The first lighthouse on the North Foreland was a wooden building, erected by Sir John Meldrum in 1636. This was destroyed by fire half a century later. A temporary beacon replaced it, and this in turn was succeeded by a flint octagonal tower, bearing an open brazier of coals. This was afterwards enclosed behind glass, and the coals were kept aflame throughout the night by the lightkeeper constantly playing on them with a bellows! Those certainly were the heroic times of lighthouse tending. The licensee of the first lighthouse was given the right of levying a toll of one penny per ton on all British ships, and twopence per ton on all foreign vessels passing the Foreland, he paying the Crown an annual rent of £20 for fifty years. This grant was renewed to various other persons for other terms of fifty years. The last of these licensees bequeathed the unexpired years of his term to Greenwich Hospital, to which a renewal was granted for ninety-nine years. At the end of that period, the lighthouse was, rather belatedly, taken over by the Trinity House, whose Elder Brethren then paid the Commissioners of Greenwich Hospital about £8,000, by way of compensation. And thus we come to dear, delightful Broadstairs, which, like every Thanet coast-town or village, is set down in a gap, or “gate,” of the cliffs, by which, as by a staircase, you land and ascend from the sea. Here the gap is a bay, rather larger than most, hence the adjective, “Broad.” It was anciently “Broadstowe,” but why never “Bradgate” or “Broadgate” I cannot imagine. At any rate, it matters little. The point is that here is Broadstairs, very much the same place as that Dickens knew and loved. Let an anathema be here pronounced against that man who shall ever contemplate remodelling this cheery little holiday-place--the delight of children, I was about to say--really the delight of all who know it! And I think that anathema should be made retrospective and launched against whoever they were who built the great ugly barrack hotel on the south cliff. The striking alteration that has been effected in the remodelling of the so-called “Bleak House” may, however, be welcomed, in spite of the change thus made in the appearance it wore in the time of Dickens. “Fort House,” which is its proper name, was really so ugly that everyone who is not a Dickens fanatic must rejoice at the blest change.