Ramsgate Matters
Ramsgate Society Bi-annual Journal Spring 2021 Ramsgate Royal Harbour 200 Years Contents P2 Chairman. p16 Art & The Harbour P3 Ellington Park, RTC p18 Looking Two Ways p4 Does Age Matter? p20 Brussels House: Vale Square p5 Harbours Act 1964 p21 The Vale, Who am I? p6 Clock House & Harbour p22 Who am I ? The solution p7 Royal Revelations, Obelisk p23 Slavery p8 Thanet or Tane’tus, Dover Boat p24 Why Ramsgate? Piracy off Ramsgate p9 The Goodwins p25 Sea Views The Ramsgate Society p10 Pegwell Bay p26 Memories: Hazel, David, Len. Registered Charity p12 Thorne: a Mediaeval Manor p27 Contacts: Committee No.1138809 p15 A view from Scotland 1857
planted trees now blowing cheerfully in the sunshine along the Western Esplanade. There have been a couple of instances of vandalism but these trees will be replaced as soon as possible. We recently launched an “Adopt a Tree Scheme” so if you would like to support the project by adopting a tree please go to our website
2 we create a new Harbour with unique architecture, driven this place and now they can help revive it through buildings and landscapes? Can we innovate with green leisure and tourism, sport, the countryside, and coastal technology, energy, design, education and training for a activities. sustainable future? As we walk backwards into the future we can sense that Narratives about Ramsgate and its involvement with art, things are about to change. literature, and new technologies can become attractions John V Walker not in a passive showground sense but with participative Chairman. hands-on creativity. Nature, water and wind have always The Ramsgate Society
Ellington Park The Ramsgate Society has had a close relationship with The Ramsgate Society the Friends of Ellington Park for many years, so we are Registered Charity delighted to tell you of the wonderful progress of our No.1138809 Lottery-funded project to regenerate the park. The bandstand is almost completed, and looks beautiful. Cast-iron steps will be installed as soon as the path repairs are finished and music events and entertainments will be able to begin again. The café and toilets will be open during the summer, and the new natural-play children’s area, just below the terrace, will be ready for fun and games. to this point” said Bev Perkins, Chair of the Friends of The wildlife area has been increased with a copse of Ellington Park. new trees, creating a small wild flower meadow and encouraging wider biodiversity. The Friends are looking “Work is progressing at a pace and we hope it will for volunteers for this 3-year project, so if you would like be concluded by July this year (weather and Covid to be involved do contact them (details below). permitting) and we will be able to welcome you back to a revitalised park.” “We would like to thank The Ramsgate Society, and John Walker in particular, for their support during the seven Email: [email protected] years it has taken to get the park’s regeneration project Tel: 07577 852797
Ramsgate Town Council Under rather sad circumstances I find myself promoted from Vice-Chair to Chair of Ramsgate Town Council (RTC). Most of you will know that our colleague, Councillor Peter Campbell, died last month. Both as a resident and councillor I have a lot of reasons to be grateful to him. Indeed, there’s a lot to be grateful for in Ramsgate generally and especially in its forward thinking, green-focused Town Council. Not only is it committed to planting trees and keeping our open spaces in team around in our electric, repurposed milk floats, excellent condition, but it does as much as it can to tackling all sorts of jobs in all weathers. We should assist volunteer groups like The Ramsgate Society, applaud them. and lots of other incredibly good ones, in tidying up, planting and sponsoring. I am grateful for the pride they put into their work and I hope I can do Ramsgate and Peter as proud as I take Who are the people in RTC doing all of this work? The on my new role. answer is our amazing technicians - an extremely hard-working group that includes apprentices learning Anne-Marie Nixey specific skills to develop their role. You may see the Chair of Ramsgate Town Council
3 Does Age Matter?
As Ramsgate celebrates the 200th anniversary of Ramsgate Royal Harbour we consider if a 1,200-year celebration might be more accurate.
William Archibald Scott Robinson wrote in his Kentish Archaeology of 1898 “Ramsgate and Manston are more ancient than anyone suspects.”
Dover boats came to major burial sites around Ramsgate before Stonehenge or the Pyramids were built. Sea routes that converge around Ramsgate have been central to maritime activity for over 2,500 years. Ramsgate itself grew from a small, natural gap in the cliffs to become a harbour of refuge from the troubled waters of the English Channel, used by small vessels and maintaining a low but significant profile in commerce, fishing, innovation, national interests, naval and military action.
Ownership of Historic Ports
• Military Ports, like Portsmouth and Plymouth have a Queen’s Harbour Master; • Municipal Ports, are owned by local authorities such as Thanet District Council; • Trust Ports such as Dover and Poole are independent statutory bodies; • Private Ports are owned by private companies like ABP and Peel Ports.
4 The Harbours Act of 1964
The Harbours Act of 1964 places on all of the various owners of Historic Ports a responsibility to consider the environment in their management of a port or harbour, including having regard to any building, site or object of archaeological, architectural or historic interest.
5 The Clock House:
The Clock House was originally erected as a watchtower. Then a spire was added, a clock, two wings with meeting rooms, slated gable roofs, and, before topping out, a fireproof store, for inflammables used on Trinity House beacons and buoys, was excavated into the chalk below the structure while scientific equipment went into the central gap beneath the tower. A later conservatory- like wooden extension to the rear faced the harbour to monitor and receive fish catches.
Clock House and Harbour:
• Smeaton designed his own early diving bell and used it to build the harbour. • During the Napoleonic Wars, the Royal Navy improved quayside access to facilitate rapid boarding and built reinforced quayside powder stores for faster, safer loading. • Nathaniel Gott designed the “Vinegar Bottle” in 1820. Visible in many prints of the period, it was used to blend pitch and tar for dockside repairs. • Observatory and navigational aids were installed in the Clock House under a founding member of the Royal Society, Sir William Curtis, who had a house above the Harbour. • After George IV’s stay at Curtis’s home, the Harbour was designated ‘Royal,’ an event celebrated by the obelisk. • Brunel’s Archimedes, the first screw propelled steam ship, was tested from here. • Fishing fleets from Devon to the North Sea could double the size of the home fleet to over 300 boats in the nineteenth century; fishing interests converted the original dry dock to an icehouse. • Trinity House, as regulator of Thames and national navigation, based lights, buoys and supplies here. • The RNLI developed as voluntary body, but this Harbour had government funded tugs to assist harbour access and rescues from shipwrecks on and around the Historic small boats and pepper pots nearby Goodwin Sands. • The Clock House office of the original General Steam Navigation Company, ran ferries between here, The Tower of London, France, the Channel Islands, Belgium and other European destinations. • The Clock House was central to HMS Fervent, a World War II secret base. • A wall plaque commemorates little ships gathering here for Dunkirk. Some still berth in the harbour. • The Clock House is still a museum of maritime and harbour history • A 24-hour pilot service continues to operate between the crowded sea lanes of the Channel and Thames. • Wind arrays producing green energy are serviced from the harbour. Sheltering fishing fleet
6 Royal Harbour Revelations
As a new king George IV had to visit his other kingdom in Hanover. He stopped for one night at Ramsgate in the home of his friend Sir William Curtis and three months later did the same on his return. He subsequently declared Ramsgate Harbour ‘Royal’ in recognition of a warm reception from the town. Did cheering a king really merit a royal reward? A Cruikshank lampoon suggested a bloated Curtis was obscenely proffering a grotesque wife to the king. This image was so strong that it has dominated opinion for 200 years, yet Lady Curtis was actually an elegant woman who shunned portraits. Ideas for another reason behind the award of the title ‘Royal’ abound. Some suggest links with sugar and slavery, both then commodities of major importance. Curtis was responsible for organising supplies so that the British Navy could travel safely farther and further afield than other navies, maintaining its dominance over Europe, Asia and America. He was also planning transportation to the colonies and curbing the power of the East India Company. He owned a bank, was the only director of both the London and West India Docks and, as Chairman of Ramsgate Harbour at time when it was full of new technology and had helped defeat Napoleon, Sir William maintained profitability, reserving emergency space in this Harbour of Refuge for London’s trade. Those looking for scandal might consider another Ramsgate resident, a neighbour of Sir William, Lord Coyningham, who as Lord of the Manor of Manston, had owned the land on which the harbour was built. He and Lady Coyningham had moved from Effingham Street to a grander house in the High Street. Elizabeth Coyningham was a noted beauty with a fuller figure, matching that of her monarch. In 1820, she became the last mistress of King George and enjoyed what was said to be a very affectionate friendship. Obelisk
Early examples were erected by Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh at Ripon (1702) and Castle Howard (1714). Lord Liverpool, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, laid the Harbour’s 11- ton foundation stone on 8th November 1822, exactly one year after the King’s return. He unveiled the completed monument the following July. Ramsgate’s obelisk is made of Dublin granite, weighs 100 tons and is fifty-two and a half feet high. The locals at the time referred to it as the ‘Royal Toothpick’
7 Thanet or Tane’tus
Tane’tus, appears as a small island off Albion in a classical dictionary. In the second century Ptolemy called it Tolianis.
In the Domesday Book of 1086 the name is Tenet. The Celtic meaning, “fire” or “bonfire”, made Thanet the “Bright Island” with beacons as lighthouses on high points. Equally, the bright, white chalk causeways raised in Thanet’s Bronze Age would have been visible far out at sea. Thomas of Elham’s map of 1414 had two beacons. Although Elham was not concerned with topography, his Thanet churches sit in relation to each other and while, his coastline is broadly ovoid, there is one bay. Stonor is on the right beside the Church of St Laurence, with intact spire, overlooking the one harbour- like feature on the map. Lewis’s 1723 History showed Tenet from Richborough’s fortifications with the Wantsum crowded with shipping from the Downs.
Greek legend had Britain as home of the dead with bodies carried across the sea by night in unmanned boats that returned empty by dawn. The artist Bocklin painted Ynys Thanetos, Isle of the Dead, in 1883. Various themes featured an oarsman, a white figure, a coffin and a boat. It is depicted too in Rachmaninoff’s 1909 symphonic poem, The Isle of the Dead, which uses uneven rhythm to represent the movement of a boat through water.
Dover Bronze Age Boat
In 1992, the perfectly preserved remains of a large prehistoric boat were discovered six metres below the streets of Dover. Dated to around 1550 BCE, the Dover Bronze Age Boat is one of the most spectacular prehistoric wooden objects ever found in Europe and arguably the world’s oldest known seafaring boat. Built from oak planks held together with wedges and stitched with yew, it would have been navigating the English Channel before Tutankhamun became Pharaoh of Egypt. Yet it is not just its great age that makes it remarkable. As a piece of complex technology that has survived almost intact it reveals much about Bronze Age people in Britain, their society, and the landscape they inhabited. It is evidence of a trading culture that straddled the English Channel and is likely to have voyaged from Dover to the cluster of sites on the southeast of the Isle of Thanet at a time when there were more burial sites there than in the area around Stonehenge.
8 The Goodwins
In 1570, William Lambarde wrote this country’s first county history, A Perambulation of Kent, in which he described the Goodwin Sands as “Sea or land or neither of both”. Shakespeare in The Merchant of Venice described the Goodwins as simply “very dangerous flat, and fatal”.
This area is notorious for earthquakes, tremors and waterspouts. The one illustrated occurred just north of Ramsgate, off Joss Bay, on March 20 this year. It is over the Goodwin Sands, named after Earl Godwin Earl of Wessex, father of King Harold. His offshore lands disappeared in an earthquake before 1100. He was long dead, but the Goodwins became the name of that deadly reef also called “the ship swallower.” An earthquake in 1076 was heard throughout England. Others occurred in 1081 and in 1134. The Thames was emptied by an earthquake in 1158 while Glastonbury Abbey fell in 1426. 1580 saw part of Dover Castle and its cliffs tumble: giant waves killed hundreds in boats as London, Paris, Brussels, Cologne, and Holland shook. Epicentres and quakes are often imprecisely reported and so too are storms but in November 1703 a cyclone killed thousands across Europe and destroyed 200 vessels off Ramsgate, including a 12-ship naval squadron, with the loss of an estimated 2,000 lives. Admiral Beaumont and his entire fleet effectively disappeared in the Downs. This storm could be said to have triggered the Harbour of Refuge at Ramsgate, but only after decades of delay. Coincidentally that 1703 storm demolished the Eddystone Lighthouse. It was rebuilt by Civil Engineer John Smeaton who, in 1774, was invited to advise on, and later to redesign, construct and control Ramsgate’s Harbour. The work was completed by 1791, a year before Smeaton’s death.
9 Pegwell Bay
Now separated from Ramsgate by an artificial line drawn Not only was the first landfall in England preserved, but by the Boundary Commission, Pegwell Bay was the so were the wetlands that feed and protect hundreds chosen landing place of saints, crusaders, marauders of thousands of migrating birds. This area of saltmarsh and invaders. It was the Gateway to Thanet and England and mudflats has become a National Nature Reserve from prehistoric times. (NNR), a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and part of North East Kent Marine Protected Area (NEKMPA). Richard Oades concludes his photographic essay, begun in last Autumn’s Ramsgate Matters, with more of Pegwell Bay’s natural history. Widgeon and egret are favourite birds from among scores of native breeds and countless migrant visitors who feed on the acres of molluscs and other nutrients that fill the Bay. Through his lens they become landscapes that few of us ever see.
In 1999, The Ramsgate Society was instrumental, with considerable help from Davids Attenborough and Bellamy, in preventing the site of what had been Ramsgate International Hoverport from becoming a massive holiday camp and park.
The view from the other side of the bay brings Ramsgate Royal Harbour closer at night. Centuries ago monks asked for a ferry to Ramsgate rather than money.
10 Here, the banks of the Stonor became home to over 5,000 Jewish refugees before the second world war; the fleeing victims of a coming conflict were sheltered briefly before being categorised as aliens. They were interned while the port was rebuilt to assemble mulberry harbour components for D-Day. From here, Richborough Port supplied ammunition, heavy guns, creating the first roll-on roll-off rail ferry to France. The hundreds of bombs recently removed from the bay in preparation for underwater electric cables to be brought on shore suggest the enemy had some knowledge of the importance of the area. Ramsgate Harbour acted as a front for these hidden quays while concealing HMS Fervent, its own small boat operation. The technology was lost like the nearby post-war employment scheme breaking and recycling torpedo boats. Pfizer withdrew from much of its massive development across the bay but retains a pharmaceutical research presence and the site now includes a green power station. The upturn of Discovery Park, alongside the nature reserve, demonstrates how land formerly used for waste can be regenerated.
11 Thorne: The Story of a Mediaeval Manor Graham Woolnough
It is now suggested that around 8,000 years ago Britain finally separated from the continent and that in cultural terms thereafter, the Mesolithic went its own way. The archaeological evidence is clear. Small flint tools from the Mesolithic age have been found at Nethercourt and Cliffsend. Traces of round barrows and burials at Thorne indicate Neolithic settlement (from c.3500 to 2000 BC) and polished stone axes and traces of agriculture exist at Ebbsfleet. We know that Bronze Age people (from c.2000 to 800 BC) farmed here from the hoard of agricultural tools found at Ebbsfleet, and cow and ox bones indicate that these people bred cattle. When Julius Caesar visited Thanet, he recorded a landscape of farmsteads inhabited by people with coinage (Andrews 2010). It is possible to imagine that from these farmsteads the early farmers of Thanet observed the landing of Roman armies in the natural harbour of Richborough as they established the bridge head from which they would launch the Claudian invasion of Britain in 43 AD. One such farmstead was at Thorne and its story tells us much about the history of our island. We know (Wardell- Armstrong Survey 2013) that there was probably a Roman settlement there. Several Romano-British villas or farms have been found in Thanet and nearby at Abbey Farm and there is evidence of a Roman settlement in Ramsgate. Roman agriculture was sophisticated and Thanet lands are rich and fertile. Wheat, barley, oats and rye were grown and a full range of farm animals was reared with an extensive use of horses. British corn was compulsorily purchased for Roman garrisons and Thanet’s corn was probably exported to Roman Gaul. The Roman legions left Britain around 410 AD and Anglo-Saxon history was born. Various tribes settled in Kent having landed at Pegwell Bay, filling the vacuum left by the departing Romans. But it was largely the Jutes, a grouping among the Nordic peoples, who became masters of Thanet. Much that had been done by the Romans was destroyed. In the late 5th/early 6th centuries the Kingdom of Kent emerged in the Jutish territory and the Isle of Thanet appears to have remained a separate lathe or administrative district. A century later, in 597, Augustine landed safely in Pegwell Bay ‘’after many dangers and difficulties’’ and headed to Canterbury to Christianise the latest arrivals, and English history shifted axis again. By the late 13th century, the Church was a great power in the land and rivalled the Crown as a landowner. Because Kent was the cradle of Christianity, abbeys and monasteries quickly appeared in and around Canterbury. Two rival Benedictine houses, Christ Church Priory and St Augustine’s Abbey, dominated in East Kent. The manor of Minster was the acknowledged ecclesiastical capital of Thanet and was owned by St Augustine’s. Thorne ranked as a minor manor on the flank of Minster and its medieval lords would have accepted their commitment to the ecclesiastical overlord to pay tithes, one -off dues and to donate agricultural produce to feed the abbey (Lewis, vol.2,1736 p111). Henry de Thorne was the manorial lord at the close of the 13th century, a great era of church and chapel building in Kent, demonstrating wealth and piety. Henry built his chapel close to his manor house despite the fine church of Minster being only a mile or so away. It was started c1290 and would have taken several years to build. It was apparently licensed by the Abbot for private masses to be said but attended by Henry and his household, alone. It was regarded as a daughter church or ‘chapel of ease’ to Minster church.
12 This illustration of the Thorne Chapel by William Deeble was not contemporary but published in 1817/18 in ‘The Beauties of the Isle of Thanet and the Cinque’ by E.W. Brayley. By then it had been used as a barn for some centuries but remained joined to the modest manor house by a stone corridor. The manor house had probably retained much of its medieval appearance because for centuries it was the farmhouse for the tenant farmers of a succession of aristocratic landowners who possessed Thorne farmland and drew rent as a source of income. In 1359 Thorne became the centre of preparations for one of the campaigns of The Hundred Years War. Edward III was a popular and persuasive leader and there was a spirit of jingoism about his various efforts to increase England’s territories in France and ultimately to secure the French throne. Edward chose Thorne for the muster of a 10,000 strong army of invasion in September and October 1359 and there he encamped with his four sons, his earls, dukes, lords and knights. The site was probably chosen because of its sheltered well-drained fields and its proximity to Sandwich where the troops would embark in small boats supplied by the Cinque ports at Sandwich late in October. The intention was to make a chevauchee - a raiding method of medieval warfare for weakening the enemy focusing mainly on wreaking havoc, burning and pillaging coveted territory. One can imagine a colourful scene in the early autumn sun. Nobles and knights were probably in plate armour with back and front plates (rather than cumbersome suits of full armour) and would have worn tunics in vivid hues. There were mounted archers, foot archers and spearsmen and probably some guns which could fire grapeshot. The force of 1359 was well-equipped and well-supplied: there were even milling machines and portable ovens in the baggage trains to help to provide fresh fish and bread to the troops. No doubt, during the period of the muster, fish was brought daily from Ramsgate to Thorne and other local manors may have contributed milled corn for the army’s portable ovens. Thanet livestock would have been slaughtered for the benefit of the army and oats and hay would have been requisitioned for the numerous horses. However well organized the muster there would have been turmoil, mud, noise and a lot of detritus left behind. It is difficult to say who owned Thorne which was subject to an ecclesiastical overlord at this time because there are few firm dates in the history of the period. But whoever it was, possibly a Goshall from Ash, he must have been glad to see them go! Mark Ormrod, Professor of History at The University of York, published his meticulously researched ‘Edward III’ in 2011 and provided much of the detail for this account.
13 The Goshall family of Ash held Thorne at some point in the 14th century and continued to do so for two generations before it passed by marriage to the St Nicholas family, holders of Powcies and Manston. After the dissolution of the monasteries and disposal of Church lands, there followed a succession of aristocratic owners. Later owners included the Cobbs, the local family of bankers, brewers and farmers and most recently from 1936, the Montgomery family under whose stewardship the cauliflower became a crop common in Thanet. There is no doubt that Thorne’s manorial chapel, originally placed in the middle of a farmstead, has witnessed many astonishing events. Perhaps the most remarkable of all occurred around 1880 when the old manor house was demolished, the adjacent chapel was converted into a farmhouse and the incumbent tenant farmer (Thomas Young Chapman) moved his family into the freshly converted chapel. Chapel House or The Old Chapel still retains many features of Henry de Thorne’s private manorial chapel. It is no longer surrounded by farmstead but by an exquisite garden, recently opened under The National Garden Scheme and visited by many from Ramsgate.
14 A View from Scotland 1857
Ramsgate runs a race with Margate for the Metropolitan dignity of the Isle of Thanet; and in spite of guide-books and the other accessories of bathing and watering places which seem to favour Margate, its rival has the superiority, in position, and in trade. Margate, we are told, in Knight’s ‘Handbook to the Southeast Coasts of England’ “was a place of some note when Ramsgate as yet was not, or was only a fishing village of the narrowest dimensions” and yet the writer acknowledges that, on the authority of Hasted, Margate remained, till a few years before 1799, “a poor inconsiderable fishing village, built for the most part in the valley adjoining the harbour.” What then, could Ramsgate have been in these years, Mr. Knight? Why, certainly, a busy port, in which the Government were constructing a vast naval harbour of refuge, at a cost of an almost fabulous number of hundreds of thousands of pounds. We do not propose, however, to place any reliance on Mr. Knight...
‘The name of the town is supposed to be corrupted in the course of 2,000 years from Romsgate ; for we are assured by some antiquaries that when Thanet was an island, the breach in its cliff at this point, was the only accessible entrance for the Roman galleys, and we might add slaves; that they adapted it; and thus the port became known as Ramsgate; or the Romans’-gate; but now and long ago, Rome and the Romans have been corrupted into Ram, and Rams- ‘gate’ remaining as before; and thus is the name explained. We are always so thankful to have any reasonable explanation of the name given to a town, and thus done with doubt on the subject, and to know what the meaning is of words which we say, or write, that we never criticise an analysis or a conjecture of this kind; it is so useful, whether it be right or wrong; because it is nearly the same thing to the public; only it seems hard that Ramsgate, having had a harbour and a name two thousand years ago, should yet be styled a village of yesterday. Julius Caesar’s day is a rather far off yesterday.’ From Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine Vol 24: pp 693-4 was made available by Sally and Robert Holden
15 Art and The Harbour
The first harbour at Ramsgate was little more than a natural shelter.Today’s Royal Harbour was conceived as an entity, designed to meet an urgent need, demonstrated half a century earlier, for a new harbour. The process from design to construction of this remarkable feat of Georgian civil engineering was recorded in detail for an age of enlightenment and industrial revolution. Accurate visual records were much in demand and becoming accessible to all classes, as was satire and vicious, highly memorable, uncensored criticism.
Alongside plans of the harbour were portraits of a changing townscape and its people. The Harbour Master and Clerk of Works was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, first President of the new Royal Academy. Turner’s seas and skies were elemental while engravings by his contemporary, Henry Moses, depicted the harbour and town in exquisite detail. Later, the work of William Frith provided a sociological record of the population enjoying on a day at the adjacent beach while the sharp-witted cartoonists and satirists of Punch Magazine took up residence during the winter when London could be uninhabitable. Remarkable as the harbour was, its setting was further enhanced by an enlightened piece of urban planning on three levels, a series of brick arches supporting an ascending roadway from Ramsgate Harbour to Nelson Crescent, the whole reminiscent of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s 16th century painting of the Tower of Babel. The aesthetic appeal of the arches is enhanced by the ornate facades of the Smack Boys Home and the Sailors Church
16 The buildings and skyline have changed little over the last century. The harbour walls designed by Smeaton are striking in their own right while more frivolous Georgian, Regency and Victorian architecture surmounts and surrounds the harbour, with a wealth of detail in terracotta and cast-iron. Ramsgate Royal Harbour’s enduring popularity is inseparable from its surroundings, not least the adjacent Pulhamite cliffs, caves and waterfall. The harbour has been part of a movement that made fine art accessible even before mass media made it ubiquitous. Today’s artists continue that tradition, interpreting the harbour through sound, film, photography and sculpture, paint and print.
17 Looking Two Ways Catriona Blaker
At this time of Covid it seems appropriate to be looking two ways – forward, with hope, and back, with nostalgia. Here then is a short account of a rather unusual sculpture, two heads looking in two directions, which was sited in Ramsgate from the early 1800s up to c.1920. The sculpture was described in a work entitled Ancient Marbles in Great Britain, 1882: ‘Ramsgate: In the hall of Augusta Lodge, the possession of HENRY CURLING [sic], Esq, is placed a double terminal bust of Epikures [Epicurus] and Metrodorus, which was left to the present owner [his son-in-law] by the late Mr Thomas Allason’. The cataloguer, Adolf Michaelis, reported that the names of Epikures and Metrodorus were inscribed in Greek characters on either side of the main shaft of this substantial stone, not marble, work. Michaelis later adds that for various reasons, partly the excellent state of preservation, and also the stylistic details of the features of the two heads, he feels that this double herm (ie two- headed) is probably ‘modern’, perhaps late eighteenth century or early 1800s. A herm signifies both a reference to Hermes, in whose name herms were originally Detail from the large-scale survey map of Ramsgate, 1849. created, and also to the plain angled shaft on which (Courtesy, Michael Child) the bust, or busts, stand. Epicurus was a celebrated Greek philosopher and Metrodorus of Lampsacus was his disciple. This possibly replica (1) double herm may have been created to tempt antiquarians, artists and travellers on the Grand Tour. Augusta Lodge (not to be confused with Augusta Villa in Bellevue Road) once stood at the Victoria Parade end of Augusta Road on the East Cliff. It had been built as a summer residence for the well-known architect, landscape designer and surveyor Thomas Allason (1790- 1852) and his family. Allason had travelled to Greece and Italy in 1814, sketching and learning from Roman and Greek architecture being an essential part of the education of a young architect at that time. Did Allason, in the Grand Tour tradition, acquire the sculpture as a souvenir of his travels? In 1838 his services were engaged by Emma D’Este, later Baroness Truro. She was the daughter of the erstwhile Duchess of Sussex, originally Lady Augusta Murray (2), who had settled in Ramsgate and acquired and developed Mount Albion House and the land around it before she died in 1830. When the estate failed to sell Emma D’Este employed Thomas Allason to draw up a scheme for housing, with the hope that individual plots The sculpture, double herm or ‘Metrodorus’ in 1962, by then might be easier to sell. Allason’s plan of 1838 survives sited in Broadstairs, with fifteen-year old Laura Schaub but it was not a commercial success. (née Daniel) standing beside it. This photograph gives a Allason’s daughter, Mary Anne, married Dr Henry good idea of scale. Curling, inheritor of the sculpture, and their daughter, (Courtesy, Laura Schaub)
18 Emily, married Arthur Henry Daniel. Members of the Curling family continued to live in Augusta Lodge after the death of Thomas Allason in 1852 and by the 1920s Emily and Arthur were the occupants. Thomas Allason’s granddaughter Emily Gutch Curling was my mother’s great-aunt by marriage. My mother, born Mary Daniel in 1910, lived in Ramsgate as a child and recalled her visits to what was by then called Chylton Lodge. She writes: ‘I must tell you about Aunt Emmie, who lived in solitary splendour at Chylton Lodge on the East Cliff …. Her drawing-room was always shrouded in dust sheets, but one glimpsed French furniture in it. The dining room was huge and looked over the garden to the sea. …Tea at Chylton Lodge was always a great thrill. Afterwards we repaired to the library crammed with books which I am sure were never opened, while stately marble busts looked down from the top shelves…. It was in the hall of Chylton Lodge that the huge two-headed statue … starkly regarded us, from behind and before. It rather frightened me as I felt someone might be shut up inside it….’ Emily, Mrs Arthur Daniel, died in 1930, and in May the following year Chylton Lodge was put up for auction. The Thanet Advertiser described it as ‘occupying a most The sculpture, currently in the Fellows’ Garden, Merton desirable sheltered position close to the Victoria and College, Oxford. Winterstoke Gardens and commanding full sea views (Courtesy, Merton College, University of Oxford) …grounds tastefully disposed with lawn, well-grown shrubs, pleasure and kitchen gardens.’ Chylton Lodge became an annexe to the Truro Court My mother reports: Hotel until it was demolished in 1962 to be replaced ‘When Aunt Emmie died everything was sold and by Homefleet House, built as sheltered housing. The the house became a hotel…when I was staying two-headed figure from Chylton Lodge passed to my in Broadstairs (mid 1960s) I went over to look at grandparents and then to my uncle. Finally, when for Chylton Lodge. It quite simply had been wiped away various reasons he could no longer accommodate it, by fire, but the garden land and trees were still there he presented it to Merton College Oxford, where he and I could see the spot where the garden seat had had been an undergraduate, and there it still is, in the been…. ‘. Fellows’ Garden.
ENDNOTES 1. Stephen Davies suggests that this double herm could well be a copy of the one shown at https://exhibits. museogalileo.it/archimedes/object/DoubleHermWithPortraitHeadsEpicurusMetrodorus.html 2. For much more on this oft written about subject, see the recently published Forbidden Wife: the life and trials of Lady Augusta Murray, Julia Abel Smith, 2020, reviewed in the previous issue of About Ramsgate and p22. 3. If any reader has knowledge of a photograph of Augusta/Chylton Lodge as viewed from Augusta Road I should be very grateful to see it. Contact [email protected] ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many thanks to Stephen Davies for his encouragement and constructive comments, to Michael Child for his interest and assistance, and to my family, particularly Laura Schaub, for their ready involvement. 19 Brussels House: The Belgian Consulate in Vale Square Xanthe Pitt
The author has researched the history of Brussels House her former residence. Her account contains many detailed references and is an eye opening account which is still in progress. Jules Edouard L’Horst Le Lorraine was born in 1851, probably in Brussels. Nothing is known about his early life, but he built a career as a merchant of note and became known in diplomatic circles, working as an auxiliary agent of the Belgium Legation, next in rank to Ambassador in London. He was Secretary of the Belgium Section of the International Fishery Exhibition and by 1884 was described as an Import Merchant residing at 89 Bartholomew Road Camden Town with an office at Gracechurch Street in the City of London. In December 1890, Jules was appointed Treasurer of the Belgium Consulate in Ramsgate. The Consulate at that time was located alongside nine others with George Hammond and Co, at 20 York Street. On November 28, 1894, after being contacted by the King of Belgium, he was appointed Vice Consul at Dover.
On January 15, 1900 E J Le Lorrain was appointed as Consul of Belgium in Ramsgate. He was still based in Dover, with his wife and four children. Understandably he wished to bring his family closer to his place of work, so he bought the parcel of land in Vale Square. By 1903 he had built his house and moved in with his family. Brussels House (now 23 Vale Square) was constructed to a splendid design and specification, with a cavity wall construction, one of the very first of its kind. He also designed and built a house on Elms Crescent, smaller than Brussels House but with similarities in terms of decorative flourishes. The plans are in the Kent Archives in Maidstone, accompanied by careful calculations in his hand, meticulous invoices, and a tightly worded contract with local builders Hinds and Son who still operate in Ramsgate today. The family retained a home in Tildonock (just north of Brussels near Haacht). In October 1907 Jules asked to transfer his private residence to Canterbury, while continuing to manage the Ramsgate Consulate. On June 10, 1908 he resigned his functions as Consul of Belgium in Ramsgate but remained authorised to bear the title of Honorary Consul. He sold Brussels House to a gentleman from Richmond, South West London, called Arthur Hartland Rose. At the end of the first World War In 1918 the family were living in Woolverton, Canterbury. Despite having lived in the UK for decades, raised a family, and contributed to the country’s economic success, Jules found himself officially classed as an ‘alien’ because of his Belgian nationality. In wartime designated aliens were monitored closely in case and their property and safety could be at risk from unprovoked attack. He was required, as was his wife, to register, if they moved around the country. After a visit to Belgium he found his home in ruins and had to move to alternative accommodation but failed to report it. The magistrates described it as a technical offence and a fine of 2d was a small part of the £1 2s 6d total costs. He died in comparative poverty after suffering degrading treatment.
20 The Vale: the story of four acres, three rods and 38 perches in the Isle of Thanet since 1839
Stephen Davies, Secretary of the Vale Square Ramsgate Residents Association (VSRRA) and a long-time resident, has recently completed a history of Vale Square. Lavishly illustrated,108-pages chart the history of the square from early development through to a miraculous survival into the present day.
The result of more than forty years of research, the book describes in rich detail all the houses in the square with stories of religious strife, the outcry over the renaming of the square, many colourful characters – and a most mysterious death. The Historical Gazetteer lists each house, often using original deeds to provide information about the early owners as well as the builders of all the houses in the square. This book also contains rare early photographs, nineteenth-century maps and descriptions of all the 52 houses which vary widely in date, style and architecture. It will appeal to anyone interested in the fascinating story of an English watering-place. Copies cost £15.00. Proceeds will go to maintaining the square, helping to cover some of the losses arising from lockdown. If you are interested in purchasing one or more copies please email Barry Quinn, Communications Officer, VSRRA, using the reference ‘Book’: [email protected]
Who am I and what’s my connection with Ramsgate? Two quotes today plus a little background information on both. The first relates to a time when the writer’s son was serving in New Orleans: ? ‘Saw Ramsgate in beauty & felt grief my beloved son absent, what can I enjoy!’ The second followed a three-year absence travelling: ‘My dear Ramsgate where we arrived to my great satisfaction …the day quite magnificent’ Can you guess the author of these quotes? Turn to page 22 for the answer.
21 Who am I and what’s my connection with Ramsgate? Solution for page 21 compiled by Terry Prue.
The mystery person is Lady Augusta Murray and whether or not the name is familiar I recommend a recently- published biography, Forbidden Wife, from Julia Abel- Smith. I am also pleased to reveal that Julia has agreed to give a talk about Lady Augusta to The Ramsgate Society whenever we are allowed to restart our regular talks programme. Lady Augusta achieved notoriety by marrying Prince Augustus Frederick – the sixth son of George III – in two secret ceremonies in Rome and in London in 1793. Augustus is thought to have been the prime instigator of these marriages but they were judged illegal under The Royal Marriages Act because he had not secured permission from his father, the king. They had two children together, a boy, Frederick Augustus in 1794 and a girl, Augusta Emma in 1801. In the same year as Emma’s birth they parted: Prince Augustus was awarded the title of Duke of Sussex and as part of his new parliamentary allowance a financial settlement was made for Lady Augusta. To provide some semblance of sanctuary she bought a mill house on the East Cliff of Ramsgate and after a series of purchases of adjoining land from 1807 created the Mount Albion estate with an enlarged house surrounded by 16 acres of plantations and shrubbery extending to the cliffs. Having a property in Ramsgate suited Lady Augusta as she was a firm believer in the health-giving properties of sea bathing and it provided close proximity to her parents, The Earl and Countess of Dunmore, in Southwood House near St Laurence Church. Lady Augusta died in 1830 and Ramsgate mourned the death of one that many continued to call ‘the Duchess’. Her daughter, Emma, took over the role of managing and gradually disposing of the Mount Albion estate. In 1844 she presented a plot of land for the building of the Church of the Holy Trinity. A year later she married Sir Thomas Wilde who became Lord Chancellor with the title of Baron Truro in 1850. Her brother Augustus preferred to rent rooms at 17 Wellington Crescent when he was in Ramsgate and although less involved in the estate he commissioned Edward Haynes, a Ramsgate builder to build a Gothic mausoleum in the form of a Greek cross ‘to receive the mortal remains of his venerated mother’ in St Laurence churchyard. The D’Este mausoleum can still be visited though now in a rather distressed state. Lady Augusta and her family remain commemorated in many sites across Ramsgate from Augusta Road and Steps to D’Este Road, Truro Road, Sussex Street and the now rather down-at-heel Mount Albion House in Victoria Road.
Sources: (1) ‘Forbidden Wife – The Life and Trials of Lady Augusta Murray’ by Julia Abel Smith (2020) (2) ‘Mount Albion House, Ramsgate’: One of the Occasional Ramsgate Writings by Donald G Long and published by Michaels Bookshop
22 Slavery
Courtiers of Queen Elizabeth I are said to have blackened their teeth when they could not afford the amounts of enormously expensive sugar that their Queen consumed and that had ruined her teeth. From that time British consumption and our dependence on sugar increased. Even today the origins of much of Britain’s wealth can be traced to sugar plantations that were serviced by cross-Atlantic slave trade. Slavery is of course much older. The Bible has numerous references to slaves and their treatment. Babylon, Egypt, Greece and Rome all enslaved conquered peoples, and in a 6th century Roman slave market Pope Gregory I first saw white, blond slaves. Told they were Angles from England, he reportedly said, “Not Angles but Angels.” The conversion of the English resulted but the Domesday Book records how many slaves still belonged to each Church in pre-conquest Thanet. Lifetimes of bonded labour, very like that of mediaeval villains, or serfs, are still endured across the world. Britain’s Industrial Revolution enslaved millions in mass production with poor pay and conditions that allowed little chance of escape. Sir William Curtis had deep awareness of sugar, slavery and finance. The economy depended on trading in sugar and that required control of Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. The Royal Navy could dominate them largely because crews lived on Curtis’s biscuits that were packed in air tight tins and kept free of rot and weevils. British ships could remain at sea for weeks longer than their enemies. This made a young baker with Quaker roots a millionaire. As Lord Mayor of London and MP for the City of London with his own bank and interests in the Bank of England, Curtis opposed slavery and the dispatch of female and male convicts from Britain to plantations. He saw transportation to the colonies as a humane alternative to death or enslavement. William Curtis knew the working classes in Nottingham and Wapping. He opposed Wilberforce who was against any improvement of conditions for the British working classes and supported the Peterloo Massacre and subsequent suppression. Wilberforce had been in Paris during the French revolution, as a whole class was being guillotined, and opposed any hint of revolution. Curtis who was the only director of the West Indian and London Docks, was also Chairman of Ramsgate Harbour with its 45 acres of water compared to Liverpool’s 28 acres. While almost 14 foot high walls surrounded the London docks, Ramsgate was open in every sense. As Chairman of Ramsgate Harbour and a leading citizen he made it a place of refuge and relief from misery. Under his influence the town allowed not just access to the harbour, but accommodated dissenting churches, Catholics and Jews, schools, and refugees.
23 Why Ramsgate?
The decision in parliament to build the harbour at Ramsgate was one of the most democratic and widely researched in history. The City of London, The East India Company and nearly 800 merchants representing ports as distant as Scarborough and Falmouth, chose Ramsgate rather than Sandwich. The details are related in Archaeologica Cantania, Vol 66, 1953. The petition referred to is in the possession of the British Library. The work was financed by a loan of fifty thousand pounds authorised by an Act of Parliament. From the Thanet Seaports 1650-1750 … although the plan by Sandwich was approved by a Commons committee in 1745, the ultimate decision in 1749 was in favour of Ramsgate. In an undated petition, the City of London, the East India Company and recommended Ramsgate as the more suitable site. Ramsgate had several advantages over Sandwich. It lay on a cleaner shore, for beach material did not normally drift north of the Stour; the chalk rock of Thanet provided a firm foundation for the piers and an easily available building material, both of which were lacking at Sandwich; ships could leave Ramsgate Harbour in an east wind, which was not possible at the rival site; the tidal currents ran directly into the harbour mouth, instead of across it, thereby cleansing the harbour of silt and facilitating the entry and departure of ships; there would be no expense of digging, and experiments had proved that the chalk would not damage a round- bottomed ship settling upon it. These were the circumstances which determined that of all the places within the old limits of the port of Sandwich, only Ramsgate should still deserve the name of port. Archaeologica Cantania, Vol 66, 1953
Piracy off Ramsgate
When Elizabeth I sent a christening gift to the future king of France it was captured by pirates off Sandwich. While the loss of a 326oz gold font was resented, piracy was not a new problem. Elizabeth’s grandfather Henry VII had dispatched two knights to Ramsgate, Thomas and Edward Howard, after a Scottish pirate Sir Andrew Barton, claiming to act for James IV of Scotland, had pillaged Portuguese vessels of silk, spice and plate of silver and gold. Sea-based piracy and insurrection had been rife since the Romans departed, leaving forts and ships to defend what they called the Saxon Shore against raiders. The Saxon Shore evolved into the Cinque Ports. The freedoms they had from the time of William the Conqueror, their ‘liberties’ and ‘quittances, were confirmed by Edward the First at Westminster on 17 June 1278. In return for providing ‘Ship Service to the English Crown’, they were not held to account by any court in the land save the court of the Cinque Ports at Shepway by Folkestone. Given these rights - to avoid tax and duty, enforce local laws and payment and to be tried only by one local court - an impression of local lawlessness, especially at sea was real. Thanet became an area from where a peasants revolt had grown, where dissenters, religious minorities, free- thinkers and smugglers thrived, and where the Downs could be used to circumvent Acts of Parliament that required the payment of export duty or banned imports of foodstuffs or clothing, printed cottons and countless other goods.
24 Sea Views
If you consult Admiralty Tidal charts there is a point off Ramsgate where an inshore current running north beside the coast pauses about four hours after high water, and an apparent calm spreads across the English Channel before the North Sea eventually pushes it back to flow south west only one hour later. Cross currents can be seen on almost every tide from the cliffs above the harbour. While gales force winds drive down the channel around 9am over Easter, an apparent calm over Pegwell Bay marked the tidal flow in action as in moved into the Downs: that calm became a maelstrom in 1703 as the illustration on the front cover depicts. Were earthquake, storm and tides insufficient to excite wonder, the sea before Ramsgate is also a location for the recurrent phenomenon known as Fata Morgana. These mirages occur when refracted light passes through onshore mist and or cloud causing boats to appear to float above the sea and were described in the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1789. Sitting on a bench at Ramsgate with a wide view across the Kentish Downs and the sea, the correspondent found the French coast ‘very plain to be seen’, and in the air above it, ‘exactly the same coast, with white cliffs and land above it, reflected as in a mirror but in a fainter degree, and on the summit of the reflection, a faint resemblance of towers, &c.’. Amazed and delighted, he gazed at the sight before him: after some time the reflected cliffs disappeared, and another object presented itself; the small towers … ‘assumed a magnified and magnificent height above the land, insomuch that I could scarcely believe but that my eyes deceived me, so much was I lost in surprise and admiration.’ Schemes and future ideas are often dismissed as smoke or mirrors, but Ramsgate really has established mirages to be enjoyed, with a little patience, from the cliffs or harbour.
25 Memories
I have lived in Australia since 1952. It was to be but one stop on my working holiday around the world, but fate decreed otherwise! I got married! I have made several trips back to Ramsgate during the intervening years, the last being in 2010, but at almost 95, I know there will be no more visits. I have lots of memories of pre-war Ramsgate and through the war-years when the harbour was full of Motor Torpedo Boats which created most dreadful noise when they set off to patrol the channel. On a happier note I remember visits to the Palace theatre, sadly no more, where one was cheered by watching acts by some of England’s top comedians, dancers and singers. Best wishes for all success for The Ramsgate Society. From Hazel Furness.
Adelaide Gardens at War
In1939/1940, my father, Pastor, Frederick Webster, ran the Albert Street Mission Hall where he had a small glass- fronted book case made to hold a copy of the Holy Bible. Every week he displayed a portion of scripture to be read by anyone passing. In the early 1940s Adelaide Gardens was bombed. Residents came out from their homes to see if ‘their’ Bible had been damaged. To their joy, it was safe and sound but the Mission Hall windows and their frames were shattered. Some church members believed God had protected His Word but Pastor Webster had another view, “The Church will have all its windows and frames replaced by the War Damage Commission. Thanks be to God! David Webster aged 92 years, now resident in Bristol.
Leonard George Gray
Len was rewriting his piece for a long time. It was intended for this 200th edition and we agreed it should go in. He passed away on Sunday 23rd August 2020 aged 93 years. We offer our condolences to his sons Kenneth and Colin, to his family and friends. Leonard George Gray was a long-standing member of the Society, contributor to this magazine, and a well-known authority on mills and milling. Len was in fact also writing and revising his memories of working in mills in Ramsgate, Kent and Essex right up to his death. He had made the wooden spouts for the flour and grain shoots at Sarre by hand and was described by Mr Malcolm Hobbs, the 90-year old restorer of Sarre Mill, as a “marvel, who knew the business of milling inside out”. Len’s career spanned industrial changes from wood and wind, to coal and steam, oil and electricity - which had miraculously returned to wind production offshore before he died. His real genius lay in recording and observing details in human relationships, engineering, and changes in Ramsgate, its architecture and in nature. His story is typical of the determination he would show in all his endeavours: Evacuated in 1939 to Stafford aged 12, Len was robbed and beaten, deprived of mail and contact. He set out to walk back to Ramsgate. Going north was his first error but after another beating, on his second attempt, a friendly police force somehow obtained compassionate leave for his father to ensure Len’s safe return to Ramsgate. He knew and loved the Town and Harbour in detail that most folk just do not see.
26 Circumstances beyond its control prevent the Society welcoming new members and Patron: Sir Terry Farrell saying farewell to former ones. President: Clive Aslet Vice Presidents: George Arnheim Solutions are being investigated Davena Green but unhappily they cannot Chairman: John Walker be implemented immediately. Vice Chairman: Richard Oades Secretary: Graham Woolnough Treasurer: Neville Redvers-Mutton Communications: Terry Prue Membership: Beverley Perkins Committee: Mike Ashley Mehir Basit Richard Oades Sue Gyde Irene Seijo
Contacts Brian Daubney, The Editor, 12 West Cliff Road CT11 9JW [email protected] If you would prefer to receive the magazine by email, please let us know
Acknowledgements: Subscriptions Michaels Book Shop Subscriptions fell due on April 1 2021 Wiki, Wikipaedia, Kent and Thanet on Line, KCC, TDC, Single £15.00 RTC, HE & HAZ Double £20.00 Jared James Photography Sally and Robert Holden Corporate £50.00 Nick Dermott Richard Styles: Town Clerk Ramsgate Society Members, Chairman and Presidents, IOTAS, KAS, CITIZAN, KWT, U3A, Admiralty Tidal Charts Crown Copyright Art collections Michael Blaker, Denys Le Fevre, The Ramsgate Society Items from Personal and Private Archives Is a registered Charity number 1138809 Should copyright have inadvertently been infringed The Society is a Founder Member of Civic Voice It will be corrected and fully acknowledged Affiliated to the Kent Federation of Amenity Groups Dawesdaubney photography and editorial. and to the Kent History Federation
27 Whitehall November 27th 1821 Sir, I am commanded by the King to signify to you His Majesty’s Pleasure, that in con- sideration of the great loyalty so eminently displayed by the inhabitants of Ramsgate when His Majesty lately embarked and disembarked at that Port the Harbour of Ramsgate be henceforth denominated a Royal Harbour and that the Royal Standard should be hoisted there on the day appointed for the Celebration of His Majesty’s Birthday and on the Anniversary of His Majesty’s accession and Coronation.
The Ramsgate Society Registered Charity no. 1138809 To protect and promote the Heritage of Ramsgate