"Dreamland welcomes you"

An ironic epitaph. This is the slogan daubed on the side of the Dreamland casino which one observes as the train crunches into Margate station. Margate undoubtedly has a Morphean association, though it is not of the sort that its civic planners would aspire to. If ever there was, as perhaps exists between the pages of an obscure work of fiction, a realm to which people's dreams come to die, then Margate is that realm. One would not be perturbed to round a corner and confront a wraith of hope, or to find upon the beaches the wrecked carcasses of dreams, split asunder, reduced to skeletons that hint at untold happiness, now past. The entire town has a funereal air, an odourless stench of entropy and nihility. It is an odd place, a mixed up place that has forgotten what it was
or why it came to be, and is now stumbling on with no purpose or direction. How I sympathise. The architecture feels akin to Herculaneum or some such place, a preserved window on the past, yet one in which the cobwebs that have entombed it have also ground it down too. The Victorian façades of buildings crumble and warp, inter-spliced with poor repair jobs; missing sections of ornate railings replaced with unpainted bare steel. Pure utility, zero aesthetic. The denizens of this forgotten ring of Hell match their abodes. Slovenly, unkempt and unprepossessing. It is a dire place from which I was glad to escape.

As one leaves Margate and drifts seamlessly into Cliftonville the change is wonderful. Looking back, the curve of the bay hides Margate entirely, and affords a view the length of the north Kent coast. On the edge of vision one can just make out the jutting spur of land atop which sit the unmistakable ruins of Reculver abbey.

The path leads down onto the sands, still barely trodden at this hour. The tide is out and so its roar is more of a mewl, though welcome all the same, especially in contrast to the tedium of passing traffic. A few people are walking dogs, relatives or young children. Delete as applicable. The cliffs are of the same chalk as at Dover though less impressive at only a hundred feet or so, and dirtier. The striations give them a cracked countenance, which in turn causes them to resemble a colossal wall, built of innumerable blocks of this white stone, haphazard in shape and size, yet all fitting perfectly together.

At last, one reaches the very end of it all, the corner of the north east Kent coast, the point at which it sharply veers away. As if to mark this transition nature has provide a gateway through which the new aspect is framed in purulent hues. The wind here has ebbed, the sands are crisper, the waves lap playfully close by. It is a chocolate box scene, and one scans the horizon for the characters from the Famous Five bounding down to the waters edge, relishing the innocence of the place. A castle, someone's expensive folly, sits above the bay, semi lost in the greenery, and looking a little less than imposing, rather like the money ran out after the first two floors were built; it is brown and squat.

Having ascended the cliff once more and passed by said folly, the road leads inland a little and one could be mistaken for thinking one was now in France. The countryside takes on a Gallic air, completely bare, with fields of brassicas stretching in all directions. The ground undulates in mimicry of the waves below the cliffs' edge, and astride this scene is the North Foreland Lighthouse.

From herein the land drops away into Broadstairs, living proof that seaside towns do not need to be merely the preserve of chav scum and old people, who like seagulls flying out to sea, seem drawn to dilapidated coastal retreats when they sense their imminent death. Broadstairs' claim to fame is probably Bleak House, home to Dickens for a while. It has been perhaps a year and a half since last I was here and it seemed curious to be back, reflecting on all that has changed for better, and worse, in that time.

All of the east Kent coast towns seem the same - petite Walmer, bucket 'n' spade Deal, Ramsgate and Broadstairs. Each seems equidistant from the other, and they merge together in a regular tapestry of town, grassy cliff-top, town...This is not to be put down though, the views are fantastic, a million miles of pure blue sky, mirrored, or maybe mirroring, a million miles of sea, 'til the pair merge at the edge of sight.

Ramsgate is the largest of the towns on this coast. It has a bustling harbour and some particularly grand architecture, the highpoint of which is the great Victorian engineering project which encased the cliff side in brick and provided a safe and secure roadway down to the bay. It is somewhat humbling that this great work, finished I believe in 1895, still holds fast - worn now and not that strength it was in youth, but still firm against a century of swell tides and tempests. Straying into the myriad of streets behind this front work the illusion of grandeur is lost. Ramsgate proper is a mess of betting shops, charity stores and cut price generic high street shops which gradually peter out into grotty pubs and ghastly homes.

The pathway follows the now regular course out the south side of the town, but this time the next habitation is farther. In truth the next town would be Deal but I had no intention of straying that far south. Rather, my aim was Sandwich, which once I think probably was on the coast, but silt, and, as all geography students will surely recall, owing to long-shore drift, it now sits the better part of a mile inland. Here it was that Paine met Jefferson and the pair eventually sailed to the New World. The rest as they say is very much history.

I reached Sandwich much after Dark had cast her veil wide about, and so did not get to see in detail the town's quaint streets and narrow roads; though this was perhaps a mercy as I had no wish to stir further than was unavoidable my memories of my last visit here. Walking past places I had known in brighter days, now dimmed, was a strange feeling, as though all the colour and warmth of life had been sucked out of them, and left behind these darkling husks of the places so vivid in my memory.

My expedition came to its end on Sandwich station, found after just a little wandering about ever so slightly lost in the dark...

by E. Hallam

Copyright February 2006