Slingsby's Miscellany

And so we said farewell to Whitstable and headed off on the A2, M2, M20 and several other roads, toward the village of Cranleigh in the county of Surrey, where we would stay the night with our niece and nephew. Cranleigh claims to be the largest village in England, with its population of about 11,000. At the other extreme, Fordwich, which we visited a few days ago, is the smallest town, and also has the smallest town hall in the country. Fordwich has a population of about 380.  Quite what the difference in the definitions of ‘village’ and ‘town’ is, that enables such a huge place like Cranleigh to claim to be a village, and such a tiny place like Fordwich to claim the be a town, I am not sure. But I guess that everywhere can lay claim to being a ‘something’ to differentiate it from other places. Having said all that, Cranleigh is not a particularly picturesque village; it was severely bombed during the last war, and many of its buildings date from the late 1940’s. This re-building enabled a bit more planning than had gone into much older and smaller villages, and consequently it has a very pleasant wide main street lined with some very nice shops, plenty of trees, and open spaces.

There are remnants of the old village; including, but not limited to, one of the three village pubs, an old building next door accommodating a health service, and a nice old church and Rectory. Maybe it was the proximity of the pub to the church that saved it from the destruction that much of the village suffered.

After spending the night here, we turned our car in the direction of the Salisbury Plains and Stonehenge. We had visited this old pile of stones before, but as Phil and Helen had not, it was very worthwhile making the detour, and they were very impressed. Since we were last there, a whole new visitor centre and car park has been developed about one kilometre from the actual henge, and whilst H and P walked all the way to the henge, I walked part of the way through pleasant countryside, noting ancient burial mounds (barrows), and other pre-historic earthworks including the cursus which predates the henge by several centuries.

We left Stonehenge, and the ancient dead in their barrows, and went on to Salisbury. I would have liked to visit the old settlement of Sarum, but unfortunately time did not permit that luxury. We found our accommodation with no problems, and set off for a walk to find somewhere for dinner. I can highly recommend The Pheasant as a place to eat should you find yourself in Salisbury. It is a pretty ancient pub, but the staff are all young and very pleasant. The food was really excellent, and it made a nice finish to a busy day. The pub EFTPOS terminal had broken and we had to find an ATM to get some cash, and that gave us a further opportunity to explore the area, including the pedestrianised centre of the town. The local Council has plans to extend the pedestrian precinct quite considerably, as it is very congested, and the air quality very poor.

Next morning we packed up and drove to the magnificent cathedral, which is well worth a visit. Construction began in 1220, with the spire, the tallest in England, being added in 1549. The clock, dating from about 1386 and restored to working order in 1956, is said to be the oldest working clock in England, but that claim has also been made for other clocks. But what I am sure about is that the cathedral houses the best preserved copy of the Magna Carta. There are only four copies surviving of approximately 40 that were written, and the Salisbury copy is superb. It’s all in Latin, so I couldn’t read it, but there are of course English translations on display. Many of the rights and responsibilities enshrined in the Magna Carta are now well established in many ‘western’ democratic constitutions, including of course Australia.

The cathedral itself is, of course, a magnificent building, and really demanded more time than we were able to devote to it before we left and headed further west to Mylor Bridge, Cornwall. We took the route in accordance with the sat-nav, and it was pretty easy, except that when one follows major routes, the only places for eating are the dreadfully impersonal and boring “services”. So we disobeyed the sat-nav voice, much to her chagrin, and found a lovely little pub at a village called Seavington St Michael. I’m not sure we could find it again, but the lady behind the bar was charming, the food was excellent and the beer just what I needed. Then we continued uneventfully to Mylor Bridge

Our accommodation here was a stone cottage derived from the stables of a working farm. There were several such converted dwellings surrounding the main farmhouse wherein the owners lived. It was charming, quiet and comfortable, with a well-appointed kitchen, (including a balloon whisk) and a good BBQ in its own little courtyard. Our hosts were delightful, and made us very welcome.

The following morning, 25% of our party took the car to visit relatives of a friend nearby. Without the car, the rest of us walked around, exploring what Mylor Bridge had to offer.

Mylor Bridge village itself, about a 15 minute walk away from our farmhouse, is quite tiny. There is a good pub, The lemon Arms, a village store that sold everything you could ever need, a village butcher and a village fishmonger. There is also a post office, and a couple of hairdressing salons. It is on the upper reaches of a tidal creek, so the village itself has no beach or sailing facilities; but a kilometre or so downstream the creek widens out, and it provided a safe harbour for smaller yachts, and a bit of a boat repair industry.

Not far from Mylor Bridge, is another pub, The Pandora Inn, which is much more ‘touristy’. It has frontage onto much deeper water, and the greater part of the drinking and eating area is on a floating pontoon. Quite delightful; and many of the patrons actually arrived in small water crafts, which was not only picturesque, but also very sensible as car parking was a nightmare! We dined that evening on the pontoon, and it was lovely, warm evening.

The next day, half of our party took the car and drove to the north coast of Cornwall to Tintagel and its environs. That left us with the opportunity to catch a bus to nearby Falmouth. We thought of going to Truro, but decided on Falmouth when we learned there are no busses to Truro. Our first surprise as we approached the bus stop was to be asked if this was indeed the stop for the Falmouth bus. I had intended asking that same question of the young woman who had asked us. We then discovered that the young woman was visiting from Perth (WA). So, on the bus to Falmouth, three of the five passengers were from Australia!

Falmouth as a town does not have a lot to recommend it. However, if you are interested in sailing, it is pretty much the place to go. It has a very sheltered deep water harbour and there were countless boats, large and small, bobbing on the water. Not being ‘boaties’ ourselves, there was not a lot to interest us.

There is a rather nice old castle, Pendennis Castle, built in about 1540. Set on a headland projecting into the sea, it is one of Henry V111’s finest coastal fortresses,. It looked great in the aerial photographs on display in the town, so I thought I would take the half-hour walk to see it. I also thought the headland would provide some rather nice views of the coast. The castle is managed by the English Heritage, and of course there was a fairly pricey admission charge. I had so very little time to spare—the last bus back to Mylor Bridge being due in about one hour, and I still having a half hour walk back to town, I asked if I could just have a peep at the keep.  But no. I immediately discovered that the uniformed officers of the English Heritage were every bit as efficient at keeping people out as were the officers of Henry V111’s army! I was allowed to walk around the castle beyond its surrounding moat, and I did not manage to get even the smallest glimpse of the castle itself which is hidden behind the high grassy wall on the right of the photo below.

Falmouth does have several claims to fame associated with military and nautical activities. One of these is that in 1805, following the Battle of Trafalgar, the news of the victory and of the death of Admiral Nelson reached England through Falmouth. Lt. John Richards Lapenotière disembarked from the schooner Pickle at Falmouth, and immediately set off to London—a journey ordinarily taking several days. By riding non-stop, and changing his horses 21 times, it took him just 37 hours, arriving at 1.00am on November 6.

Another claim to fame is that on October 2, 1836, HMS Beagle anchored at Falmouth at the end of her journey of discovery around the world, and Charles Darwin disembarked and took the mail coach to his family home at Shrewsbury.

There are of course book-loads of other events, but these two are sufficient for this blog!

After our three very enjoyable days at Mylor Bridge, we turned the car toward the east, and set off to Southampton, from where we would fly to Guernsey.

Final day in Whitstable

We are now into our last couple of days at Whitstable, the weather is still perfect, and one half of our party has gone to Canterbury to collect the hire car for the next leg. It is amazing how time has got away from us, as we consider we still have more we would like to achieve here.

We made a trip to Gatwick Airport to collect our Granddaughter who had flown in from Melbourne via London and Italy, and the following day walked to the top of Borstal Hill on the outskirts of Whitstable to meet our daughter who arrived direct from Melbourne.

We were now the complete family party for the first time ever in the UK; we have all been in the UK at separate times over the past 30 years, but it was very nice this time to all be together—even if only for one week!

We have been to Canterbury a few times, and caught up with old friends and not so old nephews and nieces there. We have walked past the West Gate of the old city wall, and through delightful gardens along the river Stour.

We have wandered along the remnants of the old city wall, now only a few hundred metres remaining, the rest having been demolished long long ago.

We passed the ruined castle, originally built soon after the Battle of Hastings (1066), and now closed to visitors as the structure has become unsafe with the risk of falling masonry;

and the Dane John, believed to be a 2^nd century burial  mound.

We caught the bus to Sturry, and asked the driver if he stopped near The Welsh Harp Inn, from which we could walk to Fordwich. The driver was much younger than we, and had no idea that the pub now called The Middle of the Road was once The Welsh Harp! Anyway, the bus did stop where we wanted it to, irrespective of the name change, and we wandered through the village of Sturry where my maternal grandparents lived. We visited the old post office where an aunt worked when I was a child,

and we strolled through the churchyard to the Sturry mill pond.

The mill had burned down many years ago. As a student of the Sturry primary school, long ago demolished and now a housing estate, I used to catch elvers (baby eels) like strands of black cotton, in the shallows of the pool as they returned from the eel breeding grounds in the Sargasso Sea.

We walked to Fordwich, and enjoyed couple of pints and a splendid meal at the George and Dragon. More than 50 years ago I had my 21^st birthday dinner at the George and Dragon, and the old pub was exactly as I remembered it!

Our roving bus ticket also took us to Sandwich one afternoon, but as we left late in the day, we only had time for one beer before getting on the bus back to Canterbury. Whilst Sandwich was a very significant port in the old days, it appears that on September 5, 1782 nothing worth commemorating happened!

But what we did see at Sandwich, through the windows of the bus, was a huge solar power plant.

This is one of many such arrays that we have seen, and is what we should be doing in Australia, rather than subsidising wealthy people to put half a dozen panels on their roof tops!

We also made a nostalgic trip to Faversham, where I went to school.

I even managed to provide the ladies in the Information Office with some more accurate information on the location of the old school, which has since been redeveloped on a new site beyond the church. We found the house of Thomas Arden, the quondam mayor of Faversham who was murdered by his wife’s lover in 1551. His story has been told in the (probably) Shakespeare play, Arden of Faversham; and we enjoyed a pint in a pub on the bank of Faversham Creek.

Between Canterbury and Margate we went across the Wantsum Channel, less than 2000 years ago a three kilometre wide navigable waterway, now reduced to a two meter wide marshy stream. This accounts for the fact that the village of Stourmouth is nowhere near the sea, but in the middle of the East Kent Marshes.

Another of Whitstable’s claim to fame is that the diving helmet was invented here! It was not clear to me how many people might have drowned testing the invention before a successful helmet was produced, but there is a memorial to the achievement close to the harbour.

We really enjoyed our sojourn at Whitstable, even though we were contributing to the number of visitors which seem to be upsetting some of the older local residents! It has become rather gentrified in recent years, with people referred to as the DFLs (the Down from London) buying in and thereby increasing the cost of housing for the younger locals—-who are increasingly leaving the area to seek work in London!

The next episode will be our trip to the West Country and the Channel Islands.

The winding main street of Whitstable is not very wide at best, and very narrow indeed in some parts. The footpaths are similarly of varying widths, and with the throngs of mostly tourists, people ‘down from London’, a few local residents moving around, and too many cars for comfort, walking around was necessarily slow.

This photo was taken early morning while it was possible to get a picture without all the people. There are some nice shops, including some very good ‘Charity shops’, in one of which I bought a nice bed sheet so that I could dispense with the dreaded doona—an item of bedding I cannot get on with at all! I shall donate it back before we leave England.

There is also The Cheese Box, which as its name implies, has a wonderful range of cheeses from all over Britain.

The baker’s shop makes the best Eccles cakes I have had, and, twice a week, has traditional English tea-cakes – a sort of soft round raisin bread-like flat bun. And interspersed between all the shops are pubs, large and small. I am not sure how many pubs there are in Whitstable, but we have enjoyed a pint or two in many of them, including the Coach and Horses, a pub in which we consider ourselves to have some sort of proprietorial right. My Great Grandfather was the licensee from about 1884 to 1898, and my Grandfather was actually born in the pub. One night we had old Frederick’s great grandson (me), a great great grandson, three great great granddaughters, and two great great great granddaughters all in the pub at the same time. We must have at least tripled the night’s takings, as we outnumbered the regulars by several orders of magnitude. I hope old Frederick would have been proud of his descendants!

I did pop into Wheeler’s Oyster Bar, but bought some cockles rather than oysters. I was saving the oyster treat to share with our granddaughter, but as Murphy’s law would have it, we didn’t manage to fit that in during the short time she was with us at Whitstable.

As I mentioned in the previous blog, oysters have been harvested here since at least Roman times, and probably a lot longer as there is evidence of habitation in the Paleolithic era, the  Bronze Age and the Iron Age. The Romans exported the oysters back to Rome, and it appears that a couple of Roman trading galleys, possibly collecting a cargo of oysters, sunk off the coast of Whitstable about 1800 years ago. Earthenware pots from the galleys are still occasionally found to this day.

In the years following the end of the Roman period, it seems that oyster harvesting was a bit of a free-for-all until about the middle of the 16^th century when the right to harvest oysters was given by a Royal Patent granted in 1574 to the Minter family, the then owners of the Whitstable Manor.  In 1790 the Manor was sold to private landowners, and three years later the rights to harvest the oyster beds were bought by the newly established Company of Free Fishers and Dredgers of Whitstable. By the early 20th century, the Oyster Company of Free Fishers and Dredgers had become the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company.

In the mid-19^th century oyster harvesting had reached such a peak that about 80 million native oysters (Ostrea edulis) were shipped to London every year, where they became a food of the poor! Several of Dickens’s novels refer the poorer people enjoying oysters and beer. Harvesting of the native oyster then drastically declined in the first half of the 20th century and eventually ceased altogether due to pollution, disease, bad weather, and two wars. Farming the faster growing Pacific Oysters (Crassostrea gigas) on the foreshore was initiated about five years ago with great success, and now the native oysters account for only 20% of the harvest. However, not everyone is thrilled about the ever-expanding oyster beds. Local residents have for years been able to swim, canoe, windsurf and sail in Whitstable Bay; the oyster dredging was well off-shore and posed no threat to other users of the water. But now, the expansion of the racks in the inter-tidal zone on which the Pacific oysters are grown, has significantly impacted on the recreational activities in the bay. It appears that oyster farming at Whitstable is currently the subject of an investigation by the Marine Management Organisation after allegations about the racks causing safety issues and blocking navigation for watercraft and swimmers. So not all is well back on the farm!

The next blog will be more about our visits to places other than Whitstable.

So here we are in Whitstable, which, for those who are not familiar with this part of England, is on the north coast of Kent, at the extremity of the Thames estuary. It is readily accessible from London by rail, which passes through the Medway towns of Chatham and Rochester, well known to the fans of Charles Dickens. From the Medway towns, the train passes through Sittingbourne and Faversham before it reaches Whitstable, and then continues through Herne Bay, Birchington, Westgate, Margate, and Broadstairs before terminating at Ramsgate. We will be visiting some of these towns, and I shall write a little about them, but if you scroll back through the Blogs from 2012 and 2016, many of them get a mention there.

But this particular Blog will concentrate on Whitstable, and first I must mention our accommodation here. It is in Argyle Road, and just a stone throw from the main shopping street, Oxford Street. The house next door but one has a plaque on the wall with the date 1866, and it would not be unreasonable to assume that our house is about the same age, as all the houses make up a complete terrace of very similarly designed dwellings.

The house is basically one room wide, and three rooms long, with a sitting room at the front, then what would have been a separate dining room, (now with the partition wall removed to make one larger sitting room), and lastly the kitchen. Upstairs we have three bedrooms and a bathroom. There is a nice courtyard garden at the rear of the property, accessible from the kitchen. It is a quaint and cosy house, very well positioned close to all the town amenities. The furnishings are a charming mixture of odd items, and the kitchen facilities are amazingly good. In fact I don’t think we have ever had such a well-appointed kitchen in any of the many rental holiday accommodations we have used. The cookware includes several Le Creuset items, and the kitchen knives are of top quality. The stove has 7 gas hobs, and two electric ovens. I have so far cooked three dinners, and have enjoyed every moment pottering in the kitchen. Whilst on holiday, others might like to laze their time away on the beach, but I am quite content to roll up my sleeves and get into a kitchen—–and this has been the best ever! There are even two balloon whisks!

Nothing is lacking, except for a pastry rolling pin, for which an empty beer bottle made a readily available and very effective substitute. But really, who would need to make pastry whilst on a seaside holiday?

But enough of the domestic arrangements; let us now have a look at Whitstable as a town.

Car parking is a major problem, so we have not hired a car for this part of our holiday. And with the so-called “Triangle Bus”, which runs every 15 minutes in both directions on the triangular route joining Whitstable, Herne bay and Canterbury, and links every 15 minutes from Canterbury to most of the other places we wish to visit, a car is not really necessary.

Whitstable is an old town, with a lovely deep-water harbour.

Well, it is deep when the tide is in, but empty when the tide is out. Being a frequent user of the gently sloping pebbly beach at nearby Herne Bay as a child, I had not realised that there is about a five meter tide in these waters! Through the 19^th century Whitstable harbour was an important part of the local industry, in that coal from the mines in the midlands was brought in by ship. Fishing is also very important, and Whitstable was, and still is, famous for its oysters which have been harvested here since the Roman days. Oyster harvesting became commercialised late in the 18^th century with the establishment in 1793 of the Free Fishers and Dredgers of Whitstable. The harvesting industry reached its heyday in the mid 19^th century, and is still very important, but with oysters now being actively farmed by the Whitstable Oyster Fishery Company, rather than simply harvested.

The local native oyster, Ostrea edulis, is a mud-dwelling, free living species. But Pacific oysters, Crassostrea gigas now make up about 80% of the crop. The native oysters, which take about three years to reach market size, currently retail at about £2.50 each, whilst the faster-growing pacific oysters are only about £1.00. The history of oysters at Whitstable is quite convoluted, and maybe, if I can sort it out a bit, I might write a bit more sometime.

Interestingly, at Merimbula, our favourite sea-food restaurant is Wheelers Oysters. Here in Whitstable there is a Wheelers Oyster Bar, but they assure me they are in no way related—pure coincidence!

As a port for the delivery of coal through the 19^th century, Whitstable was at the forefront of rail transport. After building the famous “Rocket” in 1829, Stephenson immediately went on to build his next steam engine, the “Invicta”, which was used to haul wagons of coal on the first part of the 6-mile journey from Whitstable to Canterbury. It could not go the whole way, as it couldn’t get up hills, and a stationary engine was placed on top of the hill, and with two miles of rope, pulled the wagons up. They were then let to free-wheel down the other side to Canterbury!

A tunnel was built, but Invicta’s chimney was too tall, and it could not get through. As well as coal, this railway was the first in the UK to take passengers, and also the first to offer ‘season tickets’ to regular commuters. However, the opening of the Kent coal fields at the end of the 19^th century spelled the end of what had become known as The Crab and Winkle Line. Invicta was retired, and for many years was on display at a site just outside the Canterbury city wall, before being painted bright red and set up as a climbing frame for children in a public garden just inside the city wall. In 2018 it was removed and restored, and in June of this year, was relocated to the museum in Whitstable where it is preserved on public display. Also relocated to the museum, but not yet restored, is the old stationary engine that pulled the wagons up the hill. Today, in addition to the fishing and tourist boats, the harbour still has a role to play in the importation of aggregates for building and road construction.

Whitstable is now quite a thriving tourist destination, and the old Crab and Winkle rail line is a well-maintained and popular walking and cycling track. Around the harbour there are several new developments of restaurants and apartments under construction, and many of the old traditional fishermen’s huts have been gentrified and may now be rented through any of the accommodation on-line booking services. Similarly, many of the old pubs around the harbour end of the town have become the haunts of tourists and the ‘newcomers from London’, to the chagrin of many older locals. However, there are still a few old pubs which have not made an effort to seduce the tourists, and which retain their ‘local pub’ ambiance. One of these, The Coach and Horses, established in about 1805, and managed by my great grandfather from about 1884 to 1898, is still very much a ‘local’ pub.

I called in for a mid -afternoon pint to find just four older men sitting on stools at the bar; probably the same stools they sat on yesterday, and will be sitting on again tomorrow. Just how long these last few ‘local pubs’ can survive has yet to be discovered.

Incidentally, the Kent coal fields which put an end to the Crab and Winkle Line were discovered during the very first attempt to build a tunnel under the English Channel to France late in the 19^th century. A tunnel was first proposed in 1802, but no attempt at construction was made until the end of the 19^th Century. That try went nowhere, and the currently operating tunnel was commenced in 1988 and opened in 1994.

There will be a bit more on Whitstable in the next blog.

Well, here we are, back in England! At one stage we thought that we might actually miss the flight when we were trapped on our way to the airport by a B-Double that had jack-knifed trying to make a u-turn in a road that was far too small for it! The last time we witnessed such an event was in France, and on that occasion it took more than three hours to extricate the vehicle. Fortunately the owners of a couple of cars parked in the street were found, and they moved their cars to enable those of us, trapped the wrong side of the B-Double, to escape. We didn’t stay to see how long it took the B-Double driver to get his vehicle out—-he might still be there for all we know.

Following that shaky start, we had a very smooth, boring flight from Melbourne, travelling Royal Brunei business class. We could not fault it at all. Check-in at Melbourne was courteous and cheerful, but complicated slightly by our using brand new Australian Passports. It seems that computers have good memories, but are lacking in staying up to date with what has been happening to people. It didn’t like our ‘New Australian’ passports because it remembered that we last entered Australia, more than two years ago, on British passports, and wanted to know why we were now trying to leave on Australian passports. A second check-in lady came to the rescue and soon got it sorted to the satisfaction both of  us and of the computer. Then it was to the departure doors—-now controlled by another set of computers rather than people, and we got through that well enough. The baggage check was ok, apart from having to hang on to my pants to stop them concertinaing around my ankles when I took my belt off so that the buckle wouldn’t raise the alarm. And then I had trouble with the automatic passport reader which simply refused to open the barrier. But at least I got to speak with a human being who not only opened the gate, but went above and beyond the call of duty by wishing me a pleasant flight—-which is a lot more than any of the computers had managed.

I must say that having access to the Brunei lounge was terrific, and got us off to a nice relaxed start. It also helped resolve the problem of Ann losing her boarding pass for the second leg from Brunei, as the young lady behind the counter quickly printed off a new one! As already mentioned, the flight was very smooth and the food very good; and we didn’t even miss having a drink. I think the two days of non-drinking practice just before we left probably helped there. Arrival at Heathrow was pretty standard, and it was easy to find the underground station. What was not so easy was to find a human who could explain the Oyster Card ticketing system to us. That being at last achieved, we boarded the train on the line that would take us to Charing Cross, where we would change to the line that would take us to Old Street. Considering it was about 7.45am, I expected the train to be jam packed with commuters, but in fact there was plenty of room, and most passengers stayed on for only a station or two. However, when we got to the platform for the Old Street train at Charing Cross, it was an entirely different set of circumstances, and the trains were packed like the proverbial sardine cans. At this point we abandoned the underground and went for a taxi! An unexpected market provided some rather nice Chelsea buns, pain au chocolat, and coffee, and whilst Phil and Ann sat in the sun, I found a stall where I could get a UK sim installed in an old phone we had with us. This was a necessary task, as we had to phone the agent for the apartment before we could get the code to get in. Then on we went by a proper London taxi to the apartment in Hoxton. And what a find! Huge! Two bedrooms, both with en-suite facilities, a large kitchen/living area, and a roof-top garden!

It is one of several apartments in a quaint little mews, protected by a coded gate. It was very clean, had a nice ‘feel’, and was beautifully quiet. There was even a balloon whisk in a kitchen drawer. Not only that, it was just 5 mins walk to a nice little park, and even less to really great pub, The George and Vulture, where we enjoyed our long-awaited pints of English beer!

The pub had a wood-fired pizza oven so we decided to eat there that evening, thinking it would be a nice quiet place to go after the hustle and bustle of 28 hours of flying and under-grounding. The very pleasant young lady at the bar, who took the above photo of us, offered to reserve a table for us which was very fortunate, as when we got there the place was heaving! There were at least 50 people spilling out onto the pavement outside — it was a beautiful evening — and every conceivable nook and cranny inside was crammed with people—except for our table sporting its “reserved” notice! We squeezed in with our beers, and the waiter squeezed over to us with our excellent pizzas. What was very interesting was that there was no TV screen to be seen, no music of any sort, no swearing or profanities. There was just the babble and laughter of happy good natured people enjoying a Thursday after-work drink. Nobody drank too much. In fact very few people, who were mostly in their late 20’s to 40’s, even went back to the bar for another glass. In contrast to all the noisy youngsters in the bar, an elderly gentleman with a small dog on a leash sat quietly at a single small table in a corner near the door. He finished his pint, called to his dog, and quietly left. My guess is that he did this every night. It would have been good to have had a chat with him, but the crush and the babble would have made that a bit difficult. The George and Vulture claims to be the tallest pub in London. There are a couple higher, by being on the upper floors of taller buildings. But The George and Vulture is the entire building.

After an excellent night’s sleep it was time to walk to Old Street station for the tube to Victoria Station via Moorgate. In 1975, Moorgate Station was the scene of the worst ever crash on the Underground, when a train ran at full speed into the solid end of a no-through tunnel killing 43 people and injuring 74. But we had no trouble, and arrived at Victoria Station in time for a coffee before catching the train to our destination, Whitstable.