rry-orchards is a pretty place enough to-
day, with an interesting, if restored, church of Our Lady in part of
the thirteenth, but mainly of the fourteenth century. It is a fine
building with charming carved details and at least four brasses, one of
the end of the fifteenth century (1488) to William Monde, two of the
sixteenth century (1510 and 1581) and one of the year 1600. There is
nothing, however, in the place to delay anyone for long, and the
modern pilgrim will soon find himself once more on the great road.

On coming out of Newington such an one will find himself in about a
mile at Key Street, where is the Fourwent Way, in other words the
cross roads, where the highway from the Isle of Sheppey to Maidstone
crosses the Pilgrims Way. Here of old stood a chapel of St
Christopher or another, at which the pilgrims prayed, and remembering
this, I too, at the cross roads, though there was no chapel, prayed in
the words of the prayer which begins:

St Christopher who bore Our Lord
Across the flood--O precious Load....

So I prayed, "er I come to Sidingborne," as Chaucer says.

The author of "Sittingbourne in the Middle Ages" tells us that,
"Mediaeval Sittingbourne consisted of three distinct portions. The
chief centre of population was near the church, but there was an
important little hamlet called Schamel at the western extremity of the
parish on the London Road ... as any traveller from London approached
Sittingbourne in the Middle Ages, the first thing to attract his
attention was a chapel and hermitage standing on the south side of the
road, about three parts of the way up that little hill which rises
from Waterlanehead towards the east; this was Schamel Hermitage and
the Chapel of St Thomas Becket, to which were attached houses for the
shelter of pilgrims and travellers. A small Inn called "The
Volunteers" now stands upon or close to the site of this ancient
chapel and this hermitage." The chapel and hermitage it seems were
first built at Schamel in the time of King John, when they were
occupied by a priest named Samuel. He said Mass daily in the chapel
and gave such accommodation as he had to wayfarers, by whose alms he
lived. After his death the chapel fell into disrepair, but in the time
of Henry III. it was rebuilt on a larger scale. A hermit named
Silvester, of the "Order of St Austin," was appointed to the house
which had now attached to it four lodgings for pilgrims on the road to
C