DEAL & WALMER

 Deal is simply an ancient word for a valley. Walmer, on the other hand, means Briton's Pool. This was probably a pool set aside for the sole use of the British Celts who farmed near Saxon settlements around Deal. The Britons often lived apart in their own communities.

Deal was settled as early as the first Roman invasion by Julius Caesar in 55 BC. It was mentioned in the Domesday Book, but Deal really began to prosper when it became part of the Cinque Ports association of important south coast towns and ports. In 1228 Deal was named a 'limb port' of the Cinque Ports, a status which made it an important shipping port. Deal boatmen were granted the right to freely import goods in exchange for helping to provide what was, in essence, the only naval defence in England. From its link to the Cinque Ports Deal grew to become the busiest port in England during the medieval period. The peculiarity is that Deal does not have a traditional harbour. The Goodwin Sands provide a sheltered anchorage, so that larger ships could anchor and have their goods transferred to docks on shore by small tenders vessels. In 1672 a naval yard was built, with repair facilities and storehouses covering 5 acres of land, again boosting Deal's naval importance.

Deal barracks were built in the late 18th century and developed into a Royal Marines depot, barracks, and hospital. The East Barracks later served as home to the Royal Marine School of Music.

Since the Music School of the Royal Marines left Deal, it has become a little flat and uninteresting. Well, apart from the fact that it has two castles, that is. Now that is being greedy. I haven't yet photographed either Deal Castle or Walmer Castle, but I've no doubt I will at some point. At one time, it had a third - Sandown.

Walmer, now a suburb of Deal, was noted as the place where Julius Caesar landed on these shores, initially in 55 BC, then again in 54 BC with more troops. In both instances, he only stayed a short while, then left.

However - the Romans arrived on these shores again in 43 AD and stayed for almost 400 years, having a profound effect on this country. We know that, from 'Monty Python - The Life of Brian' : After all, "What did the Romans ever do for us?"

Deal is not unattractive (apart from the hideous concrete pier), but it's nothing special either.

Having said that, I do like the wide grassy area between the sea and The Strand. Lined on the sea side with pretty white-painted beach huts, it features a beautiful bandstand.....

The plaque says it all, and the names of those poor musicians adorn the base. I won't get too much into the Irish Question, but suffice it to say this was just wrong. I generally had a lot of empathy with the Irish who wanted their country back, but c'mon. These weren't combatant soldiers. There were young students studying at the Royal Marine School of Music. The most they would ever have been was medics when they weren't playing music. The School has since closed and the Royal Marines have left Deal in their entirety.

.....and surely what is one of the more unusual RNLI lifeboat stations anywhere in the UK (technically Walmer, but it's hard to tell where one ends and the other begins)

The motorcycle parking bay is easy to recognise............................

This fisherman statue by Jon Buck stands at the entrance to Deal Pier, and celebrates the large fishing fleet that used to launch from the beach. Sadly, the remaining boats are few

Deal Pier is the last remaining fully intact leisure pier in Kent. It is the third pier to exist in Deal and was opened in November 1957 by the Duke of Edinburgh. The first, built in 1838, was designed by Sir John Rennie, although its wooden structure was destroyed during a storm in 1857. Originally intended to be 445 feet (136 m) in length, financial problems meant just 250 feet (76 m) was completed, which when opened, was just the sixth longest pier in the country.

In 1864, a second 1,100 feet (340 m) long pier designed by Eugenius Birch opened, with extensions in 1870 adding a reading room and a pavilion in 1886. It sustained impact damage several times during the 1870s and was acquired by Deal Council in 1920. A popular pleasure pier, it survived until the Second World War, when it was struck and severely damaged by a mined Dutch ship, the Nora, in January 1940. Permission to demolish the pier was authorised by Winston Churchill, which left just the shore-side toll house, itself later demolished in 1954.

The present pier, designed by Sir W. Halcrow & Partners, was opened on 19 November 1957 by the Duke of Edinburgh. Constructed predominantly from concrete-clad steel, it is 1,026 feet (313 m) in length and ends in a three-tiered pier-head, featuring a cafe, bar, lounge, and fishing decks. The lowest of the three tiers is almost permanently underwater except for the lowest tide and has become disused. A notice announces that it is the same length as the RMS Titanic, but that ship was over 100 feet (30 m) shorter. The pier is a popular sport fishing venue.

The Tudor Cottage, originally built in 1623

A 'Sun' fire insurance plaque, denoting that the owners of this house in Beach Street had paid their dues and could expect help in the event of a fire.

St. George's, the parish church of Deal. 

The War Memorial in front of the church. The names of the dead are engraved on the other three sides, but the front is dedicated to Deal's V.C. - Sub-Ltn A.W. St.C. Tisdall, the son of the incumbent vicar of St. George's at the time, who died rescuing others at Gallipoli in 1915.

The grave of Capt. Edward Thornborough Parker. Captain Parker was a protegee of Lord Nelson, and his aide-de-camp during the attack on Boulogne. He had a special place in Nelson's and Emma Hamilton's hearts. When he subsequently died from his wounds, Nelson paid all his medical expenses and gave £50 to erect a tomb over his grave.

The weathervane of the church is surmounted by the Crown of Edward VII

Deal has many narrow little alleyways such as this, that the fishermen used to take their fish from the beach into the centre of town and to the railway

The story of St Ethelburga's Convent in Deal is quite a fascinating one. It all began with an amazing lady called Catharine Impet Boys who created an orphanage in Middle Street, Deal, which is now known as Queen Anne House. Catherine’s hard work eventually led to Deal’s convent, and gave Deal St Mary’s Catholic Primary School. 

Tiny sundial, high up on the wall of a house on the seafront

Huge anchor, beautiful mosaic compass, a small cannon supported by lions, and a boat called the Dover Belle - all in a pretty little garden area in front of Deal's Time Ball Tower.

The Deal Time ball is a Victorian maritime Greenwich Mean Time signal located on the roof of a waterfront four-storey tower built in 1820. It was established in 1855 by the Astronomer Royal George Biddell Airy in collaboration with Charles V. Walker, superintendent of telegraphs for the South Eastern Railway Company. It was built by the Lambeth firm of engineers Maudslay and Field. The time ball, which, like the Greenwich time ball, fell at 1 pm precisely, was triggered by an electric signal directly from the Royal Observatory. Since being restored, it is now connected to the atomic clock at Rugby.

Before it became a time ball tower, the tower was a semaphore tower used to signal to ships at anchor in the Downs* or passing in the English Channel.
From 1821 to 1831, the Tower carried a semaphore mast, which was used by the Coast Blockade for the Suppression of Smuggling to pass information along the coast. The Blockade was under the auspices of the Navy, and was staffed by their personnel.

The Timeball Tower stands on the site of an earlier Shutter Telegraph. This was one of a chain of telegraph stations between the Admiralty in London and the Naval Yard at Deal. The telegraph line opened in 1796 and closed in 1814. Its purpose was to allow rapid communication between London and Deal, the latter being an important Naval anchorage during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1805 news of the naval victory at Trafalgar and the death of Nelson was brought to Deal by the schooner HMS Pickle (after calling at Falmouth), and transmitted by the telegraph to the Admiralty in London.

*The Downs is an area in the Channel, of relatively calm water between Deal and the Goodwin Sands. It has been used since time immemorial as shelter for ships from stormy weather. It past times, it was used by ships wishing to replenish their onboard supplies. Nelson would also use it to moor up and skip ashore for a night of passion with Emma Hamilton at the Royal Hotel!

Severe concentric semi-circular towers rise up like a flattened stone wedding cake at Deal Castle, one of Henry VIII's string of coastal castles built against the threat of a French invasion. Built to take advantage of the new super-weapon, cannons, Deal boasts 119 gun positions.

When Francis I, King of France, signed an alliance with the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, in 1538, Henry VIII's England was threatened by the combined might of the two European super-powers of the day. Henry's foreign policy had relied on playing off France and the Empire against each other, but an alliance between the two put England under immediate threat.

Henry's response to launch a huge building project, erecting a series of forts along the English coast; the largest such coastal defence project since the Romans built a series of Saxon-shore forts over 1000 years previously.

Deal was one of Henry's new forts, the largest along the Kent coast, and it remains the best-preserved, giving us a unique insight into life in Tudor England. It may seem surprising that Henry should build a fort at Deal; in fact, he built 3 forts within 2 miles, the others being at Sandown (now destroyed) and Walmer.

The reason was that the area around Deal offered easy landing to an invasion force. To counter this possibility Henry linked the three new forts with an earthwork interspersed with bastions. The earthworks are long gone, but the Henrican forts at Walmer and Deal remain.

One of the challenges for Henry and his military engineers was how to counter the threat of cannon, the 16th-century equivalent of a nuclear bomb.

Traditional medieval castle structures, with their high, thick walls, and rectangular towers, would not stand up to a bombardment of cannon-fire. Henry's designers also needed to give the castle garrison opportunity to use their own artillery to maximum impact.

The solution, probably engineered by Stefan von Haschenperg, was a concentric fortress, with a series of curving walls in a flower pattern, overlapped to provide firing angles, with the curve of the walls lessening the damage of a direct hit from enemy fire.

At the centre was a low, sturdy tower, surrounded by a series of six semi-circular bastions, encircled by a ditch and a curtain wall with six projecting lobes. Cannon were mounted at each level, allowing simultaneous firing from the tower, inner bastions, and outer bastions.

The fort was set down low to the ground, thus giving the enemy less to fire at. The fact that the final result looked similar to a Tudor rose symbol probably played a part in the design process, but the main reason for the design was purely practical.

The threat posed by France and Spain never came; The Spanish Armada passed close to Deal, but by that time the Armada was already in disarray and posed no threat.

The only military action at Deal came during the Civil War, when Royalists took control of all three forts during an abortive 1648 uprising in favour of Charles II. They were only ousted with great difficulty. The castle was manned in the Napoleonic Wars, but again saw no action.

Mosaic set into the wall which surrounds the amazing kiddies' paddling pool on the seafront. Excellent for young children, as the sloping shingle beach is not conducive to paddling

Due to its' very wide open frontage, Deal beach is an excellent place to watch passing ships

Sad to see such a lovely Art Deco cinema in a terrible state of dilapidation

Weird!

If you carry on past the pier and walk as far as you can with the sea on your right, you will eventually come to a dead end. It's here that you will stumble across the Community Garden that marks the spot where Deal's third castle once stood - Sandown Castle. I love it here. It's a part of Deal that, other than dog walkers, very few people know about. There's a couple of beautiful Art Deco houses - one of which I would love to own. 

my bike should be the other side of that wall! (I wish!)

the garden is surrounded by these benches. They're called 'Chatty Benches' and the idea is that you sit on them if you are open for a chat with any random person who chooses to join you! Such a lovely idea!

Now here's a thing - a drinks and sandwich van, completely covered in astroturf and little flowers to complement the beautiful gardens of Sandown Castle. They do a mean bacon bap too!