The Ports, Harbours, Watering-places and Picturesque Scenery of Great Britain Vol. 2Finden, W. (William)
History
The Ports, Harbours, Watering-places and Picturesque Scenery of Great Britain Vol. 2
Finden, W. (William)
Coasts -- Great Britain -- Pictorial works; Great Britain -- Pictorial works
The cost of Ramsgate harbour, dock, lighthouse, and other requisite
buildings, is said to have amounted to £650,000. The form of the harbour
is nearly circular, and its area is about forty-six acres. The length of
the eastern pier, following its angles, or "cants" as they are
technically termed, is about 2000 feet, and that of the western about
1500. Their general width is about 26 feet, including the thickness of
the parapets; and the width of the entrance to the harbour between their
heads is 240 feet. The harbour is maintained by a tonnage duty on all
ships passing, whether sailing on the east or west of the Goodwin Sands,
and by a duty on coals and stones discharged in the harbour.
The light displayed from the lighthouse is stationary, and is only
exhibited when there is ten feet water between the pier heads. In the
day time a flag is hoisted while there is the same depth of water at the
entrance of the harbour. In spring tides, the depth of water increases
to sixteen feet in about an hour from the time that the ten-feet signal
is displayed; in about two hours to twenty feet; and in three hours, or
about high water, to twenty-one feet. In neap-tides the depth of water
at those periods respectively is fourteen, seventeen, and eighteen feet
between the pier heads.
During the summer, Ramsgate is much frequented by visitors from London,
who come by the daily steam-packets to enjoy the benefit of sea-bathing,
for which the beach to the southward of the pier affords excellent
opportunity. Powerful steam-packets ply every day between London and
Ramsgate, and the passage up or down is usually made in seven hours.
There are several excellent hotels and many convenient lodging-houses at
Ramsgate, and the charges generally are moderate. At the close of the
year, when the summer visitants have all retired to their several
homes, another description of persons make their appearance at
Ramsgate--the Torbay fishermen, who generally establish their rendezvous
there from December to June, for the sake of fishing in the North Sea.
It seems probable that Ramsgate, as a port, will continue to increase
very considerably in importance; and, in the event of a continental war,
when steam-vessels are likely to be much employed, its eligibility as a
place for the embarkation of troops, and as a packet station, will
doubtless not be overlooked. It not unfrequently happens, in stormy
weather, that the Dover packets enter Ramsgate with safety, when they
cannot approach their own harbour.
The South-Eastern Railway Company have extended their line to Ramsgate,
and the route, though rather circuitous, secures a large share of
patronage from that portion of the pleasure-seeking visitants of our
coasts to whom the stiff breezes and heavy swell, generally found off
the North Foreland, are the reverse of gratifying.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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