rren of mediaeval interest,
little being left to us older than the change of religion. At Rainham
we have a church, however, dedicated in honour of St Margaret, parts
of which date from the thirteenth century, though in the main it is a
Perpendicular building. Within are two ornaments of the late
seventeenth century, and two brasses, one to William Bloor, who died
in 1529, and the other to John Norden, who died in 1580, and to his
four wives. As for William Bloor, there is a local story of some
relation of his, Christopher Bloor by name, and of a nightly journey
on a coach driven by a headless coachman beside whom sits a headless
footman, and all drawn by headless horses, Christopher himself sitting
within, his head in his hands. So much I heard, but I could not find
out what it portended or referred to.

But it is not till we come into Newington that we find any sign or
memory of St Thomas or the Pilgrimage. This village, however, became
famous as a station for the pilgrims, because on his last journey from
London to Canterbury, the great Archbishop here administered the rite
of Confirmation. A cross was erected to commemorate this event, and
there the pilgrims knelt to pray. But Newington in St Thomas's day was
better known on account of a great scandal involving the name of the
convent there. This convent was held of the king, of his manor of
Middleton. We read that divers of the nuns, "being warped with a
malicious desire of revenge, took advantage of the night and strangled
the lady abbess, who was the object of their fury and passionate
animosities, in her bed; and after, to conceal so execrable an
assassination, threw her body into a pit, which afterwards contracted
the traditional appellation of Nun-pit." [Footnote: Philipotts,
"Villare Cantianum," quoted by Littlehales, _op. cit._ p. 27.] Now
whether this tale be true or an invention to explain the queer name
"Nun-pit" we shall never know, but as it happens we do know that the
nuns were removed to the Isle of Sheppey and that St Thomas persuaded
King Henry II. to establish at Newington a small house of seven
secular canons to whom was given the whole manor. But curiously
enough, one of these canons was presently found murdered at the hands
of four of his brethren. Exactly where this convent was situated
would seem to be doubtful. What evidence there is points to Nunfield
Farm at Chesley, about a mile to the south of the high road.

Newington itself in its che