Channel Shore Read online

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  Dover cliffs

  The path to Dover passes South Foreland lighthouse on the seaward side. The lighthouse’s days of guiding mariners through the Strait and away from the ships’ graveyard of the Goodwin Sands are long gone. It is now heritage, and very neat and white and National Trust. A little way on, the bastions of Dover Castle showed above the skyline. I met a couple from Folkestone who said they often came to walk this way. ‘It’s the sense of freedom you get up here on the cliffs,’ the wife said. ‘And of being so close to France and Paris,’ he added.

  He was right. The French coast is as close here as it gets, although I never saw it.

  Dover port

  The cliffs extend to the eastern limit of the port, so that Dover and its main business are revealed suddenly and completely. Announcements of the ferry departure and arrival times in French and English float melodiously above the ceaseless dissonant grinding and hissing of gears and brakes and roaring of diesel engines as the mighty movers of goods manoeuvre themselves around the approaches to the ferries. The roads in and out, the A2 and the A20, make no concessions to gracious living. Their function is to shift heavy traffic as quickly as possible, and the buildings near them shake and reverberate with the sound and fury of forty-ton loads.

  As the main Channel port, Dover does not need another role. During the nineteenth century it had pretensions to become a resort, and built an array of gleaming hotels and terraces and crescents of stuccoed mansions with balconies framed by ornate ironwork. Dickens stayed in a house in Camden Crescent, just back from the seafront, for three months in 1852 to work on Bleak House. He found Dover ‘not quite to my taste, being too bandy (I mean too musical, no reference to its legs) and infinitely too genteel . . . but the sea is very fine and the walks very remarkable.’

  Victorian Dover was badly knocked about by German bombs and shells between 1940 and 1944. The work of further wrecking the town has been actively pursued by planners and developers ever since. In the 1950s the prime position on the seafront was filled by a huge slab of flats known as the Gateway. At the time it was considered rather daring and contemporary – Pevsner talked of it presenting ‘a bold face to the sea’ – but the passing of time has not been kind to it and the sheer size of the dingy brown façade with its clutter of balconies overwhelms everything around.

  Schemes to clear up the muddle of the town centre have come and gone. Some did not get beyond the drawing board. Others – such as the one involving the building of the famously hideous and now derelict Burlington House office block in the 1960s – were partially realised, then abandoned once their awfulness became apparent. In the 1990s the council proudly opened an audio-visual extravaganza called the White Cliffs Experience to show that Dover could attract more than truckers and passing continental holidaymakers. It flopped and was turned into the Dover Discovery Centre, which squats unappealingly but at least usefully beside the London road.

  Wholesale redevelopment is now promised again, although seasoned observers and cynics are not holding their breath. Meanwhile a grandiose plan for the western fringes of the town, to include 500 houses, a ‘retirement village’, a conference hall and the inevitable heritage centre, has been waved through by the government despite howls of outrage from conservation bodies including the National Trust and Natural England. The council leader wittered something about the transformation of fields into a housing estate ‘unlocking the economic potential of our heritage assets’, words which should strike a chill into Dovorian hearts.

  Looking out from a plinth in front of the Gateway flats is a bust of the man who first swam the narrow divide with France. Matthew Webb, his body daubed with porpoise fat, reached Calais on 25 August 1875 to be welcomed with a rendition of ‘Rule Britannia’ from the crew of the Royal Mail’s packet service, which happened to be leaving harbour at the same time. He had been in the water for almost twenty-two hours and because of the tides and currents had covered thirty-nine miles, almost twice the actual distance. In the process Webb became a national hero and instituted a classic of endurance that has drawn legions of swimmers from all over the world ever since.

  Poor Webb! He was a hero, but also an early victim of what we now know as the cult of celebrity. In the first few months after his conquest of the Channel a testimonial fund raised £2500 for him, and he toured the country to describe his exploits in his rolling Shropshire accent. But, as the invitations dried up and the money began to run out, he realised that he was defined by his swim and that alone, so swim he must. He embarked upon a programme of races and endurance challenges which put his physique under severe strain. After one challenge he coughed blood, and his brother, a doctor, warned him that he was asking too much of his body. Webb’s response was to announce that he would swim the rapids and whirlpools below Niagara Falls. A friend told him he would not come back alive. ‘Don’t care,’ Webb replied. ‘I want money and I must have it.’

  He lasted nine minutes before being dragged down for the last time. His shattered body, identified by a blue anchor tattooed on his right arm, was recovered eight miles downstream. He had a gash to the top of his head that had penetrated to his brain.

  It is no coincidence that of the more than 1300 swimmers from around the world to have crossed the Channel, a bare halfdozen have been French. Their lack of enthusiasm for following in Webb’s powerful breast strokes is symptomatic of a wider indifference. To us it is the English Channel, to them it is merely La Manche, The Sleeve. French writers have hardly bothered with it as an entity. The nineteenth-century historian Jules Michelet – a fierce critic of all things Anglo-Saxon – said he was saddened that ‘this expanse of freedom’ should belong to another nation, but he did not dispute the claim.

  This French complaisance is understandable. England may be the ancient enemy, but France’s borders are open to armies and influences from all directions. Historically the first duty of England’s rulers and the first priority of England’s security strategy has been to keep watch and hold sway over the Channel, whereas France’s enemies have come from every point of the compass.

  Geological accident also contributed significantly to England’s primacy. The Pleistocene upheaval that separated Britain from continental Europe left the southern coast of England with a succession of deeply indented inlets and flooded estuaries to serve as anchorages for warships. In contrast the French Channel coast had no deep-water sanctuaries from the storms and the fierce currents that swirled around the offshore reefs. During the Napoleonic Wars Britain had Portsmouth and Falmouth from which to launch and supply its navy. The French had only Brest, outside the Channel and comparatively simple to blockade.

  Most of the decisive events in our external history have involved the Channel in one key way or another. Julius Caesar crossed it to threaten invasion, and the army of Claudius to effect it. The monk Augustine came through the Strait of Dover to bring Christianity to Kent. Duke William of Normandy sailed from Barfleur in the late summer of 1066 to make landing near Hastings. Edward III, his son the Black Prince and Henry V all led their armies the other way en route to their great victories at Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt. The Armada sailed up the Channel in 1588, the first act in England’s salvation and Spain’s catastrophe. Charles II arrived in Dover in 1660 to claim his crown. Twenty-eight years later William of Orange brought his fleet into Brixham in Devon to depose James II and ensure England remained Protestant. In 1805, with his armies massed at Boulogne, Napoleon ordered Admiral Villeneuve to leave Cádiz to make the Channel safe for the invasion – Villeneuve got as far as Trafalgar. In 1940 Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to clear the skies over the Channel and bomb the Channel ports in preparation for Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of Britain. Four years later those Channel ports dispatched the D-Day invasion forces to liberate Europe.

  These crises all contributed to shaping the nation and our awareness of who we are. They have also cemented the place of the Channel in that awareness as both our principal defence aga
inst our enemies and the visible symbol of our separateness from Europe. The novelist William Golding detected what he called ‘a hard core of reserve’ in our attitude to crossing that divide. ‘The waters of the Channel have run for too many years in our blood,’ he wrote.

  But our apprehension is subtly various. Throughout our history the Channel has been both bulwark and transport route. When the occasion has demanded, we have generally been able to turn it into a formidable defence. Yet our rulers and their armies and navies have come and gone across it, as have our traders. For the great majority of the past two thousand years the Channel has been far more important as our connection with mainland Europe, enabling us to do business, conduct diplomacy, export and absorb cultural and philosophical influences.

  Our conception of the Channel is not one thing or the other, but a composite derived from multiple roles. The defence role is now defunct – no invader need ever cross the Channel again. Nevertheless, and despite the Tunnel, it continues to define and stand for our detachment from our neighbours. Travelling overland in mainland Europe, it is now extremely easy to overlook borders. It is not so easy to miss Portsmouth Harbour or the Dover cliffs.

  2

  A MERE DITCH

  Dover Castle

  Dover is flanked by two mighty defence installations, neither of which has ever played any useful active role in defending the realm. To the east is Dover Castle, the biggest in the country, which has stood for 800 years. Facing it across the town is the Western Heights, a labyrinth of redoubts, gun emplacements,underground shafts and chambers and magazines excavated and constructed to resist Bonaparte’s invasion.

  In days long past, poor people – the lighter the better – descended the cliffs below Dover Castle to collect the fleshy green leaves of rock samphire. Pickled, it was highly regarded in a salad; the seventeenth-century diarist John Evelyn recommended soaking the leaves in brine before bottling – ‘then it will keep very green’ he wrote.

  Rock samphire, Crithmum maritimum, grows in the fissures of chalk cliffs. It should not be confused with sea or marsh samphire, which belongs to a wholly different family of plants and is used these days as a fancy accompaniment to fish. Shakespeare was familiar with the hazardous business of collecting it; a late scene in King Lear is set in ‘the country near Dover’ in which Edgar leads the blinded Gloucester close to the cliff edge where ‘halfway down / hangs one that gathers samphire – dreadful trade!’

  The dreadful trade died out in the nineteenth century. But a ghostly echo has been deployed for heritage purposes at Samphire Hoe, a country park created halfway between Dover and Folkestone from the chalky earth excavated by the Channel tunnellers. I cycled down to it quite by accident, thinking I was on the path to Folkestone. It has all the usual features – nature trail, cycleway, sea-wall path, hides for looking at birds, wheelchair ramps, visitor centre, café – and a squad of well-intentioned volunteers ready to steer you in the direction of the nesting sites of stonechats or the haunts of peregrine falcons or the meadowland where the shy spider orchid raises its curiously shaped brown head. I suspect that, were you to attempt to climb in search of samphire with a knife in your hand, you would be detained and reminded that conservation rather than consumption is the current orthodoxy.

  I had a rest on a seat outside Folkestone’s parish church, dedicated to St Mary and St Eanswythe, a virtuous Kentish nun. I intended, once I got my strength back, to go inside and inspect the wealth of memorials. There is one to Folkestone’s most famous son, William Harvey, who first described the circulation of blood. I liked the sound of another, by the Reverend John Langhorne in memory of his brother, with these affecting lines: ‘If life has taught me aught that asks a sigh / ’tis but like thee to live, like thee to die.’

  However, the door was locked and there was nothing to say where a key might be obtained. There was a notice announcing that the 8 a.m. Holy Communion had been ‘discontinued until further notice’. The roof of the aisle was hidden by scaffolding and sheets of plastic, behind which a pair of workmen applied hammers and nails. Two cider drunks were showering each other with abuse and spittle in one part of the churchyard. Multiple deposits of dog shit compounded the general air of abandonment.

  A tour of Folkestone’s much-publicised Creative Quarter did little to lift the spirits. The transformation of the heart of old Folkestone into an enclave of bright, trendy boutiques and bars and galleries began a decade ago, and has often been held up as a shining example of how small-scale, grass-roots initiatives can spark a renewal of commercially moribund seaside communities. It was applauded and rightly so, but the limitations of the model were plain to see, with at least a quarter of the shops empty or about to be empty, and customers sparsely distributed along the cobbled streets.

  Folkestone Harbour

  In September 2000 Folkestone ceased to be a cross-Channel port. The opening of the Tunnel and the concentration of ferry services on Dover dealt the town a blow from which it has not yet recovered. The impact is most evident in the wasteland that has spread to the west of the old terminal. This stretch of seafront, in front of the vast Grand Burstin Hotel, used to be filled by the garish and cheerful Rotunda fun park, complete with boating pool, rollercoaster, dodgems, amusement park and Castle Dracula – all now swept away as if they had never been. The hotel is left, with its 481 en-suite bedrooms and an impressive collection of scathing TripAdvisor comments. Across the road are derelict buildings, a skatepark rich in graffiti and wide, empty spaces of cracked concrete, with the grey shingle, the black breakwaters and the grey sea beyond.

  The chant from those who care about Folkestone is regeneration. There is a plan, naturally. There is always a plan, sometimes even a Masterplan. Norman Foster presented a Masterplan for Folkestone’s decayed seafront some years ago. It envisaged a marina, a university campus, 1400 homes, a revived ferry connection with France, even a lighthouse, plus the usual hotels/restaurants/leisure-and-conference facilities. It perished; a victim of the recession, it was said.

  It has been replaced by another plan, not a Masterplan this time, the work of Sir Terry Farrell. His vision concentrates on housing – beach houses nearest the sea, so-called ‘dune’ houses behind, mews houses behind them, town houses at the back, flats to one side – with the retail and visitor attraction stuff woven in and around. The local MP, Damian Collins, called it ‘very exciting’, adding perceptively, ‘Rome was not built in a day and nor will this be.’

  The spectacle of seaside towns grappling with the future tends to be a discomfiting one. The sequence is familiar: a decline in tourist trade matched by a decline in other local employment; mounting social problems of health, crime and deprivation; neglect of long-standing and well-loved buildings and landmarks in favour of rubbishy hotels and gimcrack leisure centres; the development of hideous and badly constructed shopping malls. The common feature is a childish faith in ‘the big project’, the Masterplan, a vast and colossally expensive vision of destruction and rebuilding offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis by a shadowy alliance of investors with an eye on congratulatory media coverage and a heady rate of return.

  It was not always thus. In 1920 a government inspector was sent to Folkestone to conduct a public inquiry into the council’s proposal to borrow £10,000 to finance a facelift for its prime seafront asset, the clifftop park known as The Leas. The plan included building a zigzag path down to the beach, the replacement of seats, strengthening the cliff face and planting many shrubs and plants. The Mayor told the gathering that failure to act would enable other resorts to get ahead of Folkestone. But there were dissenting voices. A clergyman said the shrubs would not survive the gales. A Captain Wilson said that he spoke as an Irishman whose property in Ireland had gone to pieces, and now his rates were to be used to pay for fanciful and unnecessary extravagances.

  The inspector approved the plan, and although the cost rose to £13,000, there were few in Folkestone who dared complain when, seven years later, George V’s third son,
Prince Henry, opened the majestic Leas Cliff Hall. There was immense civic pride, and unanimous agreement with the words delivered by the Prince: ‘Municipal spirit and local patriotism are praiseworthy and beneficent things when they are directed to the care of a town which seems to be the model and example of what a seaside town should be.’

  The doyen of seaside historians, Professor John Walton, has provided a characteristically astute analysis of what has gone wrong in a handbook called Coastal Regeneration in English Resorts. Walton points out that the period between 1870 and 1939 saw local municipal government at its strongest and most self-confident, nourishing proud traditions of public service and local expertise. The role of councils was well-understood: to promote a vigorous, locally owned and run private sector, backed by first-rate public services.

  The rot set in post-war, with the pursuit by successive national governments of a campaign to erode local independence and extend and strengthen central control. Walton accepts that this process cannot be reversed. But he sees at least a partial reassertion of local autonomy and civic pride as the key to success in bringing downtrodden seaside towns back to life. However, local leaders need to learn some difficult lessons. Regeneration should not mean bulldozing what is left from the past to replace it with something different, but reviving and revitalising what Walton calls ‘identities’, which are treasured and recognised and capable of creating employment.

  Walton emphasises a truth that should be obvious, but has often been lost in the fog of panic and unreal expectation: that there is no point in losing genuinely distinctive and notable buildings if you have nothing better to put in their place. Local authority leaders need to resist the lure of the big project, sold to them with the promise of solving all problems at a stroke. At the same time they need to rid themselves of the desire to leave some kind of mark on the communities they serve, and the hunger for favourable media coverage. They should look after existing residents and regular visitors, including those of pensionable age often overlooked in the past but now an increasingly important economic and social force, and give them priority over the pursuit of seductive but often imaginary new markets.