Today we decided to go to Deal by bus, luckily we had spotted the bus station on our walk yesterday so we set off to catch the 9:25 from the bus station. It wasn’t as far to walk as we thought so we were a little early, but we did confirm with one of the bus drivers that we could buy a ticket on the bus and that we could buy a day rover for our trip so it was just a case of waiting for the bus to arrive and set off. It took about 50 minutes mostly because after leaving Canterbury we pretty much blasted down the A2 to Dover then worked our way back up. We got off at the last stop and walked along the high street to visitor information where we picked up a Visitor Guide to Deal which had a historic town trail in it. We started at Deal Pier, Deal has never had a harbour and the original pier was built to load and unload ships luggers would ferry cargo between the ships at anchor and the pier, despite its use the pier was never a financial success and was eventually purchased in 1920 by Deal council. The current pier was built after the the previous Victorian pier was damaged by a ship that hit the pier after being hit by a floating mine in 1940. The current pier was opened by Prince Philip in November 1957 and is now the only pleasure pier in Kent as the ones in Margate and Herne Bay have been damaged by storms. From here we walked along beach street, past where Nelson stayed with Lady Emma Hamilton in the Royal Hotel in 1801, we walked as far as Goodwin sands but as it was high tide we couldn’t see either the sands or the colony of grey seals that call it home! It was then time to turn inland by Alfred Square which was once ‘crowded with pubs, sailors, smugglers, press gangs and women of the night’ we then walked along Middle Street which is the heart of the Georgian conservation area, and home to the majority of Deals notorious smuggling activities. The earliest record of smuggling was in 1617 when smugglers were caught loading wool aboard a Dutch vessel, illegal at the time as it meant they could evade paying wool tax. Customs officers were stationed in Deal but the animosity between smugglers and the customs offices was so great it often ended up in a fight, sometimes it was so severe that the people of Deal were afraid to go out in case they got caught by a stray musket ball! The smugglers were so good at creating hiding places in tunnels and underground that goods are still being found today, they have recently found tobacco which was just dust and some stockings! We continued following the walk until we arrived at Deal castle, this was built by Henry VIII in response to his expected invasion from France and Spain (which never came) he ordered castles to be built on the vulnerable beaches in the area, which established the three ‘Castles in the Downs’. Deal, Sandown and Walmer, the castles were built to defend against short violent action against an invading army rather than withstand long sieges. They were built low to provide the smallest target for ships with rounded walls that would deflect most canon balls. Inside was rather a labyrinth, again to confuse invading forces, we walked around both the inside and outside, although unfortunately we couldn’t get on the roof which we both felt would have been a great view, but never mind! Then it was time to start walking back towards Deal to go to the Time Ball Tower, this is now on Beach street but once stood in the Naval Yard. A 14 foot mast was erected on top of the old signalling station, with an iron ball that ran up and down its length. At 12:55 each day, the ball is raised half-way to warn ships to be ready to correct their chronometers, at 12:58, it was raised to the top of the shaft and at exactly 1:00 it was dropped automatically by an electrical current from Greenwich. The advent of the wireless made the time-bar obsolete and it closed in 1927, it became a museum in 1985 and now the time-ball travels up and down its mast every hour rather than just 1pm. By this time we decide it was time to get something to eat so we walked back towards Deal Pier and went into a pub for lunch which was very nice, then we started walking to Walmer Castle, the only other remaining castle as Sandown has long since vanished. Walmer is the most southerly of the three Castles, it only ever saw action during the English Civil War where it surrended to Cromwells Parliamentary army after a siege which lasted about a month. It took over from Dover Castle as the official home of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in the early 18th century and additions were made during this period to turn it into a residence. The post of Lord Warden is allocated by the monarch and has been held by people such as Wellington, Pitt the younger and the Queen Mother, we walked round the castle and the gardens then decided that it was time to head back to Canterbury. Unfortunately the bus that brought us to Deal had finished for the day so we had to take a couple of busses back meaning that we went to the outskirts of Dover then came back up the A2 to Canterbury, it didn’t take too much longer and we saw a few different parts of the Kent country side. We walked back to the apartment via the gardens we had seen yesterday from the city wall, then finally managed to sit and relax for a bit before packing up tomorrow and heading home.
