Kingsgate was known as “Bartholomew’s Gate” until 1683, when Charles the Second landed here. It is naturally picturesque, and is rendered more so by the pretentious “castle” on the headland, with the North Foreland lighthouse peering across the intervening neck. The castle, of black flint, was built in the eighteenth century by Lord Holland, who, in common with other wealthy people of what was then regarded as “good taste,” patronised the romantic Gothic spirit and built himself not only a make-believe castle but a sham convent as well. The poet Gray, he of the “Elegy,” disclosed himself as a bitter satirist, not only of Lord Holland’s castellated residence, but also of Thanet: “Here reign the blustering North and blighting East; No tree is heard to whisper, bird to sing; Yet nature could not furnish out the feast, But he invokes new terrors still to bring. “Now mouldering fanes and battlements arise, Turrets and arches nodding to their fall; Unpeopled monasteries delude our eyes, And mimic desolation covers all.” Passing the flint-faced “Captain Digby” inn, famed in the story of the _Northern Belle_ shipwreck of January 1857, we come to the North Foreland, “the most easterly projection of Kent,” the cape mentioned by Ptolemy, about A.D. 150, as Κάντιον ἀκρον, or “Acantium Promontory.” The North Foreland light, once occupying a solitary situation on the cliff-top, is now becoming the centre of a number of villas, whose windows at night form lower and of course much more feeble illuminations. But the sea is here spangled with as many lights as the land, for off the shore are those dangerous shoals, the famous Goodwin Sands. Dickens, many years ago, in the course of a sketch of Broadstairs, wrote a good description of them and of the North Foreland light, mentioning “the Goodwin Sands, whence floating lights perpetually wink after dark, as if they were carrying on intrigues with the servants. Also there is a big lighthouse called the North Foreland, on a hill behind the village, a severe parsonic light, which reproves the young and giddy floaters, and stares grimly out upon the sea.” [Illustration: THE NORTH FORELAND LIGHTHOUSE. _After W. Daniell, R.A._ ] But since 1880, when the lighthouse was altered, the light has suffered a complete change, and is not now the steady-going gleam it used to be. It occults every half-minute, displaying a white and red light for twenty-five seconds, followed by an eclipse of five seconds. The effect, compared with the light that Dickens described, is something like that which would astonish the beholder if a Bishop were to wear a red tie, or take to drink.