Joy, who performed many extraordinary feats of strength, including the pulling against a powerful horse, the lifting of a weight of 2,240 lbs., and the snapping of a rope that had resisted a breaking strain of 35 cwts., was one of the smuggling fraternity, and met his death by drowning when engaged in one of those contraband exploits. His sister was almost as strong as himself, and performed many remarkable feats of strength.
This is an authentic memorial, but those irresponsible books, the various Collections of Epitaphs, tell us of the following choice specimen to be found here:
“Against his will,
Here lies George Hill,
Who from a cliff
Fell down quite stiff.
When it happened is not known
Therefore not mentioned on this stone.”
It is quite easy to “collect” epitaphs on the terms of inventing them; and this, as might well be supposed, is a pure effort of the imagination.
CHAPTER XIII
RAMSGATE
The old seaport and holiday-resort of Ramsgate may be reached quickly along the desolate Dumpton Park Drive already spoken of; but the pedestrian’s better way from Broadstairs is past that eyesore the Grand Hotel, to the grassy cliffs’ edge. These are interrupted by some of those “gates” and “gaps” characteristic of this part of the coast. Crossing the bridge at Dumpton Gap, and past some fortifications, Ramsgate itself is reached by way of Wellington Crescent, whose name, like that of the thoroughfare near by, called the “Plains of Waterloo,” sufficiently well dates this part of the town to the 1815–20 period.
It is well to note here that all these Ramsgate developments at this point, on the East Cliff, and even the busy town and harbour of Ramsgate itself, are only the expansion, since the eighteenth century, of that original village situated one mile inland, where the mother-church of St. Lawrence still may be found. Ramsgate—spelled “Raunsgate” until the time of Edward the First—derives from “Ruim’s Geat,” that is to say, the “marsh gate”; and where the busy harbour now is the fishermen of remote times drew up their boats and dried their nets, going home inland to St. Lawrence. Here the cliffs of Thanet die away to the marshes and levels of Pegwell Bay and Sandwich Flats; and the early fisher-folk, for safety’s sake, preferred to live away from the shore, upon which an enemy might (and often did) unexpectedly land. When Ramsgate first began to grow, its inhabitants, seeking a respectable remote antiquity, affected to believe the place-name derived from “Roman’s Gate,” but even the credulous old Hasted, the eighteenth-century historian of Kent, could not accept that etymology.
As the far more ancient, and once immeasurably more important town of Sandwich, decayed, so Ramsgate grew; but, although Ramsgate has long been a considerable town and has now a population exceeding 28,000, still increasing, it was only incorporated so recently as 1884, and is still in some respects merely a “Ville of Sandwich,” whose population is less than 4,000. Thus is the link maintained with the ancient tale of the Cinque Ports, when Sandwich was great and powerful and Ramsgate a mere fishing-village.
The commercial beginnings of Ramsgate are found in the construction of the harbour, between 1749 and 1761. The town then rapidly grew; although the cost of dredging and maintaining the depth of water rendered Ramsgate harbour dues among the heaviest in existence—an undesirable prominence still maintained. The obelisk by the quayside was erected in 1822 in memory of the embarkation of George the Fourth for Hanover—not one of the great events of history. Five years later the parish church of St. George was built: one of the works of Augustus Welby Pugin. Its lofty lantern-tower, prominent in the High Street, is fine and rather foreign-looking; but, with the rest of the building, looks better at a distance, the material being common stock-brick, and the architectural details very poor. Pugin, one of the great figures of the Gothic revival in the beginning of the nineteenth century, has long since been out-distanced by more scholarly and more artistic architects. He was a Roman Catholic pervert, and oddly divided in his appreciations. “There is nothing worth living for,” he said, “but Christian architecture and a boat.” He was an enthusiastic sailor, and was in appearance the very ideal of a pilot. He designed the Roman Catholic church and monastery of St. Augustine, at the very extremity of the West Cliff, overlooking Pegwell Bay, and died at his villa, “The Grange,” adjoining, in 1854. Truth compels the addition that his Gothic church, however highly it was once thought of by himself and others—he considered it his best work—is extremely poor, alike in design and in the use of the materials—black flint and stone—employed. He seems not to have possessed that sense of texture in the use of materials without which even the best design looks poor. It is safe to say that even the most moderately equipped architectural student of to-day could do better.