Dungeness

It's great! I went there last year. When you stand on the beach, it's like your on the edge of the world. Derek Jarman had one of the little beach huts there up until his death. The power station is super-cool as well.

Those pictures are of sound mirrors, designed to listen out for German planes pre-WWII and the invention of radar.

A place of musical significance. The video for Echobelly single "The World Is Flat" was shot there.

I've been there about 10 times! When I were young, we'd all pile into the car and go birdwatching on the RSPB reserve there. We even went to the power station a couple of times, and visited the house of some guy who catches birds in a giant net, before putting a metal identification ring around their leg and releasing them back into the wild.

The Romney, Hythe and Dimchurch Light Railway can be found around there as well. Take your family!

Oh, and the lighthouse is awesome. I think it's the tallest public-access lighthouse in Britain! :D

http://www.nothingtoseehere.net/images/dungeness-hut.jpg

http://www.urban75.org/photos/kent/images/dungeness-01.jpg

http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/Dungeness/Dungeness-Hut_20061112-051.jpg

A place of musical significance. The video for Echobelly single "The World Is Flat" was shot there.

-- Free Peace Sweet!, Tuesday, October 23, 2007 1:28 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

good to have you back, MC.

We went there at the Slint ATP, to stand out in the middle of a snowstorm. Because not many people get the chance to stand in a desert in the snow.

its name is kind of onomatopoeic.

The lighthouse is indeed great, unfortunately we were too cheap to go up it. Also, it's a great place to pick sea kale.

I think I have been on that Dimchurch railway, as a small child! What's it like on a rainy day in November?

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/126/342344459_f0cd7c17e6.jpg%3Fv%3D0

I feel like Gareth.

I thought this would be a crableg thread.

Ooh, I've never been on the light railway, but it looks kinda dainty! There are actually quite a few things you can do there, and yet it's totally desolate, i.e. a great day's escapism.

ILX birdwatching FAP, anyone? ;-)

There are a couple of those pubs there that are huge diapidated bungalows, catering for the Pontins campers. They'd all be closed off season, I reckon.

Wau!

Derek Jarman's garden photoset

This pic doesn't do the rubber house justice and it's al big hueg windows facing the sea on the other side.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/5/8021185_8eb7396e03.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/37/82600759_40046826e1.jpg

Rubber house WTF?

Dungeness FAP anyone?

The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway is good fun - built by a rich Anglo-Australian landowner, who made millions from owning a big chunk of central Melbourne, and essentially wanted the biggest and best model railway in the world.

Matt: Rubber-clad house wins top award

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeness_Spit (and http://www.kaleberg.com/images2005/hightidespit-big.jpg)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeness_crab

It's beautiful, really beautiful. Wild and desolate, but with this huge power station looming in the background. I went for the day a few months ago. It's so quiet. We bought kippers and a fresh crab from one of the cottages. I would happily retire there.

This'll all change of course if the planning application to expand the airport at Lydd ('London Ashford Airport') to take half a million passengers a year goes through :(

http://www.lyddairport-noexpansion.co.uk/

the lighthouse is amazing-- you can go up and look through the lenses which are cool in themselves. and the lady that sells you tickets has a brother that lives in michigan, so she was so excited that i was from there.

that little train is dangerous, at least a couple deaths since we were there 3 years ago or so.

derek jarman's garden is pretty cool as well.

the best stateside equiv. is cumberland island: http://www.photoquarry.net/wp-content/uploads/2006/07/0406_GA_3375CumberlandIsland_S.jpg

I'm amazed so many people have been! How come I've never heard anyone mention it before?

I really want to go at some point in November. Is this a good idea, or should I wait until the spring?

http://www.gpb.org/programs/secretseashore/images/cumberland.jpg
http://www.brucegourley.com/photography/cumberlandisland/armadillo01.jpg
http://www.equitrekking.com/new/images/blogcumber21.jpg

^^^^wild horses

have you guys been to bolton abbey in. n yorkshire?

Colette I think you posted pictures from inside that lighthouse once, right? Gigantic coloured lenses right?

So many people have surely been because it's right next to ATP, yes?

I went to it when at ATP...

not necessarily! along with elmley marshes (on the isle of sheppey) and sevenoaks nature reserve it's one of the finest birdwatching sites in SE england!

That airport expansion thing looks awful. I trie dto sign the petition thing, but the site is all screwy.

Matt, Lee and I went because I'd been reading things about it for years and had always wanted to go and he, being native to the south east, had been as a child and remembered it fondly (I'm kind of amazed you hadn't been before actually.)

Remy - where abouts is Cumberland Island? I've not heard of it before.

you get more of the jaw-dropping bleakness this time of year, but in the spring the flowers are beautiful.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/4/6590488_f356758874.jpg
(me at the lighthouse, i heart dungeness)

(but it gets hella cold there)

I'm amazed so many people have been! How come I've never heard anyone mention it before?

I really want to go at some point in November. Is this a good idea, or should I wait until the spring?

-- Matt DC, Tuesday, 23 October 2007 16:26 (Yesterday) Link

I don't know why no-ones mentioned it before. Strange. I've been a few times and it's great, everything everyone says upthread. Also good place to hide if you're a fugitive from justice I always thought.

Go now to get full bleakness effect definitely, but most of the year round it's pretty bleak (in a good way).

The Britannia pub is open all year round I'm sure. Therefore FAP here is surely necessary.

that little train is dangerous, at least a couple deaths since we were there 3 years ago or so

It's not the train that's dangerous it's people driving their cars into the train! 2 train drivers have died when cars crashed into them at crossings in the last few years but I don't remember any other deaths.

And here's the story - 2003 and 2005. Pretty tragic.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/4672231.stm

fucking hell, this place sounds amazing. four ATPs at camber and i've NEVER FUCKING BEEN.

mind you, not sure when i'd have fitted it around the drinking and consumption of superhuman amounts of weed.

and the odd band.

still.

I went on an ATP Sunday, when the thought of more drinking/ other activities wasn't too appealing. Dungeness was perfect for clearing the head and invigorating the body!

Just been this weekend. Stayed with a friend who lives in one of the lighthouse cottages. Loved it, need to go again as we only tramped up as far as The Pilot Inn. Sound mirrors next time for sure, and more of a nosey at the power station.

Is there any good way of getting there from London without a car? Looks like train - bus - train in both directions.

I had a dream about this recently. No kidding. It went weird.

getting the train to Rye (one change) and then a bus from there seems an okay route.

In my dream I got there at night and ended up having to walk down a subterranean passageway. I forget what happened next, but it was all fairly haunting

Obviously if you don't use the RH&D light railway you hate fun

So yeah. Train to Sandling (only two letters from that most delightful of wading birds), 2km walk to Hythe, light railway, done. Birdwatching & nuclear power-plant gawping fitted as standard.

Thanks!

Is it a stay for a week's holiday sort of place? (In my head, I imagine it could be incredible for a weekend ... but feels a bit of a gamble for a week, in a kind of Marmite-y way).

go for it

Any specific places to rent, ideally for a long weekend?

Anyone?

How soon are you thinking of visiting?

Probably September?

Couchsurfing is an option. I think most holiday rentals in Dungeness are on Airbnb. And several property owners rent through www.mulberrycottages.com - if those are beyond budget I'd still recommend staying near enough to do a couple of day trips.

I always get Dungeness mixed up with Dunedin - whisky/name for Edinburgh/place in NZ. It just sounds kind of Scottish.

It does! Other Scottish towns include Thurrock and Cannock.

More topically, I am not sure I'd want to spend a whole week in Dungeness, largely because I think the undoubted pleasures of the one pub might start to wane. I do love it around there though, and might well be tempted to stay in Rye and (as Craig says) spend a good couple of days in the Dungeness area.

if you decide to walk from say Camber to Dungeness wear appropriate footwear, by which I think I mean walking boots, rather than slightly loose espadrilles. I stopped enjoying our walk along the length of that beach as it changed, after the firing range, from flat broad smooth sands to endless endless sucking draining shingle, and then stayed shingle, then more shingle and the nuclear reactor seemed to be getting further away and there was no escape from the shingle and the sweat was pouring into my eyes.

First third of that walk was lovely though - the vast emptiness out there!

Laurel and Hardy opening the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway:

http://www.laurelandhardy.org/images/loco2.jpg

Going there on Sunday.

What should be on my Songs for Dungeness CD-R? (I'm probably thinking mood rather than any actual connection).

https://www.themodernhouse.com/journal/a-residents-guide-to-dungeness/

Will be there this weekend too. If you see a tall pale guy with glasses walking a french bulldog near the Old Lighthouse come say hi :-)

I still haven't been to Dungeness and I'm not sure a seemingly never-ending heatwave is the best time to go.

Ha. No, it doesn't. I'm craving somewhere green with a swimmable river but ...

Such a curious place ... and not quite what I imagined but I can't quite say why.

Certainly, I was hoping to see Jarman's garden with a casual walk-by but was genuinely shocked to see others actually walking through the garden (seemingly uninvited). I vowed to not even take a picture out of respect to the current occupier (his partner, I presume) though took a long distance shot from the miniature railway.

Partly because I find walking on pebbles knackering, I found it difficult to imagine wanting to live there despite a fondness for some of the aesthetic.

Also, didn't see Craigo Boingo.

My throat/chest were fucked too and didn't even have the energy to get to the top of the Old Lighthouse, which was gutting.

Pondering going back. Any recommended non-shingly walks in that neck of the woods (distinct from mooching along to Prospect Cottage and having a brew at the light railway station)?

Have you not done the RSPB reserve? It's a classic

I don't think I have (which is surprising). Good call, thanks.

Always used to have Dungeness pointed out to me when we went to Hythe beach (paternal grandparents lived halfway between Canterbury and Dover) - their village (Barham) is interesting because most of the time there's no river but sometimes there is one, also apparently David Starkey lives in the manor house there, so you can pop by to boo him.