Poole to Dymchurch (via Dungeness, of course)

Hayling Island

A slight detour here on the way to the start point for my long ride: St Mary's church in the village of Hayling on Hayling Island.  It's a pretty little church, snuggled up against a humungous yew tree.

Humungous trunk, with litter bin.

I wanted to pop my head in because I caught a news item last year about the Landing Craft Association - http://www.lstlandingcraftassoc.org/ - laying up their colours there.  There's not many of them left now, and they wanted to wind up the organisation while there was still a few of them that could walk and carry the colours to their resting place.


Some people said that I was 'brave,' going through my treatment last year.  I know they mean well, but really there is nothing brave about sitting back and getting some medical treatment - especially given the alternative.  But driving a cockle-shell of a landing craft up to a beach in the teeth of machine gun fire and heavy shelling, now that's brave.  


So I called in to take a picture of the colours and bow my head for a moment in recognition of some real heroes.

The colours of the Landing Craft Association, obligingly held out for me by a parishioner of St Mary's.

When I arrived, there was a bit of a sing-song going on.  Not wanting - indeed not being able - to join in, I had a quick walk around the village until they finished.  Hayling is not your usual South coast bungalopolis, stuffed full of grave-dodgers.  It is a thriving little place, but there is definitely more than the average percentage of older residents.  They are all catered for by St Mary's and three other churches and churchalikes within walking distance, but it is to St Mary's that they all come in the end, one way of another.

If you spell it with any less than three 'd's when I pop my clogs, I'm coming back to haunt you.  It's 'grandfather,' not 'granfather,' right?  So it's also 'granddad,' not 'grandad.'

Wilmington (and Sussex in general)

Now, the plan is to call at places that don't usually get visited, but Wilmington gets its fair share of tourists, especially of the rambling persuasion, coming to take a look at the famous 'Long Man' carved on a hillside overlooking the village.  But I've got a bit of a thing for these signs of our ancient past, so I couldn't resist calling in.  I wanted to see how the Long Man stacks up against the Cerne Abbas Giant down my way.  

On the whole, I thought he lacked a certain something by comparison.  He was somehow ... less ... erect, perhaps.  Maybe that's why he needs to lean on those two sticks.

The landscape the Long Man is carved into is part of the rolling chalk land of Sussex.  It's all very pretty, though I can't help feeling when travelling through that it's all a bit too well-healed for plebs like me to feel comfortable in.  I was therefore delighted to come across this delightfully, uncharacteristically delapidated loo in Wilmington.

Hastings was also a pleasant relief from the general Sussex primness.  It's gloriously tacky, complete with defaced public monuments and shabby amusement arcades.  Must come here again!


Up a hill out of Hastings and there was the Romney Marsh spread out below; all very obviously a silted-up estuary from this perspective.  But what a fascinating area it turned out to be.  I was expecting something pretty flat and desolate, but in fact it is full of interesting stuff to stop and goggle at.  It would merit a longer trip.

Lydd

This is the first town inland from Dungeness Point, but I stopped there first.  Researching the place before I set off, I learned that it is a ‘limb’ (which I think means a sort of 'associate member') of the ‘cinque ports.’  I'd always wondered what the 'cinque ports' were.  I'd heard the phrase and thought, "must look that up some time; sounds interesting" but never got around to it.  It's pronounced 'sink' so I wondered if it was something to do with the fact that they are on marshy ground!  Then I figured that it's actually 'cinque' so perhaps its a bit Norman; more historical than geological.  But it'd still never been important enough whenever I'd been near any suitable source of information.  Well, now I know.  I'm not sure it's worth it though, so I won't recap what I read on Wikipedia.  Sometimes it's nice to have a few 'must find out about that someday' thoughts rattling around one's head and I wouldn't want to spoil that for anybody else.


Anyway, the town museum is housed in the old fire station and I just got there in time for a quick look.  It was overseen by a couple of volunteer local history buffs who were very helpful and informative.  Flatteringly, they were as fascinated by me and my current undertaking as I was by them and their museum.  

They let me take a picture of the old fire engine and told me fascinating snippets of local history and historical finds.  They also showed my the remnants of a first world war man-lifting kite that the Royal Artillery had experimented with in the area.  (Later I saw some of the spiritual descendants of those kites - surf kites - on the sea front; around 80 of them spread out along the bay.)

My research - not to mention road signs - told me that there was an airport somewhere nearby, but the fen-like landscape doesn't lend itself to spotting distant objects at ground level.  I did notice a fairly diminutive passenger aircraft clearly on its final approach. 'Lyddair' was proudly emblazoned along the sides.

Dungeness

Having checked out Lydd, I doubled back the few miles across the levels to take a proper look at Dungeness.  My pre-trip research found a note from one commentator to the effect that there was ‘nothing to see here.’  A more learned website told me that it was a ‘cuspate foreland,’ a growing shingle peninsula - which is very obvious when you see where the lighthouses are in relation to the water nowadays.

The concrete structure in the foreground with the helter skelter arrangement at its 

base is the modern lighthouse, about three hundred meters from the sea.  The older lighthouse is in the background, just in front of the nuclear power station.


I observed to the guys in the Lydd museum that if we just sit back and let nature do its thing for a few years more we won't need ferries or tunnels to get to France; we will just be able to drive across the shingle.  Unlike Chesil Beach down my way, there's no pesky island in the way; the next stop is Europe.  Sadly, they told me, it wouldn't work.  The shingle is mobile; one moment it's on one side of the Point, the next it's on the other.  Worse, they tell me that plans are afoot to drag all the shingle into a big bank on one side of the Point to protect the power station from a possible tsunami getting funneled up the English Channel.


As some readers will know, I’m from Norfolk originally, and we go large on 'flatness' there.  So I was expecting to find the Point all majestic desolation; somewhere poets could come to sit listening to the waves on the gravel and the wind cutting across the levels.  What I found, though, was a thriving, vital sort of place.  It starts off with a long, long road from New Romney with neat, regularly-spaced bungalow, all clearly showing signs of regularly wiped uPVC fascias and thrice annual coats of paint on the woodwork.  Then as you get closer and closer to the Point, the spacing gets more irregular and the maintenance less rigorous.  By the time I pulled up under the lighthouse, it was distinctly shanty town standard.  

Some were more ramshackle than others.

I imagine these ramshackle huts - the ones that still have roofs, at least - occupied by hermits and bohemian artists.  A Cannery Row for the English middle classes, if you will.  I have no evidence for the hermits - well, I wouldn't, would I; they're hermits - but I did see two 'studios' advertising photographs and featuring artistic arrangements of jetsam by their front doors.

Stating the obvious?

Pan at Dungeness, raring to go.

Dymchurch

By now, time was getting on, so I made my way to Dymchurch and Dr Syn's Bed and Breakfast and Restaurant.  

I'd spotted the name on the web and thought it sounded like the right sort of place for a sinner like me.  Further research revealed that Dr Syn is a figure from a story - and he was indeed a sinner.  It's a heck of a convoluted story, but the local connection is that for a large part of the yarn, Dr Syn is the local vicar in this area by day, but by night, he dons a luminous scarecrow disguise and goes a smuggling. 

It would have been interesting if the landlady had turned out to be Mrs Syn, but in fact her name was Playford.  She was, however, a wicked temptress.  She led me astray and got me to agree to a full English breakfast in the morning.  
She said  "would you like a full English?"  
Resistance was futile.
What's a chap to do, eh?

Two takes on coastal defence?   Gazillions have been spent on this new sea wall at Dymchurch.  Peering over the top on the right is one of two Martello towers in the town.

Now: early night in preparaton for tomorrow's ordeal by bacon before setting off Northwards.