hurst Wood near Peckham, Penshurst, Sandhurst, Staplehurst, Chart, and two or three score more.

Another forest name is Holt or Hot—more common in Surrey than in Kent. The German is Holtz, which means both a wood and wood the material. It is also a common prefix or suffix in Iceland. Isaac Taylor gives us only one Holt in his table, for Central Kent at any rate, but we know Knockholt beeches, Birchholt near Smeeth, an Acholt (Oakwood) in each of the manors of Dartford, Wingham, and Monkton, and Hot Wood; while further study is necessary to determine whether from Holt or from Hoath or Hoth (a heath) come Hothfield, Oxenhoath, and Hoath or Hoad near Reculver. “Another common suffix in the neighbourhood of ancient forests,” says Isaac Taylor, “is Hatch—a hitch-gate, HÊche in French.” He gives no example from Kent, but we know our Chartham Hatch, Ivy Hatch, and Mersham Hatch and Snoll Hatch. Wold or Weald, a wood, is not so common as one would expect, but we have Sibertswold and Wymynswold, and Waltham and Waldershare. Snoed is a Saxon word for a piece of wood in 8th century charters, and this survives in Hamersnoth near Romney, Nod Wall near Lydd, Frisnoth near Appledore, Sibersnode in the Hundred of Ham, Snode Hill, Snodehurst, Snodland, and Snodebeam, a manor in Yalding.