Old Kent Road a Celtic ancient trackway that was paved by the Romans and recorded as Inter III on the Antonine Itinerary. The Anglo-Saxons named it "Wæcelinga Stræt" (Watling Street). It joined Stane Street another ancient and Roman road at Southwark before crossing the Thames at London Bridge. The Inter III was one of the most important Roman roads in Britain, linking London with Canterbury and the Channel ports at Richborough ("Rutupiae"); Dover ("Dubris") and Lympne ("Lemanis"). Pilgrims, as documented in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, travelled along the road from London and Southwark on their way to Canterbury. In 1415, the road was a
Wot Cher! Knocked 'em in the Old Kent Road the chorus moves into the relative major. It was sung and danced to by Shirley Temple and Arthur Treacher in the 1939 film "The Little Princess". The song is full of working class cockney rhyming slang and idiomatic phrasing. The song tells the story of a family who live in an alley, a passageway off the street usually lined with crowded tenements, near the Old Kent Road, one of the poorest districts in London. They are visited by a toff, a well-dressed man, who must have been a gentleman because he took his topper (tophat) off in the presence of