28 March 2023 - Sandwich
Miles driven today = 12
Total Miles to date = 225
After yesterday's brief sunny respite it was back to the cold, wet miserable weather today. We wiggled our way initially through Broadstairs and headed to Tescos in Ramsgate for our weekly big shop as it looked to be the supermarket most likely to have a car park extensive enough to accomodate our bulk.
Once that was all stowed away we continued to Cliffsend where "Hugin", a replica Viking Longship sits overlooking the bay. Hugin was sailed across the North Sea by a crew of 53 Danes in 1949 to commemorate the 1500th anniverarsary of the arrival of two Saxon Chieftans; Hengist and his brother Horsa. Hengist went on to become the first Saxon King of Kent.
We continued to Sandwich where we have really pushed the boat out and booked ourselves into the Sandwich Leisure Holiday Park at a whopping £33 a night. We didn't pay anything near that in our 3 months tour of France, Spain and Portugal and I can only think of possibly two occassions where I have done so in this country and those were in much nicer sites than this. I spend far too much time on motorhome facebook groups and there is a mindset among a large proportion of people on those groups that wild camping is a bad thing and that we should all be supporting places like this with our patronage. Personally I'm really not keen on them. We are here because we wanted to visit Sandwich and after two nights in car parks we need to empty and refresh the tanks. There are no viable cheaper alternatives locally but I could really do without all the regulations about which way round you are expected to park your van and the endless list of things you are forbidden from doing. What's more we seem to have clumps of pampas grass dividing the pitches so we are apparently in the swingers' section!
We got here at a tad before midday. I expected the guy at reception to tell us we had to wait 10 minutes until the clock struck noon before we were allowed but he wasn't quite that fastidious. However as soon as we pulled on the handbreak it started chucking it down so we were confined to barracks until it eased off some 3 hours later. I spent a chunk of that time reading up on the history of Sandwich. Most people have only heard of it because the 4th Earl of Sandwich supposedly asked for a slice of meat be served to him between 2 slices of bread so that he didn't have to interupt the game of cards he was engrossed in to eat it. But the Earl of Sandwich didn't come from these parts and indeed his forbearer the first Earl very nearly gave himself the title of The Earl of Portsmouth which would have had a profound effect on how the contents of millions of school lunch boxes were to become known.
So at 3 the rain subsided and we took the short walk into town. At the centre is the Guildhall, which is currently surrounded by hoardings while the adjacent square is renovated so photo opportunities were minimal I'm afraid. The Museum inside is also closed on a Tuesday so we didn't get a chance to see the Sandwich Magna Carta which dates from 1300.
We walked past the wonderfully titled No Name Shop. So called because it is in No Name Street.
St Peter's Church predominantly dates from the 14th Century after the previous church was destroyed during a raid by the French. However the tower collapsed in 1661 and was rebuilt by Flemish refugees. Although the church is now redundant they still uphold the tradition of ringing the "curfew bell" at 8pm each evening.
The bronze war memorial with its motif of St George and the Dragon was designed by Omar Ramsden.
There are so many wonderful old timber framed buildings in Sandwich. These reminded me of the Crooked House in Lavenham near our Suffolk home.
The Pelicane House is another example of the buildings I mentioned the other day which seem to have a mixture of whatever building materials were at hand during its construction.
We wandered on down to the river and to the toll bridge which we crossed as we drove into town. A charter for a ferry across the river was granted by King Canute in 1023.
This was replaced by a Dutch style drawbridge in 1759 and then by the current swing bridge in 1891.
Next to the toll bridge is the "Barbican" which dates back to 1470. Beneath the arch is a list of old toll charges for the bridge. Traffic heading out of town across the bridge still pass under the arch.
On the river is the American Patrol Boat USN P22 which built in Germany in 1952 and used to Patrol the River Rhine as part of the deterent against Russian expansion of East Germany. More recently it was used on location in France for the 2017 film Dunkirk.
More old buildings. This is the "Dragon Hall" on Strand Street.
And this is the Admiral Owen pub.
Across the road and next to the Barbican is the Crispin Inn which was built in 1491. We popped in for a pint and a warm by their roaring log fire. They were serving Timothy Taylor's Landlord which made Lisa feel right at home.
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