Saint · Otford
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He struck water, then silenced the nightingales.
Stand where it happened
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Becket struck the ground at Otford and water came out. Then he told the nightingales to stop singing, and they did.
Archbishop Thomas Becket had a residence at Otford. The story goes that the house lacked good water, so Becket struck the ground with his staff and a spring burst out. That spring is still known as Becket's Well. Lambarde, writing in 1570, adds that when the saint was walking at prayer in the park, a nightingale's song distracted him, so he ordered that no nightingale should ever sing there again. Excavations by the local historical society in 1951 uncovered a medieval stone reservoir at the well, and its water still flows towards the Darent.