Three miles from New Romney, across the levels, is the remote little town of Lydd, in the midst of Dunge Marsh. Its remoteness rendered Lydd a suitable place for artillery-camps and the surrounding wastes a favourable location for practice with high explosives. It was here, indeed, that “Lyddite” was invented. The town nestles within a group of trees—whether planted for shelter, or just by chance, it would be difficult to say. Its chief glories are the fine old church, well known as the “Cathedral of the Marsh,” and the brewery. In the vast interior of the church lie the old Mayors and jurats of the brave times of yore. In the churchyard one may read the epitaph of

“Lieut. Thos Edgar of the Royal Navy
who departed this life Oct^r 17th 1801
Aged 56 years.
He came into the Navy at 10 Years of age
was in that memorable Engagement
with Adm^l Hawk & sail’d round the World
in company with the unfortunate
Captain Cook of the Resolution
in his last Voyage when he was killed
by the Indians at the Island of O whie
in the South Seas the 14th Feby 1778

Here too, is an epitaph on a smuggler, one George Walker, who was shot in 1819:

The ancient Chamberlain’s accounts of about 1475 show that misdemeanants had the very worst of times at Lydd. First we find it ordered “That anyone found cuttyng or pikeyng purses, or other goods of lytille value, be brought to the high strete and there his ere nayled to a post or cart whele.” Then follows: “Paid for naylyng of Thomas Norys is ere 12d” There was a grim quality about the justice of those times. A knife was handed to the offender, so that he might release himself by cutting off his ear whenever he chose. The term of imprisonment therefore depended entirely upon himself.

The conservative qualities of Lydd may perhaps be judged by the fact that the Mayor, Alderman Edwin Finn, brewer, has been elected to the office thirty-one years; thus far outdistancing the record of FitzAilwyn, Mayor of London twenty-two years.

Lydd is the place whence Dungeness, four and a quarter miles distant, is most readily arrived at. The best-advised explorers go by train. Others, who walk it, generally wish they had not. It is a specious and alluring road, starting fairly enough, and at the end of two miles still fairly easy walking; but thenceforward all road disappears. Even the track vanishes, and the pedestrian plunges wistfully on, through loose shingle, guiding his course by the more seaward of the two lighthouses. Knowing ones walk along the railway line; but that is not an inspiriting exercise.

Dungeness, as described by Lambarde in 1567, is a “Neshe, called in Saxon nesse, which seemeth to be derived of the Latin Nasus, and signifieth a Nebbe or Nose of the land extended into the Sea.”

“Before this Neshe,” he continues, “lieth a flat into the Sea, threatening great danger to unadvised Sailers.” It is indeed the most remarkable projection—hardly to be called a promontory, for that indicates also a height—along the coast of Kent, and makes a bold figure on the map, thrusting itself in a striking manner well into the Channel. In that, and in the singularity of it being merely a flat, shingly extension of Dunge and Walling marshes, lies its great menace to all shipping. A promontory, such as either of the Forelands, could be easily distinguished from the sea; but at night and in hazy weather this land is readily to be mistaken for water, as many ships for centuries past have disastrously found. A great aggravation of these sufficient perils is constituted by the remarkable depth of water existing close inshore. The shingle rises steeply, twenty-two feet out of the sea, and large steamers of deep draught can, and do, come quite close in.

The natural perils of Dungeness were greatly aggravated from the middle of the sixteenth century onwards by the new lofty tower of Lydd church, built by Cardinal Wolsey. Complaints were bitterly made of it. The tower, it was said, in the reign of James the First, resembled from the sea “the forme of the saile of some talle shippe,” leading unfortunate mariners in uncertain lights to steer directly for the shore and destruction.

From this and other causes Dungeness became as dangerous and fatal a flat as the Goodwins, and it was stated that in one winter no fewer than a thousand bodies had been collected on the shore, and £100,000 value of merchandise had been lost. These facts attracted speculators in the era of the first James, and Sir Edward Howard, the King’s Cupbearer, about 1615 erected a lighthouse here, petitioning the King to grant him a patent for levying dues upon passing shipping. The Trinity House, of course, opposed—it was the mÉtier of the Trinity House in those times to oppose every new proposition for lighting the dark and dangerous places; but Sir Edward secured his patent. He soon, however, found it difficult to collect his dues, and disposed of his interest to one William Lamplough, Clerk of the King’s Kitchen. This person soon bestirred himself to secure the full advantage of the rights he had thus acquired, and through his influence at Court obtained the aid of the customs officers for the enforcement of them, a strenuous course of action which in turn stirred up the ship-owners and the Trinity House, who made common cause and jointly promoted a Parliamentary Bill in 1621, providing for the suppression of the light, described by them as a nuisance to navigation. It will be clearly perceived that the light only began to be a “nuisance” to the ship-owners when they were required to pay something towards the upkeep of it. On the other hand, Lamplough—entirely in keeping with his name—neglected the quality of his illumination—a thing commonly done in those times and long after by lighthouse-keepers. He was warned to snuff his candles more diligently, and to improve the light in general. The Bill was thrown out and Lamplough continued in possession. Then the town of Rye caused a Bill to be drafted, seeking to take possession of the lighthouse, on the plea that the first idea for such a light had emanated from Rye, and promising to devote the income from the dues collected to the improvement of the harbour. But this attempt to deprive Lamplough also failed, and in 1635 he is found rebuilding his lighthouse on a larger and more substantial plan.

Dungeness light gradually proved its great usefulness, but by some means Lamplough’s successor fell into difficulties and could not, or would not, pay his ground-rent to his landlord, the Earl of Thanet, who went so far as to threaten to pull down the lighthouse. This was in the time of the Commonwealth, and the resourceful lighthouse-keeper appealed to Cromwell, who decided that it “was not right that the safety of many lives and of the State’s ships should be left to the will of the Earl of Thanet.” The upshot of this trouble between the defiant tenant and the baffled landlord is obscure.

The next building, dating from 1792, was, an inscription on it states: “Erected by Thomas William Coke, Esq., in the county of Norfolk, instead of the old lighthouse, which originally stood 540 yards to the northward, and which, by means of the land increasing from the violence of the sea, became useless to navigation.”

This old building was but 100 feet from the sea at low water. It is now more than a quarter of a mile distant, and the point of shingle still steadily accumulates, in the strong eastward drift, at the rate of six feet a year.

A newer lighthouse was built in 1904, and rises to a height of 130 feet, with a low light, fifty-five feet. The tower is of brick, and is distinguished by being painted chocolate, relieved with a deep white band. The light displayed is a fixed oil-beam, replacing the electric light, whose white glare, installed a good many years ago, was found to be incapable of penetrating fogs so easily as the more yellow rays of oil. The lower light exhibits a flash; and a foghorn, working on a high and a low note, forms an auxiliary warning in thick weather.

Dungeness, one of the most remarkable places in England, is like no other place than itself: a waste of shingle, with here and there a sparse patch of gorse stretching as far as the eye can reach, and with a little single-track railway running out from Lydd and expiring close by the Lighthouse, at Dungeness “station”: a primitive hut without booking-office, signals, or any other of the usual appurtenances of ordinary railway management. The guard of trains in-coming or departing collects and issues tickets, and is, in his many other small duties, a host in himself. It is generally a source of surprise among strangers to find the South-Eastern Railway Company has considered it worth while to build a line to Dungeness at all; but the explanation is found in the ballast-trucks frequently despatched with loads of the inexhaustible shingle, for use along the line and elsewhere.

The loose shingle comprising this vast waste of Dungeness is some eight or nine feet deep, and most difficult and exhausting to walk upon. Indeed, the only way to progress for any distance upon it is by wearing upon the feet the contrivances called “backstays,” which are simply boards five inches wide and some nine or ten inches long. They serve exactly the purpose fulfilled by snow-shoes, and prevent or stay one from slipping back. They are sometimes called “beach-pattens.” They are fastened either by straps over the boots, or are worn on the naked feet by passing the straps over the instep and round the big toe. Carts have their wheels cased in wood to a width of eighteen inches.

Wild-birds still make the shingle-wastes of Dungeness their nesting-place. In two marshy and reedy ponds near the sea the blackheaded gull breeds, and the stone-curlew and the rare Kentish plover linger, protected by the Wild Birds Act, and by the appointment of a watcher to see that no one takes the eggs. It requires, as a rule, a trained eye and sharp eyesight to detect the eggs, simply laid among the large and small pebbles, and scarcely distinguishable from them; but many might search for them were it not for this specially appointed guardian of these now rare species.

Among the few houses—the coastguard-station, the general-shop (whose proprietor is also Dutch Consul), and the half-dozen others that constitute this settlement under the illimitable, uninterrupted sky—one walks about on old railway-sleepers laid down in the shingle: the only paths in the place.

The most disastrous happening connected with Dungeness was the wreck of the Northfleet on the night of January 22nd, 1873. The Northfleet was a sailing-vessel of 940 tons, built about 1853 Northfleet near Gravesend, and was bound for Hobart, Tasmania, with a cargo of railway material and some 300 navvies and their wives and children. There were in all some 400 people aboard. The Northfleet passed Deal “all well,” and although the weather was rough, the sky was clear when the vessel anchored for the night two miles off Dungeness. By half-past ten all the passengers had turned in, and all seemed comfortable for the night, when a steamer was observed coming at full speed directly for the Northfleet. Shouts were raised, in vain, and the strange vessel crashed into the Northfleet amidships. Instantly a terrifying panic arose, and in the midst of it the steamer that had caused the disaster cleared off and steamed away, without offering a helping hand, and leaving the unfortunate people to drown. Captain Knowles, of the Northfleet, had only just been promoted to the position, from that of chief officer, in succession to Captain Oates, who had been required by the Treasury as a witness in the Tichborne Case. He had been served with a subpoena, and prevented at the last moment from sailing. The last seen of Captain Knowles, who went down with his ship, was a view of him, revolver in hand, endeavouring to stay the frantic rush of passengers for the boats and to secure first place for the women and children.

The Northfleet sank in three quarters of an hour, and over 300 people went down with her. Eighty-five were saved by the City of London steam-tug, the Kingsdown lugger Mary, and the pilot-cutter Princess.

There seems no reasonable doubt that the cause of the disaster was the Spanish steamer Murillo, bound from Antwerp for Lisbon, Cadiz, and Gibraltar with iron rails. The affair was denied by the Spanish captain, officers, and crew of the Murillo, but stated positively by the two engineers and a passenger, the only three Englishmen on board, who, as the newspaper reports at the time stated, proved superior to the threats and intimidation which had closed the mouths of the rest. The Murillo was examined by the Spanish authorities, and declared to bear no traces of the collision, and so was released. That unsatisfactory finding was the last ever heard of the affair.

Nine miles of coastline lead from Dungeness to Camber-on-Sea, passing on the way the solitary “Hope and Anchor” inn, and three coastguard-stations. At Camber the recently opened light railway from Rye is reached, together with the channel of the river Rother. There, ahead, stands the old town of Rye, perched upon its hill, in Sussex. The Kentish Coast is ended.