INTERIOR, SANDGATE CASTLE.
From this point the cliffs die suddenly down to Sandgate, and from the edge you get wonderful views away across Romney Marsh to Dungeness, whose light is at nightfall a prominent object from the Leas. Sandgate, as its name duly suggests to the reflective mind, is situated on a level shore, and is a mile-long street of mingled shops and residences. A martello tower looks down upon Sandgate from the Leas, and down upon the seashore stands an older defence, Sandgate Castle, a coastwise fortress built by Henry the Eighth for the defence of these low-lying shores against the foreign foe. We know more about the building of Sandgate Castle than about any of its fellow fortresses, for the “Ledger” containing the building-accounts is preserved in the British Museum. By those pages it appears that it was completed in 1540, and cost £5,584 7s. 2d. The time occupied in the work was eighteen months, an astonishingly short space when the massive character of it is seen. The ground-plan is similar to that of Walmer, but much of the building has disappeared; still, what is left of it is massive and forbidding, and although the sea thunders upon the beach and washes its walls, it will be long before the fury of the waves brings them to complete ruin. Although the exterior of the keep is faced with masonry, the substantial core is brick, eight feet in thickness. The central chamber is vaulted in brick, in a plain barrel-vault, from the centre, the roof thus formed having been intended for use as a gun-platform. The vast number of 147,000 bricks went to the building—a work of great technical excellence. The stone came largely from the religious houses of St. Radigund’s, near Dover; Christ Church, Canterbury; and Horton Priory.
Finally, after a long, untroubled history, without ever having encountered an enemy, Sandgate Castle was abandoned. It became at last the property of the South-Eastern Railway, and was then sold into private ownership. To-day it contains a most interesting museum, and may be inspected for the extremely modest fee of one penny.
Sandgate, some years ago, considered itself to be the victim of an earthquake, and the London papers one morning were full of terrifying accounts of the dangers awaiting this part of the south coast. But it was, after all, nothing more than a landslip; and no volcanoes nor craters, nor any other evidences of subterranean disturbance, have since fluttered the dovecotes of Sandgate, Folkestone, or Hythe. The landslip happened on March 4th, 1893, or at any rate culminated on that day; but for some days earlier cracks had been noticed in walls, and after the great subsidences of the 4th some further days passed before the soil resettled itself. Landsprings in the sandy heights at the back of the town were the cause of the trouble.
Although the terror caused by the affair was afterwards seen to have been greater than the happening warranted, still the damage caused was very considerable, and scarcely a house in Sandgate escaped some damage, while some were utterly wrecked. The damage was estimated at £5,000.
Sandgate has greatly changed since then, and has been almost entirely rebuilt.
CHAPTER XXIII
SHORNCLIFFE CAMP—THE ROYAL MILITARY CANAL—HYTHE—ROMNEY MARSH—THE MARTELLO TOWERS—THE “HOLY MAID OF KENT”
From Sandgate the seashore goes level for many miles, through Seabrook and Hythe, and across Romney Marsh to Dungeness. Not until Sussex is reached and Winchelsea passed do the cliffs again rise, confronting the sea.