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Dungeness

OK, i'm thinking leisurely drive down to Whitstable tomorrow, park up and get drunk. Then Monday, drive through Canterbury to the coast road, down through Dymchurch to Dungeness and on to Rye, then back to London.
 
El Jefe said:
OK, i'm thinking leisurely drive down to Whitstable tomorrow, park up and get drunk. Then Monday, drive through Canterbury to the coast road, down through Dymchurch to Dungeness and on to Rye, then back to London.
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sounds lovely. let me know if you need someone to ride shotgun.
 
bluestreak said:
sounds lovely. let me know if you need someone to ride shotgun.
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We would, like, but it might ruin the potential for any van romance at some point.. As the sun sets over the power station and the sea turns a REALLY strange colour, that's sexy time :D
 
story said:
I lived down there for years.

It's different now - more built up, less lonely.

It can be terribly bleak, and that sharp East wind can cut right to the bone.

When I knew it, it was all sheep fields. A lot of it has gone under the plough since then.

Lots of tiny isolated villages dotted across the marsh, all surrounded by fields of sheep. The fields were criss crossed with dykes which couldn't be seen til you stumbled upon them. Then you had to either wade or jump across, or walk up and down til you found a crossing. Some of the dykes dried up in the summer and you could crawl down into them under the bullrushes and lie there all day out of the wind. The damp rich smell of the Marsh was all round, and you could hear the sheep cropping the grass as they grazed by.

The few trees were sculpted into the most amazing shapes by the wind, but you could go for miles without seeing a single tree. The only thing that broke the horizon was a ruined Norman church or a derelict shepherd's hut. In the winter, when the sky was low and ugly and grey, those ruins gave me a windbreak, a place to hunker down and recover a bit before getting back on my bike and battling against the wind. The shepherds huts were less hospitable; and sheep would wander in and out and the floor was deep with droppings. Sometimes there would be some remnant of the days when the huts were still used: a rusting kettle, a scrap of newspaper on the wall, a rag tied around a window fitting.

In the summer, when the wind was down, the sun would burn in a blue sky from horizon to horizon, and then at dusk the frogs came out and sang until nightfall.

The roads were all narrow, and wound about like serpents. They followed the original sheep tracks, which picked through the dry parts of the Marsh. Some of the roads were lined on either side with proper old hedgerows and you could pick your fill of berries and hips and haws in the autumn.

Gypsies still stopped through there in my time, and they'd pull up behind a hedgerow and the smell from their cook fire would make my mouth run with hunger.

There were some old orchards still, with tangled damson trees, and all kinds of apples and pears. The trees were old and barnacled with lichens. I'd sit up in the crook of the tree with a book and eat fruit straight from the bough.

There was a church I liked to visit. Inside it's cool and still and smells of old paper and old stone. The graveyard around it is a deep meadow of ox-eye daisies and meadowsweet and cowslips. I'd lie sunken in the grasses, guarded by the ancient yew and watch the insect universe all around me.

In the Spring the lambs would run and leap and wriggle while their dams kept on patiently cropping the grass. Every once in a wile a ewe would call for her lamb and the others would look up, miss their own offspring, and set up calling. Then there would be a rolling chorus of call and response as mothers and lambs searched for and found each other. Each evening, there was a great ceremony of calling amongst the herds as mothers rounded up their lambs and settled down for the night.

I loved it best in the late summer, when the lambs were grown and the sun threw long light across the Marshes. The land was warmed through by then, and I'd lie on the ground for hours and fall into the sky.

I go back from time to time, but you can never really go back, eh.

Dungeness is amazing. Somehow it is possible to get lost there on that narrow shingle spit. There are some flooded gravel pits that shine the most stupendous colours in certain weathers.

Greatstone is very much built up since my time, but is still an amazing place, with a long flat empty beach of fine sand, and deep hidden dunes.

Littlestone is a small hamlet with a pretty Victorian water tower. In my day, the groynes on the beach there were hung with mussels and whelkes like bunches of grapes. We'd shrimp along the tide line, and collect tiny crabs from the pools at the base of each groyne. All that's gone now, whether due to pollution or the scouring effect of the shingle dumped there to protect the sea wall I don't know. Look out for the sunken piece of Mulberry Harbour at low tide.
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What a great evocative piece of writing, it's like part of a novel.



Jefe, I know Rye very well as my folks live there. Would you like any tips/suggestions?
 
Maggot said:
What a great evocative piece of writing, it's like part of a novel.



Jefe, I know Rye very well as my folks live there. Would you like any tips/suggestions?
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To be honest, I imagine Rye will be a flying visit on the way home but if there's anything we shouldn't miss, then yeh, cheers
 
El Jefe said:
To be honest, I imagine Rye will be a flying visit on the way home but if there's anything we shouldn't miss, then yeh, cheers
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Mermaid St is one of the most picturesque streets in the country, and if you have one drink, go in the Mermaid Inn, very old and classy.

The other thing is to climb up the church clock tower for the views, but it shuts about 5 and you may well miss it.

Good place to catch sunsets, if it's that kind of time.
 
Thank you Maggot and scifisam :)

Idyllic... hmmm... well, perhaps not, but there is beauty in all things if we care to look, eh.
 
El Jefe: sounds like a nice route.

Lydd is nice too, or was.

Ivychurch is cute, or was.


Try to stay off the bigger roads.
 
Essex coast - Bradwell/Bradwell on sea (another power station thought) is fairly easy to get to by train then bus

it has a lovely old (roman/celtic christian) church with flint walls and when i went last april I saw four adders

it was very peaceful and the sea looks good
 
I always try and visit when back in the uk. Lunch at the Pilot. A pub made from an upturned boat. One of the largest piles of shingle in the world, no bed rock, builds up, washes away and "someone" decided to build a nuclear power station on it !! Since this has been built there has been a constant fleet of lorries taking the beach from the eastern side and putting it on the western side just in front of the power station. If this was stopped I imagine it wouldn't be long before the power station was washed into the sea.
 
El Jefe said:
Any tips?
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Narrow gauge railway?

08_head_image_full.jpg


http://www.rhdr.org.uk/rhdr/home_flash.html
 
Can't believe I forgot to mention it:

Derek Jarman's garden is there at Dungeness.

And a house or two down the way, a neighbour has been inspired by Jarman's garden to create a kind of collage of his own. Both are worth a visit.

840835.JPG
 
I once spent a week at Lydd in the autumn.

I adored it. It has a strange mournful quality that I personally loved.


the shore there has a huge bank of heaped up shingle with many weird and wonderful beachcombing finds. At low tide you can find the shells of some very unusual tube worms. :cool:

Inland there is the strangely otherworldly salt marshes and also a rather good fish and chip shop :D
 
You daft bastards. How was Serious Business last night. Graeme bought some ket round so I couldn't find my legs.
 
story said:
Can't believe I forgot to mention it:

Derek Jarman's garden is there at Dungeness.

And a house or two down the way, a neighbour has been inspired by Jarman's garden to create a kind of collage of his own. Both are worth a visit.

840835.JPG
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I already mentioned it. :p

But seeing as el Jefe has blown out his trip, it's all a bit academic.
 
He might go another time!

Is that house covered in rubber like others I saw there? Strange little dwellings dotted around everywhere :D

Tip. . .if you're going to throw stones from the beech at your girlfriends backside make sure you're a good shot :hmm:
 
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