Tony’s Fabulous Folkestone Walking Tour: An Outline Itinerary

I am proposing to run twice, possibly thrice, weekly walking tours of Folkestone next summer (May to September 2017).

There are many practical considerations, including health and safety, marketing and potential licensing, that need to be addressed in the opening weeks of the New Year, but the crucial issue is the integrity of the tour itinerary itself.

Below are my initial thoughts on what route to take, and the issues to highlight at each stop and during the walk itself.

Currently, I envisage the tour lasting no longer than two hours.

These are still early thoughts and are subject to change. Being still a relative newbie, there is a distinct possibility that I may have missed something. This is where long term residents of Folkestone and others who have, like myself, come to love the town, can help me in fine tuning the details. I would be extremely grateful for their input and support.

I intend to finalise this by the end of February, allowing two months to work up the detailed commentary and supporting material.

I am extremely grateful for your assistance in this. Don’t feel you need to be gentle with me!

Start: By the Earth Peace sign in front of The Grand Hotel on The Leas

Stop 1: The Grand Hotel
a. outline of tour – duration – route – stops – toilets – refreshments – approach to questions
b. history of The Leas and Folkestone as a holiday destination – English & French coast highlights
c. history of The Grand, including rivalry with The Metropole & links to royalty

d. introduction to Folkestone Triennial & Folkestone Artworks, specifically Earth Peace (Yoko Ono)

Walk 1: Along The Leas, passing the View Hotel, Ruth Ewan (clock) and Mark Ballinger’s (Folk Stones) artworks & talking benches

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Stop 2: Leas Cliff Hall 
a. history – construction – programme
b. William Harvey statue

Walk 2: Along The Leas passing the Leas Pavilion Theatre and the Leas Lift

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Stop 3: Step Short Arch
a. Folkestone’s role in war
b. construction
c. War Memorial
d. poppies

Walk 3: Down the Road of Remembrance

Stop 4: Harbour Station / Harbour Arm entrance
a. role of trains bringing soldiers/holidaymakers
b. history of ferry / hovercraft services
c. Hamish Fulton’s metal sign
d. Grand Burstin Hotel
e. regeneration plans

Walk 4: Along the Harbour Arm, taking in views of the Harbour 

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Stop 5: Lighthouse on Harbour Arm

a. history
b. Weather is a Third to Place and Time artwork
c. Champagne Bar

Walk 5: Back along Harbour Arm and towards Harbour

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Stop 6: Harbour
a. fish market
b. history of fishing c/f activity today
c. seafood stalls
d. Rocksalt

Walk 6: Along The Stade to Sunny Sands

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Stop 7: Sunny Sands
a. beach & Coronation Parade
b. views to France, Harbour Arm, East Cliff, Dover Strait, the Warren & Samphire Hoe
c. Folkestone Mermaid (Cornelia Parker)

Walk 7: Back along The Stade and across to Creative Quarter entrance

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Stop 8: The Old High Street
a. history
b. role of Creative Quarter
c. Quarterhouse

Walk 8: Up the Old High Street and onto The Bayle, highlighting galleries, restaurants and coffee shops

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Stop 9: The Bayle
a. history
b. Parade Steps
c. Shangri-La
d. British Lion
e. pond – child’s mitten (Tracey Emin)

Walk 9: Around The Bayle into Church Street

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Stop 10: Church of St Mary and St Eanswythe
a. history of christianity in Folkestone
b. life & sainthood of St Eanswythe

Walk 10: Through churchyard and along The Leas towards the Leas Lift

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Stop 11: Leas Lift
a. history – construction – importance
b. take lift down to Marine Parade

Walk 11: Along Marine Parade to entrance of Lower Leas Coastal Park

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Stop 12: Lower Leas Coastal Park
a. background, construction & awards
b. Fun Zone
c. Amphitheatre
d. Adam Chodzko’s Pyramid

Walk 12: Through Lower Leas Coastal Park to beginning of Zigzag Path

Stop 13: Zigzag Path
a. history

Walk 13: Up the Zigzag Path and along The Leas to The Grand Hotel

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Stop 14: The Grand Hotel
Finish by the Earth Peace sign in front of The Grand Hotel on The Leas

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Out on Bayle

If ever I need a respite from the hubbub of Folkestone town centre, there is no better area to take cover in than The Bayle. Bordering the Harbour via the Parade Steps, the Creative Quarter by Bayle Street and Sandgate Road at the end of pretty Church Street, it provides a welcome haven of peace and quiet.

Just off the beaten track, it is largely undiscovered by all but locals.

Today, I am accessing it from the recently refurbished Parade Steps that run from Harbour Street, alongside Gillespies bar at the True Briton.

Folkestone has more than its share of crippling paths and stairways, not least the Metropole Steps and Zigzag Path that link the main beach from The Leas, but the hundred or more steps that need to be negotiated here match the most difficult. Their saving grace is that they do afford the intrepid climber fantastic views of the harbour and the Channel beyond when, as is essential, they pause for a breather at each level.

At the top you encounter not only Shangri-La, now discredited as a wartime German spy centre, but also fine multi-occupancy buildings like Blue Diamond House on Bayle Street.

Eschewing the Bail Steps, that lead back down to the Old High Street, I turn left at the friendly Guildhall pub onto The Bayle itself.  Within a hundred yards I come across the Bayle Pond Gardens, lovingly maintained by the residents’ association.

The pond is home to another of the Folkestone Artworks found scattered around the town. One of Tracey Emin’s collection of “baby things”, a bedraggled, brightly coloured mitten, is attached to the railings that encase the pond.

Properties, a mix of attractive brick and weatherboarded cottages and modern apartment blocks, are sought after and, as this recent house hunter can attest, relatively expensive.

Moreover, the significance of this part of town was recognised when number 5 Bayle Street was chosen to launch the fabulous Folkestone Living Advent Calendar programme on 1st December last and, fifteen days later, the Dance Easy / Folkestone Yoga studio at number 19 took its turn in the festivities.

In addition to the already mentioned Guildhall pub, this compact area also boasts Folkestone’s oldest watering hole, the British Lion, reputedly built no later than 1500, and Charles Dickens’s local when he stayed at nearby 3, Albion Villas.

Recovered remains from archaeological digs have revealed that the area was occupied in the late Iron Age and Roman periods, but it was not until the seventh century AD that Folkestone gained its most celebrated citizen.

The daughter of King Eadbald, St. Eanswythe, an intelligent, wilful and devout young woman, rejected numerous Anglo-Saxon suitors and opted for the religious life by establishing a small nunnery and dedicating herself and other women to prayer and service of the poor. On her death in 640, her tomb became the object of prayer and pilgrimage and her relics were sought after and venerated. She was made a saint almost immediately.

Standing between bare winter trees and amidst battered headstones, the current Church of St Mary and St Eanswythe, built upon a twelfth century original, is a lovely, tranquil space.

There are several routes in and out of the churchyard. My personal favourite is to walk through the internal gate, along the path (which starts on Priory Gardens) back to the War Memorial, taking in glorious views of the Channel above the rooftops of Marine Parade.

I’ll leave my favourite rock band (again) to encapsulate how I feel about The Bayle:

Don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart

You just gotta poke around.

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Mermaid Beach at Dusk

The Cote d’Opale might as well be a thousand miles away on a night like this.

It is a calm, quiet evening after a dank, dreary December day. The sky and sea present an ashen canvass. It is difficult to tell where one ends and the other starts. Spencer Finch’s The Colour of Water, the artwork that requires people, by looking through a narrow aperture, to match the colour of the sea with one of a hundred variants of shade placed around the perimeter of a large wheel, is set firmly in the grey quadrant.

Despite the slimy conditions underfoot, I choose to descend from the well-lit comfort of the Leas to the bleak seashore via the Metropole Steps rather than the Zigzag Path, deducing that the strain on my knees and calves will be less that way.

There is barely a whisper from the waves tonight. The overwhelming flatness of the scene has deterred the customary photographic shooting party from assembling to capture the final, ferocious blaze of orange and gold of the sun over Sandgate shore. Anyone hoping to catch tonight’s projected meteor shower will be sadly disappointed. Even the moon, a mere twenty four hours from full term, doesn’t appear bothered to turn up.

Neither do I hear Matthew Arnold’s “grating roar of pebbles which the waves draw back”,  so imperceptible is nature’s refrain this evening. Aleppo, Trump, Yemen, Brexit all drift from my consciousness, at least for a short hour. I am at peace, and am reminded of  Nathan Coley’s Talking Heads inspired sign on Tontine Street that “ heaven is a place where nothing ever happens”.

Because nothing is happening tonight in this little speck of paradise.

But then everything is happening.

Across the bay, the lighthouse on the Harbour Arm blinks through the gloom. The sixteenth century Out of Tune bell, rescued from a church in Leicestershire, hangs suspended above the area where once the rotunda, boating lake, swimming pool and fairground rides, thrilled generations of children.

A dalmatian puppy snuffles among the seaweed encrusted pebbles on the shoreline, while its impatient owner punctures the peace with impassioned and fruitless entreaties to it to accompany her back to the refuge of her Range Rover parked at the foot of the Leas Lift.

A discarded, empty tuna mayonnaise sandwich pack flutters in the breathless breeze in the midst of Folkestone’s own modest version of Stonehenge or Avebury. If, as seems likely, the stillness of tonight’s air fails to dislodge it, I am reassured that a town sprucer will probably complete the job in the morning.

A lone fisherman has set out his stall for what appears to be a long night ahead. It reminds me of all night sessions on the Dungeness shingle with my uncle half a century ago. I wonder now why I ever went. I was never interested in fishing. I don’t even recall experiencing the elation of catching much either. Perhaps it was the thrill of spending a night away from home on a beach with a nuclear power station looming over me that lured me.

I stroll along the curved seawall that separates the two main parts of the beach, squinting at the six wooden, weirdly shaped seats donated by the Dutch government, and reach the imposing rock groyne. It would be foolhardy this evening to venture out onto this mini-Giants Causeway as some do during the daylight in low tide.

Debate rages on social media as to whether the shape of the groynes that branch out in opposite directions from the beach represent a mermaid, gull, whale or even the Royal Air Force crest. I will not fuel the dispute here, other than to offer the diplomatic suggestion that there is a case to be made for all of them. Whichever it might be, it is a fine sight by day when viewed from the Leas.

Pastel hued beach chalets are now padlocked up for the winter and the Mermaids Cafe Bar, welcome pit stop on the long promenade between Folkestone and its western coastal neighbours of Sandgate, Seabrook and Hythe, is now open on fine weekends only. Tonight, it is dark in contrast to the newly renovated View Hotel beaming benignly down upon it. The hotel’s Cliffe Restaurant, which, in only a few months, has earned a deserved reputation for fine dining and excellent service, will, in contrast, already be busy with office Christmas parties.

I return to the Leas via the lovely Zigzag Path, a walk rendered all the more atmospheric as I weave through its alcoves and tunnels, by its resemblance to those of a Greek island. All that is missing, thankfully, are the maltreated donkeys.

I defy anyone to deny that they enjoy a warm summer’s day by the sea. After all, as the popular expression goes, life’s a beach. And I look forward to the first full summer in my coastal home next year.

However, it is moments like this when enjoyment is a hopelessly inadequate word to describe the impact of this magical place on me. I think I will attempt to define that more fully on another occasion, but, for now, I can only equate it to love in all its manifestations.

Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right is one of my favourite quotes, and is never more relevant than in relation to my feelings for Folkestone. Who would have thought that fifty three years ago, when four adults and three children aged between eight and ten years plus luggage, miraculously emerged from my mother’s Ford Anglia, to cram into that bed and breakfast in Foord Road, that not only would I make this my home all these years later but would instantly become enraptured by the place all over again?

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Where Old Ghosts Meet

A biting breeze and thin drizzle denote December’s arrival as twilight descends on the narrow cobbled street that was once part of one of that prodigious walker, Charles Dickens’, favourite perambulations.

We are a long time from the heat of summer when Charivari, Folkestone’s own crazy carnival procession, had snaked up that old thoroughfare. Or the stones had groaned under the weight of red-laced “Doc” Martens, worn by pilgrims strutting towards the Grand Burstin or Gillespie’s Ska Bar for an afternoon of The Selecter, Prince Buster and Special Brew.

I turn into the quiet street where old ghosts meet as it emerges, like an intermediate ski slope, from Rendezvous Street. I long for one last lingering look at the dazzling daily alchemy conjured up in Rowland’s Rock Shop, but its physical manifestation at least has long gone. The site is now occupied by The Great British Shop Ltd, an eclectic and attractive gift store which has the added class to have hung a photograph on its wall inside commemorating its much-loved former resident.

The aroma of craft beer emanating from Kipps’ Alehouse on the corner could never compete with the sickly sweet perfume that pervaded Rowland’s, where, along with other children (of all ages), I once gaped in awe at the long sticks of rock being concocted. A bag of broken rock pieces from here was always one of the highlights of my annual holiday in the town. It was often claimed that if Rowland’s were to shut its doors permanently, Folkestone would die. Thankfully, that prediction has been proved dramatically wrong, though many share my nostalgia for its heyday.

In a predictable example of Pavlovian conditioning, I stumble into Steep Street Coffee House for tea and inspiration. Ordinarily, it might be a couple of hours before I could extract myself from here, but I want to experience the atmosphere in the harbour area before darkness fully takes hold.

The self-styled Folkestone Poet has vacated his customary sales point outside the Big Boys Fine Burger Co opposite, his heavy overcoat and leather balaclava no longer a match for the declining temperatures. I wonder whether there is anywhere he can comfortably ply his wares at this time of year.

The bitter cold slices through my flimsy jacket and hastens my progress down the hill, though not without stopping to inspect the crumbling stone steps that lead up to the Bayle, the Medieval heart of Folkestone.

Outside Bounce Vintage, the owner, spotting, or rather hearing, my battered old cowboy boots on the cobbles, accosts me and tries to interest me in an admittedly gorgeous two tone green pair. I decline his offer on the pathetically vain premise that my current pair represent the only thing I have in common with Johnny Depp, in that we wear them everywhere (well, almost everywhere).  Somehow, I suspect Johnny paid more than $50 – plus shipping and custom charges – for his.

I leave the Old High Street at Blooms 1/4, a sophisticated modern restaurant that is tonight’s venue for the second of the Folkestone Living Advent Calendar events organised by Jim Jam Arts for every night in December until Christmas Eve. I peer into the premises which look as cosy and inviting as it is possible to be.

But I must move on.

As I enter Harbour Street, I am overwhelmed by the looming presence of Parade House, better known today as Shangri-La, in the popular imagination the German Consulate and spy centre prior to World War I. This theory has been refuted by local historians and the German Embassy alike, but there is no denying, irrespective of the truth, that it is an imposing and eerie structure, with the cupola providing unsurpassable views of the harbour and Channel beyond.

As I pass the Grand Burstin, another coach party, the combined age of whom must extend to several thousand, is being disgorged. On a gloomy afternoon like this, it is hard to understand why anyone would want to visit the town at this time of year. Perhaps the hotel’s dining, entertainment and competitive prices are the attractions.

I cross to the Harbour Arm where the only activity, apart from the odd ageing romantic shambling around the deserted car park, is restoration work on both the railway bridge and the recently erected scaffolding that was wrecked by last month’s Storm Angus. No more chicken gyros to be had at the Big Greek Bus, nor Kir Royale at the Lighthouse Champagne Bar, as they are firmly locked up for the winter. Even the derelict harbour railway station is now cordoned off again, suggestive of renovation work to follow.

I walk through the low tunnel into the now closed fish market, tiptoeing my way around the puddles that congregate here. The occasional gull plods apologetically past, pining for Spring and the reopening of the seafood stalls on the Stade, where he can return to terrorising tourists for fish and chips and tubs of whelks.

Chummy’s, Bob’s, La’s, The Hatch, Shell Shop, Herbert’s and the Smokehouse restaurant are all now closed, leaving Rocksalt and Bob’s fresh fish shop the only, pricier, eating options. Even the pubs are empty, allowing the respective mine hosts to put up their final Christmas decorations without encumbrance from customers.  

I don’t think I’ve seen so many boats in the outer harbour as today. To my untutored, landlubber eyes, I would estimate that the ratio of seaworthy to safe vessels would be no better than 50:50.

A large gathering of gulls wait patiently for the tide to turn and the resulting rich pickings to appear. They have several hours yet to endure.

I pay a dutiful visit to the mermaid on the Sunny Sands rocks. Fading light and incessant mizzle cannot avert her gaze or disturb her poise.

I return to the Old High Street as the Christmas lights flutter into action. Most of the shops, if they opened at all during the day, have now closed their doors. The event outside Blooms 1/4 is only an hour away but the ugly weather, receding light and nagging memories, render my mood sombre rather than celebratory.

The Old High Street echoes to the solitary sound of my cowboy boots as I set off for home.

But did I hear a childlike squeal and get a whiff of granulated sugar as I passed by the top?

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