The ancient town and reverend Cinque Port of Sandwich is entered by a bridge across the Stour and thence by passing under the arch of the old Barbican, a curious outwork of the times when walls and gates were necessary for the town’s security. The only other remaining gate is the Fishergate, along the same quay, built in 1578. The road from Ramsgate and the bridge across the Stour to the Barbican are comparatively modern innovations, the only entrance from this side being formerly by ferry to Fishergate. The bridge was first built in 1755, and is in part an iron swing-bridge, permitting the passage of small vessels to the upper quays. Against its parapets lean the idle, the born tired, and the infirm of Sandwich the livelong day; some staring into the water, or vaguely across the sandy flats; others facing north, expending a fascinated stare upon the activities of the brewery, which is the busiest thing in the town. There are more imposing entrances than this to English towns; the bold gates and frowning towers of Canterbury and of York bring back mediævalism, a living thing; but no other approach is so truly quaint as that to Sandwich by the Barbican. Little, squatty round towers with their lower half chequered black and white in flint and stone, and their upper part finished with peaked roofs like witches’ hats, give an effect almost unreal in their completely picturesque setting, with the curious tower of St. Peter’s peering over the roof-tops. It is so rarely complete that you almost suspect it to be the lath-and-plaster and painted canvas building of the entrance, let us say, to a “Cinque Port Exhibition.” But it is undeniably real, unquestionably genuine, and is but the introduction to much else of an old-world character that Sandwich contains.