Tour of the South East: Broadstairs and Dover

On Tuesday, we had a lazier day. It was raining heavily when we woke up—the first bad weather we’d had—and so we strolled over to the Little Chef where I had a second Olympic Breakfast and we checked our emails using the free Wi-Fi on offer there. I must say, I like this new ‘free Wi-Fi’ vogue that’s sweeping the nation in public spaces such as coffee houses and Little Chefs. It acknowledges that there are some people in the world who still don’t have iPhones and such.

So, after breakfast, we waved goodbye to Canterbury. Our plan was to head to Broadstairs first of all. I didn’t know much about Broadstairs, other than that it was the name of a place and that it was in Kent. So anything I learned beyond those two facts was going to be a considerable bonus.

It was while we were en route to Broadstairs that I first learned exactly what the Isle of Thanet is. Much like Broadstairs itself, it was just a name to me before this holiday began. Now, as I studied the road atlas and we hurtled along the road towards the east coast, I realised that, if you had left me in a room with a sheet of paper and some crayons for an hour and asked me to draw what I thought the Isle of Thanet might look like, I would never have drawn something that a) is not an island, and b) is in Kent. It’s hardly surprising really: the name appears to be a Latinisation of a Celtic name, more at home in the south of Ireland or somewhere around Aberystwyth than on the topmost part of Kent. (But then that just goes to show my vast geographical and linguistic ignorance of all things Kentish.) It is thought to come from a Welsh phrase meaning ‘high fire’, as beacons were possibly lit there in centuries past. I don’t know why we’d wish to set up landing lights for Viking invaders, but I’m sure there was a purpose behind it.

Soon after we arrived in Broadstairs, the weather picked up and the sun came out again. Broadstairs itself is an interesting place. It is known in some circles as the jewel in Thanet’s crown, which, when you consider that it has Margate as part of its competition, is hardly surprising. (Actually, I’m going to stop being so hard on Margate: I’ve recently found out there are some marvellous parts of that town, and have been reassured that the tower block on the coast is just a blip.) According to some semi-reliable internet sources, the town stretches from Poorhole Lane in the west, which is named for the mass graves—or ‘poor holes’ dug during the Black Death of the mid-fourteenth century—to Kingsgate in the east, which is named after the Charles II, who landed there in 1683. I am pleased to learn that the name Broadstairs is not merely a corruption, but does refer to actual stairs, of sorts: originally called Bradstow, meaning ‘broad place’ in reference to the wideness of the bay, the town attained its present name thanks to the stairs which were dug into the side of the cliff to provide access from the bay up to a fourteenth-century chapel and shrine which stood at the top of the cliff.

We went to the Dickens House, which is just off the main marine parade and faces out to sea. It wasn’t actually Dickens’s house: it was the place where the real Betsey Trotwood lived, the woman whom Dickens based that character on, from David Copperfield. Dickens was, however, a regular visitor to the house for many years, and even wrote Copperfield at the nearby house called, aptly enough, Bleak House. (Slight digression from me here: the rubbish dump of my hometown, Milton Keynes, is named Bleak Hall in honour of Dickens’s Bleak House; the road leading to the dump is called Summerson road, after the heroine of that novel, and another road is named Chesney Wold, after the Lincolnshire residence of the Dedlocks in the same book.)

The house is small and mostly full of old Victorian dolls and old dresses. I can’t say that these excite my pulses in any great way, and the whole place had a slightly mouldy, Victorian smell (give me musty medieval stenches any day), but it is full of informative placards and boards on the walls which tell you all about the memorabilia on display. (They even tell you in the upstairs room about the memorabilia that isn’t on display: in one glass cabinet resides a list of all the display items, and several of them have a line through them with a note next to them, informing you that they are no longer in the museum. I’ve never seen that done before!)

It was a small house, and we went round the whole thing in considerably less than an hour, but it was only £1.80 to get in. It’s well worth it for that modest sum, and it was interesting, though slightly underwhelming after the millennium-old castles and cathedrals we’d already been round. Still worth a look, though. Afterwards, we went in search of a Mr Whippy ice cream, as we both wanted to have at least one 99 over the holiday. It was worth the wait, and I’m only semi-ashamed to admit that mine was devoured in minutes.

It had turned into a really bright and sunny day. We’d arrived in Broadstairs in the middle of the annual folk festival. This is a lively and rather jovial affair that’s been going on for nearly fifty years in the town, and the paths were filled with morris dancers and men playing accordions and other instruments I couldn’t even begin to recognise. We had a walk round the fair, which was full of rainbow-coloured knitted items and other hippy trinkets which you could buy for a small fortune. I didn’t buy anything, as buying clothes and other items of body-wear is considered a severe form of torture for me, but as we strolled back to the car we took a look in a musty-smelling bookshop and I found a copy of Rider Haggard’s Allan Quatermain for £2.50—the sequel to King Solomon’s Mines, the novel that inspired the Indiana Jones movie franchise. I’ve been looking for that for years, so I was really pleased to find it, especially as I like to get a souvenir in book form from most places I visit.



Dover

After Broadstairs, we drove south, through Sandwich, and then onwards to Dover. There were a number of places to see on the way: Ramsgate was top of our list, but in the end we realised that we had a huge portion of Kent and East Sussex to cover if we were to make it to Eastbourne before sundown, and so Ramsgate, alas, passed us by. We drove through Sandwich, which seemed a charming place, and one of the churches had a lovely little minaret on the top, which put me in mind somewhat of Iced Gems. We also let Deal whiz past our windows, which we were tempted to stop at (you could say our dilemma was ‘Deal or no Deal?’ but I already regret making that terrible pun). In the end, we kept on, until we arrived at Dover and decided to go and take a look at the legendary White Cliffs.

So we parked up and set off to have a look round. The wind was blowing quite keenly, and there were specks of rain in the air, so for the first time since—well, since that morning actually, when we’d legged it from the Travelodge to the car with all our luggage—we had to don our waterproofs. (I kept my shorts on though: it’s not easy to part me from my shorts when I’m on holiday. I could be on a tour of the Hebrides and I’d still be reluctant to change out of my knee-lengths.)

Now, I have to say that medieval castles and cathedrals take some beating for breathtaking views and creating a sense of awe in the beholder. But there is something fascinating about standing atop the White Cliffs of Dover (over which there will never be bluebirds, apparently, because bluebirds are not native to Britain and only appear in that famous song because of a vogue for bluebirds in songs of the 1940s) and watching the ferries going in and out of port. Standing nearer the edge of the cliffs (or as near to the edge as my vertigo would allow), you see the tangled and complex network of roads conveying lorries, vans, and occasionally cars to and from the coast. It’s oddly mesmerising.

It wasn’t a particularly clear day, otherwise we could almost certainly have made out the outline of the Calais coast over the water—it’s only twenty-two miles at this point, which is probably one reason why Matthew Arnold took his honeymoon in Dover in the 1850s and penned his famously doleful poem ‘Dover Beach’ while looking out of his hotel window. (Mrs Arnold must’ve had a whale of a time.) The light wasn’t gleaming and going on the French coast this day, but then it was two in the afternoon, so it’s hardly surprising. We strolled along the cliff for a while, still semi-transfixed by the sight of the P&O ferries and the remarkable feeling that you could almost be in another country here. England and France almost merge into one, partly because of all the French vehicles on the roads. It’s not the place to come for a walk if you’re a Europhobe. I loved it.

Although we only got within about half a mile of the castle, we had a good view of it and a nearby church. As we continued our walk, we came to a rather steep hill into which some very cursory muddy marks had been made, to serve as steps (of a sort). I suggested we climb up this near-vertical grassy mountain to see what was at the top. (We had to go this way anyway to get back up to the car.)

‘It’s quite steep, but I’m up for it,’ I said, determined to give it a go and plunge to my death on the top of some French lorry far below in the attempt.

It was unbelievably hard work getting to the top, but I found that the faster I climbed, the less chance there was of my plummeting to my premature end. Maybe it just gave me less time to think about plummeting to my premature end.

When we arrived at the top, it was to find that we had stumbled upon a visitors’ shop, and that I really needed a wee. Something about the bracing Dover air had produced this. The toilets, for those who are interested, were very nice—clean, fresh-smelling, and well-kept. After performing my necessary ablutions, I went to find Rachel, who was looking for souvenirs and presents for various people in the gift shop.

Before I even made it into the gift shop, I found my attention arrested by one of the most beautiful sights in the world. It was even more beautiful than the sight of the ferries in dock on the coast far below, and on a par with Canterbury Cathedral. It was a huge amount of books—some half a dozen boxes chock-full of books—which were there for the taking, on condition that a small donation be deposited in a donations box alongside the books. The amount was left to the bibliophile’s discretion, but unfortunately I had no money on me whatsoever. Rachel, when she emerged from the gift shop, very kindly went off to fetch the car and drive it along to this car park, so I could get my change from the car and deposit some in exchange for some books. This act of generosity meant that I was able to take the books I had found—and what books they were. I got four by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (or ‘Q’), the Cornish writer and literary critic who is now sadly largely forgotten. I also got another Rider Haggard book—one he co-wrote with fellow champion of fantasy or ‘romances’, Andrew Lang—called The World’s Desire, which appeared to be a re-telling of Homer’s Iliad. And I also got A Shortened History of England by G. M. Trevelyan, and Arthur Bryant’s Makers of the Realm, a gloriously appealing book about the early days of Britain through the Middle Ages. I deposited £3 into the donation box, and set off with my seven books, feeling splendidly happy.

Now I should say that, while the purchasing of books brings me immense pleasure, I’m not the sort of bibliomaniac who just collects books for the sake of it. I don’t think I’m a ‘collector’ at all. Collectors to me are people who buy things they have no intention of using for their traditional purpose: wine they have no intention of drinking, books they have no intention of reading, LPs they have no intention of playing. Every book I buy I plan to read one day. It’s just I seem to acquire books at a rate that far exceeds the speed at which I can read them. I’m not like Richard Heber (1773-1833), England’s most famous collector of books, who was known to travel three or four hundred miles at the drop of a hat, just to purchase a book he had no intention of reading. At the time of his death it was found he had bought houses in London, Shropshire, Oxford, Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, and Ghent, just as somewhere to store all the books he’d accrued. He had some half a million books, a collection which dwarfs even nineteenth-century Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone’s impressive library of thirty thousand books (most of which he’s known to have read because he annotated them).

The gift shop, when I finally made it inside, was good too. There were some nice cups with pictures of birds on them, some ammonites, crystals, quartz, novelty books, and all the other things you expect to find in good gift shops. There was also a nice teashop but we wanted to press on with our journey, so we got ready to bid farewell to Dover. I went for a second visit to those lovely toilets even though I didn’t really need to go again, and then went and took a look at the information board near the car park. It was there that I learned there is a beetle called the Bloody-Nosed Beetle, plus all manner of other interesting and amusingly-named flora and fauna in the Dover area. The impressive chalk cliffs that are such a feature of Dover’s coast are, after all, the product of millions of years of micro-organisms clubbing together to produce the calcareous substance of which the cliffs are composed.

So we left Dover. The rain had turned from light specks to a slightly heavier drizzle by now, and we drove westward through this drizzle along the south coast, through Folkestone and past the Channel Tunnel. It was eerie and atmospheric, driving past fields of sheep with the sea in sight just beyond, while Durutti Column’s ‘Conduct’ played on the CD player. That uncanny feeling of somehow being abroad returns when you drive through Folkestone. Maybe it was the rain falling, or the mist that lay over the place, but there was something about it that I found unutterably alien and yet weirdly beautiful. The signs leading to the Channel Tunnel undoubtedly help in this suggestion of foreignness, as if you’re constantly right on the cusp of—instead of, in reality, being thirty miles away from—some alien land.

We continued on, through Hastings, and on to Eastbourne and our Travelodge. Before we got to Eastbourne we had to pass through the unspeakably boring town of Bexhill-on-Sea. I don’t know what it is about this place—maybe it’s the fact that its name puts me in mind of those girls called Rebecca who insist on being known as ‘Bex’—but it really is a dull place to drive through. It could be a really lovely town, but the route through it from Hastings to Eastbourne certainly doesn’t give any indication of this. It’s just such a long and slow town to drive through. We seemed to pass through Folkestone in a femtosecond, by comparison. I was relieved when we finally arrived at our Travelodge, on the sea-front at Eastbourne, and we could make our way to our room, tired and hungry, and my feet dying to have the weight taken off them.

Tomorrow we would be doing Lewes and Hastings. This evening, though, we had a date with the television and a beef burger with jalapenos in it, which we could blessedly take up to our room to eat in comfort, and with BBC4 on in the background. After such a day, it’s the simple pleasures that really make a difference.