However, it was with a bit of a spring in our step that we set off on this Easter Monday afternoon. Our starting point was in Folkestone, of course, the finish of our previous walk from Hythe. We parked up outside the cliff railway – known as the Leas Lift. The railway/lift is closed at present although work to restore this Victorian water-powered lift is, thankfully, now getting under way. The Grade II-listed lift was built in 1885 and carried passengers for the last time in June 2009 after the local council's lease ran out. It is one of the oldest water lifts in the UK and transported people between the sea front and the promenade. Its owner, Lord Radnor, has said a company had been appointed to carry out repair work and it would reopen in June 2010.
The lift was once heaving with people making their way to the Rotunda on the sea front. The Rotunda is – or was – an iconic Folkestone landmark although one could also say that Folkestone itself was also an iconic landmark! The town once boasted a swimming pool, a boating pool, an amusement park, a ferry and a wide selection of fairground rides.
Indeed, Folkestone's beachfront was a bustling place right up to the 1960s and was still making a valiant attempt in the 1990s – and it has some place in our own family’s history being the place where a couple of our kids discovered a pathological fear of Log Flumes! It didn’t last.
Recent years have seen all the amusements swept away, with the swimming pool being filled in and the barren open space being used by the Folkestone Sunday market. To some local protest, the large Rotunda amusement park was sold off by its owner, Jimmy 'King of the Seafront Arcades' Godden in 2003 and subsequently demolished. Known as a bit of a character, he even had the bollards in the park engraved with 'JG'. Some scurrilous people have said he suffers tremendous bad luck as he has had a few things burn down - including Dreamland in Margate
The Rotunda looks a sad place these days and indeed it even features on the website www.derelictplaces.co.uk – a site documenting decaying landmarks!
Good news is in the offing though because a local bigwig – Roger de Haan – through his Folkestone Harbour Company is attempting to regenerate the harbour area, including the Rotunda.
Folkestone, of course, has a long history of cross channel traffic and the first day of August 1993 marked the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Folkestone – Boulogne route to regular sea traffic, a date fixed by the coming of the railway to the port. The line from London, via Reigate and Tonbridge, had arrived in June 1843 but as the nineteen arches of the Foord Viaduct were still under construction, a hastily built terminus was erected near the site of the present Folkestone Central station. It was not until six months later that the viaduct was completed and trains were able to use Folkestone station at its eastern end.
Folkestone Harbour wasn’t just knocked up by a bunch of local builders either, No less a person than the renowned engineer Thomas Telford built it in 1809. Although the nineteen acres of the harbour were, by the time the railway arrived, both neglected and badly silted.
Sea Containers’ purchase of the then hovercraft only operator Hoverspeed in 1987 and subsequent investment in new high speed Seacat catamarans in the early 1990s, presented Folkestone Harbour with a further lifeline, and in April 1992 a high speed Seacat Folkestone – Boulogne service was introduced. We remember using the Seacat service regularly – this was when the cross channel ferries were nothing more than cattle ships with a bar. From a business point of view, the service relied heavily on day trippers and duty free shoppers. Then, of course, the politicians had to get involved and our friends in Europe decided we were enjoying something – and consequently banned duty free shopping. With it went the bulk of the traffic and an entire industry was shut down with the inevitable consequence that, once again a question mark was raised over the future of ferry services from Folkestone to Boulogne.
The Folkestone – Boulogne service was closed in September 2000 and from then on Folkestone Harbour ceased to exist as a cross channel passenger port for the first time in its history.
There have been rumours of a service being restarted but to date nothing has happened and the town looks like what it is – a decaying seaside town desperate to bring back the good times – let’s hope the harbour regeneration scheme does what its supporters promise.
Notice the sign in the photo above?
Have you ever been out somewhere and seen something and thought – “I wonder what that is?”? I have often thought it would be a great idea to have a book called “What that is” or something similar – just to answer these questions that need to be answered – and when there’s not a chap around to ask. I suppose though we do have the internet. Anyway, we were walking along the sea front and there was a simple sign – a National Grid sign – that said “Bakers Gap”. I’d never heard of it. And the sign was on a simple non descript small building – nothing fancy or imposing. Well it turns out there’s a bit of a story behind this simple sign.
Because behind the sign was a very important part of our country’s energy resources. It is the site of the ‘Interconnector’ Oh yes it is. What’s an Interconnector? Well its only the bit of kit that joins our National Grid with that of our chums in France – so when we need a bit of their electricity or they need a bit of ours – this is where it comes from. From here the interconnector is cabled underground to Sellindge and connected to the UK transmission system. The interconnector is approximately 70km in length with 45km of underwater cable. So there you go.
Folkestone is the site of the last three Martello Towers. Situated on the East Cliff, they were built between 1804-9 to help defend Folkestone against the threatened invasion by Napoleon. Two of the towers are clearly visible, with one tucked away amongst some houses. Nearby apparently is the site of a Roman Villa that once stood here and apparently you can sometimes see the outline of the villa in the grass on a dry summer’s day. Suffice to say we saw nowt!
We continued to walk up the grass bank following a footpath that would take us up towards the cliff. We passed the Sandbanks restaurant and from here there are some pretty stunning views eastwards towards Dover.
The coastline between Folkestone and Dover is, of course, dominated by a stretch of white chalk cliffs. Apparently the series of cliff sections represents the most important single locality for studying these kind of rocks in England. Certainly the area is notorious for its preserved fossils and we saw quite a few people hunting and digging for them. Some of the people we saw even looked like fossils themselves.
We decided to head down towards the shore rather than follow the cliff top footpath which is actually part of the North Downs way – well it made sense didn’t it?
The area is known as Folkestone Warren and actually consists of a series of landslides crossed by the main Folkestone-Dover railway line. Because of the railway and the areas tendency for landslips it has meant that the area is probably the most studied bit of ground in the country. How about that?
The site has suffered twelve major landslips since 1765, and is now protected by a complex series of coastal defence works. The area is known as the East Cliff & Warren Country Park and is the site of much wildlife – bits of pants and insects like it apparently.
By now we were walking along a concrete promenade which in parts was very, very wide and – again – we needed that book – why was it so wide and what was the structure we were walking on? It looked like the kind of concrete structure you come across when looking at 2nd World War remnants – and when we then came across a bit of railway track I think we’d have been happy with that explanation. Then, however, we came across a footpath sign which had a dated piece of paper tucked inside a plastic folder which cleared up the mystery. The whole are had been subject to sea flooding and consequent erosion of the cliff, causing landslips – and so a huge flood defence protection scheme had been put in place – and that’s what we were walking on.
We were doing quite well and eventually came to the end of the concrete promenade and had to take to the beach. It is a pebbly beach – but obviously popular. Indeed, just past a very strange shack, complete with what appeared to be a compressed structure of a former burnt out car, we came to …. Folkestone Warren Nudist Beach!
Now I’m a pretty hardy type … but there’s jus no way! Its hard to walk on the pebbles as it is. Plus its stuck on a point so windy … I don’t know, some people! The nudist bit is long-established and, of course, being British – its unofficial. If you Google it you will find mention of it on a number of Gay websites – so I’m told.
We then had to walk alongside and then past a 60 plus year old bloke and his friend dressed in nowt but a thong and doing God knows what with a spade and a plastic bag. This seemed to confirm that the beach is probably mainly used by men.
So, having walked past man with thong digging pebbles and smiling at him in a British ‘Good Morning’ type of way we travelled a further 100 or so yards up the beach and could see our destination for the day’s walk – Samphire Ho. But there was a slight problem. The tide had come in and frustratingly there was a stretch of beach that was now under water – the only way we could continue was to get wet.
So, intrepid couple that we are, I walked into the freezing cold water only for it to come immediately up to my waist – I think breathtaking is the word. It was only about 20 or 25 yards that we needed to cross but the water was breaking directly on to the cliffs and it was difficult to get a clear footing – and, to put it bluntly and without sounding wimpish it was just too dangerous. So we sat and looked at the bit of beach 20 yards ahead of us for a little while before resigning ourselves to the fact we’d have to walk back! We then had to kind of shuffle embarrassingly back past the man with the thong who was very indiscreetly bending over his bucket again – and all we saw was his shriveled backside.
So we needed a marker for us to come back and rejoin the walk next time and decided to try and get back up to the cliff top. After a few hundred yards there was a footpath back up to the top – quite a climb it was too but eventually we emerged at the top and on to the a path which was part of the North Downs Way. After noting its location for our next walk we began the walk back to Folkestone.
The North Downs Way begins in Farnham, on the border of Surrey and Hampshire and follows the line of the North Downs eastwards close to Guildford, Dorking and Reigate to reach the Kentish border. From West Kent the trail passes close to Rochester as it crosses the River Medway and continues along the Downs north of Maidstone, Ashford and Folkestone to end at the in Dover. Much of the trail follows the Pilgrims Way, an historic route which has, for years, been used by those making pilgrimages to pray at holy shrines. Originally, pilgrims would have travelled from Canterbury to Winchester to pray for St Swithun who was buried at the cathedral. The route was then used in reverse as pilgrims journeyed from Winchester to Canterbury Cathedral to pray at the shrine of Thomas Becket.
One big plus about having to retrace our steps was the opportunity to have a quick peak at the Battle of Britain Memorial site in Capel-le-Ferne. The inspiration for the memorial was Wing Commander Geoffrey Page, a 20-year-old Hurricane pilot with 56 Squadron. In August 1940 Pilot Officer Page was shot down and baled out into the sea with terrible burns. He went on to become a founding member of the Guinea Pig Club for RAF personnel treated at the Queen Victoria Hospital by the team of plastic surgeons led by Archie McIndoe. Determination and courage ensured that Geoffrey returned to operational flying, becoming a wing leader and he was awarded the DFC and bar and at the time he received the DSO in 1944 he was credited with having destroyed 15 enemy aircraft. A crash late in the war seriously injured him again and he returned to East Grinstead.
Years later, he realised that there was no memorial to his comrades who had flown with him in Fighter Command in 1940. His determination that The Few should be remembered found a focus at "Hellfire Corner", the area of Dover and Folkestone over which so much of the fighting had taken place in 1940.
On July 9 1993, the Queen Mother opened the Memorial to see Geoffrey's dream realised. The site that was chosen at Capel-le-Ferne for a national memorial had played its part in both world wars. Airships were moored there during the 1914-18 conflict, and in 1941 the construction of a gun battery began. Much of the personnel accommodation was underground, including a "hospital" or large sick quarters. By the end of 1942, naval pattern 8-inch guns had been installed in sites 40 feet deep, protected by concrete walls that were six to eight feet thick. Legend has it that the first ranging shot from Capel-le-Ferne struck Dungeness.
And so after leaving the memorial we made our way back to Folkestone and a welcome beer in the Harbour which was, I’m pleased to say, busy and bustling. The day was spoilt only minutes after arriving when Cathy decided to purchase what any northerner with blood in his veins would shiver at – jellied eels.
Disgusting!
Miles covered 4.13 miles
Time taken 1 hour and 43 minutes
Miles covered to date 34.44 miles
Time taken to date 10 hours and 31 minutes
