Greta is a historic Thames Sailing Barge launched 120 years ago in 1892. As a working cargo barge she carried ammunition, beer, grain, malt and building products. Today she takes tourists out for short trips.
Whitstable Harbour
‘In the late 1820′s, the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway Company built a railway from Canterbury to Whitstable and a new port at Whitstable to bring heavy goods such as coal from the north east. The railway between Canterbury and Whitstable, known as the Crab and Winkle line, was opened in 1830.
Although the harbour halved the cost of the transport of goods from London to north east Kent, the opening of the direct north Kent railway line, from London in 1861 proved competitive. The harbour continued, with the fishing industry doing well, and the introduction of new cargoes such as timber imports from the Baltic.
The railway closed to passenger traffic in 1932, freight continued with the harbour still open for coal, grain and timber.
When British Railways closed the railway line from Canterbury in 1952, the harbour lost much of its trade. In 1958 the Whitstable Urban District Council bought the harbour from the railway for £12,500.’
Information taken from the Whitstable Harbour website.
The narrow Squeeze Gut alley, whose name is rumoured to have sprung from the unsuccessful attempts of an overweight policeman to catch a gang of young rogues who would lure him into this bottleneck alley (his being the literal squeezed gut).
Whitstable: buildings by the sea – some in need of a little TLC
For Heritage Open Days weekend we visited Rochester.
The first visit was to the Bridge Chapel. The Chapel was constructed in 1393 and is located on the eastern approach to the medieval stone bridge. Bridge chapels were once a common feature of major bridges throughout Britain. Today, only five other bridge chapels are still standing. In the chapel was some Robert Thompson furniture, the Mouseman.
Here is a table of his plus his famous mark on a chair.
The Six Poor Travellers’ house - Richard Watts (1529–1579) was a successful businessman and MP for Rochester in the 1570s. Famed locally for his philanthropy, he died in 1579, leaving money in his will to establish the Richard Watts Charity and Six Poor Travellers House in Rochester High Street.
The small garden to the rear of the house.
Corps of Royal Engineers parade following the church service.
Their Garrison HQ is in Chatham nearby.
Eastgate House – an Elizabethan townhouse was built in the late 1590s for Sir Peter Buck, who was Clerk of the Cheque at Chatham’s Royal Dockyard and Mayor of Medway. The gardens and cottage were designed by Sir Guy Dawber in the 1920s. Here you will find the Swiss chalet where Dickens worked on some of his most famous novels. Previously sited at Dickens’ home in Gad’s Hill, it was moved to Rochester in the 1960s.
| Eastgate House | Dickens’ Swiss chalet |
The Shell Grotto is an ornate subterranean passageway in Margate. Almost all the surface area of the walls and roof is covered in mosaics created entirely of seashells totalling about 2,000 square feet of mosaic, or 4.6 million shells. It was discovered in 1835 but its age remains unknown. 99% of the shells are local.
We also visited the Turner Contemporary in Margate, unfortunately they were in between exhibitions and so there was very little to see – not even one Turner – we were not very happy. We moved on to Broadstairs which has a lovely beach and a very nice pot of tea at The Royal Albion Hotel.
Broadstairs beach
We then moved on to Ramsgate to see some of Pugin’s work.
| Part of the long, polychromed terracotta panel depicting the Stations of the Cross, to the design of the Flemish sculptor Alois De Beule, added in 1893. | Pugin's beautiful and intricate east window, the tracery lights dating from 1848, and the main lights from 1849: |
Pugin’s bust with one of his designs ‘The Granville Hotel’.
Ramsgate Harbour
Oldie Photo – recent photo taken on the Isle of Sheppey.
An old boy!
or should that read buoy?
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