Ramsgate; Sunday, 24 May, 2015

Another café based breakfast and then I picked up the bus up to the station and from there the train down along the coast to the town of Walmer. I walked down from the station to the beach and the main reason for visiting the castle.

I had a long look round Walmer Castle and the gardens before heading out onto the beach and walking the mile and half or so into the neighbouring town of Deal to visit it’s castle.

Walmer and Deal castles, along with Sandown which is now just ruined fragments, were built to exactly the same plan but have lead two totally different lives. Walmer became the comfortable home of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and these days resembles a very pleasant if slightly Disneyfied palace by the sea. Deal still remains clearly a defensive fort, though none were ever called into active service.

Whilst there is less to see in Deal castle, the interior being almost completely empty and there not being massive gardens built onto the back, there is more scope to imagine what life would actually have been like for the average soldier based here, with the cold damp passages – even on a relatively warm day – clearly indicating this wasn’t a comfortable sea side palace.

I had a bit of a wander around Deal and was trying to decide on whether to head back to the station or leave it another hour and continue to wander, perhaps taking in the pier, when the first spots of rain started to fall.

I walked back to Deal station wondering if I was going to make it before the weather really deteriorated as it kept threatening to chuck it down. Thankfully, whilst there were still spits and spots of rain it held off as the train pulled in.

A couple of minutes later, just before the train arrived at Sandwich, the skies absolutely opened and by the time the train pulled into the platform there were some very soaked people boarding.

It was still chucking it down when I got back to Ramsgate, so rather than catching the bus straight back down the hill to the harbour I caught it round the opposite direction of the Loop into Margate and stopped off at a coffee shop for a coffee to sit out the last of the poor weather.

With the rain finally having stopped I hopped on another loop bus and headed into Broadstairs for dinner before picking up one of the last loops of the evening back into Ramsgate and a well-earned sleep.