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Ss lockdown eased I was able to stay away from home. I chose Kent, because of course.
With public transport able to be incorporated, this thread records a walk up to Hythe, a trip on the @RHDR to Dungeness, a walk from there to Lydd and finally a bus journey to Rye.
We start...
With public transport able to be incorporated, this thread records a walk up to Hythe, a trip on the @RHDR to Dungeness, a walk from there to Lydd and finally a bus journey to Rye.
We start...
...on the Folkestone seafront on a pretty glorious morning.
Underfoot is Marc Wallinger's artwork, Folk Stones, part of @CreativeFstone.
The individual pebbles are all uniquely numbered, and...
Underfoot is Marc Wallinger's artwork, Folk Stones, part of @CreativeFstone.
The individual pebbles are all uniquely numbered, and...
...there's more...
...*many* more...
...than you might suppose.
The shore has numberless pebbles, though, and...
The shore has numberless pebbles, though, and...
...today lies under a sky that is by turns sunny and overcast...
...which means that only a few people are out on the shore.
And, taking up just a few pixels on the horizon in these pictures...
And, taking up just a few pixels on the horizon in these pictures...
...and in this one, way over to the right, is one of our destinations: Dungeness Nuclear Power Station.
But first we must pass...
But first we must pass...
...by this Hawksmoor-pastiche beach hut by Pablo Bronstein (also courtesy @CreativeFstone)...
...and round the corners...
...along the prom...
...takes us from sea water to fresh water: the terminus of the Napoleonic Royal Military Canal, which we will follow all the way to Hythe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Military_Canal
Along the way...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Military_Canal
Along the way...
...we meet folk and fowl, on the water, over it and beside it.
But Hythe brings me back to a childhood memory, a place I last visited aged 10...
But Hythe brings me back to a childhood memory, a place I last visited aged 10...
...when as a departing Year 6 student (it wasn't even called Year 6 in those days) I and my classmates got on to the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, bound for Dungeness.
We didn't have to wear masks in 1986, of course, and for that matter...
We didn't have to wear masks in 1986, of course, and for that matter...
...there was no social distancing, so we didn't get (as I did this time) a compartment each to ourselves.
But, just as I remembered...
But, just as I remembered...
...the journey takes us from suburbia...
...through the sheepish marsh...
...down to the beach huts at Dungeness, near the lifeboat station...
...and finally to the remote tip of the land, by the old lighthouse and the power station.
Now...
Now...
...we are in a territory of bleak beauty, or possibly just bleak bleakness, although the sunshine takes off some of the edge today.
And so we walk...
And so we walk...
...to the old lighthouse...
...its roundhouse...
...the new lighthouse, the pub...
...and down the boardwalk to the shore, and to sit down to lunch.
And after lunch...
And after lunch...
...we can explore some of the post-industrial sights, including the old scientific testing stations,...
...the old coastguard's lookout, now a great place to see birds ...
...and the gates beyond which lie...
...the perimeter road around the main, and by far the biggest events...
...Dungeness A (non-operational)...
...Dungeness B...
...and the bank of shingle that sheilds them from the sea, or the sea from them - I wasn't sure.
But...
But...
...beyond the place where the perimeter road breaks up apocalyptically into the sand...
...lies a third, even more monolithic structure over which tiny shadows of cruising birds drift.
And...
And...
...a beach location where X marks the spot, although I couldn't tell exactly what this X was. A daymark?
Meanwhile...
Meanwhile...
...the pylons stretch off into what feels like an infinite recession, over the scrubby shingle inland.
It's a long walk with a barely changing vista...
It's a long walk with a barely changing vista...
...to under the cables.
The beach from here...
The beach from here...
...is only broken up by occasional industrial detritus, pointing back to the power station, until...
...we reach the edge of the Lydd training ranges, which we have to walk around, especially as the flags are up today to indicate they are firing (I hear occasional volleys).
This is also the (currently dry) outflow of the Dengemarsh Sewer (not a sewer in that sense), and what looks like a former training spot for working in inundated conditions.
These pillars line up along the sewer bed like trunkless legs of stone...
These pillars line up along the sewer bed like trunkless legs of stone...
...while north of the sluices, swans swim as far south as they can.
Over the next horizon...
Over the next horizon...
...the pylons duck as if to dodge flying bullets as they cross the military training grounds...
...and the warning flags themselves outside the mockup guerilla townscapes and watchtowers seem bullet-flayed.
Then...
Then...
...we reach Lydd, small town on the edge of the marsh, with a green, a fetching library, and a museum made out of an old fire station.
It also has...
It also has...
...a fetching historic high street and church...
...and some proper old buildings...
...very fetching ones
Buses get a bit infrequent as the afternoon draws on, but one dashes down the coast...
...through Camber Sands...
...and finishing up in another place that like Dungeness, seems a world in itself, although where Dungeness projects bleakness, this place takes literary quaintness to almost excessive levels.
You probably recognise...
You probably recognise...
...in these pictures, the town of Tilling (as re-christened by E. F. Benson for his Mapp and Lucia novels).
And its literary epicentre (arguably)...
And its literary epicentre (arguably)...
...is Lamb House, sometime home of both E.F. Benson and Henry James - now operated by @southeastNT although like so many other properties, closed by Covid.
The town...
The town...
...is full of evocative sights, especially for those, like me who visited in childhood, and who have subsequently watched the TV adaptations of Mapp and Lucia.
Here's a controversial view, including a famously hard-to-draw crooked chimney...
Here's a controversial view, including a famously hard-to-draw crooked chimney...
...while I know this house as Wasters, Diva's property (although it looks like the real life equivalent of Woolgar and Pipstow have it on their books, nowadays).
The church doesn't offer the potential to go up top at the moment, or to see the pendulum of the clock, but looks as fetching as ever from the outside.
The...
The...
...literary connections go back before the C20, with one of the tea rooms being the birthplace of the dramatist John Fletcher, while...
...lesbian writer Radclyffe Hall lived around a couple of corners.
And at the end of the town (and almost the end of the day) lies Ypres Tower and its eponymous pub.
I remember the gun garden from the visit when I was 10 in June 1986. I tried to draw the triangular pile of cannonballs...
I remember the gun garden from the visit when I was 10 in June 1986. I tried to draw the triangular pile of cannonballs...
...but my main artistic efforts that day centred on trying to capture the Land Gate (the results were not spectacular and nowadays I prefer to rely on a camera, and to pop the results on twitter, rather that in my project book).
As the sunset got going...
As the sunset got going...
...the main thing remaining was to visit the train station, and to mask up once more for the journey back to London.
All the photos are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/o4Bm2dLUW824BmDi6
Good night!
All the photos are here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/o4Bm2dLUW824BmDi6
Good night!
