Seaside Towns

Dotted round the coast of Great Britain are many small towns, which from being mere fishing villages have gradually developed into small ports for coasting vessels, as well as summer resorts for jaded town dwellers. To all outward appearance the residents may exhibit an air of indifference towards visitors, though as a matter of fact their arrival each summer is hailed with real pleasure, for it is the cause of much bustle and profit follow­ing, probably, a very dull winter. To most visitors the invigo­rating sea air and water are sufficient attraction, but there are others who seize the opportunity of searching out all the interesting and historical places to be found in the neigh­bourhood. Indeed the resourceful residents of some seaside places seem to possess quite a genius for mapping out trips, by land or water, to remarkable places, which before, were locally considered almost unworthy of existence, and the guide books teem with advice and assistance to the traveller.

It must be confessed that some of these modernised seaside towns are in themselves not particularly attractive or historical, causing a Kent coast resident once to make the surprising remark, "What can you expect with land only on one side and sea water on the other?" In spite of the guide book not being very much in evidence at Whitstable, the locality is one around which many thrilling events have occurred

in English history, and visitors need never spend idle moments there if activity is preferred to ease, for intelligent enquiry will reveal no end of places of easy access, worth visiting, of which Canterbury alone deserves more than one pilgrimage, and if rurally inclined, the Kentish woods, lanes, orchards and hop grounds are always beautiful.

A first glimpse of Whitstable.

The impression that a first glimpse of Whitstable leaves on the mind is, perhaps, that of a bustling, thriving, hardworking fishing town, thoroughly and legitimately own absorbed in its own well-being, and not wholly ignorant of its importance.

The smallness of the older houses near the shore is also a feature, and some of the weather-boarded cottages rather remind one of little Dutch residences in Holland, though the former are not treated to quite so much white paint. Whitstable does not possess the stereo­-typed front promenade, though from an artistic point of view this is no loss, for the irregular line of quaint cottages

and shipbuilders' sheds at the head of the beach, the harbour closely packed with sailing vessels, and the stocks on the shore which support vessels undergoing repair, are all most interesting and picturesque.