I’ve been an even grumpier sod than usual for quite a while now. There has been a lack of interest in doing most things. This includes the following, which is by no means an exhaustive list; Work, writing, reading, listening to music, watching sports, going out, staying in, sleeping and being awake. In other words I’ve been more unsociable and hermit like than usual, but with none of the normal outlets to combat it.
Helen must have had enough as she arranged a couple of days off from work for us and made plans to invade France. Sorry visit Kent, though as you’ll see there isn’t much difference at times.
So, on a Sunday morning we got in the car and headed to Dover, racing the horrible wet weather east as we did so. We broke into the sunshine just before we got to the Eurotunnel terminal at Folkestone, and it was pleasant enough as we arrived at Dover Castle.
We’d not been before, and in my case I’d not even been to Dover to get a ferry. It has been pointed out previously that Dover Castle is large, yet the scale of it hadn’t really registered until we drove in through the gates and then took five minutes to get to the car park elsewhere in the grounds.
Its prime location on top of the cliffs overlooking the English Channel at its narrowest point across to the beaches of Northern France has been noted since Roman times. And from then on in almost every period of English history the site has been added to or amended.
The Roman lighthouse sits next to a Saxon church in a hollow on a Motte in the grounds. Further inland beyond a moat stands the medieval castle started in Norman times. It’s a pretty much intact castle, a rarity for an English Heritage property. It is now surrounded by many later buildings. Fortifications built for the threat of the Spanish armada, Napoleon, Hitler and more.
The main keep is impressively complete and laid out in full medieval working order. A slight drizzle had caught up with us as we explored the out building close to the keep, full of displays on the building and history of the castle. By the time we had wound our way up to the roof, through the various rooms, halls, chapels and spiral staircases, there was torrential rain, driven sideways by the almost gale force wind. Even through the rainy murk there was an impressive view available all the way around.
After the short damp sojourn on the roof, we went and explored the medieval tunnels, including the fifteenth century remote controlled doors at the very far end. Only to find we couldn’t exit those doors, and so had to pick your way back the way we came. When we did venture blinking back in to the light the torrential downpour had subsided into a light drizzle.
We carried on wandering around the grounds and the various gatehouses, before finding the NAAFI and having a drink before queuing for the tour of the more modern wartime tunnels. An impressive layered three miles worth of tunnels excavated deep into the cliffs of Dover and used as barracks and control centres in three wars.
The free tour of the tunnels ended at the gift shop and a balcony overlooking the grim industrial harbour of Dover. By the time we arrived there it was bright sunshine out there, all the clouds had ran off whilst we’d been underground.
There was still more to explore, the lookout building across the Channel, and the array of cannons and anti-aircraft guns aimed out over the water. Then past the large college building in the middle of the grounds before finding ourselves back where we started five hours before. We were left to drive back to the outskirts of Canterbury and our hotel for the next couple of nights, in the glorious early evening sunshine.
A quick search on Meerkat meals told us the hotel restaurant was the nearest location. Which seeing as driving into the hotel was only possible from one side of the dual carriageway meant we went for dinner there. And it wasn’t bad for a Holiday Inn Express restaurant. Bonus.
Day two saw a short drive into Canterbury. Parking at Canterbury West station was the cheapest option and meant we were right at the point for easy access to the city walls.
While I mention the station, I’m not sure which idiot named the Canterbury train stations. But their sense of geography was piss poor. Both stations are to the west of the city centre and aren’t far away from being lined up in a perfect north – south line. They are in fact to the north and south of the city, so those names would have made much more sense than east and west.
We walked the city walls to the point where it was possible to turn into the city centre, and then headed the other way to go to St Augustine’s Abbey. This was much more in the fashion of English Heritage buildings we are accustomed to. It was a ruin. It is a massive site and it still has some of its later fifteenth century buildings standing. But they now belong to the King’s School and didn’t suffer from the reformation.
From the Abbey we headed to the Cathedral. Hidden away from casual view but the streets of shops that surround it to the west and north. Entrance to the grounds is through the grand entrance gate opposite the Butter Market Square. Inside the grounds, renovations and improvements are in full swing. Scaffolding and protective fences hide a lot of the low level view of the Cathedral church itself.
We walk around the large grounds first. Two cloisters and an herb garden inside the cathedral walls, and then a large green with the other half of the King’s School beyond. An ancient synagogue, and ruined abbey grounds, all before getting inside the church itself.
It is vast inside, as they just carried on building in a southerly direction over the centuries. The crypt is larger and better lit than most parish churches. Every time we thought we had got to the end of the church there was another bit stretching off in front of us. It may well be where the idea for the Tardis came from. Then you turn around and look back down along the church from where you came and you realise just how large it is.
The only way you are allowed out of the cathedral grounds is through the gift shop, which is bigger than some Poundland’s, and full of even more tat.
We found a nice café with tables outside and some very different and tasty items on the menu and sat watching the world go by. We were accompanied by the sound of concrete saws from nearby Orange Street that were adding a special dusty layer to the food and drink of the customers of the chocolate house over the road.
After refreshments we took to wandering the pretty medieval streets of the old city. Above street level not many of the buildings have changed since medieval times. It is just at ground level where the frontages resemble the plan of any town or city with its chain store eateries, shops and banks garishly contrasting with the medieval front above them.
Then it was a visit to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Set in a converted church near the centre of the city we took the trip through story board rooms listening to some of the better know and more popular tales with a backdrop of fourteenth century décor, sounds and smells as we wove around the building to the shrine of Thomas Becket – the second one of the day – before, surprise surprise, exiting through the gift shop.
On the way back to the car we went past Canterbury Castle. No longer open to the public due to its crumbling masonry being a danger to passing pedestrians. They are afraid it might knock some sense into them.
The plan was to go back to the hotel and change, and then come back into the city for dinner. But we hadn’t seen anywhere on our wanderings that had jumped out at us and screamed EAT HERE YOU HEATHENS.
So we had a quick drive straight up to Whitstable on the coast instead. Most of the town was closed by the time we got there. But we were able to walk along part of the beach to the harbour, and then out the other side to the Neptune where we had a drink overlooking the beach with the sun setting over the Isle of Sheppey in front of us. Slowly reaching down to the land and then dropping that last bit like a stone. The orange glow suddenly gone behind the land on the horizon.
As luck would have it, Meerkat meals struck again with a Zizzi hiding just yards from where we had parked the car. Another good meal to finish the day off before heading back to the hotel.
Day three started slightly slower than day two had, but there was no rush. We headed through Canterbury before heading cross country to Sandwich. We had a little tour around the wonderful narrow streets and buildings before having a slight unintended detour to pass the famous golf course before finding the correct road to get to Deal.
Now, pictures of Deal Castle, along with the description always make it seem massive. So there was some element of surprise at the smaller than expected size. Yet it was another complete English Heritage property. Built just yards from the beach along a flat stretch of coast it is now surrounded on three sides by nineteenth and twentieth century builds, just built across the road from the edge of the moat of the castle.
Inside is a different matter. Built as a circle with six smaller semi circles on the outside it is still disorientating to this day. Above ground the inside is done out as a museum, and no longer holds the soldiers that would have been based here, or the commander of the castle, a post held by high ranking officials for centuries.
The basement is a different beast. The moat was never water filled, and the basement has slits to fire out of at every angle. If someone got into the moat, the chances of them getting out alive were slim, let alone to get into the castle. Walking through the passageway in the outer walls is disconcerting. It is dark and damp with no straight lines to follow, so you don’t actually know which way you are facing. So much so that after quite a few minutes wandering through them, when we came to a clearing we thought we had been all the way around the outside of the castle. Only after having gone through the rooms in the centre of the basement to find that we’d only been halfway around. That and the fact that they offered wellies for the trip around the tunnels so you don’t get your feet wet in the puddles down there.
Blinking back into the daylight we headed just over a mile down the coast to Walmer Castle. The third English Heritage castle of the weekend and another one that was still complete. And one that had a number of rooms hidden from the general public as it has residents as the privy commander of some fleet or other has their official residence here. Ironically the only castle we saw over the weekend that was a ruin wasn’t owned by English Heritage.
Walmer was built at the same time as Deal and the now completely destroyed Sandown castle, along with four temporary forts to defend the coast from potential French raiders, by Henry VIII. They were also used when we were fighting the Dutch in the seventeenth century. Once the end of the Napoleonic wars had gone it was converted into a private residence. Pitt the younger was the commander in residence for years, as was the Duke of Wellington after him, and the Queen Mother was the privy commander of the castle until her death.
Over the years the grounds expanded and gardens and woodland were laid out, and much of what had been garrison space within the building was turned over to living space. Only the basement remained as it may have been.
The dry moat shows the clover leaf shape of the castle off best. It is a great green space to walk around in peace. Especially as an invasion had actually occurred in the castle. It was the Germans. Hundreds of their school children. Though we wondered why they had come to Walmer castle when Dover was only seven miles away.
It was now mid-afternoon and late lunch was calling. We headed for St Margaret’s, driving through the On-Cliffe piece and corkscrewing down the side of the cliff to the Bay, and the pub overlooking the beach called Coastguard-at-Sea, in what used to be the coastguard station.
However down at beach level, shielded by the cliffs from most of England, our phones told us we were in France. Phone signal was coming from the other side of the channel. From the coastline we could just make out in the distance. We were roaming apparently.
Late lunch was lovely, but once finished it meant it was time to head home. Back over to Dover to pick up the A20 to head to Folkestone and the motorway. Free flowing motorway traffic all the way back to Crawley, the whole time with the sun shining in our eyes.
A great few days away from everything. Calmness had sunk in. Only to be ruined by the fact that once home, it meant it was work the next day.