WARDEN POINT.
Those who have time may, on returning to Eastchurch, visit Leysdown and Shellness, that low, sandy spit looking on the map like Spurn Head in Yorkshire. It looks across the water to Whitstable, and is an historic spot, sharing with Elmley Ferry the fame of being the place where that frantic bigot, James the Second, was captured when attempting an escape into France. Harty, too, in the flats, may be visited. There is a good deal of exploration possible, even in Sheppey. For ourselves, we will just return to Eastchurch, there taking the left-hand road and following it for four miles, when a left-hand turn conducts to King’s Ferry, which, to the cyclist seeking the island from London and Chatham, is the best way of entering. The road is of splendid quality, running through the sad, sage-coloured marshes to where a railway bridge on the line from Sittingbourne to Queenborough and Sheerness—a railway bridge and a road bridge combined—now spans the ancient King’s Ferry, across the quarter-of-a-mile channel of the Swale. The toll is cheap—a penny for self and cycle inclusive.
There are four other entrances, but the King’s Ferry Bridge is the only way by which the cyclist can wheel across into, or from, the isle. There is a ferry from Faversham and Oare to Harty, and another from Sittingbourne and Murston to Elmley.
Five miles of a winding and gently rising Kentish lane, sandy and bordered with orchards, lead past Iwade. It is not, evidently, a greatly frequented route, for two field-gates bar the way, and necessitate a dismount for opening them. Nearing Newington, a mile of loose flints induces the man careful of his tyres to get off and walk; a change that need be no cause for grumbling here, for the scene is beautiful, with that soft, rich Kentish beauty which has earned the county the name of “the garden of England.”
NEWINGTON.