Roman Town

The hotel stands on part of the site of the small Roman town of Durolevum (‘stronghold by the clear stream’). Dig a trench almost anywhere in the grounds and what do you find? Coins, pottery and other relics of day-to-day life in Roman times.

Picture legionaries stationed here, some with their families. They came from all four corners of the great Roman empire, North Africa, Spain, Romania and Germany. Picture also a town developing round the garrison.

Past the hotel entrance drive runs the A2, built by the Romans as a trunk road from their Channel ports at Dover and Richborough through Canterbury (Durovernum) to London and Holyhead.

Walk down the hill towards London, and soon comes into view in a field on the right what is now a well-tended ruin but started life probably as a Roman shrine. You can still see the fine coursed stone and brick masonry they left 1,800 years ago. Later, after the arrival of St Augustine in 597, it was converted into a Christian chapel – the parish church of Stone-by-Faversham.

1,500 years ago the road deteriorated after the Romans left and the Jutes arrived.. After the Norman Conquest in 1066 it enjoyed a revival. Great organisers and administrators, the Normans needed it to move materials for the stone churches they were building on the site of wooden ones. Davington Church, about a mile away on a little hill, gives you an idea of their masons’ skills.

Come now the 13th century. Every year they came in tens or hundreds of thousands, mainly on foot.

Some needed somewhere to rest for the night before travelling the last 11 miles to the city. So a Maison Dieu (‘house of God’) was built in Ospringe to accommodate them. It was about half-a-mile away, in the centre of the village, on the way to Canterbury.

It was like a mini-monastery, with its own church, dormitory, supply of running water, and dovecote, whose feathered occupants were a source of food. It also functioned as a Royal lodge, where the crowned heads of Europe could rest for the night on their way to or from the Continent. So picture them passing by the entrance drive to your hotel, with their retinues. Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth I, and even Queen Victoria - you could have seen them all.

A couple of the Maison Dieu’s 700-year-old chantry priests’ houses survive on opposite corners of Ospringe Street (part of the A2) and Water Lane. The nearer of the two is now a village museum – the oldest in the UK. It’s open on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, 2 – 5 pm, from April to October