Whitstable

Area 51 or Roswell Upon Whitstable site ! A stone age UFO or a giant maritime magic mushroom ? What is it ? Hard to tell, but my suspicions along with a few questions to some local old timers think that it was for tying ropes to for small sailing boats (or similar). My current thinking (but not guaranteed) is that they may be correct.

Great Fire of Whitstable ? May 26th 2022.  These units have been standing for at least 50+ years on the South Quay. Fire broke out about 1330 local time. Now to be demolished. I spotted a BBC camera crew trying to film from afar, but being a local I offered to get them closer in via the back door and up close.   Even more ironic since I have not owned a TV for many years ! The BBC News South East showed the footage. I was offered a piece on camera but declined since I didn't really have anything new or interesting to offer. I kinda gave up TV when my favourite local TV station went off the air, called TVS (Television South). A real local TV station where it seemed that every shop you went in, or road that you walked, you would bump into the presenters. I met most of them. My favourite here was the incredible Mike Debens and Ron Lobeck the weatherman. The evening news program called Coast To Coast was the best ever ! I really miss TVS and everyone on it.  As for what happened to the land that was once used by the business that was burnt down, well the local Canterbury City Council turned into a car park / parking lot within about two months. More interested in making cash from parking fees than assisting local businesses I think.

Whitstable's hidden river. If you are a local then you will know what is known as Stream Walk and the Gorell Tank car park. The Gorell Stream starts at Borstal Hill near the A2990 road and then runs down to the town. It ends up at the the Gorrell car park opposite Whitstable Harbour. The photos are just by Bexley Street back in the 1920's. From there it flows beneath the car park and out to the harbour. I spoke to a local who lives in Cromwell Road near the the bridge that goes over the the bridge over Stream Walk and his garden backs on to the railway line. It seems that there used to be a small tributary that ran along parallel to the railway line  that also fed the Stream. Today it is all covered over, you would never know that it exists.

As I understand it, the above photo happened to be from Peter Banbury, my old science teacher from SWNS of Whitstable. As a kid I used to buy 50p bags of random components in his classes. Below is a photo I took recently 2022 of the same spot. 100 years later !

Remnants from Queen Victoria's age. Probably late 1800's. Down at Tankerton (below) we can see the remnants of swimming piers or walkways from the beach to the sea. They were made of wood and swimmers could walk from the shore for a few hundred yards / metres and then jump in the sea. These days you'd be scared to even go in the sea for fear of all the sewage that gets spewed out on the coast and getting sick.  The Isle of Sheppy is in the background. It's all submerged when the tide comes back in.