Kent: Swalecliffe to Birchington 26/5/2010

 

Herne Bay front       Beach art       Chalk beach, Birchington

From Swalecliffe station we returned to the shore where we left it yesterday.  The shingle at the front has scattered plants of sea kale and lots of yellow horned-poppy.  There is an easy embankment path that leads into Studd Hill, where housing re-starts, and to Hampton Pier, the beginning of Herne Bay.  It was noticeable that the dominant gull today was the herring gull, whereas along the estuaries so far the black-headed predominated.  It was sea-wall and virtually no natural history interest all the way along the front of Herne Bay, past the pier and harbour.  We turned up William Street to visit an exhibition at Bay Art Gallery, that we had seen advertised, of art made entirely from flotsam, waste materials picked up from the beach.  While the art was unremarkable, the main point was to publicise the problems of litter and pollution.  After this brief interlude out of the cold east wind we continued along the concrete front.  When we reached the end of housing, we continued along the concrete walk until Reculver.  There we could not pass below the cliffs because it was high tide.  We took a path up to Reculver Country Park car-park and tracked over the cliff tops, through a few small wooded glens, until we descended again to the pub at Reculver, the King Elfreda Inn, where we got lunch snacks and beer and further relief from the cold.  It was then a short walk to the remains of St Mary’s Church right on the coast.  Most had been demolished but the unusual twin towers had been left as a “nautical aid”, which made us wonder why they bothered to demolish the rest.  Beside the old church is the site of a Roman fort, built on the first invasion into this country in about AD47, although nothing remains to be seen above ground.  Just after this we passed a large shellfish hatchery, where we heard music playing – perhaps it keeps the scallops happy.  The sea-wall, now far from any built-up area, continued as a concrete walkway.  Inland water and coastal shingle supported some sea-birds, such as oystercatcher and several pairs of ringed plover, some of which stood on the sea-wall piping at us as we passed, annoyed at our passage too near their nests. There was also a pair of redshank.  The way was easy but rather dull all the way to Birchington, although we saw the odd clump of hog’s fennel.  Garden plants far from home on the embankment included aquilegia and pot marigold.  At Birchington chalk cliffs rose for the first time and some of the beaches were unusually on a chalk shelf.  The concrete walkway continued beneath the cliffs, which were of massive chalk for the most part but topped by a layer with very many flints.  Parts of the cliff that had got weathered away into clefts and caves had been shored up by bricking-in to stop the cliffs crumbling.  After rounding two points (one would not know there was a town above, it was out of sight) we found a slipway up into Beach Road leading straight to the station.  We had only just arrived at the right platform when our train came in.  We drove back into Whitstable centre to our modern B&B near the front, called Front Rooms, recently restored as an exhibition space.  The show in the breakfast room/gallery was by a photographer whose works sell for £500+!  Its all-white decor and modern chic, like rusting metal chairs, felt like living in an art installation.  We drove back to the Sportsman pub at Seasalter for dinner. Approaching Reculver & StMary's Church towers